Bullshit. I wanted to like G1, but the lack of multitouch killed it for me. You don't need to be an Apple apostle or a fashion slave to like the iPhone, just like you don't need to be a self-aggrandizing dweeb who thinks he's cooler because his phone is big and not shiny to like the G1.
Multitouch has plenty of legitimate uses, which have emerged both in gestures and applications. Yes, some are gimmicky - the inconsistent use of two fingers to rotate on OSX comes to mind - but some (like pinching in Safari or especially in Maps) are actually quite a breakthrough. I've used a between the Storm, the G1, and the iPhone, multitouch is by far the biggest draw of the iPhone. Show me an app like Ocarina that would work as well without multi-touch. One finger cannot do as much as four. You'd think the people who have been ridiculing the Mac's one-button mice wouldn't be stuck in one-finger inputs.
(Plus, multitouch + the AirMouse app + a home theater PC = A really damn good idea that was a long time coming.)
Ditto. I'd jump on an ~$800 Mac somewhere between a mini and a Pro - even just a more expandable Mini. My PC finally gave up the ghost and, while my MacBook is a perfectly serviceable desktop when I plug it in, I'd love something with a real graphics card and a few hard drives.
No, but it pretty much made them saleable. If you remember back to the dawn of the MP3 era, everyone either had a small (like 128 or 256mb, tops) flash-based mp3 player, maybe with a few memory cards (I went threw several Rios before my first iPod). Almost nobody actually bought HDD MP3 players.
Apple pulled off the look, synchronization, and most importantly the interface - I'm entirely convinced that the clickwheel is what killed the competition, just like the multi-touch is what is saving the iPhone.
If they can do this with a tablet - combining active digitizers and capacitive input to get natural input and good handwriting recognition - and combine it with a slim bluetooth keyboard, they have a real shot at making an integrated device that goes for the Kindle/iTouch/netbook markets all at once. I'm of the opinion that it should not run OSX as we know it - I don't think the form factor is right. Give it the backbone of OSX and the ability to run those apps, but it needs a new front-end to replace Finder. The reason Tablets haven't worked before (I've owned three) is because they are pen-input devices built around a mouse/keyboard input operating system. Apple gets interfaces; I don't see them making that mistake.
The question you should be asking yourself is what part of the right to bear arms INCLUDES fully automatic weapons.
I'm all for a citizen's right to reasonable armament, but an unlimited right to bear arms means you should be able to own RPGs and F-22s. I can't take seriously the private citizen who stands for such a proposition.
The second amendment is far less clear than most people understand it to be. Read United States v. Miller and District of Columbia v. Heller in their entirety to get some idea of the subtleties that are involved.
Again, I support a right to bear arms, but the common citizen runs around parroting the second amendment without knowing the complexities of interpretation they are invoking. To do so is to doom your own cause.
A lot of mobile professionals who carry computers in a bag along with, say, documents or books will find "thin" to be at least as important as the other dimensions. For example, a 17" Macbook and a 13" Macbook take up functionally the same amount of space in a messenger bag (1"), which is a lot less than many cheaper computers.
Thin is expensive, and is only worth it if it's actually useful, but sometimes it is truly useful.
I would never buy any 17-inch laptop, Apple or otherwise. I have a 13" MacBook, and have previously owned tablet PCs, linux laptops, and Windows laptops from Toshiba, Gateway, and Dell.
My point was not that that particular MacBook makes sense to any given consumer. My point was that you cannot compare two computers on the basis of selected clock speeds alone, at the expense of realizing that there are many other factors.
It's not about being a scrawny wimp. I am a law student with, at any given time, two to four voluminous casebooks, multiple legal pads, and reference materials in my bag at a time. Cutting a full inch and 4 pounds off of my laptop makes a difference and is totally worthwhile.
Subsidiary point: The Dell is deeply discounted (which Apple doesn't really do, but in the interests of honesty it should be at least acknowledged). To the user, the question is: Is it worth a few hundred dollars for 4x the battery life and half the size in a mobile computer? For professionals dealing with a device that they will be using on a tremendously regular basis, that starts to look like a pretty damn easy question.
I've known people who have paid more than that premium for a choice pair of earbuds. Failing to acknowledge the true benefits behind it is like criticizing someone who spends extra to get a bigger TV because it has the same processor or lamp or connectors or remote without acknowledging the big, glaring, neon sign that says "THIS ONE IS A HELL OF A LOT NICER."
Christ, when is this nonsense going to end? Yes, Macs are expensive. Perhaps unreasonably so. But that is not an honest comparison.
This crowd has gotten so upset with gigabytes and clock speeds that we've forgotten the most literal definition of hardware. So lets glance at some actual hardware specs:
Dell: 10.6 pounds, 2 inches thick. Mac: 6.6 pounds, 1 inch thick (also noticeable less deep and wide for the same screen size).
It's not the glowing apple you are paying for, it's the fact that the Mac is literally HALF the size.
Other important considerations; the Apple has an 8 hour battery life and an extended-longevity battery, the Dell has a 1.5 battery life. The Apple also has OSX, backlit keyboard, vastly superior fit and finish, and a range of other benefits.
Again, expensive? Yes. Too expensive (at least for the general consumer)? Certainly not unlikely.
But the Apple is half the weight, half the thickness, 4x the battery life, and vastly superior in build quality and user experience. These are the things that are important in a notebook computer. You might as well compare a beige tower to the Apple in this instance. You're right - it's not even a close call.
That would also be one of the worst things that could happen to Apple. The company survives and remains extremely profitable by charging a higher margin, which they use to pay for the development and design work that leads to premium fit and finish and software on all their products (from iPod and iPhone to the computers).
If Apple comes out with a commodity computer with no such margin, even if it remains technically profitable, it seems to me that it has the serious potential to eviscerate their pocket cash to the point that the design and research will suffer, and then the premium goes away.
Of course, with the app store practically printing money for them these days, the additional cash flow they already have might make achieving market penetration a more important goal. Time will tell.
Processors have not increased in speed for 5 years
What the hell? I mean, ostensibly, I suppose that clock speeds have stabilized, but don't you remember the big hubbub a few years ago when everyone got tired of overclocking to 8ghz and realized that clock speeds aren't the determinative factor these days?
Try and play Supreme Commander on a pimped-out computer with modern components but, say, an AMD Athlon 2100+ and tell me processors haven't improved. My 2.0 ghz, minimum spec MacBook will outdo my behemoth four-year-old Windows tower in any processor-intensive task. In fact, it's only when the video card gets called to task that it isn't better in every respect, and even there the 9400M isn't all that far behind the card of the day when I built my tower (the 6800GT), at least at laptop resolutions.
Non-removable batteries in the latest laptops? All but the 17-inch MacBook Pro beg to differ, my friend. And the benefits of the battery in the 17-inch outweigh a marginal replacement pain for someone who can afford and wants such a laptop.
Blind, uninformed apple criticism gets modded troll. The Mac community isn't all sycophants and dummies any more than the Linux community is all revolutionary closeted sociophobes. Guess what? I have a laptop running Linux, a desktop dualbooting Windows and Linux, and a MacBook running OSX with Windows 7 and XP in VMs.
It's not just that different software appeals to different people, though that's part of it. Different software has different purposes. I've tried at length, and Linux (or OSX, for that matter) don't offer anything comparing to the ease-of-use and efficiency of running a tablet PC in Vista with OneNote for academic settings. I've set it up in Linux, screwed with input drivers for weeks on end, only to have a hacked, barely workable solution. In Windows, I had excellent handwriting recognition and a superb interface with good features. Yeah, Windows is a fundamentally flawed OS - but they all are. Maybe Windows more than the others, but it was what I needed for that purpose.
Macs are similarly useful in the academic community, as well as for designers and editors. Yes, Linux is a great OS, but it simply doesn't have photoshop or anything that compares to it. GIMP is a clumsy hack and is frankly like Paint in comparison. Gnome, KDE and Explorer have nothing on the frankly revolutionary changes Mac has seamlessly implemented in the last few years. There are a lot of poorly implemented whizbang features like Time Machine's GUI or Safari 4's Top Pages, but there are also features like Spotlight, Expose, the new stacks in the Dock, and Quick Look, none of which the competition can approach with a ten foot pole.
Call me back when Linux works with my hardware out of the box (and don't give me any of the normal bullshit; I've tried it on five laptops and two desktops in the last couple years, most of those very recently, and it never Just Works; I can tinker, but I shouldn't be expected to and certainly won't be won as an apostle if I need to). Call me back when Linux or Windows have system-wide drag-and-drop that lets me drag an image off a webpage or into an chat window, or from my desktop into the Mail icon to start a new mail with an attachment, or from an email to a filesystem icon which pops open, lets me browse my hard drive by hovering and dropping where I want, and then goes away.
I'm the first person to advocate open source, the last person to advocate Windows, and no stranger to alternative operating systems. But the ridiculous closedmindedness of the FOSS community is exactly why it is so curmudgeonly and slow when it comes to any widespread adoption. Nobody cares what a bunch of zealots have to say because their zealousy discredits them from the offset. The new Macs are all remarkably well-constructed, fast machines with good features and a superior operating system for the vast majority of end-user and even power-user purposes. If you need more, buy another computer or install another operating system, I won't complain. But flatly decrying the entire platform is stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
You break the law. Left that out.
Bullshit or not, the fact of the matter is most playback of MP3s or DVDs that were originally commercial involves the violation of some IP somewhere along the pipeline. This would be why it's a headache to enable these features in many distros, and always requires some kind of implicit wink-wink "I don't live in the US, I promise" prompt.
Apple can't pull that shit off and still provide the things they need to provide to stay competitive as a high-end electronics retailer - such as access to HDCP-protected content, be it digital or on discs.
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Bullshit. I wanted to like G1, but the lack of multitouch killed it for me. You don't need to be an Apple apostle or a fashion slave to like the iPhone, just like you don't need to be a self-aggrandizing dweeb who thinks he's cooler because his phone is big and not shiny to like the G1.
Multitouch has plenty of legitimate uses, which have emerged both in gestures and applications. Yes, some are gimmicky - the inconsistent use of two fingers to rotate on OSX comes to mind - but some (like pinching in Safari or especially in Maps) are actually quite a breakthrough. I've used a between the Storm, the G1, and the iPhone, multitouch is by far the biggest draw of the iPhone. Show me an app like Ocarina that would work as well without multi-touch. One finger cannot do as much as four. You'd think the people who have been ridiculing the Mac's one-button mice wouldn't be stuck in one-finger inputs.
(Plus, multitouch + the AirMouse app + a home theater PC = A really damn good idea that was a long time coming.)
Ditto. I'd jump on an ~$800 Mac somewhere between a mini and a Pro - even just a more expandable Mini. My PC finally gave up the ghost and, while my MacBook is a perfectly serviceable desktop when I plug it in, I'd love something with a real graphics card and a few hard drives.
No, but it pretty much made them saleable. If you remember back to the dawn of the MP3 era, everyone either had a small (like 128 or 256mb, tops) flash-based mp3 player, maybe with a few memory cards (I went threw several Rios before my first iPod). Almost nobody actually bought HDD MP3 players.
Apple pulled off the look, synchronization, and most importantly the interface - I'm entirely convinced that the clickwheel is what killed the competition, just like the multi-touch is what is saving the iPhone.
If they can do this with a tablet - combining active digitizers and capacitive input to get natural input and good handwriting recognition - and combine it with a slim bluetooth keyboard, they have a real shot at making an integrated device that goes for the Kindle/iTouch/netbook markets all at once. I'm of the opinion that it should not run OSX as we know it - I don't think the form factor is right. Give it the backbone of OSX and the ability to run those apps, but it needs a new front-end to replace Finder. The reason Tablets haven't worked before (I've owned three) is because they are pen-input devices built around a mouse/keyboard input operating system. Apple gets interfaces; I don't see them making that mistake.
The question you should be asking yourself is what part of the right to bear arms INCLUDES fully automatic weapons.
I'm all for a citizen's right to reasonable armament, but an unlimited right to bear arms means you should be able to own RPGs and F-22s. I can't take seriously the private citizen who stands for such a proposition.
The second amendment is far less clear than most people understand it to be. Read United States v. Miller and District of Columbia v. Heller in their entirety to get some idea of the subtleties that are involved.
Again, I support a right to bear arms, but the common citizen runs around parroting the second amendment without knowing the complexities of interpretation they are invoking. To do so is to doom your own cause.
A lot of mobile professionals who carry computers in a bag along with, say, documents or books will find "thin" to be at least as important as the other dimensions. For example, a 17" Macbook and a 13" Macbook take up functionally the same amount of space in a messenger bag (1"), which is a lot less than many cheaper computers.
Thin is expensive, and is only worth it if it's actually useful, but sometimes it is truly useful.
I believe pants to be an evil dichotomy.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
The numbers I used are from CNET: http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-xps-m1730/4507-3121_7-32687269.html?tag=mncol;psum .
I would never buy any 17-inch laptop, Apple or otherwise. I have a 13" MacBook, and have previously owned tablet PCs, linux laptops, and Windows laptops from Toshiba, Gateway, and Dell.
My point was not that that particular MacBook makes sense to any given consumer. My point was that you cannot compare two computers on the basis of selected clock speeds alone, at the expense of realizing that there are many other factors.
You're comparing apples to oranges here. The laptop he referred to was the 17" MBP, which as a claimed 8 hour battery. The Dell he referred to was quoted at the specs I quoted here: http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-xps-m1730/4507-3121_7-32687269.html?tag=mncol;psum
You are actually comparing the wrong Mac to the wrong Dell. I don't see how that's an honest critique of my post.
It's not about being a scrawny wimp. I am a law student with, at any given time, two to four voluminous casebooks, multiple legal pads, and reference materials in my bag at a time. Cutting a full inch and 4 pounds off of my laptop makes a difference and is totally worthwhile.
Subsidiary point: The Dell is deeply discounted (which Apple doesn't really do, but in the interests of honesty it should be at least acknowledged). To the user, the question is: Is it worth a few hundred dollars for 4x the battery life and half the size in a mobile computer? For professionals dealing with a device that they will be using on a tremendously regular basis, that starts to look like a pretty damn easy question.
I've known people who have paid more than that premium for a choice pair of earbuds. Failing to acknowledge the true benefits behind it is like criticizing someone who spends extra to get a bigger TV because it has the same processor or lamp or connectors or remote without acknowledging the big, glaring, neon sign that says "THIS ONE IS A HELL OF A LOT NICER."
Christ, when is this nonsense going to end? Yes, Macs are expensive. Perhaps unreasonably so. But that is not an honest comparison.
This crowd has gotten so upset with gigabytes and clock speeds that we've forgotten the most literal definition of hardware. So lets glance at some actual hardware specs:
Dell: 10.6 pounds, 2 inches thick.
Mac: 6.6 pounds, 1 inch thick (also noticeable less deep and wide for the same screen size).
It's not the glowing apple you are paying for, it's the fact that the Mac is literally HALF the size.
Other important considerations; the Apple has an 8 hour battery life and an extended-longevity battery, the Dell has a 1.5 battery life. The Apple also has OSX, backlit keyboard, vastly superior fit and finish, and a range of other benefits.
Again, expensive? Yes. Too expensive (at least for the general consumer)? Certainly not unlikely.
But the Apple is half the weight, half the thickness, 4x the battery life, and vastly superior in build quality and user experience. These are the things that are important in a notebook computer. You might as well compare a beige tower to the Apple in this instance. You're right - it's not even a close call.
That would also be one of the worst things that could happen to Apple. The company survives and remains extremely profitable by charging a higher margin, which they use to pay for the development and design work that leads to premium fit and finish and software on all their products (from iPod and iPhone to the computers).
If Apple comes out with a commodity computer with no such margin, even if it remains technically profitable, it seems to me that it has the serious potential to eviscerate their pocket cash to the point that the design and research will suffer, and then the premium goes away.
Of course, with the app store practically printing money for them these days, the additional cash flow they already have might make achieving market penetration a more important goal. Time will tell.
Processors have not increased in speed for 5 years
What the hell? I mean, ostensibly, I suppose that clock speeds have stabilized, but don't you remember the big hubbub a few years ago when everyone got tired of overclocking to 8ghz and realized that clock speeds aren't the determinative factor these days?
Try and play Supreme Commander on a pimped-out computer with modern components but, say, an AMD Athlon 2100+ and tell me processors haven't improved. My 2.0 ghz, minimum spec MacBook will outdo my behemoth four-year-old Windows tower in any processor-intensive task. In fact, it's only when the video card gets called to task that it isn't better in every respect, and even there the 9400M isn't all that far behind the card of the day when I built my tower (the 6800GT), at least at laptop resolutions.
Non-removable batteries in the latest laptops? All but the 17-inch MacBook Pro beg to differ, my friend. And the benefits of the battery in the 17-inch outweigh a marginal replacement pain for someone who can afford and wants such a laptop.
Oh come one, someone mod this guy up, that's brilliant.
Amen, reverend.
Blind, uninformed apple criticism gets modded troll. The Mac community isn't all sycophants and dummies any more than the Linux community is all revolutionary closeted sociophobes. Guess what? I have a laptop running Linux, a desktop dualbooting Windows and Linux, and a MacBook running OSX with Windows 7 and XP in VMs.
It's not just that different software appeals to different people, though that's part of it. Different software has different purposes. I've tried at length, and Linux (or OSX, for that matter) don't offer anything comparing to the ease-of-use and efficiency of running a tablet PC in Vista with OneNote for academic settings. I've set it up in Linux, screwed with input drivers for weeks on end, only to have a hacked, barely workable solution. In Windows, I had excellent handwriting recognition and a superb interface with good features. Yeah, Windows is a fundamentally flawed OS - but they all are. Maybe Windows more than the others, but it was what I needed for that purpose.
Macs are similarly useful in the academic community, as well as for designers and editors. Yes, Linux is a great OS, but it simply doesn't have photoshop or anything that compares to it. GIMP is a clumsy hack and is frankly like Paint in comparison. Gnome, KDE and Explorer have nothing on the frankly revolutionary changes Mac has seamlessly implemented in the last few years. There are a lot of poorly implemented whizbang features like Time Machine's GUI or Safari 4's Top Pages, but there are also features like Spotlight, Expose, the new stacks in the Dock, and Quick Look, none of which the competition can approach with a ten foot pole.
Call me back when Linux works with my hardware out of the box (and don't give me any of the normal bullshit; I've tried it on five laptops and two desktops in the last couple years, most of those very recently, and it never Just Works; I can tinker, but I shouldn't be expected to and certainly won't be won as an apostle if I need to). Call me back when Linux or Windows have system-wide drag-and-drop that lets me drag an image off a webpage or into an chat window, or from my desktop into the Mail icon to start a new mail with an attachment, or from an email to a filesystem icon which pops open, lets me browse my hard drive by hovering and dropping where I want, and then goes away.
I'm the first person to advocate open source, the last person to advocate Windows, and no stranger to alternative operating systems. But the ridiculous closedmindedness of the FOSS community is exactly why it is so curmudgeonly and slow when it comes to any widespread adoption. Nobody cares what a bunch of zealots have to say because their zealousy discredits them from the offset. The new Macs are all remarkably well-constructed, fast machines with good features and a superior operating system for the vast majority of end-user and even power-user purposes. If you need more, buy another computer or install another operating system, I won't complain. But flatly decrying the entire platform is stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
People who finished high school and thus can not only spell, but parse basic language?
You sure the waste of money isn't that he is running a 50-inch rss-reader in his living room?
Where it matters? The communist party, because by compromising they have SOME representation, as opposed to none.
For an hour? There's such a thing as a false imprisonment tort. Look into it in your jurisdiction. Plaintiffs have won for less.
You made me burst ought laughing in the library with a mouthful of coffee. Comments like this are the reason I still read slashdot. Thank you.
For the record, "Dear Pottymouth" is about best response to a troll I've ever seen.
You break the law. Left that out. Bullshit or not, the fact of the matter is most playback of MP3s or DVDs that were originally commercial involves the violation of some IP somewhere along the pipeline. This would be why it's a headache to enable these features in many distros, and always requires some kind of implicit wink-wink "I don't live in the US, I promise" prompt. Apple can't pull that shit off and still provide the things they need to provide to stay competitive as a high-end electronics retailer - such as access to HDCP-protected content, be it digital or on discs.
Notably, they didn't finish the second one. When you stop paying, you get a Death Star with a big-ass hole in the side.