Windows 7 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Apple ups the ante - Page 2

SilverLight is a proprietary Microsoft technology... so you'll have download and install the SilverLight runtime to use Microsoft's "cloud" applications.

MobileMe and iWork.com were built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. And will work just fine with any standards based browsers, which pretty much means all modern browsers and you won't need to download or install anything extra for it to work.

MobileMe requires the installation of a control panel on Windows. Not only that, but you're required to install iTunes as well.

"Download and install the latest version of iTunes. iTunes is required to set up MobileMe on your PC."

And iTunes installs services that launch transparently with the OS and run in the background, whether or not you even use iTunes.

Apple sucks hard at software that isn't running on their computers.

The point being made in the article is that Apple is promoting the use of web standards and Microsoft is not. Regardless of what Apple forces you to install to set up your account, the article is correct.

Of course it has to install things to run in the background! How the hell else is it going to auto-sync if it doesn't? The whole point of MobileMe is to keep your data sync'ed across multiple devices and the internet.

I've heard that Office runs better on pcs with windows than the OSX version on macs.

Who'd thunk it.

That's a much better article than the others! More impartial. But I can't follow your arguments about the public beta. Sure, Apple (and MS) do not want the competitor to adopt the best ideas of their products but on the other hand Apple says there will not be a lot of new end-user features in it. At least they could disable them in a public beta (as MS has done in the pre-betas of Windows 7).

Don't you see concerns about the quality of the final product if there is not a (more or less) public beta of Snow Leopard with such a large variety of software and hardware out there and major changes to the kernel and sub-systems?

I would also like to hear more about what Apple will do about security. With Microsoft now delivering much more secure code because of their new concepts of designing/coding and thereby negotiating the major problems from XP-era, what will Apple do to be prepared for a larger market share?

Absolutely! QuickTime and iTunes are really bad on Windows. It feels like they are running in a virtual machine/emulator. Very slow, buggy and with ads at the installation process. And Safari has major security issues on Windows. They definitely have to fix all this if they want more users to switch.

http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa08/...bbard_talk.pdf

- File Quarantine
- Digital Sandbox
- Package Signing
- Code Signing
- Application Firewall
- Non-Executable (NX) Data
- Address Space Layout Randomization

All introduced with Leopard around 15 months ago. Snow Leopard will probably step up measures as well on the security front.

You can never be blasé about security, but despite seeing massive gains in market share, Apple's been good at keeping real world exploits at bay whilst not impacting the user experience.

Silverlight = Microsoft Proprietary
Flash = Adobe Proprietary
Javascript, HTML 5, CSS 3 = Open Standards

Apple is making a strategic play on the later.

RIAs may offer advantages over the open way at the moment, but they put too much power in the hands of one vendor. Cause they then get to decide which devices and platforms RIAs written using their tools get to work on and which ones don't. That's scary for Apple but also bad for us all.


That's making all sorts of assumptions.

It may be very difficult, only Apple know, no one else has seen the code.

Only drivers have to be in 64bit code. The 64bit versions of Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 all run 32bit software perfectly.

Since Vista 64bit, a lot of hardware developers have delivered 64bit drivers. Vista has change the 64bit game for MS. It is a slower adaption as for the Mac, sure, but Windows 7 will mostly be sold at 64bit versions.

You forgot about JavaFX, which is partially open-source (compiler and tools) and will be fully open source (graphics libraries) in the future.

Since Java is open source, Java could potentially be included within Firefox itself in a future version, as opposed to being installed as a plugin.

Thx a lot. But I was wondering what they will do at the code creation level of development. But other then MS they may never talk about such things in the public.

How much do you want to bet that the version of Windows 7 offered by all the major OEMs will still be the 32-bit version?

Windows 16-bit and 32-bit didn't take off until they were pre-installed by OEMs.

Hey, what about OpenGL 3.0? Are they EVER going to upgrade the graphics stack with a new API? I know OpenGL 3 has kind of been a let down, but the thing was ratified in 2007. Apple would gain a lot of performance improvements by adding in even the miniscule improvements to the API.

hi there

i thought cups was already supported . i seem to remember a big deal being made about it when leopard came out

mrfish

http://localhost:631/ On your Mac.

CUPS has been there since 10.3, maybe 10.2. I'll look it up in a minute

It does. Also, CUPS has been part of OS X since 10.4 and now that Apple owns CUPS they've continued it's openness while extending custom portions for Snow Leopard to make the Print System/Process flow easier on OS X 10.6.

You've been able to use it before 10.4. They integrated it into Tiger.

LLVM is not a compiler. It's a Low Level Virtual Machine. Get it?

Right on the front page:

http://www.llvm.org



Clang is the compiler project for LLVM that covers C, C++, Objective-C and Objective-C++ front ends.

http://clang.llvm.org/

Unless of course I have my monitors stacked vertically instead of side-by-side. Then the menu bar at the top of the bottom screen is kind of in the way. I know that's a very rare arrangement, but I've seen even stranger ones. I'm just pointing out that the obvious solution (just put a menu bar at the top of every screen) may cause other problems because you are assuming that the tops of the monitors are all at the same height. They may not be. That's kind of thing a good designer needs to take into account. Sometimes it's best to just keep it simple.

After reading the first two installations and this one, I can conclude the following from the author's perspective.
I can already predict the context in the next installation, but I am open for surprises. While it may not be
clear cut as good or bad, but the gists are there.

Silverlight works okay on Linux with the Mono project, and it's being ported for OS X:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...lverlight.html

This is the #1 reason I don't understand Open Source software. People on these projects (like khtml which became webkit) countless hours developing and then Apple can just swoop in and put on a propietary shell and charge for it making billions of dollars a year and the original KDE developers sit their with nothing.

And sure you could argue that thru webkit Apple is putting stuff back into the community. I would disagree because they aren't using khtml but creating a fork so it doesn't directly benifit KDE, khtml, or konquoror any longer and without hours or hard work of comparison it doesn't benifit the KDE team. Google for example is atleast giving more back with no making a propietary shell (like Apple does) and introducing revolutionary components like their new javascript engine.

You see I disagree that Apple is Open Source. I say Apple is cheap, doesn't want to start from the ground up on anything but will gladly take the work of others and put a propietary shell on it (weither it be OS X or Safari). And yes Apple does earn off Safari when you search on Google (which they require you to do so unless you hack the browser).

So while I like my MacBook alot, I don't think you could ever prove to me that Apple really stands behind Open Source. If they did they would open more of their sources because in my honest opinion its their beautiful hardware that sells. They have well thought out designs, when I bought mine I priced between a Macbook and Dell XPS M1330 and basically they were the same price at the same features (2.4Ghz, Intel X3100 etc). I doubt Hackintosh would change the volume for Apple Hardware.

Open source does not mean it's an open standard. Open source software indicates something is licensed under an open source license, open standards indicates something that is widely supported by the relevant industry or industries that can be licensed to anyone usually through a standards body like the IEEE or the ISO.

However if you're looking for standards that Apple does accept and promote, H.264 and AAC come to mind, as do web standards, PDF, and TextEdit in Leopard supports both OOXML and ODF word processor formats, while iWork can import OOXML.


Apple re-contributed WebKit to the community with their own improvements after the fork and the people at KDE have switched to it (and probably merged a metric assload of changes from KHTML/KJS/KSVG into WebKit) and now use it in their latest software. Apple sponsors the development of llvm and has hired the lead developer, they released launchd to the community, and continue to make Darwin available under an OSS license (they don't have to, it is rather costly to do so because they host it and have to strip out any code they don't want to release to the community).

However, not all of their software is made available under an open source license which is sad, I mean I can understand that with iLife, iWork, and the ProApps which are separate and commercial projects, I just can't think of any decent reason to keep the rest of Mac OS X closed, none that would outweigh the benefits, and if they were to fully open source it, development would be much more rapid and they could sell support contracts for the software, adoption would improve, more open source software would be made available to Mac OS X at a faster rate, there would be a decent package manager, drivers would improve, etc. They do make their money on hardware, and wider support of OS X wouldn't be a bad thing although it would be one less of a reason to buy Apple hardware, since they control their hardware already they could always choose which parts of the source to include, polish, and support in their support contracts and there would be a wider base of developers actively working on the OS.

Ah well, didn't mean to ramble off topic there.

Sebastian

More impartial? It seems like you must have woken up on the right side of the bed this morning to make such a generous. This article is no less biased than the other 2 in the series. Why didn't they just entitle the series, "Why System 7 Sux and Snow Leopard Rulz" And the "Sux" and "Rulz" parts are important to show the fanboy bias.

Much is made about Apple's use open standards versus developing proprietary formats. It seems pretty clear Apple is just interested in getting something for (practically) nothing by glomming off of Open Source developers. It has nothing to do with Apple's good intentions.

Think of Psystar, and you'll probably are able to understand why OS X isn't Open Source. The moment that such thing happens, then you'll have clones in the PC world and they will be legal. Psystar's would abound. Apple would lose another reason for PC users to switch, the OS X.

Stop trolling. You are still confusing Open Source with Open Standards. And the idea that Apple is stealing Open Source's ideas without contributing back is pure uninformed FUD.

Edit: Also, it's not about "good intentions" at all. It's about good long-term strategy. It's good for Apple, but then again, it's good for all of us too.

I'm using Google Chrome right now, which uses, wait for it.... Apple's Webkit!! And it rocks!! (I substituted Safari for it in a nanosecond. Couldn't look back)

Apple chooses Open Source when it makes sense like with Web Kit and LLVM. They just don't bless Open Source because it's cool and hip. Frankly I think a lot of Open Source software is utter crap. As long as the licensing is being adhered to I see no reason why Apple shouldn't leverage the good stuff.

did anyone else notice that AI mixed up the pics for the Panther and Tiger retail boxes on their chart?

What are you doing running for public office ??

They will probably do something just for the Helvetica of it..........
Hey try Chalkboard..wish they had it on this forum web site.

HP already ships 64bit versions of Vista for a lot of Desktops and notebooks. And important detail is that the new Windows Server version developed with Windows 7 called "Server 2008 R2" will only be available in 64bit. Since Vista SP1 the client and server versions of Windows do share the same code base (kernel and stuff).

This means that OEMs do have to create 64bit drivers for a lot of hardware. There is no real reason not to deliver new client systems in 32bit.

Another reason for 64bit is the cheap memory. 4 GB RAM or even 8 GB isn't something special for Desktops at the end of this year. As you know 32bit only supports up to 3 GB.

Even that does not outweigh the potential benefits, potential benefits because going open source does not work like magic, they'd probably have to go through a prolonged transition, but in return they could put more R&D into the hardware market, and of course enter new markets like storage and networking. The software products they have now, the iApps, ProApps, iLife, and iWork could also reach a larger market (iApps and iLife bundled with Macs but sold separately), and Apple could make a decent amount of money off of support contracts for the ProApps and Mac OS X (Client and Server).

Customers would benefit from having more choice, more driver support, and more support options, and a much much larger library of software to choose from, and still run it on Apple's hardware, assuming Apple pulled the transition off correctly of course, this would be the best case scenario. Worst case scenario is nobody gives a damn, somebody ports everything to Linux, and Psystars eat Apple alive, haha.

Sebastian

Can't believe nobodies pointed this out but despite Microsoft inventing Silverlight all the live stuff is written in AJAX not Silverlight! So no downloading free proprietary Microsoft software to run it, its completely standard AJAX.

Not only that but has the author actually checked out what Microsoft is developing for developers, most of the latest .NET release is AJAX controls, before that they realeased the AJAX control toolkit (check out http://www.asp.net/ajax/ajaxcontroltoolkit/samples/ for a but of free .NET control to add AJAX features to sites written in .NET), they also immediately added jQuery support to Visual Studio again available for free when that came out. Last November they released free AJAX charting controls for .NET developers. What exactly has Apple given the development community to promote AJAX, SproutCore? 1. Don't think they actually wrote it and 2. Its rubbish in comparison to .NET AJAX development.

Silverlight's just 1 technology Microsoft are working with, they do basically work with most ideas on how to program things. Sure .NET is proprietary but its also good, worth the money. Adding something like AJAX support when you post a message on this forum would take literally 10 extra lines of code let me see someone do that in SproutCore!

All of Apple's software is based on an open source or open standard. Windows is the complete opposite in that all of its software is based on proprietary standards that can use open software. Here is a list of examples.


UNIX - Windows NT

Webkit - Trident

HTML/javascript/css - IE Propretary Extensions

H.264 - Windows Media Video (VC1)

AAC - Windows Media Audio

PDF - XML

JPEG - Windows Media Photo

One feature that I would like to see in Snow Leopard is the ability to sync your laptop content with your desktop content - choosing which folders to sync a la Spotlight and Time Machine.

An easy one word answer to this: Linux

Open Source isn't a total utopia. It does have its drawbacks. Their are many advantages to the singular vision.

Webkit is open source, Safari isn't.

H.264 and AAC are open standards, but Quicktime isn't.

I, too, noticed the box image switch immediately. How soon some forget!

I hope the author will correct this embarrassing mistake ASAP.

Sorry but that is a crap list.

UNIX - Windows NT - So Apple are selling something thats free, and Microsoft wrote there own, this is what your paying for remember
Webkit - Trident - Again same logic
HTML/Javacript/CSS - IE Propretary Extensions - Are you trying to say IE doesn't support HTML/Javascript and CSS, because last time I checked it did. Not only that IE was the first browser to support CSS!
H.264 - Windows Media Video - Doesn't MS support H.264 as well?
AAC - Windows Media Audio - Supports both...
PDF - XML - You know there not the same thing right. Not only that but XML was a standard long before Adobe decided they would release PDF's to become a standard! XML is also like the biggest standard the world has ever seen.
JPEG - Windows Media Photo - Again are you trying to say MS don't support JPEG's

Its like you've said the thing for a company to do it make a product full of stuff they can get for free and never invent anything themselves, then sell it. Rather than support all the standards and try having a go at inventing a few things along the way. After all what do you think things are before there standards?

To be fair, UNIX isn't really a standard, and "UNIX" certification of Unix-like OSs isn't exactly the most important thing to IT, and "WMP" is being considered by the JPEG group to be adopted as JPEG XR, VC-1 is also an open standard that competes with H.264.


Linux isn't an answer at all, I assume you're pointing out the different distributions. The mainstream distributions use a recent verison of the kernel from kernel.org, the faster distributions (I'm talking about release-cycles) are rewarded with more users (Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE) while the slower distributions (Debian, Gentoo) are slower and usually have other distributions pull their packages from them (Ubuntu pulls from Debian unstable).

I never claimed it was a utopia, but it would still help Apple immensely to have a larger number of developers for the core OS and the core frameworks, as well as help their customers, and other benefits I already outlined (if they pulled off a transition correctly). Your arguments are also too simple, Apple wouldn't lose any advantage with an open source Safari, it would still be the default browser on the computers they sell, and the most complicated part of a web browser is arguably the rendering engine, just pointing out that Safari isn't open source doesn't mean it would utterly suck if it were. H.264 and AAC are open standards, not open source, they still have patents on them that the licensors collect through the MPEG group that the licensees have to pay if they wish to use those, not the same as open source, and the Quicktime Container is in fact an open standard (MPEG-4 Part 12 if I remember correctly, I assume you mean the container format?) used as the base for the the MP4 container (MPEG-4 Part 14, again if I remember correctly). The Quicktime framework and Player implementations though are neither open standards or open source.

Oh and speaking of H.264 and AAC, Apple could distinguish their machines from others by licensing and providing those codecs, and adding more fonts, professional wallpaper, etc. Stuff they do already, only well, without open sourcing their frameworks, GUI, and developer tools (developer tools, another potential differentiator, hell Apple could even start licensing it for a fee, an open source Cocoa would mean others could build their own tools anyway).

Sebastian

mjtomlin:


I'm not talking about requiring the proprietary MobileMe software when I'm talking about the background processes, but iTunes, which has nothing to do with MobileMe.

Do you have to install Windows Media Player to run Office on OSX? Does WiMP then install background processes to eat up RAM and processor cycles despite the fact you never even use it?

Apple is just as enamored of proprietary software as Microsoft, and Apple is infinitely more proprietary in that they lock you into very specific hardware and Microsoft will allow you to install their OS on anything that will run it.

Regardless, the PC market will end up shipping lots of Vista/7 eventually. If Win7 is at least marginal, then corporations will install it. Vista was not marginal, it was poor.


Doesn't matter if apps are 64-bit if users aren't installing the 64-bit version of Windows. And using the example of games, which benefit from 64-bits: look at the % of Windows users on Steam with a 64-bit OS. Last time I looked it was under 20%. That's NOT GOOD!


The contrast was between Apple's practical application of multitouch (trackpads) and Microsoft's expressed, demonstrated strategy that revolves around putting your hands on the screen. That requires new hardware. Apple put MT support in the OS when it shipped the MT trackpads. Windows trackpads are all supported by third party software. There is no OS level support for MT gestures. So please get your facts straight before suggesting I'm out of line.


Apple is using standard HTML5 and JavaScript to implement MobileMe, that's why any modern browser can use it. There is no proprietary plugin required to download (OVER AND OVER AGAIN as with Silverlight). That's the difference. No need to be frustrated and angry.

I know this wasn't aimed at me, but this whole post is such utter rot I had to reply.

The "background processes" are necessary for any syncing of data to work effectively between any two computers. This is neither unusual, new, or exclusive to the Mac.

You are aware that "background processes" are going all the time on pretty much every computer ever invented right? On Unix (mac) they are called "daemons" and not much would work without them. These mini-programs or daemons are varied and do all kinds of things related to a whole variety of programs, not just iTunes.

The whole idea that because something is "running in the background" it's nefarious or "bad" is just ludicrous.

Also ...

Yes, I have had the experience of installing MS Office and having my arm twisted to install Microsoft Media Player as well.

No, there is actually no such thing as "proprietary hardware" in the sense that you mean it.

You are just wrong here. Facts are facts.

Whatever horrible things you personally think of Apple, the idea that they are "more proprietary" than Microsoft is (again) ludicrous. There are many charges that can be levelled at Apple, but not using open formats and standards is just not one of them.

It's like arguing that Steve Jobs is fatter than Steve Balmer.