The problem with that concept is: for obvious reasons, Apple would only do it if it could expand the Mac platform's market share. Could a convertible? Or a tablet PC? And if they could, why wouldn't Apple produce them themselves? Since Apple doesn't produce them, they probably believe that the needn't R&D wouldn't be justifiable based on projected sales, and that wouldn't be different for a third party either. (Even if you were to take a third party that already has experience with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, that's still a different story than using Mac OS X as a tablet computer.)
In all seriousness, I wonder how much additional effort and what it would require in general to add a wacom digitizer to a MBP. We know that Ink is already in the os, so the basic input method is there. I wonder what else would have to be done (aside from coercing MS to port OneNote).
I agree with Chucker (who posted as I was typing). Apple can't make niche computers, because OS X is itself a niche. but I think ultra-portables and tablets could catch on, especially as we see a growth in laptop sales - a rising tide raises all ships or whatever.
In all seriousness, I wonder how much additional effort and what it would require in general to add a wacom digitizer to a MBP. We know that Ink is already in the os, so the basic input method is there. I wonder what else would have to be done (aside from coercing MS to port OneNote).
Apple would want the solution to be classier than just have pen input and handwriting recognition. There's go to be a killer feature.
I agree with Chucker (who posted as I was typing). Apple can't make niche computers, because OS X is itself a niche. but I think ultra-portables and tablets could catch on, especially as we see a growth in laptop sales - a rising tide raises all ships or whatever.
Since a strong part of Apple's user base is graphics professionals, it makes me wonder why adding a digitizer isn't the no-brainer it appears to be. wonder how much they add to production cost...
Apple would want the solution to be classier than just have pen input and handwriting recognition. There's go to be a killer feature.
(What's so great about OneNote?)
go comondeer a tabletpc for a month and sit in on a chemistry class. Note consolodation is the primary advantage I see. I HATE having 8 binders on my bookshelf, one for each subject. And every time I flip a page of lined paper in thtat binder, the holes rip, creating a HUGE mess. (I guess I just get excited in class though. ) If you really want to know why OneNote is good, go check out MS's page on it. It really does have some nice features, not just aplicable to note taking, but junk that I personally have really wanted in my computer for a long time. Or, if you don't care, just ignore it. Up to you.
*edit* this post is a prime example of why I am NOT an English major.
Only Copland was replaced with something else. Vista won't be.
Additionally, while Apple was working on Copeland and OS X, it continued to release updates in the form of OSes 8 and 9. MS, meanwhile, is letting Vista rot. Seeing how those were going against Win98 and WinME, Apple wasn't in as dire of straits (it was still competitive). Currently, XP is up against Tiger and strong Linux distros, which are only getting better. XP is a badly outdated OS, OSes 8 and 9 weren't. For example, XP Home can't do more than 2 cores. At all. And XP doesn't support Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.
Hubris is one of the spikes that fatally impale great companies.
Vista is already delayed, and everyone knows it is going to be delayed again. There is nothing stopping Microsoft from delaying it by another 6 months and adding in whatever is missing from Visa that Apple announces for Leopard.
How would they be able to add something in 6 months if all they have done for the past three years is cut stuff?
This will be very interesting, and their stock is going to jump tomorrow, probably about 6%.
I'm sure Leopard will be good because they had the same banners last year. Maybe they will try to have this ready ahead of schedule and release it the same wekk that Vista comes out, if Vista somehow gets lucky and comes out before April. The only reason that Apple won't take Microsoft over in terms of market share or market cap is because the world will be in WW3 and everything will change.
But I'm excited for monday and can't wait to watch to see what is announced.
If you really want to know why OneNote is good, go check out MS's page on it. It really does have some nice features, not just aplicable to note taking, but junk that I personally have really wanted in my computer for a long time. Or, if you don't care, just ignore it. Up to you.
I'm really just curious how it stacks up against StickyBrain, VoodooPad, OmniOutliner and the likes.
The only reason that Apple won't take Microsoft over in terms of market share or market cap is because the world will be in WW3 and everything will change.
...? WW3, what does that have to do with anything? confused here, but it's 1 AM, that happens.
The only reason Apple will never overtake MS is because they don't want to. They can make more money riding the draft position in 2nd, taking only niche markets they're interested in, while ignoring low-margin or low-volume markets they can't make money in. Windells will always have higher marketshare, but it's going to be more and more in the crappy places. I expect Apple to become a dominant player in the workstation market, especially if they go all Quad in the Mac Pros, and they could pick up steam in the server/enterprise market if they fix the kernel in Leopard Server. Also, they have a much higher market share in laptops than in desktops, which is only going to increase.
In short, the Windows marketshare dominance will only be in gaming machines (high margin, low volume), and entry desktops (low margin, high volume). Apple will rule the high-end, and also probably mid-range laptops. And by rule, I mean over 25% market share in those areas.
I agree with Palegolas. I think it's rather petty to poke at Microsoft. Can't they see that they are hurting?! It's mean to kick someone when they are down.
It isn't pettty. At some point you just have to call BS on the people who speak BS. Sometimes you have to use ridicule to highlight stupidity. If MS didn't cheat and steal AND if 80% of the population just doesn't notice or care, you wouldn't need some "petty" techniques to speak the truth. But they do and so must the slings and arrows.
I'm really just curious how it stacks up against StickyBrain, VoodooPad, OmniOutliner and the likes.
I really like NoteTaker. It is the best attempt at replacing notebooks on a pc and has some powerful, though sometimes slow, tools. I also like the responsiveness of the developers. OmniOutliner is great of course, but like DevonThink uses a computer analogy to taking notes, not a notebook analogy which somehow feels better. StickyBrain is now bundled into SoHo and I've tried it because it is slightly quicker and leaner, but nothing satisfies like NoteTaker.
Vista is already delayed, and everyone knows it is going to be delayed again. There is nothing stopping Microsoft from delaying it by another 6 months and adding in whatever is missing from Visa that Apple announces for Leopard.
Microsoft can easily take the hit--which they need to do anyway from everything I have read--and close the gap with Leopard.
That is unfortunately the problem with monopolies. You can be big and get away with alot of mistakes and take the hit. There is barely a "free market" if MS can make as many mistakes as it does, gets convicted of felonies and basically feels no threat from a captive installed base of customers and vendors.
Frightening fact: On my tower, XP started as a 500mb installation, plus about 1gb for the page file. Now, after installing SP2, it's rocking its way at about 5 GB plus about 4 GB of page file. And that's JUST the os, not including ANY 3rd party aplications.
I'm lucky to be able to deal with Macs only at both work and home, so I'm going to ask,
What the fuck is a "page file" and why does it grow from 1 GB to 4 GB with everyday usage? I don't remember even the system registry being so much of a monster.
Ok, but MS's lead is only because of it's lead. MS is supported only by inertia if Vista falls through. If Office winds up not being well-liked (the interface change is semi-divisive), then OO.o could get a bit of a boost, and if Vista bombs, people will look at Macs.
Apple's winning here isn't 50% of the market, it's more like 15. All Apple and Linux need to do is loosen MS's grip and get it to about 75% market share. Then Windows developers are gonna look at Mac and Linux and see that they can add a lot to their profits by coding for them. If a competitor starts a Mac port, you darn well better too.
Vista can't fail. People have to understand that. Once MS makes the release, it will be on every new computer sold to the retail market. That's around 100 million computers a year, and rising, about half of the PC market. Business will start taking it up as well, though at a sedate pace. Still, after a few years, at most, 75% of the PC market will be on Vista.
<in a feeble voice> "Yall whipper snappers don't know how good you gots it! Why, I remember when I was your age, you could fit a WHOLE OPERATING SYSTEM on a lil ole 800k floppy! What's a floppy? <sigh> Kids these days!"
Since a strong part of Apple's user base is graphics professionals, it makes me wonder why adding a digitizer isn't the no-brainer it appears to be. wonder how much they add to production cost...
Check out Wacom's prices, and you'll see. It's pretty expensive, and would add thickness to the lid as well.
I think it would be too clumsy. You would have to hold the lid with one hand while you drew with the other. That's what tablets (computer tablets, that is) are for, if you can abide them, and the public can't.
It isn't pettty. At some point you just have to call BS on the people who speak BS. Sometimes you have to use ridicule to highlight stupidity. If MS didn't cheat and steal AND if 80% of the population just doesn't notice or care, you wouldn't need some "petty" techniques to speak the truth. But they do and so must the slings and arrows.
Except that as a practical matter, it is not good to mention your competitor in advertising. No matter what, the mention of a name is always remembered. When Apple mentions Vista, people will remember "Vista", long after they forget the context in which it was mentioned.
To be fair here, I do somehow have just under 6 GBs of Virtual Memory ATM. I have 768 MB of RAM, and I'm running AOL, Adium, Firefox, iTunes, and Mail. That's something Apple could work on fixing in Leopard. I don't really care, since I have about 18 GB of HDD space free, but it's not like Vista is the only HDD hog.
Do you mean to imply that OS X has bad memory management? It doesn't.
As VM size, what's the problem? You have a tiny HD - my 1999 Powermac Sawtooth came with a 20 GB drive. On a modern Mac, with a 60-100 GB HD, VM space is negligible.
Of course, the beautiful thing about OS X's VM system is that you can leave virtually every app on your system open at all times, without a significant performance hit, and each one is a dock-click away. Not a bad feature for having a large VM footprint.
The key numbers, as I understand it, are pageins/pageouts. If you're system has to keep hitting the HD to retrieve data, then you need more RAM. But that's not a VM problem, that's the nature of OS X's memory management, and it's need for lots of RAM. This isn't a problem as long as your Mac has ~1 GB of RAM. This is where Apple needs to improve - no Mac should leave the factory with less than 1 GB of RAM.
Comments
The problem with that concept is: for obvious reasons, Apple would only do it if it could expand the Mac platform's market share. Could a convertible? Or a tablet PC? And if they could, why wouldn't Apple produce them themselves? Since Apple doesn't produce them, they probably believe that the needn't R&D wouldn't be justifiable based on projected sales, and that wouldn't be different for a third party either. (Even if you were to take a third party that already has experience with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, that's still a different story than using Mac OS X as a tablet computer.)
In all seriousness, I wonder how much additional effort and what it would require in general to add a wacom digitizer to a MBP. We know that Ink is already in the os, so the basic input method is there. I wonder what else would have to be done (aside from coercing MS to port OneNote).
In all seriousness, I wonder how much additional effort and what it would require in general to add a wacom digitizer to a MBP. We know that Ink is already in the os, so the basic input method is there. I wonder what else would have to be done (aside from coercing MS to port OneNote).
Apple would want the solution to be classier than just have pen input and handwriting recognition. There's go to be a killer feature.
(What's so great about OneNote?)
I agree with Chucker (who posted as I was typing). Apple can't make niche computers, because OS X is itself a niche. but I think ultra-portables and tablets could catch on, especially as we see a growth in laptop sales - a rising tide raises all ships or whatever.
Since a strong part of Apple's user base is graphics professionals, it makes me wonder why adding a digitizer isn't the no-brainer it appears to be. wonder how much they add to production cost...
Apple would want the solution to be classier than just have pen input and handwriting recognition. There's go to be a killer feature.
(What's so great about OneNote?)
go comondeer a tabletpc for a month and sit in on a chemistry class. Note consolodation is the primary advantage I see. I HATE having 8 binders on my bookshelf, one for each subject. And every time I flip a page of lined paper in thtat binder, the holes rip, creating a HUGE mess. (I guess I just get excited in class though.
*edit* this post is a prime example of why I am NOT an English major.
Only Copland was replaced with something else. Vista won't be.
Additionally, while Apple was working on Copeland and OS X, it continued to release updates in the form of OSes 8 and 9. MS, meanwhile, is letting Vista rot. Seeing how those were going against Win98 and WinME, Apple wasn't in as dire of straits (it was still competitive). Currently, XP is up against Tiger and strong Linux distros, which are only getting better. XP is a badly outdated OS, OSes 8 and 9 weren't. For example, XP Home can't do more than 2 cores. At all. And XP doesn't support Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.
I think Apple should be very, very careful here.
Hubris is one of the spikes that fatally impale great companies.
Vista is already delayed, and everyone knows it is going to be delayed again. There is nothing stopping Microsoft from delaying it by another 6 months and adding in whatever is missing from Visa that Apple announces for Leopard.
How would they be able to add something in 6 months if all they have done for the past three years is cut stuff?
This will be very interesting, and their stock is going to jump tomorrow, probably about 6%.
I'm sure Leopard will be good because they had the same banners last year. Maybe they will try to have this ready ahead of schedule and release it the same wekk that Vista comes out, if Vista somehow gets lucky and comes out before April. The only reason that Apple won't take Microsoft over in terms of market share or market cap is because the world will be in WW3 and everything will change.
But I'm excited for monday and can't wait to watch to see what is announced.
If you really want to know why OneNote is good, go check out MS's page on it. It really does have some nice features, not just aplicable to note taking, but junk that I personally have really wanted in my computer for a long time. Or, if you don't care, just ignore it. Up to you.
I'm really just curious how it stacks up against StickyBrain, VoodooPad, OmniOutliner and the likes.
I'm really just curious how it stacks up against StickyBrain, VoodooPad, OmniOutliner and the likes.
sadly, I'm not familiar with those so I am unable to give a meaningful comparison. I'd love to know too though. Anyone got the dope on this one?
The only reason that Apple won't take Microsoft over in terms of market share or market cap is because the world will be in WW3 and everything will change.
...? WW3, what does that have to do with anything? confused here, but it's 1 AM, that happens.
The only reason Apple will never overtake MS is because they don't want to. They can make more money riding the draft position in 2nd, taking only niche markets they're interested in, while ignoring low-margin or low-volume markets they can't make money in. Windells will always have higher marketshare, but it's going to be more and more in the crappy places. I expect Apple to become a dominant player in the workstation market, especially if they go all Quad in the Mac Pros, and they could pick up steam in the server/enterprise market if they fix the kernel in Leopard Server. Also, they have a much higher market share in laptops than in desktops, which is only going to increase.
In short, the Windows marketshare dominance will only be in gaming machines (high margin, low volume), and entry desktops (low margin, high volume). Apple will rule the high-end, and also probably mid-range laptops. And by rule, I mean over 25% market share in those areas.
I agree with Palegolas. I think it's rather petty to poke at Microsoft. Can't they see that they are hurting?! It's mean to kick someone when they are down.
It isn't pettty. At some point you just have to call BS on the people who speak BS. Sometimes you have to use ridicule to highlight stupidity. If MS didn't cheat and steal AND if 80% of the population just doesn't notice or care, you wouldn't need some "petty" techniques to speak the truth. But they do and so must the slings and arrows.
I'm really just curious how it stacks up against StickyBrain, VoodooPad, OmniOutliner and the likes.
I really like NoteTaker. It is the best attempt at replacing notebooks on a pc and has some powerful, though sometimes slow, tools. I also like the responsiveness of the developers. OmniOutliner is great of course, but like DevonThink uses a computer analogy to taking notes, not a notebook analogy which somehow feels better. StickyBrain is now bundled into SoHo and I've tried it because it is slightly quicker and leaner, but nothing satisfies like NoteTaker.
Vista is already delayed, and everyone knows it is going to be delayed again. There is nothing stopping Microsoft from delaying it by another 6 months and adding in whatever is missing from Visa that Apple announces for Leopard.
Microsoft can easily take the hit--which they need to do anyway from everything I have read--and close the gap with Leopard.
That is unfortunately the problem with monopolies. You can be big and get away with alot of mistakes and take the hit. There is barely a "free market" if MS can make as many mistakes as it does, gets convicted of felonies and basically feels no threat from a captive installed base of customers and vendors.
Frightening fact: On my tower, XP started as a 500mb installation, plus about 1gb for the page file. Now, after installing SP2, it's rocking its way at about 5 GB plus about 4 GB of page file. And that's JUST the os, not including ANY 3rd party aplications.
I'm lucky to be able to deal with Macs only at both work and home, so I'm going to ask,
What the fuck is a "page file" and why does it grow from 1 GB to 4 GB with everyday usage? I don't remember even the system registry being so much of a monster.
Ok, but MS's lead is only because of it's lead. MS is supported only by inertia if Vista falls through. If Office winds up not being well-liked (the interface change is semi-divisive), then OO.o could get a bit of a boost, and if Vista bombs, people will look at Macs.
Apple's winning here isn't 50% of the market, it's more like 15. All Apple and Linux need to do is loosen MS's grip and get it to about 75% market share. Then Windows developers are gonna look at Mac and Linux and see that they can add a lot to their profits by coding for them. If a competitor starts a Mac port, you darn well better too.
Vista can't fail. People have to understand that. Once MS makes the release, it will be on every new computer sold to the retail market. That's around 100 million computers a year, and rising, about half of the PC market. Business will start taking it up as well, though at a sedate pace. Still, after a few years, at most, 75% of the PC market will be on Vista.
<in a feeble voice> "Yall whipper snappers don't know how good you gots it! Why, I remember when I was your age, you could fit a WHOLE OPERATING SYSTEM on a lil ole 800k floppy! What's a floppy? <sigh> Kids these days!"
I remember when you could do a whole OS in 1.5KB.
Since a strong part of Apple's user base is graphics professionals, it makes me wonder why adding a digitizer isn't the no-brainer it appears to be. wonder how much they add to production cost...
Check out Wacom's prices, and you'll see. It's pretty expensive, and would add thickness to the lid as well.
I think it would be too clumsy. You would have to hold the lid with one hand while you drew with the other. That's what tablets (computer tablets, that is) are for, if you can abide them, and the public can't.
It isn't pettty. At some point you just have to call BS on the people who speak BS. Sometimes you have to use ridicule to highlight stupidity. If MS didn't cheat and steal AND if 80% of the population just doesn't notice or care, you wouldn't need some "petty" techniques to speak the truth. But they do and so must the slings and arrows.
Except that as a practical matter, it is not good to mention your competitor in advertising. No matter what, the mention of a name is always remembered. When Apple mentions Vista, people will remember "Vista", long after they forget the context in which it was mentioned.
To be fair here, I do somehow have just under 6 GBs of Virtual Memory ATM. I have 768 MB of RAM, and I'm running AOL, Adium, Firefox, iTunes, and Mail. That's something Apple could work on fixing in Leopard. I don't really care, since I have about 18 GB of HDD space free, but it's not like Vista is the only HDD hog.
Do you mean to imply that OS X has bad memory management? It doesn't.
As VM size, what's the problem? You have a tiny HD - my 1999 Powermac Sawtooth came with a 20 GB drive. On a modern Mac, with a 60-100 GB HD, VM space is negligible.
Of course, the beautiful thing about OS X's VM system is that you can leave virtually every app on your system open at all times, without a significant performance hit, and each one is a dock-click away. Not a bad feature for having a large VM footprint.
The key numbers, as I understand it, are pageins/pageouts. If you're system has to keep hitting the HD to retrieve data, then you need more RAM. But that's not a VM problem, that's the nature of OS X's memory management, and it's need for lots of RAM. This isn't a problem as long as your Mac has ~1 GB of RAM. This is where Apple needs to improve - no Mac should leave the factory with less than 1 GB of RAM.