It's apparent you misunderstood the structure of my sentence. I did not say all apps that run in compatibility mode are slower, I said when 32bit apps run slower in compatibility mode, that's a problem.
That is an issue. Maybe it's not a major issue (at least for now), but it is an issue that affects both consumers and developers who have to deal with unpredictable performance in 64bit Vista when writing apps for the far more prevalent 32bit Vista.
Having run Vista 64-bit for a about one and a half years now I can say that there have been very few (maybe 3-5 at most) 32-bit programs that have caused any problems. The ones that did were always stuff that hooks into the operating system's things and add features or change something. Anything that is normal (as in just a program running on the OS) works just as well as it would in the 32-bit version. I've never had to run anything in compatibility mode really.
I don't really even see a point in having a 32-bit version of Vista because all the computers that run it well have 64-bit processors. I suppose there is a point for Win7 because it's going to be used in much slower systems that may have 32-bit processors.
Having run Vista 64-bit for a about one and a half years now I can say that there have been very few (maybe 3-5 at most) 32-bit programs that have caused any problems. The ones that did were always stuff that hooks into the operating system's things and add features or change something. Anything that is normal (as in just a program running on the OS) works just as well as it would in the 32-bit version. I've never had to run anything in compatibility mode really.
I don't really even see a point in having a 32-bit version of Vista because all the computers that run it well have 64-bit processors. I suppose there is a point for Win7 because it's going to be used in much slower systems that may have 32-bit processors.
If you feel it's not a big issue, that's fine. That's reasonable. What I took issue with (pardon the pun), was the assertion that it was a non-issue, which obviously isn't true.
But 64bit Vista (and 64bit Win7) runs 32bit apps in a compatibility mode, which is in contrast to Leopard (and when it's released, Snow Leopard) which runs 32bit and 64bit apps natively.
It's apparent you misunderstood the structure of my sentence. I did not say all apps that run in compatibility mode are slower, I said when 32bit apps run slower in compatibility mode, that's a problem.
That is an issue. Maybe it's not a major issue (at least for now), but it is an issue that affects both consumers and developers who have to deal with unpredictable performance in 64bit Vista when writing apps for the far more prevalent 32bit Vista.
Obviously we don't agree on definition of an issue. For me, if difference in application's performance is not noticeable, that is not an issue. Each phenomenon needs to reach specific threshold in order to become an issue. Everything else is looking for a needle in a hay stack.
Obviously we don't agree on definition of an issue. For me, if difference in application's performance is not noticeable, that is not an issue. Each phenomenon needs to reach specific threshold in order to become an issue. Everything else is looking for a needle in a hay stack.
You've already noted that just as some 32bit apps run the same and just as some run faster, some run slower, with a "glorious handful" running "much" slower, and some don't run at all. If that's not an issue, I don't know what is.
Maybe you should just admit you made an overly simplistic statement that weakened your argument when you could have said it was a negligible issue, or something to that effect.
You've already noted that just as some 32bit apps run the same and just as some run faster, some run slower, with a "glorious handful" running "much" slower, and some don't run at all. If that's not an issue, I don't know what is.
Maybe you should just admit you made an overly simplistic statement that weakened your argument when you could have said it was a negligible issue, or something to that effect.
Yes, there were 3-4 applications that used to run much slower (as of April 2008). Don't know if they still do. Non of them is major application (in terms of being widely used). If you are one of users who require them, you got an issue. If you are among 99.9% (freely estimated) not using them, you have no issue.
But yes, technically, you can say there still is negligible issue. In real life, it is so negligible that it practically is non-issue. I prefer real-life, so I'll stick to my arguments. Otherwise, I feel my life would be very sad because it would be so full of "issues" I just would not have enough time left to enjoy it.
Maybe you should admit that you, indeed, are looking for needle in a haystack..?
Yes, there were 3-4 applications that used to run much slower (as of April 2008). Don't know if they still do. Non of them is major application (in terms of being widely used). If you are one of users who require them, you got an issue. If you are among 99.9% (freely estimated) not using them, you have no issue.
But yes, technically, you can say there still is negligible issue. In real life, it is so negligible that it practically is non-issue. I prefer real-life, so I'll stick to my arguments. Otherwise, I feel my life would be very sad because it would be so full of "issues" I just would not have enough time left to enjoy it.
Maybe you should admit that you, indeed, are looking for needle in a haystack..?
We can continue with this for ever.
No need to continue as you've now acknowledged the difference.
No need to continue as you've now acknowledged the difference.
Thank you.
Being half Greek - and in spirit of my forefathers (of which some might have been a colleague to Aristotle, Plato or whoever )...
... We should also keep in mind that definition of a word issue is (quote) an important question that is in dispute and must be settled. Also (quote) The word "issue" is popularly misused in lieu of "problem".
Now, we have agreed that problem is minor, and being such it can not be important, thus can not be an issue. Even if problem is significant (which it is not), it still is not an issue as it would be misuse of that word.
Meaning that, at the end of a day, it is non-issue, however you look at it
First off, I registered to this forum just because of reading a good majority of the posts on this thread, and the article it's related to... Might hang around though lol....
My 2 cents on most of these topics...
I'm using an iBook G4 right now. How is this related? Complex, so bear with me, I'll cover all bases of why I have problems with the Mac vs. PC, 7 vs 10.6, iPhone vs. any-other-smartphone debates..
I grew up when Windows was unheard of in the mainstream. 3.1 was on my DOS-based computer my father built me. At school, we used OLD Apples, I couldn't quote a model number, they were 5.25" floppy based machines. Then I used the newer Macs just before the iMac hit, as well as had chances to use the newer iMacs when they came out. I enjoyed my experiences on all the old systems, and really had very little time with OSX. I did, however, go through all the Windows 9x releases, and got my taste at understanding all the underpinnings to the system. It was when a friend of mine was trashing her old iMac G3 500mhz that I took it as my chance to try out the competition. My view? I loved it. It was fun, in 2004. By that time I had gone from my dad's home-built-for-me PC to a Compaq, then a Dell. In 2004 i chose to build my own system, which to me ended up being a fantastic experience, I had a blast doing it. In fact, 2 years later in 2006 i scrapped the innards for a new Core 2 Duo when they just hit the market. That system has been very reliable and definitely one of my favorites.
But pulling back the Mac side of things, in 2005 I decided I really needed a laptop to be mobile, and the only thing I felt comfortable with trying as a mobile platform was OSX's security, so I headed to the closest Mac distributer (an hour drive to Cleveland, OH at the Apple store there) and picked up an iBook G4. That was the beginning of my days with TRULY owning a Mac. And looking back, some days I was glad, others, well, like today, I really regret it. I spent 1400 bucks on the best iBook I could get, the 14-inch model, 1.42GHz. Now, my problem arose as 2006 brought the Intel Macs. NOONE at that store told me that the Intel transition was coming, and not a soul on here could tell me that noone knew it was coming. It was known that the G5 was too hot to keep on pushing it higher in GHz. So I became stuck with obsolete technology immediately. I bought Microsoft's VirtualPC that day so that I could dabble with compatibility protection, just in case anything on my PC wouldn't run on the iBook. That right there should have told the Apple Store employees that I was a PC users and wanted the features of an Intel processor. I was absolutely devastated when I heard Snow Leopard will not support PowerPC Macs, because I bought the iBook hoping to have it for 5-10 years. It's lucky it lasted this long. The charger broke in 2007 and thanks to the "Apple Tax", I was supposed to pay full price for the replacement because my AppleCare Protection Plan didn't cover it for some reason or another. BS... Seriously. I waited until August 2008 to buy a new charger, while the laptop sat on a shelf, disassembled into pieces to get a broken charger tip out of the DC-in board. It was in November or December 2008 that my battery decided it's no longer going to report the appropriate charge. I've tried killing the battery completely and calibrating it, nothing fixed it. A new battery: $130+tax. No, I don't think so. In fact, I've officially given up on the Mac ecosystem. It was a pricey place to begin with, and looking now, it's still pricey, especially in these hard economic times. I'm on limited, fixed UE income. A new MacBook costs just about the same as my iBook did. Forget it. I hate to say it, but I just ordered my iBook replacement, an Acer Aspire One netbook with Linux (so i can later replace it with another OS, which i hear Mac OSX fits on it perfectly), and it cost me just nary the price of 2 iBook batteries and a new charger. 307.91 with shipping. Seriously, a new laptop that could do basically the same thing i used my iBook for, and since I now understand how to play it safe online with security, Vista and eventually Windows 7 will be on that laptop, probably dual-booting with OSX for the days when I want to feel nostalgic. The iBook did miss out on one thing i value more than anything: Gaming. Sure the Intel push on the Macs has made that much easier, especially with Boot Camp. But my biggest grump with Apple is the choice in hardware. Unless I get a Mac Pro with the over-the-top Xenon processor, i'm stuck with a Core 2 Duo that is from the LAPTOP lineage. I want desktop power. So this year I'm buying piece-by-piece my desktop replacement, a Core i7-powered monster. Therein lies the big thing that a growing community of enthusiasts can enjoy, buying parts for their computers, and changing them on their own schedule. Something that a Mac will never satisfy with me. And see, my rationale in 2005 was that PC laptops have limited, if any, upgrade potential, so why not get the iBook.
Of course my next gripe was the Mac OSX lineage. I used Panther on that G3 I had received. And that was, in all honesty, a downloaded copy. My iBook came with Tiger of course, enjoyable but dog-slow. Then Leopard hit the shelves, and in all honesty I just forked out 259 bucks for a Vista Ultimate upgrade, on top of a $130 purchase of XP Media Center 2005 in 2005. No need to buy more OS's. I am running Leopard though, thanks to a friend with the family license. The funny part is, Apple makes no attempt to ensure that only 5 Macs (or 3 or whatever it is) receive an upgrade. So I don't care. At any rate, I can praise Time Machine as the number one feature of Leopard I'm using on a daily basis. I actually never backed up ANY of my computers until a hard drive crash in 2006 lost everything personal I had accumulated and moved from PC to PC with me since I was 6. My iPod had at least my music, but none of my pictures or save games. Oh it had my pictures, just not the full-sized ones. So i gave up on them, sadly. And the iPod. had 2 of them, 3G and 4G Photo. Now i've been using a Zune 30GB since November 2006 and very satisfied. Sure it doesn't sync with my iBook, but it doesn't matter, I don't keep my music on here anyway due to the lack of hard drive space.
Now as for the Windows side of this post, I've grown to love Windows since XP, especially Media Center. In fact, Media Center has become my sole means of watching TV. DVR's are expensive to have on a monthly basis, plus with the Zune automatically and wirelessly syncing my TV shows I can take them on the road, or when I get my 360 later this year, I can use the Media Center Extender feature. Vista just made that a lot better. It's had its bad times, I'll admit it, and definitely feel like I was screwed on my hardware. But finally the small problem that was leftover after all my problems was thermal control. My Core 2 Duo would never clock down when idle in Vista, and in September of last year my particular motherboard got a driver update finally for Vista. So now I'm content. Even the backup features are pretty fleshed out, as others have said. Windows 7 promises to make that better, in fact i just completed a week-long endeavor reformatting my PC for Windows 7. It runs faster than Vista, and actually I'm noting it's faster than XP as well on my system. But considering I moved to 64-bits last winter, I can't really compare to XP x64. That's another issue I noticed having a lot of debate on this thread. 64 compatibility for me has been 100% on the dot, all of my games work, with barely anything other than a few needing compatibility mode set up on their executables, and 1 game needing me to approve a UAC prompt every time I launch it. Virus protection is the main program that anyone has to worry about not working in 64-bit unless it's compiled for 64-bit. I don't use virus protection, because I have enough common sense to know what to and not to open. Most of the time i use a virtual machine running XP to download anything that might be suspicious in nature, and have AVG free virus protection in there. That may change this year with Microsoft's new free antivirus utility that will replace OneCare (which I beta tested). In comparison to Time Machine, the backup in 7 is finally on-the-dot, with whole system recovery rolled into the original Vista backups. Sure, complete PC backup was in Vista, but as a separate backup, and not one I liked to use because it ate up a lot of space. Now that's been fixed. Along with UAC, which I'll admit was annoying most days, but finally became second nature much like OSX's security prompts. Ultimately, though, Windows 7 looks like the Windows Microsoft wanted to produce as Vista originally. A lot of things were held off just to get the darned thing out of the door and into the wild. I feel a tad bit screwed by paying so much, and not getting as much as I'm getting in Windows 7. Sure it's not a major upgrade, but looking at the sweet-sweet love that was Windows XP, 7 looks like a whole new platform. It will at least renew everyone's trust in Microsoft to deliver a great OS.
I know most of the Apple Fanboys would call me out on all this, but they do have practical points in the PC market. The Media Center alone sold me on never leaving behind Windows. And the continued ignorance to PC gaming standards in Mac OSX have also kept me from a 100% transition. From Sept 2007 to Aug 2008 I was 100% a PC. Now I'm back to 50/50, iBook when i'm gone from home (though i do use it to remote desktop into my PC at home), but I really want to see how Windows 7 completes the package, especially with the "netbook" version they have touted, because that wouldn't be needed on my netbook, it runs great with 7 Ultimate.
I'm not shooting anyone down, though. It may just be my opinion. The wonderful world of Windows has definitely gotten much better. And in the enterprise, it's a good point to make that Apple will never capture the market Microsoft has. Home users, it should be interesting to see. The Mac makes up 7% of the market still, according to recent reports. And with Steve Jobs possibly going to be leaving Apple for good, the responses should be interesting from the Mac community. Bill Gates left Microsoft, and interestingly enough, things got a bit better. But i think Jim Allchin was more to blame for Windows Vista's flop than Gates.
My suggestions for Apple would be to stop the name calling game. Time Machine, it's easy to use, yeah. But i'll tell ya what, I have more faith in my Vista/7 backups than i do Time Machine. I've restored my iBook at least 3 times from Time Machine backups... that were on a Windows computer, being shared through an Ubuntu Server virtual PC session running on that Windows computer. Windows, i've never really had to restore it, but i did check out the features and functionality, and it is very quick, especially when compared to my restores both networked and via external HDD on OSX. OSX itself needs to open up to be used on other platforms, I think, or Apple will fail, especially with these hard economic times. Bill Gates' vision was for a PC in every home. He got that, and then some. What's Apple's vision? Cater only to the rich or the ones that want to make themselves bankrupt? (yeah, the Apple credit card i was paying on is now been in collections for 2 years, oh well). It's the price of the hardware, and the control over the hardware that while it may make the platform great for certain audiences, the mainstream market (businesses) aren't going to be won over easily. And gamers will never leave behind Windows as long as the game studios have no incentive to use OSX. DirectX is a very powerful, very strong API, and a hard one, no doubt, to convert to the Mac.
As I said before though, I think the real icing on the cake was the drop for PowerPC. That's a shame when in 2005, I looked at a laptop I pictured on having til I was at least 26. I'm 22 and have nothing to look forward to with this laptop. Not to mention all the hardware failures (from DVD burner, to screen, charger, and battery). I'm already experiencing issues with the new charger that are frustrating me. Sure they probably have no problems with the MagSafe connectors compared to these old round ones, but it really would have been nice to know what was coming. That's the biggest issue with the Apple Marketing Machine. Say NOTHING until the product is in the stores. At least with my PC I know what to expect is coming later on this year. Incremental updates to the Core i7, small speed increases to DDR3, maybe a new GeForce chipset (i'm still using a 7900GTX). Things I can progressively update on my own time.
I apologize for the rant, but there was a lot of anger I had pent up because of the way this article was so heavily biased toward OSX. Sure, this is an Apple site. But for crying out loud, be a responsible reporter. Unbiased opinions are by far the more valuable ones. You can't impress an Apple Fanboy with a new Windows, point blank, but at least present the facts, and not drum up small things that only a small fraction of people may ever experience (best example being 64-bit compatibility, which I think Microsoft almost should have mandated for this release). I know that all it took was Snow Leopard's and Windows 7's features being announced and my destiny for at least the next 5 years should be pretty well set in stone. Doesn't mean I won't try to put Snow Leopard on my netbook though.
I apologize for the rant, but there was a lot of anger I had pent up because of the way this article was so heavily biased toward OSX. Sure, this is an Apple site. But for crying out loud, be a responsible reporter. Unbiased opinions are by far the more valuable ones.
I'm sorry your laptop broke. but you steal Apple's software whilst at spending lots of money on Microsoft's Ultimate (more expensive) goodies, have a huge chip on your shoulder cause Apple wouldn't tell you which products they were bringing out in 6/8 months time and then you lecture us on how we should be unbiased and reasonable!
Guess what : Calling people Mac Fanboys isn't going to win you any friends.
Guess what: the general PC press isn't that friendly to Apple. Tough.
There are many advantages to owning a Mac. If you want the media centre features, you want to change parts and experiment with over-clocking and you want to play games then you want the Windows platform. Fine. Not everyone does. Windows doesn't work for me.
2) You want to play computer games that aren't made by Blizzard and are less than 2 years old.
4) You don't like the limited software choices that a Mac offers (which is related to 2)..
For your software may == games.
Someone convince on the strength of the Windows Application base. I know there are a lot, but where's the quality?
Link me to the Windows equivalent of this class of software. None of these items are cross platform. They are all OS X products. Many are Leopard products. Suggested equivalents should be Windows only software and show off the best Windows has to offer in user experience.
Equally none of these are from Apple, so none of the equivalents should come from Microsoft.
Mac users — feel free to add suggestions to the list!
Now I doubt anyone will ever have a use for all of these apps (I don't, but I use some), but each one has a certain charm and efficiency common to true Mac platform. Mac apps seem to have more time and effort put into making them usable. Independent Mac development community is amazingly innovative and brings out some wonderful products. Most of them are reasonably priced too. When I look at WIndows, I don't see the care and I don't see the quality.]
I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.
PS: The discussion is not about whether you individually (or “Windows users” as a collective) would use these applications, the discussion is about about the fit and finish of these applications. I can't stress that enough.
I want to build a Vista 64bit Windows PC (I had an AMD64 and a Core2 rig before ... built and overclocked myself, more-or-less) ... But I am really asking myself, why bother going through that. Fun, yes, but I don't have as much time, it's not really income-producing, and I want to play the latest games, which... leads me to I might as well get an Xbox360. Luckily my current income allows for some growing of savings, given my MacBook is still working, I am saving up for a new Macbook or a PC build... Hunting for drivers, kinda makes the latter proposition look very unattractive.
A 20" iMac with 9600 GT graphics, would be just nice. I'll run Windows and Mac on it, and I know I don't have to tinker with the innards and it will last me a good 2 years (2-3 years max, I mean, lets face it, before its time to get ready for 16core Macs with OS X 10.7 ... to be in the game on the "cutting edge" and reasonably enjoying it.)
Apologies if I am rambling but just reading through the posts here I thought I'd chip in.
Typing this on an iBook G4 933mhz, by the way (my parents).
Given the current economic climate I may just try and save up as much as possible this year.
Apple hasn't promised a ton of user facing features. They are billing this only as an improved under-the-hood release. Though some new minor features may be included. Apple has to have something under their sleeve... "... oh & one more thing"
There were a few features that didn't make it into Leopard, but considering that Apple was developing another new product & OS X platform at the same time as well as working on a new version of its web services.... they bit-off more than they should have there. The iPhone clearly was pushed out less developed than Apple had wanted, but felt that they had to release the iPhone soon
Quote:
Originally Posted by macxpress
I too would like to know what features were dropped. I guess the over 300 new features in 10.5 weren't enough???
Sorry to post in such an old thread. Was looking around the web for 7 vs SL. I do have some questions for the die hard Mac fans. I have been using Windows(3.1 was my first) since I started using computers. Since 2004 I have also dual booted Linux, currently running Gentoo and Sidux. Now I am a Electrical Engineer and a Computer Engineer, so I do a lot of coding. We have Macs in one of our labs, iMacs I think. Now these aren't old by any means, purchased within the last year. They have bootcamp on them so I reset one and booted into OSX (They are normally in XP since everything most people need at my school only runs in Windows like some CAD programs). Anyway I played around on it for about 4 hours, not a huge amount of time but enough to get a feel for it. I don't really see what the big deal is in all honesty. I couldn't find anything OSX did better/faster/more stably than my normal desktop, which cost about half as much as these bought at the same time. I would love to have an hour or two long discussion with someone about it, just PM me your AIM or something. I can never find anyone who uses them at my school to talk to about them other than the ones who just like them because they are pretty (Not joking, only reason they got it over a PC was because they thought it looked better).
Sorry to post in such an old thread. Was looking around the web for 7 vs SL. I do have some questions for the die hard Mac fans. I have been using Windows(3.1 was my first) since I started using computers. Since 2004 I have also dual booted Linux, currently running Gentoo and Sidux. Now I am a Electrical Engineer and a Computer Engineer, so I do a lot of coding. We have Macs in one of our labs, iMacs I think. Now these aren't old by any means, purchased within the last year. They have bootcamp on them so I reset one and booted into OSX (They are normally in XP since everything most people need at my school only runs in Windows like some CAD programs). Anyway I played around on it for about 4 hours, not a huge amount of time but enough to get a feel for it. I don't really see what the big deal is in all honesty. I couldn't find anything OSX did better/faster/more stably than my normal desktop, which cost about half as much as these bought at the same time. I would love to have an hour or two long discussion with someone about it, just PM me your AIM or something. I can never find anyone who uses them at my school to talk to about them other than the ones who just like them because they are pretty (Not joking, only reason they got it over a PC was because they thought it looked better).
Go into the applications folder, hit command-a. Then hit command-o. After about 2 mins, when everything is open, start using the programs. The system doesn't bog when everything is open. Test it out, leave everything open over night. Come back to it the next day and start using the machine.
Some of the shortcuts make more sense. Probably sounds foolish to you being a computer user forever, but command-q for quit is easier to remember than alt-f4, for example.
Installing applications is another thing I found easier when I started using OS X. They are like "portable" versions of Windows applications you find people making.
Another point, which I think you missed entirely, is you can boot Windows, Linux, OS X all on the same machine. So for a place like a lab they are a perfect fit.
Some things are just easier, like importing photos for instance. Plug the camera in, click import. Look at photos. Most applications have that type of simplicity in mind.
Perhaps the machine is over-engineered for an engineer, and too simple. For the average non-733t computer user, OS X is easier. Whether they admit it or not
Sorry to post in such an old thread. Was looking around the web for 7 vs SL. I do have some questions for the die hard Mac fans. I have been using Windows(3.1 was my first) since I started using computers. Since 2004 I have also dual booted Linux, currently running Gentoo and Sidux. Now I am a Electrical Engineer and a Computer Engineer, so I do a lot of coding. We have Macs in one of our labs, iMacs I think. Now these aren't old by any means, purchased within the last year. They have bootcamp on them so I reset one and booted into OSX (They are normally in XP since everything most people need at my school only runs in Windows like some CAD programs). Anyway I played around on it for about 4 hours, not a huge amount of time but enough to get a feel for it. I don't really see what the big deal is in all honesty. I couldn't find anything OSX did better/faster/more stably than my normal desktop, which cost about half as much as these bought at the same time. I would love to have an hour or two long discussion with someone about it, just PM me your AIM or something. I can never find anyone who uses them at my school to talk to about them other than the ones who just like them because they are pretty (Not joking, only reason they got it over a PC was because they thought it looked better).
There are many differences between Mac and PC at all levels - many of which you may not truly appreciate unless you were to use Mac exclusively for a period of time then go back to PC.
Yes there are very fast Windows based machines out there - and yes there are apps that are either more up to date or better suited to running on windows - or cases such as excel which has tons of keyboard shortcuts that do not work on the Mac version. and there are even folks using windows who have very stable systems that do not need rebooting for days and days or who almost never get malware on their machines.
I have used and owned Macs since about 1987 and have used and supported PCs for about as long. Today I used both Mac and PC side by side pretty much every day. In my experience there is a world of difference in the amount of time and effort that it takes to keep a windows machine running properly compared to a Mac. My current PC ( a Lenovo T61p ) typically needs to be rebooted every week or so and went through a period where it was getting blue screens nearly every day until I sent some major effort on cleaning and uninstalling whereas my current primary Mac started somewhere around OS X 10.3 and has been upgraded to every version since and often is running for 30 days or more between reboots and then generally because of a required reboot based on an update - while windows has to reboot constantly for just about anything to get installed or updated.
My perception of it overall - is that a Mac is designed from a user perspective where the user comes first - while windows is designed from a machine perspective where the operating system comes first.
I could go on and on - not sure how much good it will do - but the sentiment on the Mac that it just works is very accurate - although on the flip side when a Mac goes wrong it can be a bit more difficult to figure out how to fix it.
as mentioned consistent behavior across apps is much better on Mac OS than Windows - although windows has been getting better - years ago ever PC software vendor made up their own keyboard shortcuts.
Comments
It's apparent you misunderstood the structure of my sentence. I did not say all apps that run in compatibility mode are slower, I said when 32bit apps run slower in compatibility mode, that's a problem.
That is an issue. Maybe it's not a major issue (at least for now), but it is an issue that affects both consumers and developers who have to deal with unpredictable performance in 64bit Vista when writing apps for the far more prevalent 32bit Vista.
Having run Vista 64-bit for a about one and a half years now I can say that there have been very few (maybe 3-5 at most) 32-bit programs that have caused any problems. The ones that did were always stuff that hooks into the operating system's things and add features or change something. Anything that is normal (as in just a program running on the OS) works just as well as it would in the 32-bit version. I've never had to run anything in compatibility mode really.
I don't really even see a point in having a 32-bit version of Vista because all the computers that run it well have 64-bit processors. I suppose there is a point for Win7 because it's going to be used in much slower systems that may have 32-bit processors.
Having run Vista 64-bit for a about one and a half years now I can say that there have been very few (maybe 3-5 at most) 32-bit programs that have caused any problems. The ones that did were always stuff that hooks into the operating system's things and add features or change something. Anything that is normal (as in just a program running on the OS) works just as well as it would in the 32-bit version. I've never had to run anything in compatibility mode really.
I don't really even see a point in having a 32-bit version of Vista because all the computers that run it well have 64-bit processors. I suppose there is a point for Win7 because it's going to be used in much slower systems that may have 32-bit processors.
If you feel it's not a big issue, that's fine. That's reasonable. What I took issue with (pardon the pun), was the assertion that it was a non-issue, which obviously isn't true.
But 64bit Vista (and 64bit Win7) runs 32bit apps in a compatibility mode, which is in contrast to Leopard (and when it's released, Snow Leopard) which runs 32bit and 64bit apps natively.
It's apparent you misunderstood the structure of my sentence. I did not say all apps that run in compatibility mode are slower, I said when 32bit apps run slower in compatibility mode, that's a problem.
That is an issue. Maybe it's not a major issue (at least for now), but it is an issue that affects both consumers and developers who have to deal with unpredictable performance in 64bit Vista when writing apps for the far more prevalent 32bit Vista.
Obviously we don't agree on definition of an issue. For me, if difference in application's performance is not noticeable, that is not an issue. Each phenomenon needs to reach specific threshold in order to become an issue. Everything else is looking for a needle in a hay stack.
Obviously we don't agree on definition of an issue. For me, if difference in application's performance is not noticeable, that is not an issue. Each phenomenon needs to reach specific threshold in order to become an issue. Everything else is looking for a needle in a hay stack.
You've already noted that just as some 32bit apps run the same and just as some run faster, some run slower, with a "glorious handful" running "much" slower, and some don't run at all. If that's not an issue, I don't know what is.
Maybe you should just admit you made an overly simplistic statement that weakened your argument when you could have said it was a negligible issue, or something to that effect.
You've already noted that just as some 32bit apps run the same and just as some run faster, some run slower, with a "glorious handful" running "much" slower, and some don't run at all. If that's not an issue, I don't know what is.
Maybe you should just admit you made an overly simplistic statement that weakened your argument when you could have said it was a negligible issue, or something to that effect.
Yes, there were 3-4 applications that used to run much slower (as of April 2008). Don't know if they still do. Non of them is major application (in terms of being widely used). If you are one of users who require them, you got an issue. If you are among 99.9% (freely estimated) not using them, you have no issue.
But yes, technically, you can say there still is negligible issue. In real life, it is so negligible that it practically is non-issue. I prefer real-life, so I'll stick to my arguments. Otherwise, I feel my life would be very sad because it would be so full of "issues" I just would not have enough time left to enjoy it.
Maybe you should admit that you, indeed, are looking for needle in a haystack..?
We can continue with this for ever.
Yes, there were 3-4 applications that used to run much slower (as of April 2008). Don't know if they still do. Non of them is major application (in terms of being widely used). If you are one of users who require them, you got an issue. If you are among 99.9% (freely estimated) not using them, you have no issue.
But yes, technically, you can say there still is negligible issue. In real life, it is so negligible that it practically is non-issue. I prefer real-life, so I'll stick to my arguments. Otherwise, I feel my life would be very sad because it would be so full of "issues" I just would not have enough time left to enjoy it.
Maybe you should admit that you, indeed, are looking for needle in a haystack..?
We can continue with this for ever.
No need to continue as you've now acknowledged the difference.
Thank you.
No need to continue as you've now acknowledged the difference.
Thank you.
Being half Greek - and in spirit of my forefathers (of which some might have been a colleague to Aristotle, Plato or whoever
... We should also keep in mind that definition of a word issue is (quote) an important question that is in dispute and must be settled. Also (quote) The word "issue" is popularly misused in lieu of "problem".
Now, we have agreed that problem is minor, and being such it can not be important, thus can not be an issue. Even if problem is significant (which it is not), it still is not an issue as it would be misuse of that word.
Meaning that, at the end of a day, it is non-issue, however you look at it
Cheers.
My 2 cents on most of these topics...
I'm using an iBook G4 right now. How is this related? Complex, so bear with me, I'll cover all bases of why I have problems with the Mac vs. PC, 7 vs 10.6, iPhone vs. any-other-smartphone debates..
I grew up when Windows was unheard of in the mainstream. 3.1 was on my DOS-based computer my father built me. At school, we used OLD Apples, I couldn't quote a model number, they were 5.25" floppy based machines. Then I used the newer Macs just before the iMac hit, as well as had chances to use the newer iMacs when they came out. I enjoyed my experiences on all the old systems, and really had very little time with OSX. I did, however, go through all the Windows 9x releases, and got my taste at understanding all the underpinnings to the system. It was when a friend of mine was trashing her old iMac G3 500mhz that I took it as my chance to try out the competition. My view? I loved it. It was fun, in 2004. By that time I had gone from my dad's home-built-for-me PC to a Compaq, then a Dell. In 2004 i chose to build my own system, which to me ended up being a fantastic experience, I had a blast doing it. In fact, 2 years later in 2006 i scrapped the innards for a new Core 2 Duo when they just hit the market. That system has been very reliable and definitely one of my favorites.
But pulling back the Mac side of things, in 2005 I decided I really needed a laptop to be mobile, and the only thing I felt comfortable with trying as a mobile platform was OSX's security, so I headed to the closest Mac distributer (an hour drive to Cleveland, OH at the Apple store there) and picked up an iBook G4. That was the beginning of my days with TRULY owning a Mac. And looking back, some days I was glad, others, well, like today, I really regret it. I spent 1400 bucks on the best iBook I could get, the 14-inch model, 1.42GHz. Now, my problem arose as 2006 brought the Intel Macs. NOONE at that store told me that the Intel transition was coming, and not a soul on here could tell me that noone knew it was coming. It was known that the G5 was too hot to keep on pushing it higher in GHz. So I became stuck with obsolete technology immediately. I bought Microsoft's VirtualPC that day so that I could dabble with compatibility protection, just in case anything on my PC wouldn't run on the iBook. That right there should have told the Apple Store employees that I was a PC users and wanted the features of an Intel processor. I was absolutely devastated when I heard Snow Leopard will not support PowerPC Macs, because I bought the iBook hoping to have it for 5-10 years. It's lucky it lasted this long. The charger broke in 2007 and thanks to the "Apple Tax", I was supposed to pay full price for the replacement because my AppleCare Protection Plan didn't cover it for some reason or another. BS... Seriously. I waited until August 2008 to buy a new charger, while the laptop sat on a shelf, disassembled into pieces to get a broken charger tip out of the DC-in board. It was in November or December 2008 that my battery decided it's no longer going to report the appropriate charge. I've tried killing the battery completely and calibrating it, nothing fixed it. A new battery: $130+tax. No, I don't think so. In fact, I've officially given up on the Mac ecosystem. It was a pricey place to begin with, and looking now, it's still pricey, especially in these hard economic times. I'm on limited, fixed UE income. A new MacBook costs just about the same as my iBook did. Forget it. I hate to say it, but I just ordered my iBook replacement, an Acer Aspire One netbook with Linux (so i can later replace it with another OS, which i hear Mac OSX fits on it perfectly), and it cost me just nary the price of 2 iBook batteries and a new charger. 307.91 with shipping. Seriously, a new laptop that could do basically the same thing i used my iBook for, and since I now understand how to play it safe online with security, Vista and eventually Windows 7 will be on that laptop, probably dual-booting with OSX for the days when I want to feel nostalgic. The iBook did miss out on one thing i value more than anything: Gaming. Sure the Intel push on the Macs has made that much easier, especially with Boot Camp. But my biggest grump with Apple is the choice in hardware. Unless I get a Mac Pro with the over-the-top Xenon processor, i'm stuck with a Core 2 Duo that is from the LAPTOP lineage. I want desktop power. So this year I'm buying piece-by-piece my desktop replacement, a Core i7-powered monster. Therein lies the big thing that a growing community of enthusiasts can enjoy, buying parts for their computers, and changing them on their own schedule. Something that a Mac will never satisfy with me. And see, my rationale in 2005 was that PC laptops have limited, if any, upgrade potential, so why not get the iBook.
Of course my next gripe was the Mac OSX lineage. I used Panther on that G3 I had received. And that was, in all honesty, a downloaded copy. My iBook came with Tiger of course, enjoyable but dog-slow. Then Leopard hit the shelves, and in all honesty I just forked out 259 bucks for a Vista Ultimate upgrade, on top of a $130 purchase of XP Media Center 2005 in 2005. No need to buy more OS's. I am running Leopard though, thanks to a friend with the family license. The funny part is, Apple makes no attempt to ensure that only 5 Macs (or 3 or whatever it is) receive an upgrade. So I don't care. At any rate, I can praise Time Machine as the number one feature of Leopard I'm using on a daily basis. I actually never backed up ANY of my computers until a hard drive crash in 2006 lost everything personal I had accumulated and moved from PC to PC with me since I was 6. My iPod had at least my music, but none of my pictures or save games. Oh it had my pictures, just not the full-sized ones. So i gave up on them, sadly. And the iPod. had 2 of them, 3G and 4G Photo. Now i've been using a Zune 30GB since November 2006 and very satisfied. Sure it doesn't sync with my iBook, but it doesn't matter, I don't keep my music on here anyway due to the lack of hard drive space.
Now as for the Windows side of this post, I've grown to love Windows since XP, especially Media Center. In fact, Media Center has become my sole means of watching TV. DVR's are expensive to have on a monthly basis, plus with the Zune automatically and wirelessly syncing my TV shows I can take them on the road, or when I get my 360 later this year, I can use the Media Center Extender feature. Vista just made that a lot better. It's had its bad times, I'll admit it, and definitely feel like I was screwed on my hardware. But finally the small problem that was leftover after all my problems was thermal control. My Core 2 Duo would never clock down when idle in Vista, and in September of last year my particular motherboard got a driver update finally for Vista. So now I'm content. Even the backup features are pretty fleshed out, as others have said. Windows 7 promises to make that better, in fact i just completed a week-long endeavor reformatting my PC for Windows 7. It runs faster than Vista, and actually I'm noting it's faster than XP as well on my system. But considering I moved to 64-bits last winter, I can't really compare to XP x64. That's another issue I noticed having a lot of debate on this thread. 64 compatibility for me has been 100% on the dot, all of my games work, with barely anything other than a few needing compatibility mode set up on their executables, and 1 game needing me to approve a UAC prompt every time I launch it. Virus protection is the main program that anyone has to worry about not working in 64-bit unless it's compiled for 64-bit. I don't use virus protection, because I have enough common sense to know what to and not to open. Most of the time i use a virtual machine running XP to download anything that might be suspicious in nature, and have AVG free virus protection in there. That may change this year with Microsoft's new free antivirus utility that will replace OneCare (which I beta tested). In comparison to Time Machine, the backup in 7 is finally on-the-dot, with whole system recovery rolled into the original Vista backups. Sure, complete PC backup was in Vista, but as a separate backup, and not one I liked to use because it ate up a lot of space. Now that's been fixed. Along with UAC, which I'll admit was annoying most days, but finally became second nature much like OSX's security prompts. Ultimately, though, Windows 7 looks like the Windows Microsoft wanted to produce as Vista originally. A lot of things were held off just to get the darned thing out of the door and into the wild. I feel a tad bit screwed by paying so much, and not getting as much as I'm getting in Windows 7. Sure it's not a major upgrade, but looking at the sweet-sweet love that was Windows XP, 7 looks like a whole new platform. It will at least renew everyone's trust in Microsoft to deliver a great OS.
I know most of the Apple Fanboys would call me out on all this, but they do have practical points in the PC market. The Media Center alone sold me on never leaving behind Windows. And the continued ignorance to PC gaming standards in Mac OSX have also kept me from a 100% transition. From Sept 2007 to Aug 2008 I was 100% a PC. Now I'm back to 50/50, iBook when i'm gone from home (though i do use it to remote desktop into my PC at home), but I really want to see how Windows 7 completes the package, especially with the "netbook" version they have touted, because that wouldn't be needed on my netbook, it runs great with 7 Ultimate.
I'm not shooting anyone down, though. It may just be my opinion. The wonderful world of Windows has definitely gotten much better. And in the enterprise, it's a good point to make that Apple will never capture the market Microsoft has. Home users, it should be interesting to see. The Mac makes up 7% of the market still, according to recent reports. And with Steve Jobs possibly going to be leaving Apple for good, the responses should be interesting from the Mac community. Bill Gates left Microsoft, and interestingly enough, things got a bit better. But i think Jim Allchin was more to blame for Windows Vista's flop than Gates.
My suggestions for Apple would be to stop the name calling game. Time Machine, it's easy to use, yeah. But i'll tell ya what, I have more faith in my Vista/7 backups than i do Time Machine. I've restored my iBook at least 3 times from Time Machine backups... that were on a Windows computer, being shared through an Ubuntu Server virtual PC session running on that Windows computer. Windows, i've never really had to restore it, but i did check out the features and functionality, and it is very quick, especially when compared to my restores both networked and via external HDD on OSX. OSX itself needs to open up to be used on other platforms, I think, or Apple will fail, especially with these hard economic times. Bill Gates' vision was for a PC in every home. He got that, and then some. What's Apple's vision? Cater only to the rich or the ones that want to make themselves bankrupt? (yeah, the Apple credit card i was paying on is now been in collections for 2 years, oh well). It's the price of the hardware, and the control over the hardware that while it may make the platform great for certain audiences, the mainstream market (businesses) aren't going to be won over easily. And gamers will never leave behind Windows as long as the game studios have no incentive to use OSX. DirectX is a very powerful, very strong API, and a hard one, no doubt, to convert to the Mac.
As I said before though, I think the real icing on the cake was the drop for PowerPC. That's a shame when in 2005, I looked at a laptop I pictured on having til I was at least 26. I'm 22 and have nothing to look forward to with this laptop. Not to mention all the hardware failures (from DVD burner, to screen, charger, and battery). I'm already experiencing issues with the new charger that are frustrating me. Sure they probably have no problems with the MagSafe connectors compared to these old round ones, but it really would have been nice to know what was coming. That's the biggest issue with the Apple Marketing Machine. Say NOTHING until the product is in the stores. At least with my PC I know what to expect is coming later on this year. Incremental updates to the Core i7, small speed increases to DDR3, maybe a new GeForce chipset (i'm still using a 7900GTX). Things I can progressively update on my own time.
I apologize for the rant, but there was a lot of anger I had pent up because of the way this article was so heavily biased toward OSX. Sure, this is an Apple site. But for crying out loud, be a responsible reporter. Unbiased opinions are by far the more valuable ones. You can't impress an Apple Fanboy with a new Windows, point blank, but at least present the facts, and not drum up small things that only a small fraction of people may ever experience (best example being 64-bit compatibility, which I think Microsoft almost should have mandated for this release). I know that all it took was Snow Leopard's and Windows 7's features being announced and my destiny for at least the next 5 years should be pretty well set in stone. Doesn't mean I won't try to put Snow Leopard on my netbook though.
I apologize for the rant, but there was a lot of anger I had pent up because of the way this article was so heavily biased toward OSX. Sure, this is an Apple site. But for crying out loud, be a responsible reporter. Unbiased opinions are by far the more valuable ones.
I'm sorry your laptop broke. but you steal Apple's software whilst at spending lots of money on Microsoft's Ultimate (more expensive) goodies, have a huge chip on your shoulder cause Apple wouldn't tell you which products they were bringing out in 6/8 months time and then you lecture us on how we should be unbiased and reasonable!
Guess what : Calling people Mac Fanboys isn't going to win you any friends.
Guess what: the general PC press isn't that friendly to Apple. Tough.
There are many advantages to owning a Mac. If you want the media centre features, you want to change parts and experiment with over-clocking and you want to play games then you want the Windows platform. Fine. Not everyone does. Windows doesn't work for me.
2) You want to play computer games that aren't made by Blizzard and are less than 2 years old.
4) You don't like the limited software choices that a Mac offers (which is related to 2)..
For your software may == games.
Someone convince on the strength of the Windows Application base. I know there are a lot, but where's the quality?
Link me to the Windows equivalent of this class of software. None of these items are cross platform. They are all OS X products. Many are Leopard products. Suggested equivalents should be Windows only software and show off the best Windows has to offer in user experience.
Equally none of these are from Apple, so none of the equivalents should come from Microsoft.
OmniGraffle
CSSEdit
Billings 3
Coda
Delicious Library
Versions
Little Snapper
ScreenFlow
Yojimbo
BeeDocs
Checkout
Macnification
Scrivener
Pixelmator
GarageSale
Things
XBase
Bento
VectorDesigner
MacGourmet
Direct Mail
Times
Mac users — feel free to add suggestions to the list!
Now I doubt anyone will ever have a use for all of these apps (I don't, but I use some), but each one has a certain charm and efficiency common to true Mac platform. Mac apps seem to have more time and effort put into making them usable. Independent Mac development community is amazingly innovative and brings out some wonderful products. Most of them are reasonably priced too. When I look at WIndows, I don't see the care and I don't see the quality.]
I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.
PS: The discussion is not about whether you individually (or “Windows users” as a collective) would use these applications, the discussion is about about the fit and finish of these applications. I can't stress that enough.
A 20" iMac with 9600 GT graphics, would be just nice. I'll run Windows and Mac on it, and I know I don't have to tinker with the innards and it will last me a good 2 years (2-3 years max, I mean, lets face it, before its time to get ready for 16core Macs with OS X 10.7 ... to be in the game on the "cutting edge" and reasonably enjoying it.)
Apologies if I am rambling but just reading through the posts here I thought I'd chip in.
Typing this on an iBook G4 933mhz, by the way (my parents).
Given the current economic climate I may just try and save up as much as possible this year.
There were a few features that didn't make it into Leopard, but considering that Apple was developing another new product & OS X platform at the same time as well as working on a new version of its web services.... they bit-off more than they should have there. The iPhone clearly was pushed out less developed than Apple had wanted, but felt that they had to release the iPhone soon
I too would like to know what features were dropped. I guess the over 300 new features in 10.5 weren't enough???
Sorry to post in such an old thread. Was looking around the web for 7 vs SL. I do have some questions for the die hard Mac fans. I have been using Windows(3.1 was my first) since I started using computers. Since 2004 I have also dual booted Linux, currently running Gentoo and Sidux. Now I am a Electrical Engineer and a Computer Engineer, so I do a lot of coding. We have Macs in one of our labs, iMacs I think. Now these aren't old by any means, purchased within the last year. They have bootcamp on them so I reset one and booted into OSX (They are normally in XP since everything most people need at my school only runs in Windows like some CAD programs). Anyway I played around on it for about 4 hours, not a huge amount of time but enough to get a feel for it. I don't really see what the big deal is in all honesty. I couldn't find anything OSX did better/faster/more stably than my normal desktop, which cost about half as much as these bought at the same time. I would love to have an hour or two long discussion with someone about it, just PM me your AIM or something. I can never find anyone who uses them at my school to talk to about them other than the ones who just like them because they are pretty (Not joking, only reason they got it over a PC was because they thought it looked better).
Go into the applications folder, hit command-a. Then hit command-o. After about 2 mins, when everything is open, start using the programs. The system doesn't bog when everything is open. Test it out, leave everything open over night. Come back to it the next day and start using the machine.
Some of the shortcuts make more sense. Probably sounds foolish to you being a computer user forever, but command-q for quit is easier to remember than alt-f4, for example.
Installing applications is another thing I found easier when I started using OS X. They are like "portable" versions of Windows applications you find people making.
Another point, which I think you missed entirely, is you can boot Windows, Linux, OS X all on the same machine. So for a place like a lab they are a perfect fit.
Some things are just easier, like importing photos for instance. Plug the camera in, click import. Look at photos. Most applications have that type of simplicity in mind.
Perhaps the machine is over-engineered for an engineer, and too simple. For the average non-733t computer user, OS X is easier. Whether they admit it or not
Sorry to post in such an old thread. Was looking around the web for 7 vs SL. I do have some questions for the die hard Mac fans. I have been using Windows(3.1 was my first) since I started using computers. Since 2004 I have also dual booted Linux, currently running Gentoo and Sidux. Now I am a Electrical Engineer and a Computer Engineer, so I do a lot of coding. We have Macs in one of our labs, iMacs I think. Now these aren't old by any means, purchased within the last year. They have bootcamp on them so I reset one and booted into OSX (They are normally in XP since everything most people need at my school only runs in Windows like some CAD programs). Anyway I played around on it for about 4 hours, not a huge amount of time but enough to get a feel for it. I don't really see what the big deal is in all honesty. I couldn't find anything OSX did better/faster/more stably than my normal desktop, which cost about half as much as these bought at the same time. I would love to have an hour or two long discussion with someone about it, just PM me your AIM or something. I can never find anyone who uses them at my school to talk to about them other than the ones who just like them because they are pretty (Not joking, only reason they got it over a PC was because they thought it looked better).
There are many differences between Mac and PC at all levels - many of which you may not truly appreciate unless you were to use Mac exclusively for a period of time then go back to PC.
Yes there are very fast Windows based machines out there - and yes there are apps that are either more up to date or better suited to running on windows - or cases such as excel which has tons of keyboard shortcuts that do not work on the Mac version. and there are even folks using windows who have very stable systems that do not need rebooting for days and days or who almost never get malware on their machines.
I have used and owned Macs since about 1987 and have used and supported PCs for about as long. Today I used both Mac and PC side by side pretty much every day. In my experience there is a world of difference in the amount of time and effort that it takes to keep a windows machine running properly compared to a Mac. My current PC ( a Lenovo T61p ) typically needs to be rebooted every week or so and went through a period where it was getting blue screens nearly every day until I sent some major effort on cleaning and uninstalling whereas my current primary Mac started somewhere around OS X 10.3 and has been upgraded to every version since and often is running for 30 days or more between reboots and then generally because of a required reboot based on an update - while windows has to reboot constantly for just about anything to get installed or updated.
My perception of it overall - is that a Mac is designed from a user perspective where the user comes first - while windows is designed from a machine perspective where the operating system comes first.
I could go on and on - not sure how much good it will do - but the sentiment on the Mac that it just works is very accurate - although on the flip side when a Mac goes wrong it can be a bit more difficult to figure out how to fix it.
as mentioned consistent behavior across apps is much better on Mac OS than Windows - although windows has been getting better - years ago ever PC software vendor made up their own keyboard shortcuts.