Mac OS X for pro users or not?

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Recently I have seen some discussions where pro users say that they are still using OS9 and they aren't going to switch into OS X. Some pros might even still use 8.6 and older versions of software/hardware. Most pro users say: "I am not moving into OS X, because everything works fine and our collaborators are using same systems." Why you should move into OS X, if your systems work well under OS9, nobody around you isn't using OS X and you can do well your daily work with OS9.



How many is actually doing business with OS X?



Is there any fears, that pros aren't moving into OS X and Apple starts loosing market share in the future?



In the future maybe biggest thing for Apple is to get pros moving into OS X. This might not happen quite soon. Transition into OS X might be harder thing for Apple what they might have ever thought, because people have to buy new hardware & software -> update their systems. That isn't easiest thing. Costs against benefits.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 39
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    The pros your talking about are most certainly all involved into DTP or similar stuff (ie Quark and shit). They're afraid to move to anything new because they're afraid that they antiquated version of Quark is not going to make the jump.

    Pros in other areas, such as 3D, networks etc are embracing OS X.

    Once Quark gets out with their version for OS X (or is replacedby InDesign alltogether), these people will start to switch as well.

    I think it's a safe bet to assume that the switch from OS 9 to OS X is a smaller step than from OS 9 to Windows XP, so actually it's not Apple having the problem, it's the pros being too pussy for some changes.

    My Dad is also still typing his letters on a 5200/75 with OS 7.5.5 although he has a fat TiBook 550 with OS 9 and OS X. Too pussy to drop the old machine and move everything over to the new one. And then of course complaining that the two different versions of Word have trouble with each other when moving files from one to another.

    (btw Word is the shite anyway).



    Take the courage and save yourself a lot of time and nerve. The sooner the better.



    G-News
  • Reply 2 of 39
    OS9 works for most people, and since grafix users and such doesnt have the need for a *NIX command line, then why should they switch?

    They might do it when Quark 5, OSX only, is out, but untill now, they have just about 0% reason to do it!
  • Reply 3 of 39
    bellebelle Posts: 1,574member
    Moving to Mac OS X.
  • Reply 4 of 39
    I have just moved all the machines, apart from two, over to OS X Jag-wire. We are a pre-press and design company, mainly using Quark, Photoshop & Illustrator. I have to say that everything works fine, just a few teething problems with searches on our raids and people learning the new OS.



    I'd recommend it to anyone now that Jag-wire is out. Having said that, I get people shouting for my help every day, but it is getting less and less as they learn new techniques..... I guess that's the price for being a nerd!!



    [ 11-26-2002: Message edited by: Crustibooga ]</p>
  • Reply 5 of 39
    xypexype Posts: 672member
    [quote]Originally posted by T'hain Esh Kelch:

    <strong>OS9 works for most people, and since grafix users and such doesnt have the need for a *NIX command line, then why should they switch?

    They might do it when Quark 5, OSX only, is out, but untill now, they have just about 0% reason to do it!</strong><hr></blockquote>



    0% reason to switch to OSX? What are you talking about - not serious work I assume, or? Do you like OS9 freezing on you? Do you like not being able to do real multitasking? Is shitty memory managment a plus when working with big files? No. Those are all pretty nice reasons to switch to OSX.



    Quark is a piece of _shit_ compared to InDesign 2.0 and I most real graphic designers I know (not the "oh, look, it can do dropshadows!" types) are switching to InDesign and certainly many are switching to OSX because they like the idea of a system that doesn't freeze.



    Besides, those who refuse to switch are, imho, running at risk of being left behind by people/companies who can be more productive with OSX. At 10.0 it wasn't mature enough, but 10.2 is nice.
  • Reply 6 of 39
    &lt;RANT SIZE="Small" SARCASM="off"&gt;

    Speaking as a professional, I made the "switch" but am still waiting for more native software for OS X.



    These being: Music sequencing and recording software, more professional peripherals that work in X.



    It's been painful. I've enjoyed Jaguar, and the benefits of the Audio/MIDI control panel, but I would tell professional studios that use 8/9 to stick with it until they NEED to upgrade, and only when the software and hardware they use is native to OS X. Currently Logic Audio is the only professional app in X, and it's owned by Apple. Pro Tools is coming, but isn't out yet, as is Digital Performer.



    Browbeating someone by saying Jaguar doesn't crash, has better memory management, etc. doesn't help either. For a lot of musicians the memory management scheme in 9 is actually BETTER.



    Why? Becuase they can tell ONE APP to be a total system hog and take up all of the memory bandwidth. That way they don't have to worry about random processes and whatnot interfering in the recording process.



    For studios who need to make money, and are operating on a limited budget, OS X is not ready for prime time, but does have a promising future.

    &lt;/RANT&gt;
  • Reply 7 of 39
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    For serious graphic designers, there are still issues.



    Quarkless. Of course Quark isn't yet native. InDesign is very good and shows a lot of promise but many companies and firms are (or believe themselves to be) locked into Quark and will not budge. Quark in Classic is usable, but just barely.



    Bad Illustrator.Illustrator on X was Adobe's first port and shows it. It needs a lot of work under the hood. It is numbingly sluggish.



    Meanwhile, for older machines and intensive work in single apps, OS X does take its toll in speed. Printing is slow. Older peripherals need to be replaced. And so on.



    Anyway. I love OS X, and many designers will too, so I'm not being gloomy, just realistic. I expect that an OS X-native Quark, increasing number of apps (including Adobe) going OS X-only, steadily better performance with next revision of Carbon apps, and 10.3/Panther will solve all these issues. Not to mention Apple's new chip in the 2nd half of next year as an incentive to upgrade.



    '03/'04 will be OS X's coming of age.
  • Reply 8 of 39
    xypexype Posts: 672member
    [quote]Originally posted by Composer:

    <strong>Why? Becuase they can tell ONE APP to be a total system hog and take up all of the memory bandwidth. That way they don't have to worry about random processes and whatnot interfering in the recording process.



    For studios who need to make money, and are operating on a limited budget, OS X is not ready for prime time, but does have a promising future.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I agree completely.



    One question I have - under WindowsNT+ and Linux OSes I foud that one can give one App "priority" treatment, so the "scheduler" that is taking care of the multitasking hands more resources to the one App - since OSX is based on Unix, I guess something like that should be possible.



    But true, the audio people still better wait, but DTP and graphics (be it 2D or 3D) are well off with OSX.
  • Reply 9 of 39
    stunnedstunned Posts: 1,096member
    OS X is still not very accepted by many hardware developers. Many hardware such as printers, scanners and cameras are only supported on OS 9. And many broadband modems's drivers also work on OS 9 only.



    Think it will take a while before OS X becomes more widely accepted
  • Reply 10 of 39
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    [quote]Originally posted by xype:

    <strong>

    One question I have - under WindowsNT+ and Linux OSes I foud that one can give one App "priority" treatment, so the "scheduler" that is taking care of the multitasking hands more resources to the one App - since OSX is based on Unix, I guess something like that should be possible.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    OS X does indeed have support for real-time threads.



    <a href="http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Darwin/General/KernelProgramming/scheduler/_Overview_of_Scheduling.html"; target="_blank">Apple Dev: scheduling</a>



    So it's up to developers to integrate this into their apps, where it's appropriate and necessary.



    But also, yes -- for simple user-controlled task scheduling, you can do in OS X right now using the 'nice' command in the Terminal. You can also create shell scripts for automated nicing and renicing tasks.



    And a number of free GUI tools exist for this as well -- just look under 'nice' or 'nicer' in versiontracker. Nicer is free, Renicer seems a bit more up-to-date, and is $7.



    You can also tell OS X to pay attention to a single task by just quitting other apps and processes. Crude but mostly effective. (Disclaimer: I suspect this isn't sufficient for professional recording, where I imagine the slightest blip can cause problems.)



    [ 11-26-2002: Message edited by: Hobbes ]</p>
  • Reply 11 of 39
    [quote]Originally posted by Composer:

    <strong>&lt;RANT SIZE="Small" SARCASM="off"&gt;

    Speaking as a professional, I made the "switch" but am still waiting for more native software for OS X.



    These being: Music sequencing and recording software, more professional peripherals that work in X.



    It's been painful. I've enjoyed Jaguar, and the benefits of the Audio/MIDI control panel, but I would tell professional studios that use 8/9 to stick with it until they NEED to upgrade, and only when the software and hardware they use is native to OS X. Currently Logic Audio is the only professional app in X, and it's owned by Apple. Pro Tools is coming, but isn't out yet, as is Digital Performer.



    Browbeating someone by saying Jaguar doesn't crash, has better memory management, etc. doesn't help either. For a lot of musicians the memory management scheme in 9 is actually BETTER.



    Why? Becuase they can tell ONE APP to be a total system hog and take up all of the memory bandwidth. That way they don't have to worry about random processes and whatnot interfering in the recording process.



    For studios who need to make money, and are operating on a limited budget, OS X is not ready for prime time, but does have a promising future.

    &lt;/RANT&gt;</strong><hr></blockquote>



    What about PEAK, DECK, Cubasis, et al???

    Here is a review of Peak 3.1.

    <a href="http://www.macuser.co.uk/reviews/reviews_story.php?id=32051"; target="_blank">http://www.macuser.co.uk/reviews/reviews_story.php?id=32051</a>;
  • Reply 12 of 39
    progmacprogmac Posts: 1,850member
    [quote]Originally posted by stunned:

    <strong>And many broadband modems's drivers also work on OS 9 only.</strong><hr></blockquote>

    Not to be nit-picky, but unless you use the USB connection (which you shouldn't be doing anyhow), this one really isn't an issue.
  • Reply 13 of 39
    kedakeda Posts: 722member
    We just got our copies of Jag in this week. I have been running Jag since it came out at work and have been on OSX as much as possible at home since 10.0. The transition has been long and painful.



    OSX is just now getting to a point where I think we can make a full-time commitment. But, I still wish it didn't hobble the HW so much. Beige G3s should be removed from the supported list. I have had to physically remove the drives and temporarily put them on newer Macs to finish the installs on 2 of them. 10.2.1 crashed on install an caused an iMac400 to be rendered useless...there have been problems.



    I think Apple is focused on the future and they are trying to 'encourage' users to buy new Macs. The problem is the cost. In this office alone, we have spent thousands of dollars to make the switch to OSX. This is in an environment which is very biased toward PCs.
  • Reply 14 of 39
    [quote]Originally posted by Hobbes:

    <strong>



    OS X does indeed have support for real-time threads.

    ...

    But also, yes -- for simple user-controlled task scheduling, you can do in OS X right now using the 'nice' command in the Terminal. You can also create shell scripts for automated nicing and renicing tasks.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    It is very sad that so many people are UNIX ignorant. "nice" is a users toy. The "nice" command in UNIX does absolutely nothing to Resource management and certainly does not provide any real-time processing.



    Even the highest priority process will be blocked from running while the lowest priority process forks a new process in BSD UNIX. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />



    [ 11-26-2002: Message edited by: MrBillData ]</p>
  • Reply 15 of 39
    I will gladly accept that OS X is a real-time OS if someone can show where the LWP documentation is for it.
  • Reply 16 of 39
    I've been running in X since 10.1 dropped. My primary work is in interactive, so all the apps, sans Director, are here.



    My Avid is still in 9 because Media Composer still runs in 9... and I'm pretty sure I'll need to upgrade to a Meridian boardset when they drop a X version anyway, and that won't be happening



    I never look back at OS 9. It is dreadful to use. It is harsh on the eyes and I've gotten used to OS X giving me uptimes measured in weeks instead of hours... not to mention the multitasking in X is a real timesaver; I don't care if Photoshop takes 20 seconds to load, because I can go do something else while it does that. It's great.



    My name is Jack Frost IV, and I'm a Designer
  • Reply 17 of 39
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    [quote]Originally posted by MrBillData:

    <strong>It is very sad that so many people are UNIX ignorant. "nice" is a users toy. The "nice" command in UNIX does absolutely nothing to Resource management and certainly does not provide any real-time processing.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Um, and where did I say that real-time processing was equivalent to using 'nice'?



    They're completely different.



    Nice can be useful, but -- as I said, and you seemed to ignore -- for activity in which processes cannot be interrupted, you just have to wait for the software developers to update their apps. After all, the Core Audio SDK was only just released two months ago.
  • Reply 17 of 39
    xypexype Posts: 672member
    [quote]Originally posted by M3D Jack:

    <strong>My name is Jack Frost IV, and I'm a Designer </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Teeheee! Someone wants a free iPod from Apple!
  • Reply 19 of 39
    A lot of people in video aren't switching, because many popular plugins haven't been ported.



    I've switched, and it's been painful. I still can't get over how SLOW OS X is, even in Jag.



    I am actually contemplating a switch to XP (faster OS, faster systems... just plain faster), since I need to buy a new computer soon. I am waiting until the next rev of the Powermac to make a decision. If Apple can pull something significantly faster out of it's lame ass, I will stay with them so I don't have to pay to crossgrade my software.
  • Reply 20 of 39
    M3D Jack

    Director is here. Director MX. Just saw it today on the apple site.

    enjoy.

    Flick.
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