Sadly, the most prolific example was recently removed from their site. I'm not playing 20 questions, either, but you're refusing to look at the resource that's been provided to you and find it for yourself. I'm not a kindergarten teacher, and for good reason; I'm not here to hold your hand and make sure you see the writing on the wall.
I work in a Mac-centric company, I use the platform 40+hr/wk, and I can tell you beyond any doubt that my coworkers largely beleive that if Apple does something, it's the right way to do it, even if it's inconvenient for them or they, themselves, can't make sense of it; in the eyes of these specific coworkers (the majority, I might add), Apple can do no wrong. That's pretty goddamned dogmatic right there, and those same coworkers are representative of the vast majority of Mac users I know. Considering that one of my company's largest clients (who occupies roughly half of my working hours) is a rather large Mac software developer with over 100k registered users, I'd say I might know a couple Mac users well enough to determine the reasoning they use when making a purchase.
Uhmm, I wasn't comparing Apple to other companies, I was comparing Apple to your description of Apple. In that light, given your veiled admission of their dogmatic marketing, you just proved my point.
because it's not screen size that determines how much information you can fit on the screen, it's resolution. that's why I want higher resolution... I had a 13" CRT that could do 1600x1200 (1.92MP) with no problems, and i loved it! Larger CRTs gave higher resolutions, even; why don't we see LCDs that can match the dod pitch offered by some old CRTs? The retina display is a step in the right direction, but I think it may actually be a step too far; give me a 17" laptop or a 23" monitor with the resolution of a Retina MacBook Pro and I'll be happy.
If I have to switch windows ahd hide one piece of information in orer to view another, i'm losing productivity. If I can fit all the information I'm working with on the screen at once, I'm gaining it. This is what higher resolution is all about.
To wit, there is no advantage to a bigger monitor, like there is with a TV, if the resolution stays the same. You get a bigger HDTV if you have a bigger room, because you're sitting farther from it, and yes, it will have the same resolution, and that's fine because you're only displaying 1920x1080 images on it; even if the panel itself was 3840x2160, the image would just be upscaled and possibly look worse due to scaling artifacts. For a computer monitor, there's a huge difference between a 23" display at 1920x1080 and a 23" display at 3840x2160; the latter can display 4x as much information and I damned well want to be able to do that.
I would love to see the 17" come back. I was planning to buy one next month, as this laptop nears the end of its life for my current purposes (to be repurposed as an HTPC) and they took them off the market. Damnit.
Regarding Lion being better than Snow Leopard in any way, please, tell my boss that. Convince him and, when I stop hearing him bitch about it, you'll have convinced me. He's the owner of the company and the reason every company-owned workstation (we have 2 windows laptops for testing) is a Mac; he's been a Mac guy for 2 decades, if he's considering defection due to Lion's deficiencies, they're real. Until about a year ago, OSX+Coda was the mandatory development environment, but he lifted that requirement when I showed him that other tools were available on other platforms that could interact with our system effectively. Since that day, I've been working on Snow Leopard 40+hr/wk of my own free will. I use Aptana for my own projects and he's seen me open it up once or twice, and has liked what I've shown him so far. If he gets fed up enough with Lion, I could see him switching to Linux and Aptana on a PC (well, on his MBP until that needs to be replaced).
If you're trying to call me one of the Apple critics trying to bring them down, I can tell you, you are wrong. Am I an Apple critic? Yes, and openly so. I criticize where they need to improve, not to bring them down, but in hopes that they'll improve. Apple has more market share than they used to. That means more people using their products, which means more people finding things they don't like and mentioning them. These people are critics, but that does not mean they are trying to bring Apple down in any way. More market share == more critics, it's that simple; these people are your customers, not your enemies, maybe what they have to say is worth listening to?
Hmm... We're given 5 mod points at a time and exactly 5 of my posts were modded Troll today. Funny coincidence. Thing is, you don't build excellent karma by trolling and the majority of the moderating community knows this.
Ahh, the joys of having excellent karma. You know what? I didn't get this karma by trolling. Does someone with some reading comprehension and a spare mod point want to fix this?
Firstly, no one is saying that all PCs should be dumbed down.
The post I was responding to, as well as its grandparent, were both strongly implying just that. Whether or not that is what you meant to imply, that is precisely how it came across.
Apple makes Macs. They happen to have much in common with PCs, but they do have some subtle differences - mainly in the EFI/boot department and in the firmware on the GPU - that do set them apart.
There are PCs with EFI, and there are more of them coming to market as time goes on, so that's not really something that sets a Mac apart. As for the GPU firmware difference, again, no; you can pull a graphics card from a Mac and use it in a PC, no problem; and if it's a supported card, you can use the PC version in a Mac, just the same. The difference is in the drivers; software, not hardeware. A Mac is a PC with an Apple-blessed TPM chip that OSX looks for before it will boot, nothing more, nothing less.
You can call me a troll all day long, but read some of my other posts. Why would I be trolling? I'm coming out in support of Apple, overall. Were I not, I wouldn't be voicing my dissent over many of their recent decisions; rather, I would simply be bashing them like everyone else.
You, on the other hand, are responding rather trollishly. I never thought Macs were superior, nor do I think PCs are superior; they're tools, they perform tasks, some perform some tasks better than others, and they all have their place. PPC Macs were not simple PCs, Intel Macs are; ergo, Macs are now PCs. Get over it and get on with your life.
The third is that just because people want an easy to use computer means they should have bought "an email box" from "1998-1992".
People were clamoring for the devices back then, and when they were released, nobody bought them. You missed the boat, though, and my point. My point is that there already exist many classes of device that fill the needs of people who don't need the full power of a PC. There may still be a class of people who have needs exceeding what these devices are capable of, but who also don't require the full power and capability of a PC, nor want that; for them, we need to create a new class of devices, rather than dumbing down PCs.
Since you seem to think Macs are so different from PCs, and Apple seems to be heading that direction, anyway, maybe the Mac will fill that void? Pity, I quite like Snow Leopard (such that I use it 40+hr/wk, though it hasn't been a mandatory platform at my job for over a year). I also quite enjoy the PowerMac G3 and PowerBook G4 I have, running Leopard. But yes, I'm a troll.
This doesn't mean that they don't want you to have a PC that is as complex and annoying to maintain as humanly possible. The two situations are not mutually exclusive positions.
If you're talking about dumbing down the PC in any way, that's precisely what you're talking about. Further, I "maintain" a current Linux distro, a Windows 7 VM, and a Snow Leopard VM on this laptop, along with the abovementioned Mac systems, my wife's MacBook Pro, 2 Android phones, and a Win7 PC; I think I spend a grand total of 5 minutes actively maintaining all of these systems in a month. The average iPad user (my wife fits that profile) spends longer than that looking for their charging cable.
I didn't say you can't have your reduced functionality, "easier" to maintain and use devices, I just said you need to not try to make my PC one of them. If you really want to know why I feel that way, think about where the apps for your other devices come from.
Thank you. I only used Lion for 5 minutes when The Geniuses forced the upgrade on my boss last year (then he wanted his laptop back so he could get to work), and was very uncomfortable with it; I didn't get to play with it enough to draw any real conclusions. My boss bitches about it constantly, though, so I knew it wasn't just my perception. I've been asked to provide examples of what's wrong with Lion, and now I can.
There's really not, go look at some of my comments pointing out Apples recent fuckups (not anti-Apple, just pointing out where they went wrong and pleading for improvement). Those mostly were modded down, just like the Linux joke.
You simply missed the point and I'm not going to get in a pissing match with you trying to explain it. Someone else will come along and do so, I'm sure.
Macs last a decade or more, unless you want to run Mountain Lion, then 3 years is about the limit. Meanwhile, I gave up on an HP 3 years ago that I got in 99 because I didn't want to buy a 3rd battery for it when the 2nd one reached the end of its life. It was still working just fine, running XP, fully updated. Your 10 year old (at the time) PPC Mac was no longer able to run the latest and greatest only a month after my 10 year old PC. Note that I'm ignoring Vista, which, while it was the latest at the time, was certainly not the greatest. It's also worth noting that Leopard stopped receiving security updates when Lion came out (about a year ago), while XP still gets security patches until April of 2014. Had I bought another battery for that PC, that would give the PC an effective useful (supported) life of 3 years longer than your Mac (15 years, vs 12).
Fast forward to today and Macs bought just 3 or 4 years ago, including $16k Mac Pro workstations, won't be supported just 2 OS releases later. Meanwhile, the Acer netbook I bought back in 2006 will run Windows 8 just fine when it's released. Its specs match midrange systems from 2001, so it's safe to say that those systems (now 11 years old) will run Windows 8 just fine, as well.
It gets even more interesting when you bring Linux into the mix, but I don't have time for that.
Full disclosure, I run the following configurations, currently: Linux-based laptop with Win7 and Snow Leopard in VMs; Android phone with lapdock; PowerBook G4 running leopard, PowerMac G3 running Leopard, Win7 desktop built in 2005.
There are many different types of cars that are good at different tasks, so why can't there be many different computers for the same sort of purpose?
Windows PC
Linux PC
OSX PC (Mac, for those still in denial)
Smartphone
PDA
Tablet
eReader
MP3 Player
Smart TV
Game Console
The list goes on, but you get the point. Leave my PC the fuck alone, if you want an email box, you should have bought one of the ones that was on the market between 1998 and 2002. They went away because nobody bought them, because nobody wanted them. Now, people want them, but rather than demanding they be brought back, they want to dumb down the PC to that level? No, thank you.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, and it's been 4 rounds, this being the end of the 5th. Your volley.
Sadly, the most prolific example was recently removed from their site. I'm not playing 20 questions, either, but you're refusing to look at the resource that's been provided to you and find it for yourself. I'm not a kindergarten teacher, and for good reason; I'm not here to hold your hand and make sure you see the writing on the wall.
I work in a Mac-centric company, I use the platform 40+hr/wk, and I can tell you beyond any doubt that my coworkers largely beleive that if Apple does something, it's the right way to do it, even if it's inconvenient for them or they, themselves, can't make sense of it; in the eyes of these specific coworkers (the majority, I might add), Apple can do no wrong. That's pretty goddamned dogmatic right there, and those same coworkers are representative of the vast majority of Mac users I know. Considering that one of my company's largest clients (who occupies roughly half of my working hours) is a rather large Mac software developer with over 100k registered users, I'd say I might know a couple Mac users well enough to determine the reasoning they use when making a purchase.
Uhmm, I wasn't comparing Apple to other companies, I was comparing Apple to your description of Apple. In that light, given your veiled admission of their dogmatic marketing, you just proved my point.
So they don't have a website? That's marketing material.
Try *reading*...
I was going for funny, but I'll take the karma that comes with that +1 Insightful, thank you.
Memory must be upgradeable... How does the rMBP have an EPEAT Gold certification, then? I really want to know, because I thought the same thing.
Low Dogmatism? Have you read Apple's marketing materials?
They have negative credibility and you want me to trust the text of their website?
because it's not screen size that determines how much information you can fit on the screen, it's resolution. that's why I want higher resolution... I had a 13" CRT that could do 1600x1200 (1.92MP) with no problems, and i loved it! Larger CRTs gave higher resolutions, even; why don't we see LCDs that can match the dod pitch offered by some old CRTs? The retina display is a step in the right direction, but I think it may actually be a step too far; give me a 17" laptop or a 23" monitor with the resolution of a Retina MacBook Pro and I'll be happy.
If I have to switch windows ahd hide one piece of information in orer to view another, i'm losing productivity. If I can fit all the information I'm working with on the screen at once, I'm gaining it. This is what higher resolution is all about.
To wit, there is no advantage to a bigger monitor, like there is with a TV, if the resolution stays the same. You get a bigger HDTV if you have a bigger room, because you're sitting farther from it, and yes, it will have the same resolution, and that's fine because you're only displaying 1920x1080 images on it; even if the panel itself was 3840x2160, the image would just be upscaled and possibly look worse due to scaling artifacts. For a computer monitor, there's a huge difference between a 23" display at 1920x1080 and a 23" display at 3840x2160; the latter can display 4x as much information and I damned well want to be able to do that.
I would love to see the 17" come back. I was planning to buy one next month, as this laptop nears the end of its life for my current purposes (to be repurposed as an HTPC) and they took them off the market. Damnit.
Regarding Lion being better than Snow Leopard in any way, please, tell my boss that. Convince him and, when I stop hearing him bitch about it, you'll have convinced me. He's the owner of the company and the reason every company-owned workstation (we have 2 windows laptops for testing) is a Mac; he's been a Mac guy for 2 decades, if he's considering defection due to Lion's deficiencies, they're real. Until about a year ago, OSX+Coda was the mandatory development environment, but he lifted that requirement when I showed him that other tools were available on other platforms that could interact with our system effectively. Since that day, I've been working on Snow Leopard 40+hr/wk of my own free will. I use Aptana for my own projects and he's seen me open it up once or twice, and has liked what I've shown him so far. If he gets fed up enough with Lion, I could see him switching to Linux and Aptana on a PC (well, on his MBP until that needs to be replaced).
If you're trying to call me one of the Apple critics trying to bring them down, I can tell you, you are wrong. Am I an Apple critic? Yes, and openly so. I criticize where they need to improve, not to bring them down, but in hopes that they'll improve. Apple has more market share than they used to. That means more people using their products, which means more people finding things they don't like and mentioning them. These people are critics, but that does not mean they are trying to bring Apple down in any way. More market share == more critics, it's that simple; these people are your customers, not your enemies, maybe what they have to say is worth listening to?
Hmm... We're given 5 mod points at a time and exactly 5 of my posts were modded Troll today. Funny coincidence. Thing is, you don't build excellent karma by trolling and the majority of the moderating community knows this.
Ahh, the joys of having excellent karma. You know what? I didn't get this karma by trolling. Does someone with some reading comprehension and a spare mod point want to fix this?
It's ok, I have plenty of karma to burn, spend another one on this post, too.
Ahh, so the fanbois DO have modpoints this week...
Firstly, no one is saying that all PCs should be dumbed down.
The post I was responding to, as well as its grandparent, were both strongly implying just that. Whether or not that is what you meant to imply, that is precisely how it came across.
Apple makes Macs. They happen to have much in common with PCs, but they do have some subtle differences - mainly in the EFI/boot department and in the firmware on the GPU - that do set them apart.
There are PCs with EFI, and there are more of them coming to market as time goes on, so that's not really something that sets a Mac apart. As for the GPU firmware difference, again, no; you can pull a graphics card from a Mac and use it in a PC, no problem; and if it's a supported card, you can use the PC version in a Mac, just the same. The difference is in the drivers; software, not hardeware. A Mac is a PC with an Apple-blessed TPM chip that OSX looks for before it will boot, nothing more, nothing less.
You can call me a troll all day long, but read some of my other posts. Why would I be trolling? I'm coming out in support of Apple, overall. Were I not, I wouldn't be voicing my dissent over many of their recent decisions; rather, I would simply be bashing them like everyone else.
You, on the other hand, are responding rather trollishly. I never thought Macs were superior, nor do I think PCs are superior; they're tools, they perform tasks, some perform some tasks better than others, and they all have their place. PPC Macs were not simple PCs, Intel Macs are; ergo, Macs are now PCs. Get over it and get on with your life.
The third is that just because people want an easy to use computer means they should have bought "an email box" from "1998-1992".
People were clamoring for the devices back then, and when they were released, nobody bought them. You missed the boat, though, and my point. My point is that there already exist many classes of device that fill the needs of people who don't need the full power of a PC. There may still be a class of people who have needs exceeding what these devices are capable of, but who also don't require the full power and capability of a PC, nor want that; for them, we need to create a new class of devices, rather than dumbing down PCs.
Since you seem to think Macs are so different from PCs, and Apple seems to be heading that direction, anyway, maybe the Mac will fill that void? Pity, I quite like Snow Leopard (such that I use it 40+hr/wk, though it hasn't been a mandatory platform at my job for over a year). I also quite enjoy the PowerMac G3 and PowerBook G4 I have, running Leopard. But yes, I'm a troll.
This doesn't mean that they don't want you to have a PC that is as complex and annoying to maintain as humanly possible. The two situations are not mutually exclusive positions.
If you're talking about dumbing down the PC in any way, that's precisely what you're talking about. Further, I "maintain" a current Linux distro, a Windows 7 VM, and a Snow Leopard VM on this laptop, along with the abovementioned Mac systems, my wife's MacBook Pro, 2 Android phones, and a Win7 PC; I think I spend a grand total of 5 minutes actively maintaining all of these systems in a month. The average iPad user (my wife fits that profile) spends longer than that looking for their charging cable.
I didn't say you can't have your reduced functionality, "easier" to maintain and use devices, I just said you need to not try to make my PC one of them. If you really want to know why I feel that way, think about where the apps for your other devices come from.
Ahh, more to the point than my last reply, where the goddamned fuck did I mention Linux?
Snow Leopard is a decent OS (I would know, I use it 40+hr/wk but it hasn't been a mandatory platform for me for over a year now)
Thank you. I only used Lion for 5 minutes when The Geniuses forced the upgrade on my boss last year (then he wanted his laptop back so he could get to work), and was very uncomfortable with it; I didn't get to play with it enough to draw any real conclusions. My boss bitches about it constantly, though, so I knew it wasn't just my perception. I've been asked to provide examples of what's wrong with Lion, and now I can.
I use all three, so why don't you pull the cock out of your ass and quit projecting your personality traits onto others?
You hear that, Slashdot? Now you know how to get rid of this guy!
There's really not, go look at some of my comments pointing out Apples recent fuckups (not anti-Apple, just pointing out where they went wrong and pleading for improvement). Those mostly were modded down, just like the Linux joke.
You simply missed the point and I'm not going to get in a pissing match with you trying to explain it. Someone else will come along and do so, I'm sure.
Macs last a decade or more, unless you want to run Mountain Lion, then 3 years is about the limit. Meanwhile, I gave up on an HP 3 years ago that I got in 99 because I didn't want to buy a 3rd battery for it when the 2nd one reached the end of its life. It was still working just fine, running XP, fully updated. Your 10 year old (at the time) PPC Mac was no longer able to run the latest and greatest only a month after my 10 year old PC. Note that I'm ignoring Vista, which, while it was the latest at the time, was certainly not the greatest. It's also worth noting that Leopard stopped receiving security updates when Lion came out (about a year ago), while XP still gets security patches until April of 2014. Had I bought another battery for that PC, that would give the PC an effective useful (supported) life of 3 years longer than your Mac (15 years, vs 12).
Fast forward to today and Macs bought just 3 or 4 years ago, including $16k Mac Pro workstations, won't be supported just 2 OS releases later. Meanwhile, the Acer netbook I bought back in 2006 will run Windows 8 just fine when it's released. Its specs match midrange systems from 2001, so it's safe to say that those systems (now 11 years old) will run Windows 8 just fine, as well.
It gets even more interesting when you bring Linux into the mix, but I don't have time for that.
Full disclosure, I run the following configurations, currently: Linux-based laptop with Win7 and Snow Leopard in VMs; Android phone with lapdock; PowerBook G4 running leopard, PowerMac G3 running Leopard, Win7 desktop built in 2005.
There are many different types of cars that are good at different tasks, so why can't there be many different computers for the same sort of purpose?
The list goes on, but you get the point. Leave my PC the fuck alone, if you want an email box, you should have bought one of the ones that was on the market between 1998 and 2002. They went away because nobody bought them, because nobody wanted them. Now, people want them, but rather than demanding they be brought back, they want to dumb down the PC to that level? No, thank you.
And let anyone who wants to drive a crane and wrecking ball around town just hop in and do so? You see, some tools are better left not dumbed down.