It's not my fault I'm right. Everyone keeps crowing about how OS X is the system of the future. The only future in it Quartz and as far as I can tell it isn't being taken advantage of by anyone in any real way. People should be doubtful. OS X could drag Apple down. When people have to use OS X they may find out they don't like it much at all.
But you know what? How 'bout we all keep a happy face and rah rah Apple into 2003. Weeee! Shut up, OS X is great. We love it.
20 more lashes to the horse in the corner ( actually I hate violence done to animals ).
References like " may never be ", " always be ", " can't wait ", and from you yourself " Future bakeoff " sound like they are talking about the future to me not the present. But, nice attempt at backpeddling anyway.
Sorry guys I learned how to debate from my father the most logical perfectionist I've ever known.
Scott H,
The only one that could drag Apple down is people like you and your phony predictions ( slanted viewpoint ). You won't get anybody to do anything by bitching and moaning. Haven't you ever heard of constructive criticism?
One more time, I've never said there isn't room for improvement in OS X. But, since it's so young I don't see ANY reason to believe it will stay that way.
Food for thought: I use linux because back in '98 '99 or whatever I first heard about OSX and what an uber-os it would be. I heard features like Pre-empt. Multi-tasking and protected memory. I looked them up found out what they were, and got excited.
Seeing how OSX was way off, even then when the dates for release were a year earlier, I looked into linuxPPC.
To make a long story short, linux gets faster with each successive release. The 2.4 kernel is a huge leap in terms of multitaking and thus responsiveness over 2.2. My machine boots faster. It's hella stable.
My email app, 'Sylpheed', launches in 0.5 seconds on a Powerbook G3 series 250mhz. I shit you not.
XFree86 4.2 is way faster (and far more stable) than 4.0 and certainly 3.6.
Running Gnome ( <a href="http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/exhibit_a.png"; target="_blank">http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/exhibit_a.png</a>; , a full featured unix GUI, with a preemptive MT OS, linux runs circles around 9. It's WAY more responsive. I don't have OSX installed for technical reasons I won't bore you with, but I'm assured that OSX on a Rage pro is weak. You can't see the CPU monitor in that picture, but I'm averaging 18-24% cpu usage, with Galeon (like mozilla, but better... kinda the Chimera for Gnome), download manager (queues my downloads, resumes downloads), xmms, an mp3 player, two terminals, audio mixer, gnutella client pirating stuff (Windows 98, oddly enough, long story...), and a system monitor called gkrellm, not to mention X, numerous daemons, tcpip stack, etc.
iTunes uses more cpu than all those, without g-force visuals.
There's two points to this. First, as a Unix based OS, OSX should fly. If the GUI drags things down, Apple definately should include a 'fast' aqua that lacks transparent windows, menus etc.
Second, given time, I'm sure OSX will get tighter too, and the code will be lean and custom tailored for the Mac hardware.
But on paper, OSX should be far more responsive than OS9. Maybe Apple has to tweak the 'nice' value of the GUI or something. But set your speed standards higher. The 'Just buy new hardware' excuse sounds very PC/Windows. Besides, we don't all have the luxury of being able to drop thousands of $$$ for a new Mac with a beta OS, just so the speed issues are less noticeable.
If I could, I wouldn't be on a 4 year old Powerbook.
Not everybody here is suggesting that new hardware is the answer. I believe it will get faster yet on current hardware. It's much more responsive on my G4 450 since 10.1 was released. However as with every new OS that has ever been introduced to the public faster hardware always helps.
I'm still looking for OS X to break out. So far it hasn't. The only real thing it offers over 9 is stability. Side by side thought X is way way far far behind 9 and not gaining any ground. I was waiting for 9 to die and all the OS programmers at Apple to move to X. I thought that OS X development would take off after that. If that's happened I can't tell. Bugs continue, features are still missing. Apple needs to give people a reason to switch over and they just haven't. OS X is too unfinished, the third party apps are still slow in coming. Much of what's ported sucks and/or is dog slow. Java is in the shitter.
It's been months and months and there's been almost no progress on any front. Bugs? Features? APIs? What's Apple doing with it? Where's it going?
You all think I'm spreading FUD but there are some real issue here.
<strong>I'm still looking for OS X to break out. So far it hasn't. The only real thing it offers over 9 is stability. (snip) Bugs continue, features are still missing. Apple needs to give people a reason to switch over and they just haven't. OS X is too unfinished, the third party apps are still slow in coming. Much of what's ported sucks and/or is dog slow. Java is in the shitter.
It's been months and months and there's been almost no progress on any front. Bugs? Features? APIs? What's Apple doing with it? Where's it going?
You all think I'm spreading FUD but there are some real issue here.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'll back you up on this.
People are just hiding their heads in the sand about the speed issue. If you put a Windows user or a Mac OS 9 user or a Linux user in front of ANY web browser on OS X, no matter how much ram, no matter the connection speed, and they will either laugh and ask if it is a joke, or they will get frustrated and walk away.
OS X is rock-solid stable and I prefer it to OS 9 in every way.
But where are the scanner drivers?
Where are the webcam drivers?
Where is a version of Morpheus, Kazaa ?
How long did it take to get Napster?
Where is an MP3 player that doesn't bog down the entire system just to play a song?
Why do mouse clicks "stick" and cause you to accidentally throw windows across the screen?
Why does scrolling the timeline of iMovie bring the system to a standstill, while still being a jerky mess?
Why does typing into a simple text box lag?
Why can't you scroll properly in Word?
Where is Real Player?
Where are working Palm conduits for Entourage?
Where are the audio apps?
Why can't I record sound from my internal mic?
Why do I have to set my video settings back to dithered 16-bit color depths in order to have a usable GUI, even if it STILL lags noticably behind every click?
Why doesn't my external CD-RW drive work with iTunes?
And above all, why did I (or why should I in the future) pay a 30-50% price premium for the above?
These aren't "crackpot" questions. They are real questions that buyers ask themselves before chosing a Windows machine.
this well worn road before so I'm not going into what a monumental task must be to develop a backwards compatable system like this ( OS 9 on the same partition ). You know sometimes I think Apple shouldn't have bothered with backward compatability. It probably would have made OS X a little less complex. But, then of course you would whine about that. Listen, I'm in the same boat.My Que Fire burner still isn't recognized by iTunes and at the time ( about 4 months ago ) it was the most expensive you could buy. Part of the problem I'm pretty sure is the companies who make these devices.
However I'm sure these will all get supported.
However I've never had half the problems you describe ( throwing a window across the screen, sticking mouse clicks etc ) so it must be something particular to your setup.
A lot of the things you list ( 3rd party software ) depend on those companies to develop them. I still don't think you can get Morpheous for OS 9. Word scrolls fine for me so I don't know what your problem is. Of course I could have sumed it up in one sentence " It's not finished yet " . If you think it's so easy what Apple's doing lets see you go out and write a new OS like this one. Windows XP isn't as different from their old OS as this is from OS 9.
But, like I've said we have been over this ground in these forums before.
I'm more concerned about the direction Apple's hardware is taking. They really need to close the gap with PC's in that area.
I'm sorry you are having such a time of it. However that just isn't my experience. Little by little OS X for me is starting to return my workspace into a more normal ( OS 9 like ) enviroment. Only I like it a whole lot better. No more extension conflicts, no more restarting again, and again, and I like the the layout better ( yes this includes the dock which for me makes much more sense than the Apple menu ).
So once again I'm sorry but, your experiences obviously aren't everyone's.
[quote]If you think it's so easy what Apple's doing lets see you go out and write a new OS like this one. <hr></blockquote>
For the record, Apple didn't write an OS, they took one (unix) and grafted, via carbon (ugh!) a Mac OS GUI over it. BSD unix has been around for a VERY long time, and unlike GPL software, comes with a proprietary-favorable licence.
I trust with time these issues will be gone or taken care of, but I worry at the time frame it may take to do so. If Apple has a beta-quality OS for more than 8-months to a year from now, after working on it for god knows how long (5 years?), that would be very bad for the platform.
People buying a new, expensive computer expect (esp. for Mac users!) polish, finish, etc. They are not paying thousands for a 'work in progress'.
And you can sympathise all you want with Apple's predicament, but a) Apple put themselves into Apple's predicament, they are not victims, b) People in general aren't going to give a rat's ass what sort of predicament Apple is in (myself included), if their hardware is slow, the OS painfully slow and incomplete, buggy, etc, that doesn't exactly make for a productive environment to work in. Nor does it impress potential platform switchers. So they will find an environment that has that 'finished feeling' and do their work in that.
Mac OS X is beta. End of story. And I'm not buying another Mac until I see OSX fly effortlessly on it, which either means higher quality code or insanely fast hardware, or preferably both in beautiful matrimony.
So I think we can rule out me buying another Mac for a while, unfortunately. Apple is a business, not a charity.
I'm well aware of OS X's UNIX underpinnings but, that's about where the similarity ends.
People that I've read and talked to ( whom I hold their knowege in much higher regard than yours ) have said it's amazing what Apple's doing with UNIX.
If in 8 months to a year OS X hasn't become in what most people see as a finished product I'll sell my G4 and buy a PC! But, I don't have any logical reason to believe that and nether do you.
Apple has bet the farm on this one so if what you're infering is true the end has already come and you just don't know it. It's way too late now to switch gears. So you might as well sell your Mac now.
This isn't even close to true of course.
By the way I don't find OS X painfully slow as you describe it. Fortunately you aren't everyone or even the majority.
I have been given no reason to believe that OS X won't be in finished form this year.
But, don't believe me. Get out now while you still can.
You won't though.
Without your connection to Macintosh you wouldn't have a good justification to come here and whine.
First off, I'm not whining. Nor am I flush-faced, pounding the keyboard with anger.
I'm a new media artist. I do stereoscopic 3d sculptures and environments built from data, ususally (human, viral) genetic data. I need every ounce of power Apple can give me.
I use my schools G4s and an entire lab of 17 iMac 600s (when no one else is using them, of course) as a sort of renderfarm. I do basic modelling on my trusty, stylin Powerbook G3 Wallstreet, and do renders on several much faster Macs at school.
So I'd be lying if I said I had average-user needs.I don't need M$ Word documents to scroll faster, or mail.app to launch faster.
And you seem to imply I dislike the Mac platform, or Mac hardware, niether of which is true.I love my powerbook, which has served me well. Very well.
But unlike you, jimmac, I'm not (any longer) an Apple apologist. I see Macs ranging in clockspeed from 500mhz to 1 Ghz, on 66-133mhz busses. I see VERY high pricetags (not on iBooks, mind you) for this sort of hardware that PCs surpassed years ago.
I see an OS that looks promising, and will no doubt rock someday. What I am stressing about is when that day will come (and I'm not saying when it will come, as you imply, as I do not know). I call it 'beta' because I use beta software all the time, and thus know what it is. It is buggy (like folders not remembering their preferences, which isn't exactly mind-blowingly complex to fix, from a programming perspective) etc, and feature-incomplete. Like oh, lack of drivers for my video card. And please don't say "Buy new hardware". Many of the little things I've grown accustomed to from years of Mac OS use are gone or half baked. Many beefs I had with OS9, like iDisk locking the finder, which should be resolved in a PMT OS like X, aren't.Simple, stupid shit like an Aqua option to turn off semi-transparency, which would speed up X's feel/responsiveness by 80%, are only possible through obscure hacks.
I'm not saying Apple is doomed or fuXxored. I'm saying their beta OS wouldn't feel slow and unresponsive compared to OS9 or windows if a) the hardware was hella fast or b) the code was lean and tweaked for speed. Or, gasp, both. But unfortunately right now you have a beta OS on okay hardware.
I'm saying, with a *nix core, which is itself lean, hella fast and awesome (OpenBSD for example is a 120MB download, and yes, has a GUI), it should fly, and probably someday will. I'm saying I hope that day is soon.I'm saying that day is not today.
I sure as hell love the only viable alternative to Windows (AFA creative apps go). I sure as hell dislike M$ for reasons I won't get into (they are mostly ideological). I love the usability and functionality of my machine (which has like 20 ports/bays/etc). I love the expandibility of this machine, which to be honest is completely overkill.
I'm saying I'd like to see Apple release updates far more often. Like I've heard the mouse acceleration is too slow for many people. This can be fixed in under 5 minutes by a programmer (the max integer value gets changed from, say, 5, to 10. Recompile). They should then, after a week of internal testing, make a patch available via soft. update. Same with folder prefs. People shouldn't have to wait 6-8 months for 10.2 to have stupid, simple shit fixed.
This sort of thing would give people like myself an indication of at what rate progress is being made.
I love the Mac platform, make no mistake. I'm not afraid, however, to point out flaws in the platform, even to apologists who simply can't accept criticism of their platform without labelling it trolling.
My next mac will probably be the next powerbook rev.
BTW, when I said Apple took an existing OS, and grafted a Mac GUI on it, that's exactly what they did. I'm not slagging them for it, i think it's ingenious, and saved Apple about 5 years of work at least. Unix is the shit.
AFA your friends saying 'it's amazing what Apple is doing with BSD' they are referring to the GUI and usability. If they know their shit, they know there are very few under the hood tweaks to OSX. Like maybe 5% hidden code is different.
Apple didn't write fsck, or grep, or ps etc. They aren't the first to get BSD on Mac hardware.
Basically, i think you're inserting all sorts of value judgements into my posts that I'm not putting there.I'm looking at things objectively. I'm not kissing apple's ass, nor am I saying "Macs suck, Wintels are where it's at". I'm showing a concern for the platform that is my artistic lifeblood, that is my 'ticket outta here.' My future money (and stardom ) maker.
I'm glad your not pounding the keyboard in anger. I'm hardly an Apple apologist ( god I hate that stupid term ). If you had read some of my previous posts you would know that I'm not very pleased with the state of Apple's hardware. I think OS X is coming along nicely right now but, the large gap in speed is getting silly. As I've said before the Mhz myth had merit up to a point but, not with this big a difference.
We do have something in common we both hate MS. Everytime I see Bill Gates on TV portrayed as an innovator showing us the way to the future I just want to puke. The average Joe on the street out there doesn't have clue about BG or how he came to power ( I heard someone at work the other day say " Didn't Bill Gates and Apple develop Windows together " ? )
About Apple being doomed. Well, it's the truth if OS X doesn't work out or if their hardware doesn't pick up steam soon they will be. They have a good start and direction compared to where they were going in 1997 they just need to make good on their promise.
It's not my fault I'm right. Everyone keeps crowing about how OS X is the system of the future. The only future in it Quartz and as far as I can tell it isn't being taken advantage of by anyone in any real way. People should be doubtful. OS X could drag Apple down. When people have to use OS X they may find out they don't like it much at all.
<hr></blockquote>
LOL! ROTFLMAO!!!!!
That is the most preposterous statement I've seen in a while. OS X dragging Apple down?? Whatever.
OS X is going to help Apple break into new markets because of its Unix underpinnings, and it is going to polish Apple's reputation with its power and stability. It is so stable that a buzz has already started...many a windows drone will admit that although they despise Macs, OS X is the most stable GUI OS on the market.
I use OS X full time, with about 30% of my work getting done in Classic. That's on a G4 400 MHz with 576 MB RAM. Yes OS X is a bit slow sometimes, and I get the psychedelic cursor more than I like, but compared to OS 9 there is no comparison. OS X NEVER crashes on my system, and when apps crash, it is usually because they are beta (Omniweb sneakypeeks), and they never take down the system or any other apps. And OS X is faster than OS 9, because I spend more time doing things, I never have to wait while the system processes something, because of the OS X's bad-a$$ multitasking. If some app chugs, I switch to another and it runs fine.
So if OS X is this usable on my 400 MHz G4, then any new Mac should run OS X fine. No, OS X isn't going to scream on any hardware, but it's still an early revision. Wait until10.2 and prepare to be floored, because the performance of OS X 10.2 is going to be at least 30% faster than 10.1 (probably much, much more). It is going to finally bring OS X up to par with OS 9 in features and GUI responsivness, and of course in all other areas OS X is already superior to OS 9.
Comments
But you know what? How 'bout we all keep a happy face and rah rah Apple into 2003. Weeee! Shut up, OS X is great. We love it.
[ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: Scott H. ]</p>
20 more lashes to the horse in the corner ( actually I hate violence done to animals ).
References like " may never be ", " always be ", " can't wait ", and from you yourself " Future bakeoff " sound like they are talking about the future to me not the present. But, nice attempt at backpeddling anyway.
Sorry guys I learned how to debate from my father the most logical perfectionist I've ever known.
Scott H,
The only one that could drag Apple down is people like you and your phony predictions ( slanted viewpoint ). You won't get anybody to do anything by bitching and moaning. Haven't you ever heard of constructive criticism?
One more time, I've never said there isn't room for improvement in OS X. But, since it's so young I don't see ANY reason to believe it will stay that way.
[ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: jimmac ]</p>
Seeing how OSX was way off, even then when the dates for release were a year earlier, I looked into linuxPPC.
To make a long story short, linux gets faster with each successive release. The 2.4 kernel is a huge leap in terms of multitaking and thus responsiveness over 2.2. My machine boots faster. It's hella stable.
My email app, 'Sylpheed', launches in 0.5 seconds on a Powerbook G3 series 250mhz. I shit you not.
XFree86 4.2 is way faster (and far more stable) than 4.0 and certainly 3.6.
If I want a fast GUI, I can choose from puny ram/cpu using ones (ie Blackbox/FluxBox <a href="http://www.themes.org/themes/965/screenshot/"; target="_blank">http://www.themes.org/themes/965/screenshot/</a>; to full featured desktop environments.
Running Gnome ( <a href="http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/exhibit_a.png"; target="_blank">http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/exhibit_a.png</a>; , a full featured unix GUI, with a preemptive MT OS, linux runs circles around 9. It's WAY more responsive. I don't have OSX installed for technical reasons I won't bore you with, but I'm assured that OSX on a Rage pro is weak. You can't see the CPU monitor in that picture, but I'm averaging 18-24% cpu usage, with Galeon (like mozilla, but better... kinda the Chimera for Gnome), download manager (queues my downloads, resumes downloads), xmms, an mp3 player, two terminals, audio mixer, gnutella client pirating stuff (Windows 98, oddly enough, long story...), and a system monitor called gkrellm, not to mention X, numerous daemons, tcpip stack, etc.
iTunes uses more cpu than all those, without g-force visuals.
There's two points to this. First, as a Unix based OS, OSX should fly. If the GUI drags things down, Apple definately should include a 'fast' aqua that lacks transparent windows, menus etc.
Second, given time, I'm sure OSX will get tighter too, and the code will be lean and custom tailored for the Mac hardware.
But on paper, OSX should be far more responsive than OS9. Maybe Apple has to tweak the 'nice' value of the GUI or something. But set your speed standards higher. The 'Just buy new hardware' excuse sounds very PC/Windows. Besides, we don't all have the luxury of being able to drop thousands of $$$ for a new Mac with a beta OS, just so the speed issues are less noticeable.
If I could, I wouldn't be on a 4 year old Powerbook.
[ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: stimuli ]</p>
[ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: jimmac ]</p>
It's been months and months and there's been almost no progress on any front. Bugs? Features? APIs? What's Apple doing with it? Where's it going?
You all think I'm spreading FUD but there are some real issue here.
<strong>I'm still looking for OS X to break out. So far it hasn't. The only real thing it offers over 9 is stability. (snip) Bugs continue, features are still missing. Apple needs to give people a reason to switch over and they just haven't. OS X is too unfinished, the third party apps are still slow in coming. Much of what's ported sucks and/or is dog slow. Java is in the shitter.
It's been months and months and there's been almost no progress on any front. Bugs? Features? APIs? What's Apple doing with it? Where's it going?
You all think I'm spreading FUD but there are some real issue here.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'll back you up on this.
People are just hiding their heads in the sand about the speed issue. If you put a Windows user or a Mac OS 9 user or a Linux user in front of ANY web browser on OS X, no matter how much ram, no matter the connection speed, and they will either laugh and ask if it is a joke, or they will get frustrated and walk away.
OS X is rock-solid stable and I prefer it to OS 9 in every way.
But where are the scanner drivers?
Where are the webcam drivers?
Where is a version of Morpheus, Kazaa ?
How long did it take to get Napster?
Where is an MP3 player that doesn't bog down the entire system just to play a song?
Why do mouse clicks "stick" and cause you to accidentally throw windows across the screen?
Why does scrolling the timeline of iMovie bring the system to a standstill, while still being a jerky mess?
Why does typing into a simple text box lag?
Why can't you scroll properly in Word?
Where is Real Player?
Where are working Palm conduits for Entourage?
Where are the audio apps?
Why can't I record sound from my internal mic?
Why do I have to set my video settings back to dithered 16-bit color depths in order to have a usable GUI, even if it STILL lags noticably behind every click?
Why doesn't my external CD-RW drive work with iTunes?
And above all, why did I (or why should I in the future) pay a 30-50% price premium for the above?
These aren't "crackpot" questions. They are real questions that buyers ask themselves before chosing a Windows machine.
However I'm sure these will all get supported.
However I've never had half the problems you describe ( throwing a window across the screen, sticking mouse clicks etc ) so it must be something particular to your setup.
A lot of the things you list ( 3rd party software ) depend on those companies to develop them. I still don't think you can get Morpheous for OS 9. Word scrolls fine for me so I don't know what your problem is. Of course I could have sumed it up in one sentence " It's not finished yet " . If you think it's so easy what Apple's doing lets see you go out and write a new OS like this one. Windows XP isn't as different from their old OS as this is from OS 9.
But, like I've said we have been over this ground in these forums before.
I'm more concerned about the direction Apple's hardware is taking. They really need to close the gap with PC's in that area.
[ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: jimmac ]</p>
I'm sorry you are having such a time of it. However that just isn't my experience. Little by little OS X for me is starting to return my workspace into a more normal ( OS 9 like ) enviroment. Only I like it a whole lot better. No more extension conflicts, no more restarting again, and again, and I like the the layout better ( yes this includes the dock which for me makes much more sense than the Apple menu ).
So once again I'm sorry but, your experiences obviously aren't everyone's.
For the record, Apple didn't write an OS, they took one (unix) and grafted, via carbon (ugh!) a Mac OS GUI over it. BSD unix has been around for a VERY long time, and unlike GPL software, comes with a proprietary-favorable licence.
I trust with time these issues will be gone or taken care of, but I worry at the time frame it may take to do so. If Apple has a beta-quality OS for more than 8-months to a year from now, after working on it for god knows how long (5 years?), that would be very bad for the platform.
People buying a new, expensive computer expect (esp. for Mac users!) polish, finish, etc. They are not paying thousands for a 'work in progress'.
And you can sympathise all you want with Apple's predicament, but a) Apple put themselves into Apple's predicament, they are not victims, b) People in general aren't going to give a rat's ass what sort of predicament Apple is in (myself included), if their hardware is slow, the OS painfully slow and incomplete, buggy, etc, that doesn't exactly make for a productive environment to work in. Nor does it impress potential platform switchers. So they will find an environment that has that 'finished feeling' and do their work in that.
Mac OS X is beta. End of story. And I'm not buying another Mac until I see OSX fly effortlessly on it, which either means higher quality code or insanely fast hardware, or preferably both in beautiful matrimony.
So I think we can rule out me buying another Mac for a while, unfortunately. Apple is a business, not a charity.
People that I've read and talked to ( whom I hold their knowege in much higher regard than yours ) have said it's amazing what Apple's doing with UNIX.
If in 8 months to a year OS X hasn't become in what most people see as a finished product I'll sell my G4 and buy a PC! But, I don't have any logical reason to believe that and nether do you.
Apple has bet the farm on this one so if what you're infering is true the end has already come and you just don't know it. It's way too late now to switch gears. So you might as well sell your Mac now.
This isn't even close to true of course.
By the way I don't find OS X painfully slow as you describe it. Fortunately you aren't everyone or even the majority.
I have been given no reason to believe that OS X won't be in finished form this year.
But, don't believe me. Get out now while you still can.
You won't though.
Without your connection to Macintosh you wouldn't have a good justification to come here and whine.
[ 03-15-2002: Message edited by: jimmac ]</p>
I'm a new media artist. I do stereoscopic 3d sculptures and environments built from data, ususally (human, viral) genetic data. I need every ounce of power Apple can give me.
I use my schools G4s and an entire lab of 17 iMac 600s (when no one else is using them, of course) as a sort of renderfarm. I do basic modelling on my trusty, stylin Powerbook G3 Wallstreet, and do renders on several much faster Macs at school.
So I'd be lying if I said I had average-user needs.I don't need M$ Word documents to scroll faster, or mail.app to launch faster.
And you seem to imply I dislike the Mac platform, or Mac hardware, niether of which is true.I love my powerbook, which has served me well. Very well.
But unlike you, jimmac, I'm not (any longer) an Apple apologist. I see Macs ranging in clockspeed from 500mhz to 1 Ghz, on 66-133mhz busses. I see VERY high pricetags (not on iBooks, mind you) for this sort of hardware that PCs surpassed years ago.
I see an OS that looks promising, and will no doubt rock someday. What I am stressing about is when that day will come (and I'm not saying when it will come, as you imply, as I do not know). I call it 'beta' because I use beta software all the time, and thus know what it is. It is buggy (like folders not remembering their preferences, which isn't exactly mind-blowingly complex to fix, from a programming perspective) etc, and feature-incomplete. Like oh, lack of drivers for my video card. And please don't say "Buy new hardware". Many of the little things I've grown accustomed to from years of Mac OS use are gone or half baked. Many beefs I had with OS9, like iDisk locking the finder, which should be resolved in a PMT OS like X, aren't.Simple, stupid shit like an Aqua option to turn off semi-transparency, which would speed up X's feel/responsiveness by 80%, are only possible through obscure hacks.
I'm not saying Apple is doomed or fuXxored. I'm saying their beta OS wouldn't feel slow and unresponsive compared to OS9 or windows if a) the hardware was hella fast or b) the code was lean and tweaked for speed. Or, gasp, both. But unfortunately right now you have a beta OS on okay hardware.
I'm saying, with a *nix core, which is itself lean, hella fast and awesome (OpenBSD for example is a 120MB download, and yes, has a GUI), it should fly, and probably someday will. I'm saying I hope that day is soon.I'm saying that day is not today.
I sure as hell love the only viable alternative to Windows (AFA creative apps go). I sure as hell dislike M$ for reasons I won't get into (they are mostly ideological). I love the usability and functionality of my machine (which has like 20 ports/bays/etc). I love the expandibility of this machine, which to be honest is completely overkill.
I'm saying I'd like to see Apple release updates far more often. Like I've heard the mouse acceleration is too slow for many people. This can be fixed in under 5 minutes by a programmer (the max integer value gets changed from, say, 5, to 10. Recompile). They should then, after a week of internal testing, make a patch available via soft. update. Same with folder prefs. People shouldn't have to wait 6-8 months for 10.2 to have stupid, simple shit fixed.
This sort of thing would give people like myself an indication of at what rate progress is being made.
I love the Mac platform, make no mistake. I'm not afraid, however, to point out flaws in the platform, even to apologists who simply can't accept criticism of their platform without labelling it trolling.
My next mac will probably be the next powerbook rev.
BTW, when I said Apple took an existing OS, and grafted a Mac GUI on it, that's exactly what they did. I'm not slagging them for it, i think it's ingenious, and saved Apple about 5 years of work at least. Unix is the shit.
AFA your friends saying 'it's amazing what Apple is doing with BSD' they are referring to the GUI and usability. If they know their shit, they know there are very few under the hood tweaks to OSX. Like maybe 5% hidden code is different.
Apple didn't write fsck, or grep, or ps etc. They aren't the first to get BSD on Mac hardware.
Basically, i think you're inserting all sorts of value judgements into my posts that I'm not putting there.I'm looking at things objectively. I'm not kissing apple's ass, nor am I saying "Macs suck, Wintels are where it's at". I'm showing a concern for the platform that is my artistic lifeblood, that is my 'ticket outta here.' My future money (and stardom
[ 03-15-2002: Message edited by: stimuli ]
[ 03-15-2002: Message edited by: stimuli ]</p>
We do have something in common we both hate MS. Everytime I see Bill Gates on TV portrayed as an innovator showing us the way to the future I just want to puke. The average Joe on the street out there doesn't have clue about BG or how he came to power ( I heard someone at work the other day say " Didn't Bill Gates and Apple develop Windows together " ? )
About Apple being doomed. Well, it's the truth if OS X doesn't work out or if their hardware doesn't pick up steam soon they will be. They have a good start and direction compared to where they were going in 1997 they just need to make good on their promise.
Good luck in your future endevors.
It's not my fault I'm right. Everyone keeps crowing about how OS X is the system of the future. The only future in it Quartz and as far as I can tell it isn't being taken advantage of by anyone in any real way. People should be doubtful. OS X could drag Apple down. When people have to use OS X they may find out they don't like it much at all.
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LOL! ROTFLMAO!!!!!
That is the most preposterous statement I've seen in a while. OS X dragging Apple down?? Whatever.
OS X is going to help Apple break into new markets because of its Unix underpinnings, and it is going to polish Apple's reputation with its power and stability. It is so stable that a buzz has already started...many a windows drone will admit that although they despise Macs, OS X is the most stable GUI OS on the market.
I use OS X full time, with about 30% of my work getting done in Classic. That's on a G4 400 MHz with 576 MB RAM. Yes OS X is a bit slow sometimes, and I get the psychedelic cursor more than I like, but compared to OS 9 there is no comparison. OS X NEVER crashes on my system, and when apps crash, it is usually because they are beta (Omniweb sneakypeeks), and they never take down the system or any other apps. And OS X is faster than OS 9, because I spend more time doing things, I never have to wait while the system processes something, because of the OS X's bad-a$$ multitasking. If some app chugs, I switch to another and it runs fine.
So if OS X is this usable on my 400 MHz G4, then any new Mac should run OS X fine. No, OS X isn't going to scream on any hardware, but it's still an early revision. Wait until10.2 and prepare to be floored, because the performance of OS X 10.2 is going to be at least 30% faster than 10.1 (probably much, much more). It is going to finally bring OS X up to par with OS 9 in features and GUI responsivness, and of course in all other areas OS X is already superior to OS 9.