Let me make it clear. I’m not a fan of Apple. I think that their products are overhyped, overpriced and underperforming. If you’re looking for a fair unbiased opinion, you’re looking in the wrong place. You’ve been warned. So, I was at Steve Jobs’ 2004 WWDC keynote yesterday, attempting to take pictures for OSNews (an amazingly hard task, by the way, which really explained why people pay big bucks for big lenses equipped with image stabilizers). UPDATE: Stop reading right there, I have rewritten & updated the article here.
Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
Not much to say about the Airport Express (nice little appliance, well thought, well executed, I found it funny that Steve Jobs would use the words “iTunes” and “lossless compression” in the same sentence). Not much to say about the iPod BMW connection (it’s ironic that iPod and iDrive don’t work together, and even though it’s unrelated the gray plastic bumper of the X3 looks cheap and out-of-place on a BMW). Not much to say about to 30-inch monitor (“wow”), nor about its price (“damn”).
Now, about some of the actual features of Tiger:
-Data syncing. Nice, maybe, but every single app needs to do some work, and I’m ready to bet that at least some of them won’t (who wants to bet that my default JPEG settings in Photoshop won’t migrate over). That’s also a domain where interoperability with the PC world would be crucially important but seems to be sorely missing.
-64 bit support. Nice for those who have G5s, maybe. For those of us stuck with ancient machines (the G4 kind, which Apple still sells today on their web site) there doesn’t seem to be any enhancement, and no indication that Photoshop CS will be able to use more than about 40% of the RAM on my 2GB dual G4).
-Dashboard. A plain, simple and blatant ripoff of Konfabulator. The kind that makes you think that software patents aren’t a bad thing after all. The kind that makes Steve Jobs look like a fool when the big banners for Tiger read “Redmond: start your photocopiers”. Shame on you, Apple, this kind of behavior really doesn’t make me want to give you any of my money, if all you do with it is drive your own developers out of business. That being said the way the accessories slide in view over the existing apps is probably nicer than having them on the desktop.
-Safari RSS. Not overly impressed. I’ve worked on RSS as part of my day job, and honestly what Apple did is really not a big deal. If they don’t improve the way they make RSS pages look (they currently all look the same), they’ll
have missed a big opportunity to really innovate. I’d much rather have learnt that they fixed some of the rendering bugs that Safari has, or that they did a better job at integrating PDF (actually, there’s absolutely no integration at all in 10.3, so anything will be better), or that they improved direct navigation to images, or many other things where Safari has a lot of margin for improvement.
-Automator. Once again not really impressed. That reminded me a lot of the Khoros image processing system which I used in college almost a decade ago, except that the Khoros system allowed for non-linear processing chains. Also not really impressed by how basic the UI was when entering parameters. There seemed to be no way to enter parameters in advance (a script that takes a while
to run can’t be left to run unattended if it needs parameters in the middle of its execution, and no way to specify that a given parameter would be used in
multiple places in the script.
-Spotlight. In 1997, as a Be developer, I got my hands on BeOS “Advanced Access” (also known as developer release 9). I wasn’t a Be engineer yet at the time. It was the first release that featured Dominic’s bfs filesystem instead of Benoit’s ofs filesystem. bfs was a major step forward from ofs, but not a revolution. It was natural evolution. Spotlight is an evolution of a similar
magnitude, which attempts to solve pretty much the same problem with a slightly different approach. Seeing Finder create complex queries gave me the illusion for a moment that BeOS’ Tracker had been ported to MacOS.
-Core Image. Discussing the issue with other engineers who are more familiar with the image-processing capabilities of current graphics cards, it very much sounds like Core Image isn’t gonna cut it for serious image processing
(support for floating-point pixel formats as source or destination of pixel shaders seems to pretty much not exist, which is a veyr big issue if the processing chain contains in the middle a filter that can’t or isn’t
implemented by Core Image, like a plain Median Cut noise-removal filter). I’m really curious to know how well Core Image will deal with very large images. Epson’s rumored $500 F3200 scanner is able to output images that
weigh 180 megapixels (4×5) or that are 21000 pixels long (6×17). With IEEE 754 pixel formats we’re talking about 2GB per image, the kind of size that only the most carefully written software will handle (Photoshop barely manages). We’re talking about file sizes that are unusual, but not exotic yet (exotic is a 30GB 8000dpi drum scan of an 8×10 sheet of film, and overkill is a 130GB 12000 dpi drum scan of a 9×18 sheet, typically cropped from 12×20), and I wouldn’t bet too much on Core Image until I can be sure that it has the ability to scale to such sizes. Core Video sounds like it has a lot more potential, as speed is a definite issue there, and the expected SNR and pixel
sizes that are expected in video are well within what I expect a GPU to be able to handle.
Then there was the usual reality-distortion field surrounding many things that Apple says, as usual. A few examples:
-Steve Jobs claimed that Apple’s LCDs are a reference in image processing, and that other manufacturers use panels that Apple rejects. I’ll start with only two words about image processing: “Sony Artisan”. If you really want two more words I’ll add “Lacie Electronblue”. As for the quality of the panels that Apple uses, I’m officially inviting Steve Jobs to my place so that he can compare himself the quality of the screen on my IBM thinkpad and on Eugenia’s Powerbook.
-Steve Jobs claimed that the only OS transition ever to happen in the PC world was that in 1995 when going from DOS with Windows 95. Sorry buddy, but the transition from Windows 3.1/95/98/ME to Windows NT/2000/XP was at least as big. Or maybe I’d actually say that the PC world is unique in that it is able to maintain such a level of compatibility that no sharp transition is needed. The
latest Windows is still able to run many 10-year-old applications. Most recent PCs can still run 10-year old DOS 6.22. By comparison compatibility in the Mac
world is a total disaster.
-Steve Jobs was quick to mention that there hadn’t been any major release of Windows since Windows XP (I really wonder what that “Windows 2003 server” thing was). Ignoring the case of the expensive server OS, he forgot to compare the cost of continuing to run the latest version of Windows and the latest version of MacOS on a PC and on a Mac both bought in 2001.
When I interview a candidate whose resume lists tons of different competencies, I very much like to pick one which I am familiar with and ask a few advanced questions, the kind that can only be answered with some real knowledge and/or experience in the domain. When I get an unsatisfactory answer, all I can assume is that the knowledge of the candidate in the other domains is going
to be as shallow. Similarly when I listen to Steve Jobs’ glorified sales pitch, I recognize a few areas where I have some level of competency, and my knowledge
in those areas makes me realize that MacOS isn’t the perfect operating system that Apple would like me to believe.
In summary, I don’t think that MacOS 10.4 is worth my $129 (or my $199 since I have multiple Macs, assuming that they maintain their policy about upgrade pricing). In my experience each upgrade on MacOS X comes with a lot of pain, lots of broken compatibility with at least some of the drivers and accessories that I can’t live without on MacOS, and I’m getting to the point where my Mac experience is stuck between a rock (continuing to use 10.3 and all its problems) and a hard place (upgrading to 10.4 and deal with all the new bugs and incompatibilities).
As a footnote, here are a few of my gripes with MacOS X:
-I find the hardware support to be very poor. 10.3 doesn’t have any kind of decent out-of-the-box support for my good Keytronic USB keyboard (it swaps some of the modifier keys), for my good Logitech USB mouse (it makes it
several times slower than it is supposed to be). Finder doesn’t burn to my external Sony firewire DVD-R. I can’t print a full-page letter picture if I tell the OS that I’m printing on letter paper and I have to pretend that I
have legal paper, which then causes quite some headaches when trying to center prints.
-serious glitches in the window management. Exposé get very seriously confused when used while some modal windows are on screen, e.g. while scanning with an Epson 3200 photo scanner from within Photoshop. Maximizing the driver window of the Minolta Dual IV while inside Photoshop renders it almost unusable if you don’t know some of the advanced keyboard modifiers that allow to interact with the window manager). I’ll add that some apps (like the aforementioned driver for the Epson 3200 scanner) have some serious graphical glitches.
-memory limitations in applications. Even though my dual G4 has 2GB of RAM, which Photoshop can perfectly detect, Photoshop doesn’t manage to use more than about 900MB of RAM. The rest of the RAM mostly sits there, unused (several hundred MB are unused, which is especially annoying when Photoshop is struggling with the hard drive to try to apply filters to 500MB images).
-poor multi-user support. Fast user switching is only available when displaying the user name in the menu bar (try to create a user named “Jean-Baptiste Quéru” and to enable fast user switching while using Photoshop CS on a 1280-pixel-wide screen and you’ll see what I mean). Also many applications don’t work well (or at all) when you’re not the primary user of the machine, and many applications can’t be installed at all if yo’re not the primary user, while other applications cannot be installed to be available to all users at the same time even when installed to the primary user.
-non-intuitive installs, and non-existent uninstalls. I’ve installed several instances of software that wouldn’t install automatically and needed some files to be moved around by hand. I’ve seen instances of software where an
upgrade to a newer version would not replace the older version but would actually live side-by-side, with no visual indication about which version was the newer one. There’s no uninstaller worth mentioning that can clean up after your /Library, /System or your personal ~/Library for certain apps.
-non-existent keyboard shortcuts. I really dislike how there doesn’t seem to be any way to dismiss certain alerts with the keyboard, or how there doesn’t seem to be a standard way to access with the keyboard menu items that don’t have a shortcut. I got really annoyed when I found no way to move a window with the keyboard (which would be quite handy when a window ends up in a spot where you can’t access its title bar with the mouse, e.g. underneath the Photoshop toolbar).
At the moment, MacOS irritates me so much that I don’t even want to use it any more, which means that I’m not really doing any photography. If Apple doesn’t solve those issues with Tiger (or if they do but create many new ones on the way) I have the feeling that I’ll go back to using my trusted old PC. It might be noisy and slow, but it just works much better for me. Your mileage may vary.
Oh, one last note. Before someone tells me that some of the problems I have come from application writers and not from Apple, let me tell you that I’ve walked the very same arrogant path when I was at Be, claiming that it was
possible to write clean applications for BeOS. As long as the OS makes it easier to write misbehaving code than to write well-working code, something is wrong with the OS itself and the blame cannot be passed on to the application
developers. Even worse, it doesn’t matter which API is the cleanest, which programming language is the most advanced, or any of those abstract qualities. If a small OS (in terms of market share) like MacOS has API that doesn’t look
like what most developers are used to, something is wrong (again) with the OS itself.
About the Author
JBQ is a software engineer who used to work on BeOS in a previous life. He uses Windows XP and Mac OS X (no, he doesn’t use BeOS), and one of his hobbies is photography, which involves a lot of work in the digital darkroom.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
“Photoshop doesn’t manage to …..”
That is an Adobe issue!
Why did you go ? Why are you writing about mac ? If I hate something I stay away from it
While i do believe you did not wanted to write a biased article the article is most the frustrations of a Windows user
that cannot or will not get used to Mac. I believe you have some serious problems with Mr. Jobs and Apple this is not the way the go public. If you want to compare Windows and OSX fine but this is just FUD. Pitty.
OSX is a very decent OS wich off course has its problems like ANY os but its far more advanced as ANY Windows version out there. Hence even Linux is superior than Windows Server 2003 on almost every aspect, a part from “userfriendly. wizards and interfaces.”
Sorry to see you still have deep fustrations against Apple put them aside you sufferd enough!
A very happy OSX and Linux user.
If you hate Apple stay away from this company. This is not a true article. Please write about windows and stop.
You only seem to talk about the problems of Mac OS X as relating to you, personally. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t write an OS especially for you and your “3rd party accessories”, but what they do make is a very good OS with features and a price that appeal to the masses of mac users (and a lot of PC users).
Dashboard is not a simple rip-off of Konfabulator – Dashboard is just a better implementation of a similar idea. Dashboard is for quick access to things you might want quickly – i.e. a calculator for a quick sum. With Konfabulator, every widget is shown on screen at the same time, cluttering up the screen and getting in the way. You could just as easily have calculator open all the time as have a calc. widget in Konfab.
Mac OS X v10.4 seems to have a lot more to offer than Panther did (as an update) so far, and it is not necessary to update if you don’t want to.
The spotlight technology would make me pay the $129 alone.
Here we freakin’ go. It simply isn’t possible to write an article that complains about Mac and/or MacOS without hordes of people coming out to call you a “Mac hater.” In the tech world, Mac users are notoriously overly loyal – almost cult-like – to their platform.
The fact is, OS X is incredible, but it’s very much a work in progress and has issues just like Windows and Linux, and other hobby OSes like SkyOS and Skyllable. But criticism of the Mac will draw you a ridiculous flood of trolls.
I’m always interested in reviews that discuss the pitfalls of Macs, because any time you can’t find any negative about something, it’s often an indicator that something much bigger is wrong.
JBQ is not a typical “Windows” user. He was an engineer for BeOS.
an MacosX users, so why do you use it if you dislike it ?
For something as complex as a desktop OS, it’s virtually impossible to have “usability” without usage, and to-date this OS has no users to speak of.
Show me even a meager 500,000 users who consider the usability of this to be on par with current MacOSX or Windows XP and then you’ll have a story. Otherwise this is just PRWire disguised as a lab study.
>so why do you use it if you dislike it ?
Because he happens to have Photoshop CS for the Mac only.
Yes I love my two macs. OSX 10.3 is the best thing I’ve used out of XP, Win2000, IRIX, Solaris, Linux. I get to use photoshop and my unix apps. FInk rocks. But damned if I want to learn all these non-portable APIs. Some days you just need to open a serial port and a firewire camera and get work done. I still haven’t figured out how to deal with some of this stuff. I’m not a big fan of obj-c. And I tried to use MathML the other day in Safari… whoops.
Articles like this are great in that it give clear feedback to Apple and Adobe. I hate mac apples that drop crap all over my drive that I may not find for a year or two. The installer situation is HORRIBLE. Apps that I just drop in the /Applications folder are fine. When I can’t drag my apps folder to a firewire drive, wipe and reinstall a messed up system, I get very unhappy. With fink, I can rm -rf /sw and in an hour or two be back to where I was. That should be the goal for macs in general!
Oh, and also, it happens that the dual G4 is still the faster machine in the house (and with 2 GB of RAM), so he is stuck on that configuration for now for Photoshop.
“why do you use it if you dislike it ?”
Because I drank the Kool-aid, bought a Mac as an upgrade to my aging PC which started to really show its age when doing heavy image processing, being wrongfully led to believe that MacOS was the platform of choice for image processing and assuming that in this very small domain I’d get a superior experience.
My budget to buy new computers isn’t infinite, sadly.
I’m hoping that the increases in speed seen in the last upgrades continue for “older” machines with OS X “Tiger”. I’m assuming so based on what Apple has posted on their website, but a lot of that is G5 performance info.
I’m hoping that the “instant search of everything” feature, which I’ll almost never use if my current searching is any indication, won’t bog down the system while indexing everything.
All in all, not too revolutionary. Which is just fine with me. I think Panther is damn nice and would rather they spent time cleaning up and helping developers make their apps more reliable than anything else.
I’m sorry, but the transition between windows 98 and windows 2000/XP is just not big. The only major things that changed were in the backend. New kernel, improved stability. No major changes in the GUI. Just a little bit of cleaning up. I mean, win2k was a nice update, but far from a revolution like dos->windows or macos9->macosx. I think you are seriously overestimating your “knowledge in the field”.
Dear Apple:
I cannot believe that you would go so far as to replace the programs that users most popularly use with your own competing ones. LaunchBar and Konfabulator are now replaced by Spotlight and Dashboard.
You are killing innovation on the Mac. You are not helping innovation by encouraging developers to make cool and awesome applications; what you’re doing is completely the opposite. You stifle innovation by granting your own programmers increased access to Mac OS X APIs (SystemUIServer elements anyone?), barely managing to avoid patent/copyright infringement by creating duplicates of everything you see that you think is awesome (reminds me of a Redmond based company) and crushing the very developers that make people switch to the Mac because of the cool things that shareware developers do. What’s next?
You’ve already tried to kill Watson with Sherlock 3, you’re destroying the reseller community by giving your Apple Stores increased favor, and I guarantee you’re going to hear from Objective Development and Arlo Rose / Perry Clarke (Konfabulator inventors, cause I figure you don’t know them) in the next few weeks.
Tread carefully.
is this a joke? Why would OSNews let this troll of an article even exist? Are you guys looking for more comments or something?
RE: “Windows 3.1/95/98/ME to Windows NT/2000/XP was at least as big”
This wasn’t a transistion at all, sure MS and developers had to transition, but consumers didn’t. And sure, its because they made everything very compatible, and sure, that just leads us back to the bloat that is windows and all the holes that came with that. The api is disgusting.
Mac Os > Os X was a transition that could not have had the convenience of backwards compatibility like 9x > xp had. It was a whole new OS. Hence there was a huge hurdle to overcome, 9x > xp didn’t have much of a hurdle to over come so it wasn’t much of a transition, you can say “well thanks to MS there wasn’t and they are better now” but you still prove no point. There was no transition/hurdle, so it wasn’t listed. You are wrong to think that was a transition.
and as far as windows 2003 being an OS release from MS since 2001, i’m pretty sure Jobs was talking consumer OS.
The things you have picked out about Os X being broken are so menial and small that its lame to even hear you mention them. I could come up with 10 reasons off the top of my head why windows is broken, and they would be ENORMOUS reasons that affect every user every day.
Os X IS a better system. You might not like it, and you are obviously too immature and hard headed to admin it, but it is better. Its geared toward what consumers do with computers in 2004 and is engineered for next generation computing. Windows, simply is not.
And OSnews, if thats “an engineer’s thoughts” please, spare us next time.
This was the biggest waste of 2 pages, I’ve read in a while. Why in Gods name did you go to this conference? Go back to Windows and stop spreading this nonsense FUD garbage.
Its quite obvious that you’re incapable of any objectivity whatsoever. Its also clear time and time again that you’re actually going out of your way to misrepresent presentations and things Steve said to further kick dirt on Apple.
Just remember sales is sales no matter who it comes from. Whether its Gates or Jobs, they will pitch their products in the best light. This is an Apple event for Apple people or others that want to make the switch, not for haters looking for a good bucket full of material to dump on.
I use OSX, Windows (only when necessary), and Linux on my servers. I’m really amazed how bitter someone can be towards a company making great products and bar-none the best OS I’ve ever used. Oh well.
On a seperate note. I really hope they unveil a new iMac soon. I cooler looking one with the G5 and the same 20inch display. As much as I love the Powermac, its really complete overkill for someone thats not doing heavy video/audio work.
“That is an Adobe issue!”
I haven’t seen how Adobe wrote their code. I do assume that they know a few things about handling memory (that’s one of their strengths, after all).
What I do know is that under Windows XP with 1GB of RAM and no special code at all I can malloc() more than 1GB of RAM in a single chunk (1.1GB to be precise) – that’s one line of code. Yet on MacOS a huge company like Adobe with all the experience and weight that they have can’t manage to write code that allocates more than 880MB of memory for one of their flagship product.
Forgive me for claiming that if even an undisputed market leader can’t manage to do at all what an inexperienced programmer can do in Windows with 1 line of portable code, something it just plain wrong. Remembering what Adobe was able to make Photoshop do in the “classic” MacOS days, I’m reasonable confident that they have tried quite hard to lift that limit yet failed.
Let’s examine your closing statements:
“As long as the OS makes it easier to write misbehaving code than to write well-working code, something is wrong with the OS itself and the blame cannot be passed on to the application developers.”
Not only did you not attempt to prove the assertion (that it’s “easier” to write misbehaving code in OS X), but you just to a conclusion that just isn’t supported in any way.
It’s almost always “easier” for developers to leave things alone, or change as little as possible, than it is to write “new” code, regardless of the elegance or ease of that new code. For instance, Adobe has large, cross-platform applications which have traditionally “rolled their own” when it comes to memory, color, and font management, interface widgets, etc. They’ve shown remarkable reluctance to use OS X-specific features. If their apps are having problems that no one else’s seem to, it would seem to be the problem of the developer(s) and no one else. Although Apple has continued to make it possible to write and run “non-standard” code, they can’t be blamed for a developer not taking advantage of the good tools, APIs, and methodologies that they have also provided.
“Even worse, it doesn’t matter which API is the cleanest, which programming language is the most advanced, or any of those abstract qualities.”
You’re just contradicting yourself here. If you’re asserting that Apple *has* in fact provided a language/API/whatever that’s more advanced than other alternatives, but developers still continue to use those other alternatives, then the blame falls back on the developer. Again.
“If a small OS (in terms of market share) like MacOS has API that doesn’t look like what most developers are used to, something is wrong (again) with the OS itself.”
This argument leaves Win32, and soon .NET, as the only viable APIs in the world. Those are “what most developers are used to”.
I also find it ironic that an engineer from Be would deride *any* multi-user capabilities, considering BeOS’s complete lack of same. Or leaving your background aside for a moment, that someone who is in any way, shape or form familiar with WinXP’s multi-user capabilities could possibly find them inferior to OS X’s. I’m constantly amazed at the number of Windows apps that don’t play nicely with multiple users, and even the core design of XP which leaves little provision for segregation of users (no per-user application directories, etc.)
I’m not an Apple apologist, and OS X is far from perfect, but *objectively* [and fairly] evaluating/critiquing the company and its offerings isn’t all that tough. You might want to try it.
I’m sorry, but the transition between windows 98 and windows 2000/XP is just not big. The only major things that changed were in the backend. New kernel, improved stability. No major changes in the GUI. Just a little bit of cleaning up. I mean, win2k was a nice update, but far from a revolution like dos-windows or macos9-macosx. I think you are seriously overestimating your “knowledge in the field”.
I think *you* may be overestimating your knowledge in the field. Windows 9x and Windows NT series are different operating systems. The only thing they maintain is API compatibility and a similar look and feel. If you don’t think that that’s a big deal, you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. That said, mac os 9 – mac os x is a similar major transition. The main difference being the barely tried to maintain API compatibility and they changed the look and feel.
I’m sorry, but the transition between windows 98 and windows 2000/XP is just not big. The only major things that changed were in the backend. New kernel, improved stability. No major changes in the GUI. Just a little bit of cleaning up. I mean, win2k was a nice update, but far from a revolution like dos->windows or macos9->macosx. I think you are seriously overestimating your “knowledge in the field”.
Well, if you only look at the surface Windows 2000 doesn’t seem very different from Win98. But neither does the DOS prompt look very different from the Linux prompt.
If you knew abit more about the history of Windows though, you would know that Windows 2000 is based on a completely different OS than Windows 98. If you had said that the transition from NT4 to Win2000 wasn’t very big I could agree. It is big although not VERY big. Still Windows2000 brings alot more technologies to NT4 than what Windows 1-3.x did to DOS.
if I write an articlt about Windows in the same way JBQ did it here about OS X (and trust me, i can do this easily) und I submit it to OSNews. And I am not Eugenia’s husband – will that article ever show up here???
Don’t get me wrong. This is not trolling or something like that, I truly respect the work of the OSNews team and I respect JBQs opinion about operatingsystems (errr.. and other things too).
And I know it is their (OSNews Team) website an the can write what ever they like.
But I have to agree with the posts above, that this article is too much overloaded with personal dislikes against Apple and S.Jobs for whatever reason. I don’t know why JBQ gets so angry about such simple things all the time. I hope I the rest of his life, there are many things he enjoys 😉
But, sorry I have to say this, but becauss of this, I can’t take this serious.
Transition from Windows 98 to Windows XP not so big? Hmmm, I think that features like SMP, NTFS or remote desktop connection are very big – I saw a huge difference when I upgraded my PC. For what I do those are very major features. The transition from DOS/Win 3.11 to Win95 was in my own opinion much smaller than that.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
Dashboard. A plain, simple and blatant ripoff of Konfabulator
That’s just stupid. Konfabulator was nothing majorly new, it wasn’t innovating. The only thing new about is, was they used Javascript for their applets/widgets/gadgets/mini-apps. Neither Dashboard or Konfabulator are revolutionary, but a nice evolution. Most other osses are planning to integrate them one way or another (the sidebar of longhorn), or already have (epplets in enlightenment, gdesklets in gnome, gkrellm in any wm).
I can understand why you hate Apple. After all, they went for NeXT instead of BeOS, which did cost your job, and probably hurt your ego as an engineer. But please, try to remain a little bit professional.
Interestly enough, overzealous apple users are the main reason that I *don’t* try out OS X. I have the money and the interest, but for me, the community surrounding an OS is just as important as the OS itself. And the community surrounding Apple is absolutely ridiculous. You can’t critisize anything that Jobs & company does.
Here we go again, shooting the messenger. If you truly love OS X, then you should be willing to listen to criticism and judge its validity, instead of circling the wagons with panicked cries of “Troll!” Maybe he uses it because there are things about it he genuinely likes.
Same problem with the crime situation here in Jamaica. Journalists who focus on the murder rate, political corruption, drug turf wars etc are howled down for negativity, instead of playing up the many positive, beautiful things about this lovely island and people. There are many others who do focus on the positive aspects of our society, but the head-in-the-sand mentality will not negate the uglier side of things. The Mac universe is not all sweetness and light, despite the many beautiful things about it that make me a resolute Mac user.
Then again, maybe JBQ’s somewhat bitter tone has nothing to do with the Mac. He’s probably still smarting from France’s humiliating loss to Greece in Euro 2004 (Eugenia, I told you not to gloat!)
You say you’re no fan of Apple but then at the bottom of the article it says that you use Mac OS X. Why are you giving Steve Jobs a hard time? Yes he lays the hype on a bit thick sometimes, but he has a vision: that computing should be an enriching experience and he does bring that to a lot of people. Better than the head of that ‘other OS company’ whose sole vision is his bank statement (and maybe world domination).
i would have to say this article is like a republican reporting on the democratic national convention. If an article about apple products opens with “I’m not a fan of Apple. I think that their products are overhyped, overpriced and underperforming” then what’s the point of even posting it? clearly it’s just FUD.
And while i love konfabulator, i have to say that gDesklets, Karamba, and other Linux programs have been doing the same thing as konfabulator for much longer.
Transition from Windows 98 to Windows XP not so big? Hmmm, I think that features like SMP, NTFS or remote desktop connection are very big – I saw a huge difference when I upgraded my PC. For what I do those are very major features. The transition from DOS/Win 3.11 to Win95 was in my own opinion much smaller than that.
Like I said, only backend improvements (kernel), and some little additions. Very small transition for the consumer. I saw very little differences, but did notice the better stability and a few new apps. Other than that, nothing major. Maybe it was bigger for the developer, but for the consumer it was a small upgrade.
Why did you go ? Why are you writing about mac ? If I hate something I stay away from it
I went there because it made Eugenia’s life much easier if someone drove her there and back, because it would allow to snap a few pictures for OSnews (well, not really), because I could get in for free.
I write about MacOS because it’s “almost there” in my experience, at least for what I want to do, except for a few nagging details. It’s 95% there for me, and I was hoping that there would be some improvement in the area of the remaining 5% that constantly annoy me, and for which the only answers I can seem to get are “that’s the way MacOS works” and “this is a new features that developers haven’t mastered yet”.
The divisiveness of the Mac platform never ceases to amaze me. On the one hand, Mac users can be ridiculous zealots, and it can be incredibly annoying. Unfortunately, this article is an example of the reverse-zealotry that has arisen to combat the passionate Mac faithful.
As a PC user since DOS, and a Mac user for only the last six months, I have seen it from both sides. Unfortunately it’s a big waste of time for all those involved. Last time I checked, Techworld was into posting inflammatory, hasty, overly-opinionated articles like this, not OSNews.
Ya, and maybe JBQ can try one ounce of professionalism in his next write up. This one was a completely useless waste of HTML.
I have no problem telling Apple whats wrong or what I would like changed. Nor should he, but you don’t have to be a complete ass about it. People won’t listen to it. If I’m in Apples shoes, yes please tell me your opinions on what needs to be improved or what hurts your productivity or whatever. But, if you come up to me and start making ridiculous statements about things instead of intelligently criticizing, I, like anyone else, will turn shoulder and blow the person off as a troll.
Interesting in the sense that almost all the reactions are attacks on JBQ personally, rather than responses to the actual issues that he mentioned.
“I can understand why you hate Apple. After all, they went for NeXT instead of BeOS, which did cost your job, and probably hurt your ego as an engineer.”
Actually I wasn’t at Be yet when Apple decided to not buy Be, so it can’t have cost me a job that I didn’t have yet, nor could it have hurt me ego since I hadn’t been involved in BeOS at that point.
Like I said, only backend improvements (kernel), and some little additions. Very small transition for the consumer. I saw very little differences, but did notice the better stability and a few new apps. Other than that, nothing major. Maybe it was bigger for the developer, but for the consumer it was a small upgrade.
Really, that’s a sign that they did the transition very well. Pretty much everything is different from Windows 9x to XP. The only thing that they didn’t change is the general look and feel, and why change that if it works? From a developer’s perspective, they also maintained API *and* ABI compatibility which is huge. When apple transitioned from OS 9 to OS X, they half-heartedly maintained API compatibility (Carbon) and didn’t maintain ABI compatibility at all. An emulator is *not* maintaining ABI compatibility.
This wasn’t a transistion at all, sure MS and developers had to transition, but consumers didn’t. And sure, its because they made everything very compatible, and sure, that just leads us back to the bloat that is windows and all the holes that came with that. The api is disgusting.
Well, the customers don’t care if the API is ugly as long it just work. There are more customers than the developers and the customers are always right.
Break the compatibility many times don’t make Apple look good at all. It’s not very good idea to break the compatibility often in the small of time. Keep the backwards compatibility is very important as AMD64 has prove to be very successful in the market, so similar to Windows. This one has forced Intel to pull their neck by follow AMD’s path. Althought, it’s great that PowerPC G5 doesn’t break the 32bit compatibility but what will it happens in the Tiger version? Will it works with the older Apple hardware (ie: G4)?
It’s one of reasons why I never have buy anything from Apple. Apple is too overprice and will waste my money to chase their compatibility.
that Tiger will not have improve for G4 users, and that it is sad for those who have bought a G4 based MAC, but i don’t think that Longhorn will run properly with any of the actual PC configuration…
“Maybe it was bigger for the developer, but for the consumer it was a small upgrade.”
I think that this is a testament to the software engineering teams at Microsoft: they managed to change something fundamental in the core of their product with minimal impact to their users. The biggest feat of all, I would say, remains Apple’s transition from 680×0 to PPC. As ugly as some of the engineering aspect may have been, this was an incredible feat which I don’t think has ever been done by anybody else at that scale.
> they also maintained API *and* ABI compatibility which is huge
This is just not true. There are many apps compiled for Jaguar that don’t work on Panther, and MOST importantly, *most* third party Jaguar drivers won’t work on Panther.
Interesting in the sense that almost all the reactions are attacks on JBQ personally, rather than responses to the actual issues that he mentioned.
Exactly. That’s the problem with the Mac community. I actually didn’t think that he was being overly opinionated at all. He was bringing up real problems and evaluating the new features in 10.4 from what he saw. Yet everything in response basically boils down to “You’re a mac hater so shutup”.
@Eugenia:
I was talking about Windows 9x to XP there. I know perfectly well that Apple didn’t maintain ABI compatibility in their upgrades.
Personally, I find the issues he mentioned to either be off base or so miniscule that they aren’t even worth discussing. And I am trying to be as objective as possible.
In all seriousness though, I really don’t see anyone personally attacking him. They, myself included, are attacking the blog.
JBQ, there will always be something to complain about. Don’t take this personally, but a lot of fotographers have your kind of personality. They over-react to the most minimal interference with their work..I guess it is your nature that makes you that way..
In any case, MacOS X is light years ahead of MacOS 9. Sure, it does not have everything Windows does (as Windows does not have everything either) but it has been closing the gap rapidly over the last 4 years.
In addition, you must remember, Steve needs to sell computers, and some of the things you talk about are simply harder to do that what it sounds. In addition, you do not know everything that is happening down at Apple, and just a look at the enhancements they are promising for Tiger that are under-the-hood, should help you understand that most of the effort in the last 2 years has been to upgrade/replace most of the components of NeXT to the latest versions of other UNIXes (or similar, whatever) like FreeBSD 5.
Not everyone needs to agree with what you want. For instance, I do not like integration of Safari and PDF. Its not useful, it does not serve any purpose and will only create unstability in the system (which is what happens in Windows, acrobat hangs 2 out of 5 times you open a PDF).
<quote>Like I said, only backend improvements (kernel), and some little additions. Very small transition for the consumer. I saw very little differences, but did notice the better stability and a few new apps. Other than that, nothing major. Maybe it was bigger for the developer, but for the consumer it was a small upgrade.</quote>
Well, there is no difference to a user between Ford T and Mercedes S-classe. The same four wheels, seats, engine, steering wheel and pedals.
MS did a great job to make Windows working in real x86 mode, and then was constantly improving its OS. Back that time MacOS was 32-bit system and Windows was 16-bit real mode thingy. But Windows improved a lot, MS engineers squeezed every possibility out of Intel chips, while maintaining almost 100% compatibility all the way, and I truly respect MS for their job.
“but i don’t think that Longhorn will run properly with any of the [current] PC configuration…”
That remains to be seen. For the price of a dual-G5-2.5 you can get a PC today which has a decent chance of still being good enough in a few years to run the then-latest version of Windows (similarly to the way my 1999 PC was and still is able to run Windows XP very decently, although definitely a few nothces slower than a current PC).
>This is just not true. There are many apps compiled for
>Jaguar that don’t work on Panther, and MOST importantly,
>*most* third party Jaguar drivers won’t work on Panther.
Huh? I recently upgraded from Jaguar to Panther and did not have any problem. I use third aprty drivers for Umax and Nikon scanners and have a lot of applications compiled like the gimp. I have zero problems..until now.
@JBQ
I am sorry to see that you have so many problems with Apple and MacOSX but most of the problems you desribe and cannot reproduce and/or are from third party software.
Have you every been into the macosx forums or tried googeling the net trying to find some answers.
I place i often look is: http://www.macosx.com/forums
try finding you answers/solutions there the are tons of third party (free) software links and a lot of people will help you with your problems. Sorry to say but the artivcle mostly looked FUD.
Am I the only one who likes critical reviews of OS X? As a long time PC user, mainly for music production and the usual day to day thingies like browsing the internet and stuff, I’m very interested in a Mac but all I hear are raving reviews about how good it is and whatnot. I don’t have the money to just go out and buy a Mac to try it out myself so I like to know all good AND bad points about it.
and MOST importantly, *most* third party Jaguar drivers won’t work on Panther.
How many drivers written for Linux 2.4 work under Linux 2.6 out-of-the-box? How many drivers written for Windows NT work under Windows 2000? How many drivers written for Windows 2000 work under Windows XP? (not just install, but properly work).
It’s very usual for drivers not to work with a different version of the operating system than the one they were developed for.
From the /. <http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=112692&cid=9553417>
“They’re things like calculators, notepads, etc. Little applications designed to complement the application you’re running.
This is a completely Apple-created innovation and is not a rip-off. Oh no. Definitely not.
No, I’m serious. Really. Because despite all the talk of it being a clone of Konfabulator, it appears, in essense, to be Apple’s original Desk Accessories brought into the 21st Century. Which is nice.”
A lot.
And you are making a critical mistake. These Windows versions are 3 years apart. OSX Panther/Jaguar was 1 year apart.
Regarding Linux, compatibility breaks even more often. And I am NOT in favor of that EITHER.
“Sorry to say but the article mostly looked FUD.”
Most definitely my fears (“I’m afraid that if I buy this new Minolta Dual IV scanner, I won’t be able to make it work on MacOS?”), uncertainties (“I’m pretty sure that I followed all the installation instructions for the Minolta Dual IV scanner, yet it doesn’t appear in the Photoshop import menu, what did I do wrong?”) and doubts (“will the driver for my Minolta Dual IV scanner still work in 10.4 just like the drivers for my Epson 3200 caused some problems when I upgraded to 10.3?”).
There is nothing wrong with liking critical reviews of OSX. I like to read them as well to see if some of my gripes are common etc. The point is that this article was more of a bitter rant at Jobs/Apple that really mentions very little in the way of real problems. Most of what I can see is third party related.
Just remember nothing is perfect out there, but you won’t be disappointed with OSX in terms of A/V. From what I understand, most studios use OSX for the majority of music out there today.
“How many drivers written for Windows 2000 work under Windows XP? (not just install, but properly work)”
I honestly don’t know. In all the hardware that I tried to used under Windows XP when I installed it, a huge majority was supported out-of-the-box, and the rest had XP-certified drivers before XP itself was even released. The only one that didn’t have an XP driver was my Agfa 1212U scanner, but the Win2000 driver worked just fine after I accepted to install a driver that hadn’t been certified.
>installation instructions for the Minolta Dual IV scanner,
>yet it doesn’t appear in the Photoshop import menu,
Prof. scanners use Vuescan. its free for Linux btw.
>what did >I do wrong?
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/drivers/vuescan.html
try it and be pleased.
i also tend to think that apple’s stuff is the most overhyped, overpriced and overrated on this planet (especially steve jobs “we-have-reinvented-the-wheel”-mantra at every announcement is just plain pathetic), although i must say that the dual g5s aren’t really more expensive than comp. (opteron) pcs, and osX no doubt looks nicer.
their multimedia-apps (fc pro etc.) are also very good.
but what would really piss me off if i were an apple-customer is that i would have to pay for upgrades for an unfinished os that looks like being in beta since it was launched. if msft would so the same, their heads would get chopped off immediatly.
but in the case of apple, people seem even to get excited about having to spend $$ for a minor upgrade!
i’ll stay with x86 – at least if i stay single-cpu, price/performance ratio is much better – and adobe has also nice apps…
I believe that the author did not put enough research into the article, and that some of his comments (being an engineer) seem willingly ignorant. For example, he complains about no way to move windows with the keyboard. If he had ever tried to drag a window off screen, he would have realized that this action was impossible; the window snaps back. I believe his attack on Core Image was unfounded on two grounds: First, that Core Image is not yet released. Sorry, if you want to complain about something, at least have used it. Second, why attack a framework that appears to be designed as a way for developers writing general-purpose applications to get code for free on the grounds that it does not meet the needs of a specialty application (processing of your 12000dpi, 130GB scans come to mind)?
I’m going to raise these issues very succinctly. If anyone has an issue with what I’m saying, by all means, respond. However, I don’t believe that I need to elaborate very much on these. Why whine about greater 64-bit support? They have to move forward. Data syncing- surely, as one with computer expertise, you would know how to make your jpeg setting follow you. Apple Backup your preferences (in ~/Library/Preferences) to iDisk, or whatever. The only thing that the revised sync does is extend support to other things. You can still do your preference/data syncing manually, or even automatically through your old means. Keyboard shortcuts- no problem here; I work almost exclusively with the keyboard.
It seems that you have “MacOS doesn’t work like my Windows” syndrome. The Mac does many things differently.
I have to agree, however, about MacOS X has its fair share of uglies. All OSes do. Use whichever one is best for a certain workflow, and don’t expect everything to work flawlessly on any OS. (Not to patronize in any way.) I use my iBook for my work, and for my “laptopping,” while Windows makes a good computer for games, and media players, because “entertainment category” software (Codecs, games, media players, good CD burning software” is more widely available on Windows than on the Mac. Each can compensate for the flaws of the other, but they way you paint the Mac, it should be completely unusable in any regard. It’s not a big deal if it doesn’t work for you, just use what does.
No one expects “fair, and unbiased” in an editorial, but it is irresponsible to publish an article without first having researched the subject, and considered the information from other points of view. Your dissection of Tiger has proven to be shallow and poorly founded at best.
That said, you raise many legitimate points about Steve’s reality distortion field. Not to be a Steve Jobs apologist, but he has a company to run, and in the business world, you must paint you product in the best light. It’s a numbers game really, get the most potential customers to believe that they should buy your product, and you’ve got one of the many pieces to running a successful business. I used to get hot under the collar about Microsoft’s own press machine, but then I learned to understand it, and now the spin that companies put on products doesn’t even phase me. (However, other business practices like calling me in my home several times a day to push a product have forced me to rarely, if ever, pick up my home phone.) Let’s find what is really wrong with businesses, and their relationship with the public. Oh, and you ARE right, Steve is full of ****.
Forgot to mention Photoshop. If it only allocates 900MB of RAM for itself, that is the only the fault of Adobe. Sorry, but pointing the finger at OS X is ridiculous.
> he complains about no way to move windows with the keyboard. If he had ever tried to drag a window off screen, he would have realized that this action was impossible; the window snaps back.
Nope, not in his case. I have seen the problem with my own eyes.
Just remember nothing is perfect out there, but you won’t be disappointed with OSX in terms of A/V. From what I understand, most studios use OSX for the majority of music out there today.
That’s the kind of statement that really needs some perspective. Most studios that have used computers for any part of the music-making process have historically used Macs, going pretty far back in the Mac OS line. The reason was simply because the Mac previously gave software developers unrestrained access directly to the hardware (in this case the numerous different types of audio hardware available for a computer), and therefore developers preferred it over more restrictive environments (ie DOS and Windows). Windows NT/2k/XP are in many ways even more restrictive than either DOS or Win9x, yet XP is seeing far more support from developers of professional audio software than any previous version of Windows (and the other versions of Windows are getting some support now as well). The reason is simple: OS X is more restrictive to developers in terms of access to hardware than any previous version of Mac OS, and many have decided that if they have to rewrite their software for OS X, they might as well add a Windows version to boost their potential sales.
In any case, Windows use in music studios is higher than it’s ever been, but the majority use either Mac OS 9 or OS X, because they’ve always used Apple’s computers.
No, it is not PS’ fault, it is the OS’ for simply being 32bit and not allowing extensions.
These are the reasons why i’m still using XP more often than OSX.
Of course it’s hard to explain for those who’s think computers are only good for internet browsing/music listening/word processing.
I’m fed up with Steve Jobs comparison lies…it’s for people who never used more than 2 OS-es…
So we are reducing a 2 page article titled “An Engineer’s thoughts on Tiger” to whether or not there will be driver issues with a specific third party scanner and printer? If thats the case, then that applies to any new OS. All new OSs always have some kind of driver issues PERIOD.
Its really a complete waste of time to even bring up such a topic. When Tiger comes out call the manufacturer of your third party equipment and find out what their support is/will be for the new OS. Doesn’t sound that hard to me. Same went for W2k to XP. Same will also go for XP to Longhorn…..cept in Longhorn you get the added bonus of DRM hardware.
I don’t know how many times it’s been mentioned, but:
Dashboard was an Apple invention, they tossed it, Konfabulator re-implemented it, and now Apple thinks its a nice idea to try again.
To the rest: yes, Apple is insanely overpriced.
> a work in progress and has issues just like Windows and Linux, and other hobby OSes like SkyOS and Skyllable
So BSD is a work in progress in your opinion? Well, maybe things that are improving are always termed as work in progress then. I don’t understand how you can group a commercial OSes like MacOSX or Windows with what you called hobby OSes.
first of all, the switch to a 64 bit OS has to be a pretty big deal. Capabilities that bring Macosx to the level of BeOS is also a big deal-sure someone can say “oh it’s not innovation” but then understand these are added by the very same engineers who brought them to BeOS in the first place and more importantly-what’s the use of innovative features if they can only be found in an OS that’s not supported anymore?
As far as konfabulator-see his website:http://www.konfabulator.com/ I can’t expect him to be happy about it but here’s what we’re talking about: a clock, a calculator, a stock ticker-this is stuff you’d expect to find on any OS and should be included with the OS
Honourable Editors:
Despite the opening (which could be read as import FUD.*) I read into this piece because I respect your opinions, and because I was hoping for some reasonable criticism of either the Stevenote (which I didn’t get to see .. no QT stream this year? ), the ‘features’ of the upcoming Tiger release, or something of that sort. I was even up for the required notice of where Apple’s ‘innovations’ came from (BeOS, Konfab, Watson, etc). Maybe I was even hoping for another rant on that subject alone …
Instead I get to read through a criticism of a piece of software I don’t license and don’t have much interest in, and which is not an OS, or from Apple.
Perhaps the mistake was in the lead or the title of the article? No matter, as you have been flamed quite enough, and I’ll read you tomorrow. And if JBQ would like to make his opinion of the various platforms he suffers to use daily a regular feature, it might become popular.
Oh, and have a look at Universal Keyboard Access in 10.2 or later. It makes keyboard navigation almost usable, and is due for a major refresh / expansion in Tiger where it is to be combined with an integrated screenreader.
Every OS sucks,
adric
The best thing you can do with this kind of flamewar is READ and laugh. Mr. JBQ posted his statement; he doesn’t like MacOSX. But those of us who DO like it, should shut up and remain in the shadows. Do not waste time, unless you have a copy of MacOS 10.4 Final Release (which doesn’t exist).
Mac is an overpriced lovely piece of hardware and software. I don’t know about Steve Jobs, I’ve never talked to him.
my 0,0000002 euros
Martin.
Is it me or is it everytime Apple does a major OS update, Apple fanboys come out in force and troll the forums.
All this fanboy hubbub for a OS point release coming out in 9 months.
Were their things to be impressed with, yes; iChat, Core Video, aggressive incorperation of h.234 and the BE-affication.
Were their things to disappointed with, yes; the continued 129 charge for a point release, Overpriced LCD monitors that in reality underperform for the price being charged. Dashboard is a blatent rip of Konfabulator(maybe thats real reason why the developers are porting to Windows as they saw their demise on the walls at Apple)
If Apple is going to charge its end users for point releases, why not just go to a subscription model that includes updated software, content, support, and online services(.mac). A simple flat 100$ a year charge would work. If half the OSX user base subscribed, thats 600,000,000$. If all of the OSX base did, thats 1,200,000,000$. Thats more than enough money to pay for all Apple’s OS development and can even pay for a Office suite to be included(the one thats developed by Apple – iWorks).
Even though this would put many of Apples 3rd party developers down(hasn’t stop them before), it may end up saving the Apple user considerable money than the current path. Not to mention it could allow Apple to lower their hardware prices since they would not have to charge so much for software on the front end. But why would they.
First time I’ve ever seen every post with the “already reviewed” stat. Wow.
Anyway, there has been some form of bashing article (from tepid to medium at least) relating to a flavor of Linux, Windows and Mac. When someone reviews or previews something, it’s not just all “about the facts”. If it were all facts, it’d be a white paper. Anyone can just spout off specs. It’s gotta have some bias if the person liked it or disliked it. Being objective doesn’t allow that and really doesn’t give a person a good impression unless there is some emotional pro/con sway.
Besides, it even SAID on the first few lines that it was biased and the first sentence you could tell the direction of the article. So the sensible thing was to just ignore it. But no, those who are biased heavily had to have their say after their [insert choice clothing here] got twisted into a knot.
Macs, PCs are tools, not a way of life.
That was overall a pretty disappointing article. That is, it isn’t really from an “engineer perspective”. I didn’t ready anything about what improved or didn’t improve in the unix layer. I didn’t hear anything about GCC 3.5, or how well the auto-vectorisation stuff works. I didn’t hear anything about performance increases or decreases, how well does it crunch the numbers? Will matlab still be a pain in the ass to install on tiger? Are X11 applications still as badly integrated? All kinda important from an “engineers perspective”..
Is XCode2 Java 1.5 ready? Did any apple engineer make a commitment about Java 1.5? How does the diagramming solution in xcode compare to the omondo uml eclipse plugin? It can’t be much worse, but is it much better? Does it work with Java? Does it do code-generation/code-parsing?
Well, I’m a Software Engineer too technically. Guess what, while I agree with most of your gripes, your pitiful argument about it’s the OS’s fault obviously when people right misbehaved applications is foolhardy at best. Invent a foolproof system and the world invents a better fool. There is no way for any OS to write a blindingly no way you can make mistakes ever possible API. As long as humans write software there were always be mistakes.
The code below actually quite nicely works on my OSX Box (Powerbook with 512MB Ram):
——————————–
#include <string.h>
void main() {
char *p = NULL;
size_t s = 1024*1024*1024;
printf( “s=%lu
“, s );
p = malloc(s);
printf( “p=%p
“, p );
memset( p, 0xaa, s );
printf( “p=%p
“, p );
}
———————————–
It seems to me that this article is a tad too “bloggy” to be called news. While I’m cool with opinion pieces and am glad that people present their opinions, this piece is misleading and off topic.
It is presented as “An Engineer’s Thoughts on Mac OS X Tiger.” While it is, I assume, written by an engineer (although it sounds like this engineer spends more time in Photoshop than any other that I’ve ever met), the title implies more than just that. It implies that we will get an engineer’s viewpoint of the operating system. What we get instead are the authors conjectures about how this new release will affect his own computing experience.
Don’t tell us about how 64-bit support is useless to you. Tell us what it means. Tell us if it will change performance. Tell us that most people won’t benefit from it. But don’t focus solely on yourself. We really honestly don’t care about you when we read “An Engineer’s Thoughts on Mac OS X Tiger.”
I’m going to have to say, that anybody who does not think moving from Windows 98 to XP was a big transition is blowing smoke.
Windows 98 is a single-user system. Windows XP is a multi-user system. Trying to get a Windows 98 user to wrap their head around the concept of different privilege levels for different users is not a simple task.
Windows 98 uses a fairly simple GUI arranged around programs and files. Windows XP uses a complex GUI arranged around “tasks”. Try walking someone through the Control Panel in XP when they just upgraded from 98. Try doing that over the phone. Not an easy task (pun intentional).
Windows 98 uses the Control Panel to configure everything. Windows XP uses the Control Panel, the Microsoft Management Console, several different applets accessible via buttons in various dialogs (try explaining how to get to the hardware list in XP over a phone), and a few other little applets here and there. Very different.
Windows 98 plays nicely on a network, even with Novell and Unix servers. Windows XP Home does not. Windows XP Pro does, sometimes, but requires a hell of a lot more up-front configuration before you can let users loose on it. And don’t even ask about Roaming Profiles. Transitioning users from 98 to XP has been nothing but a nightmare here.
Windows 98 gives you a BSOD and the option to either wait or reboot the computer. Windows XP just reboots instead (the default). Try explaining to a user why their computer is spontaneously rebooting on them, and how to change the setting to prevent this.
There are a *hell* of a lot of differences between Windows 98 and Windows XP. The GUI is just the tip if the ice berg. Who cares if you were smart enough to work around the changes and get comfortable with the new system. Spend a few minutes working on a helpdesk somewhere that moved more than 3 people from 98 to XP, then come back and post that the transition was easy, simple, and virtually invisible.
Until then, shut up about things you don’t know about.
JBQ,
I think that you were being honest and, hey, we Mac people have to accept that NOT everyone is going to like us or our choice of OS. As a primarily Mac user (Windows keeps me employed and IRIX/Linux at home for fun) I can accept that ***gasp*** OS X may not be perfect for you!! That doesn’t change one thing for me!! I’m going to use whatever tool does the job for me and hope that things work out for you. If we Mac users didn’t have Microsoft/Intel to hate, we would need to create them. I apologize for all the thin-skinned folk who saw fit to scream at you.
I don’t have a problem with the article itself. What bothers me is the “not overly impressed” attitude. All OSs have problems. OK, what does it TAKE to impress you, Dude? I don’t want to HEAR yer whining, and I’m pretty sure no one else does either. Facts, Dude, stick to facts.
Oh, and by the way,
-Your article, Not overly impressed.
Ken
I think you would be better off just using your PC for photography. If you were unbiased you would point out the small problems you have with your Windows software. Your rant is so transparent that you embarrass yourself…..
JBQ, some of your complaints are completely unfair and silly. Microsoft does not make “out-of-the-box” drivers for a HUGE amount of hardware. As an engineer, I can’t believe you really think it’s a good idea that *one* company should make drivers to support *all* the related products other companies make.
That there is not as much 3rd party support for Apple is directly related to the amount of market share Apple has. I’m sure you know this, yet you flame Apple for this?
For what it’s worth, my bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse did not work AT ALL in windows without 3rd party drivers. They worked fine on the apple, but with the function keys a bit rearranged. Since it’s a windows keyboard, it is not at all suprising that hte keys are rearranged. As an engineer, I’m sure you can form your own hypothises as to how the keyboard is wired such that they keys come out this way.
If you think Apple is almost there, why all the venom and hate? Really, I agree with other posters here, if you wanted to vent your frustrations with computers, please do it elsewhere. A well thought out critisim minus the venom is fine, but it’s clear from your keyboard example that you are simply bashing for no good reason.
@BrazenRegent
All this fanboy hubbub for a OS point release coming out in 9 months.
This just goes to show how important naming conventions are. It amazes me that people just can’t understand that Apple point releases are the same as major releases of other systems.
Why don’t you also ask why the hubbub over the insignificant Linux kernel point release of 2.4 -> 2.6? [SARCASM]
Ah, because maybe you know this and are just posting to insite arguement? Probably, seems to be the hallmark of osnews comments and even stories these days.
> If you were unbiased you would point out the small problems you have with your Windows software
I have never heard JBQ complaining for his PCs except for buggy graphics drivers from Matrox or ATi.
I can honestly say that he has more problems with his Mac rather than any of his PCs (and their software).
From what you said in your article – the only problem you have is that you don’t know how to use os x…
First learn how to use it, then suggest what could be improved, based on a better knowledge than you showed…
For example: install / uninstall probem -a typical windows user complaint… just put the application in the trash and remove preferences in your library folder (if any)…
these are the apps that follow the mac human interface guidelines… if some unix or windows apps ported and do not follow os x hig, not apple´s fault…
Sorry, just lost my time reading – use your time to be better informed…
The claim “By comparison compatibility in the Mac world is a total disaster” doesn’t ring true to me. I have several applications from 1987 that I still run without problems on my new dual G5 in classic. I am not aware of many that do not run very well.
I got your back — Apple is overpriced and OS X’s (API) backward compatiblity is shaky.
I think most people complaining about your article are users who have found Windows to be more troublesome than OS X. I think for 99% of the population, this is true. So, when you don’t mention the Windows problems (I am sure you have had some!!), the people that haven’t had OS X problems (which I still think is far fewer than people with Windows problems) are going to complain about you “raining on their parade.”
(for the record, I own two simple usb devices that every dummy would assume would work on OS X, but don’t — even with the appropriate drivers — although, my samsung laser has worked fine (even through the .2->.3 transition)
I think that Jeffrey Zeldman said it best in his book Designing with Web Standards http://www.zeldman.com/dwws/ “Those who do not respect a tool are unlikely to use it correctly.” I have been using multiple platforms for 10+ years (Including your beloved BE which doesn’t hold a candle to Mac OS X but has lent itself to Mac OS X of which I am quite grateful for.) and I have never had as much grief with any of the multiple OS’s combined as this fine gentleman has had with one. My guess is that I have a deep understanding of each of these great OS’s including Window’s, Mac OS X, and Linux (Debian being my preferred flavor.) Ultimately I concur with some of your statements about Apple’s hype machine and some of the minor inaccuracies about their marketing. I want you to take a moment though and reflect on any top 5 brands of choice and show me that they have not used disinformation in some manner when selling their products both in past and present. This type of behavior takes place every day and what it breaks down to is your ability to interpret the hype just as you would with any other form of advertisement. I am unaffected by these devices because I choose take a positive non biased approach to technology (Being the Extropian that I am.) rather than to take a negative perspective about something that I’ve yet to even lay hands on. Most of the issues that you have mentioned in your column are easily fixable and no more annoying then any of the many hot fixes, poorly written drivers, and security flaws I’ve dealt with in Windows (Lets not even talk about glitches, poorly rendered windows, and my favorite DLL Hell!). Nor are they any less tolerable than the endless array of configuration files required when setting up most instances of UNIX. What’s worse is they sound to be user error not flaws in the Operating System itself. In conclusion my suggestion would be to pack your Mac bags and head on back to your comfort zone, never to look back again. Windows is the place for you, and I can’t possibly understand what you’re doing on Mac to begin with especially knowing that you can do everything on your PC equally as well and in some instances better that you can on your Mac. Your myopic perspective denounces you from favoring the Mac thus leaving you little choice but to live in Microsoft space where your opinion is shared but not respected.
Up until yesterday I would have totally disregarded this sort of article. However, after the Keynote @ WWDC, I have completely lost faith in Apple. $3,300 monitors that require a $600 video card?! Give me a break! The lowest cost G5 is now $2,000. Where are the cheap(er) machines for the rest of us? And don’t tell me to get an eMac. Those computers were _never_ intended for general consumer purchase, just education. iPods in BMWs? How about Hondas? Try to get the product to the masses, not the elite.
The only point I take exception with in this article is the claim “By comparison compatibility in the Mac world is a total disaster” I have many “ancient” applications which run fine on OS 9. Yes, I still use 9.2.2 at home because it works perfectly on my old 8500 thanks to OS9 Helper. OS X is used at work.
Apple, you’ve lost your way.
Anonymous-“I think you are seriously overestimating your “knowledge in the field”.”
I agree with Anonymous. Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X is a major transition. Try taking XP and changing it’s core to UNIX. Hmmmm. Would be pretty major, no? Has Windows changed it’s core since Win95 or NT? Please inform me if I’m wrong. Ever wonder why it will be 2006-2007 before Longhorn gets released? Hmmm. Sorry Buddy.
Kurt, the Apps folder is owned by root (System). To transfer the folder to a Firewire drive, enable the root user using NetInfo Manager, log out and log back in as root. Move the Apps folder to your hard drive along with your Preferences folder in your Home directory. Reinstall (if you really need to) and then move the non-standard Apps (again as root) and it’s prefs from your FW drive to main drive. That’s all. Not so difficult.
Oh, yeah, BTW, I’m a so-called Mac loving troll. Something like that. : )
Many of this engineers comments, while hardly presented in an unbiased fashion, do hold some
truth. Yes, his tone was lacking in objectivity. While no OS is perfect, there are some that
are better than others. OS X, in many ways is still in it’s infancy. And yes, there are some
areas in which the OS needs some more development. That is not to say that it is in any way
inferior to Windows. In fact, OS X has an infinitely better launching pad than Windows EVER
will. This is do the fact that it was intelligently designed by REAL ENGINEERS from the
ground up, instead of having a bunch of CPU-intensive flashy crap tacked on to a outmoded
design (did you ever read Microsoft’s Halloween document? You ought to google it and see
just what Microsoft REALLY thinks. They are a marketing company, not a software company).
Developing the OS X engine beyond it’s current state is like fine-tuning a Ferrari, whereas
attempting to re-engineer Windows is like trying to put a go-cart engine inside a Ferrari
chassis. It is true that, in terms of backwards compatibility with older software, that
Windows is infinitely more “capable” that OS X. But here is the question: WHO CARES? Would I
go plop $3000 on a dual XEON processor Windows XP so that I can run WordPerfect 5.0 for DOS?
How important is Symetric Multiprocessing going to be, when only one processor will be used
because WordPefect for DOS is a single-threaded application. What am I going to do to use
that other processor? Use Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS? Microsoft’s BIGGEST shortcoming with their
operating system is this: Backward compatibility. I say “SCREW BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY! THIS
IS THE 21ST CENTURY!” Let’s go FOREWARD, not BACKWARD! FORWARD COMPATIBILITY! It is because
of Micro$oft’s insipid and senseless pursuit of backward compatibility that their operating
systems suck for anything truly demanding like audio and video. I marvel at how far
computers could have progressed had it not been for BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY. What a joke.
With Longhorn, Microsoft is FINALLY kissing off support for 16-bit code. After how long?
Windows will NEVER be as fast as it could be until it is rebuilt from the ground up. After
21 years, Microsoft has yet to get it right and they know that. Microsoft does not have the
BALLS to TRULY code their OS from scratch. They will SLOWLY try to implement some of the
technology that they have bought or ripped from elsewhere over the last 10 years, try to
make it work with a slow and cludgy file system redesign (WinFS), and paint over this wreck
of an operating system with PixelShader 2.0 support. What a mess. It is an act of
desperation on Microsoft’s part for them to rebuild their OS from the ground up. We all know
that it’s just going to be more junky code piled on top of what is already junky code. If OS
X is such a poor excuse for an operating system, then why is Microsoft running scared and
copying it? How many million lines of code will it take Microsoft to emulate the elegance
and simplicity of OS X? Microsoft is nothing more than a bunch of toothless Washington
rednecks who come to the Science Fair late and try to bully everyone into giving them first
prize. They know they don’t have the brains. And it’s looking like they don’t have the brawn
either. I find it interesting that an engineer who worked on BEOS would ever defend
Microsoft. Did he fall and hit his head? And what is he doing trying to scan a document
while using Expose anyway?
JBQ, what kind of apps have you installed where you had to place files in various places by hand? I haven’t run into that yet. Thanks!
Thanks for an interesting article. Here are the things I liked about it:
The jaundiced attitude toward Steve Job’s breathless salesmanship.
I especially liked the author’s evaluation of the shallowness of Job’s knowledge. Of course, many of Gates’ and Balmer’s comments about Linux display a similar lack of knowledge. Likewise, the endless comments concerning Windows’ bloated instability from the Linux crowd.
The footnote section dealing with what the author didn’t like is enlightening.
As for the comments on the article, Wow! I would hope that such comments wouldn’t be a negative influence if I was considering a Mac, but I can’t honestly say that I could filter them out completely. The hardware is OK, if a little overpriced. The OS, for all its shortcomings shows promise, but the users….
While I have great respect for the Ex Engineers of Be Inc, This Article has portrayed you as a Closed Minded Individual. Thankyou for your Warning at the Start of the Review.
Let me make it clear. I’m not a fan of Apple. I think that their products are overhyped, overpriced and underperforming. If you’re looking for a fair unbiased opinion, you’re looking in the wrong place. You’ve been warned.
On the actual Review:
I found it funny that Steve Jobs would use the words “iTunes” and “lossless compression” in the same sentence Why is that funny? Apple Lossless was introduced with iTunes 4.5 and AIFF and Wave Support have always been available.
[Miscellaneous Sinking of new Features of MacOSX Tiger]Many of these features are incomplete. With another 6-7 months of Development, these additions will be the well-rounded features we expect from Apple.
Seeing Finder create complex queries gave me the illusion for a moment that BeOS’ Tracker had been ported to MacOS. Yay! Finally, the first Major OS, since BeOS which actually includes Attribute Support. This is not a Bad Thing at all. And if you say it isn’t as fully featured as Tracker/BeFS, consider that MacOSX is still a Users OS, not a Geeks OS.
Sorry buddy, but the transition from Windows 3.1/95/98/ME to Windows NT/2000/XP was at least as big.I agree with you here, because we are both Geeks, but for most of the users out there there is no underlying difference between Windows 98 and Windows 2k, except that there are few gimmicky features which either OS doesn’t have. They consider XP to be significantly different from 2k simply because it’s themeable. For them DOS is ancient History, but they still can’t play “Sam and Max Hit The Road” on their XP Machine.
[Various Whining that his computer isn’t the latest and greatest and can’t use some advanced features] Apple is a Hardware Company. Their Job is to sell The Latest and Greatest Hardware. The OS is a Means to an End.
As with my BeOS machine, I buy hardware which I know specifically works with my Machine. I have Customers who have similar problems when they try to plug an old LPT Scanner into their XP Machine, so Hardware incompatibility isn’t limited to Niche OS’s.
[Various Whining about MacOSX not behaving how he wants it to behave] You’re an Engineer. Write a Quick-And-Dirty hack which lets you move windows using the keyboard. Patent it, Release it for free to the public. Being a Nasty Hack, it will stuff up the Apple Upgrade Cycle and they will be forced to integrate it, just like they were forced to integrate Konfab. and LaunchBar. Since you patented it, collect Royalties. Profit.
As long as the OS makes it easier to write misbehaving code than to write well-working code[…] It’s still up to the developer to write well working code. If Obj-C held the programmers hand all the way through the development process, the programmer wouldn’t get any work done. (something MS doesn’t realise). While Programming for BeOS is nicer than Programming for MacOSX, They are both simpler than programming for Windows, IMHO, YMMV.
The article, while it raises a few valid points about MacOSX Tiger is even more biased than your disclaimer states, and if it was by anyone else, Eugenia probably shouldn’t have posted it. I still respect you as an Engineer, but you’re a Terrible Journalist. BTW, where are the Photos?
> what kind of apps have you installed where you had to place files in various places by hand
The scanner and printer software wouldn’t find where photoshop is installed and place their plugins there automatically. Also, we have to use uControl and other drivers in order to make our hardware to work and these guys don’t always offer installers.
BUT, this is not the problem. The problem is the uninstallation, not the installation (which do go hand-in-hand in the mind of a windows user). Trying to clean up your system drive from these apps or from apps that write on your ~/Library is almost impossible.
Yes.. I know.. I’ve been warned.. but I must say your article is poor.
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-64 bit support. Nice for those who have G5s, maybe. For those of us stuck with ancient machines (the G4 kind, which Apple still sells today on their web site) there doesn’t seem to be any enhancement
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What the hell is the problem? Who said there 32-bit development will be stoped? 64Bit is the buzzword of the industry so Apple has to yell it out as loud as possible.. especially because the have been the first mainstream manufacturer with 64Bit-Computers (I said mainstream! SGI and SUN are not mainstream!)
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– Dashboard
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I have to agree, I’m very disappointed about Apple in this case. But I like the idea only to see widgets (I don’t like them .. but I’ll buy Konfab just to show support!) only when I want them to see.
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-Safari RSS
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What is your problem? Can IE do it? Can mozilla (or any derivate) do it? Can Konqueror do it? Can epiphany do it? 4x No!
And I also like the “smart bookmaring”.. it’s a great idea.. and noone else have it right now.
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-Automator. Once again not really impressed.
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Hmm.. who can you judge after such a short demo? This was a keynote tiger preview demo and not the “Automator 101” class! So I’m quite sure that there will be a lot stuff in it… even Parameters!
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-Spotlight. In 1997, as a Be developer, I got my hands on BeOS “Advanced Access” (also known as developer release 9). I wasn’t a Be engineer yet at the time. It was the first release that featured Dominic’s bfs filesystem instead of Benoit’s ofs filesystem. bfs was a major step forward from ofs, but not a revolution. It was natural evolution. Spotlight is an evolution of a similar magnitude, which attempts to solve pretty much the same problem with a slightly different approach. Seeing Finder create complex queries gave me the illusion for a moment that BeOS’ Tracker had been ported to MacOS.
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I knew it that such comment will occur on osnews. What is the problem if spotlight is somehow the successor of bfs? I can’t see any. But what I see is, that spotlight is performing much better than bfs.
My x86-BeBox was a Dual PII,384MB,18GB-U160-SCSI-HD and the search for a single MP3 took really so long, that I sometimes found it much faster by myself. And the queries on BeOS where not very smart.. the didn’t “recall” the suff they had found… sorry.. you just sound jealous.
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-Core Image.
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Same as for automator. How can you judge after a Keynote-demo….
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-I find the hardware support to be very poor.
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This one made me laught. Hmm.. I remember the day when I received my first BeOS R3 (x86) box.. it was one the first release day.. and I was somewhat disappointed, my GFX card (Fire 1000GL Pro/Paramedia Chipset) was not supported. I had to buy a new GFX-card. From then on I bought my hardware after the BeOS-HWCL. And BeOS had always such a poor Hardware support. And now, you blame Apple for that? ALL my current hardware (joystick,digital camera,mp3-player,…) work so fine with OS X.. I never had any problem with compatibiliy… and the only thing I was looking for being compatible is the MP3 player.. not for OS X but for I tunes..
So, I don’t think OS X can be blamed for lacking hardware support.
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-memory limitations in applications. … Photoshop doesn’t manage to
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Uh, did I missed something? Apple bought Adobe? That is a Photoshop issue.. not an OS issue!
Hmm…maybe your are just jealous because BeOS didn’t made it up to where OS X is.
>Uh, did I missed something? Apple bought Adobe?
Yes, you DID miss something. This is an OS limitation, NOT an application one.
>maybe your are just jealous because BeOS didn’t made it up to where OS X is.
JBQ doesn’t give a rat’s ass about BeOS, if you want to know.
“If you’re looking for a fair unbiased opinion, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
Why do you, the author, state that you are unable to make a fair assessment of Apple’s offerings? Are you unable to try? Have you tried in the past and simply given up, resigned to write articles that seek out only the problems? You could have probably written the comments for this article yourself; given your tone I certainly could have predicted the readership’s reaction. Back to the drawing board if you want to have a constructive conversation.
Also, if I’m looking for an engineer’s thoughts on Mac OS Tiger as the title suggests I guess I’m also looking in the wrong place. I take it you do not have the Tiger Developer Preview. It seems this is an engineer’s thoughts on the high level, glossy presentation of 10% of the features of Tiger geared toward intro’ing the arriving developers to things they might want to ask questions about, or think about utilizing as part of the next OS. If you get to play with it 1 on 1 at all, give us a clue whether your “maybes” and “don’t think it’ll be worth its” were on the money.
People, people, don’t get all jumpy :S He expresses opinions, and therefore, he is always right.
Well, anyway, nevermind.
As far as the memory issue goes, I thing JBQ should point more at his lack of Photoshop knowledge than at the programming prowess of Apple or Adobe. Please read the “Allocating more memory to Photoshop” section of the following Adobe tech document:
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/c9ba.htm
> I thing JBQ should point more at his lack of Photoshop knowledge than at the programming prowess of Apple or Adobe
Do you think that JBQ doesn’t know about this pref panel? That panel does nothing in our case. We have 2 GB of RAM and PS is set to use 90% of that memory. However, PS uses *only* up to 900 MBs, NO MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE SELECTED on that panel.
So, ask a question before you talk about it.
It seems that considering all the generally biased, stilted and outright poor tech articles that are available on the ‘net, there is very little place for articles like this on a site dedicated to disseminating information about a specific subject.
OSNews draws people who want pertinent information about a number of different operating systems and this kind of hack reportage is just a waste of bandwidth.
As others have said, the opinions drawn from glitzy dog and pony show can hardly be considered well reasoned… even coming from an “engineer”.
Open your copy of the dev release, dig around in the code and get your hands dirty on the implementations and then give us an UNBIASED review.
That has value!
Nice to read some Apple-bashing for a change!
I hope I get my new 3G iPod tommorrow. Thanks Apple for creating the best technostuff in the world!
I’ve tried Vuescan and didn’t quite like it. Honestly I’m not quite entire sure why (and I don’t quite remember, it was a while ago actually).