So, Apple held its usual autumn press get-together just now, and after a few rather uninspiring ones (to me, at least), they finally managed to blow me away, with the new MacBook Air (especially the 11.6″ variant). They also gave a sneak peek at Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which has… An App Store. An App Store Apple is going to open on Snow Leopard within 90 days.
MacBook Air
I was expecting to start with the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion news, but forget it, it’ll come later in this item. Let’s talk about the ‘one more thing’ first – because I’m absolutely, positively blown away by just how cool that thing is. Finally a laptop that truly feels like a portable device, with a beautiful design and some interesting hardware choices. People – after all these years, the 12″ iBook finally has a worthy successor.
The new MacBook Air comes in two variants: 13.3″ (1440×900) and 11.6″ (1366×768). It’s only got flash storage, so no hard drive; the flash is soldered onto the logic board, so no anachronistic flash chips stuffed in a 1.8″-3.5″ enclosure, and you can opt for 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB. It sports a Core 2 Duo 1.4Ghz processor (1.86Ghz is an option on the 13.3″ model), and they all come with 2GB of memory.
It’s instant-on, and has a running time of web browsing wirelessly of 5 hours (11.6″) or 7 hours (13.3″), and according to Apple, they’re using some fancy, more stringent test so it should be longer using the older tests (or, translated into English from Marketingese: the battery life is disappointing). The standby time has been dragged up to an impressive 30 days.
And they look… Absolutely stunning. There’s no way around it. It’s been a while since Macintosh machines have been able to impress me, but there’s something about the sharpness of this thing that really speaks to me. Prices start at USD 999 for the 11.6″/64GB model, which is a very aggressive price for a machine like this. They can chalk me up for the 11.6″ base model. Finally a worthy successor to my 12.1″ iBook!
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion
So, what’s Lion all about? Well, unsurprisingly, it’s about how stuff from iOS is going to find its way back into Mac OS X. As such, we honest-to-god had some engineer from Apple – and I’m not making this stuff up – professing the virtues of… Full screen applications. Whether this finally fixes the issue of that weird maximise-oh-wait-it-isn’t-button I don’t know, but it’s a huge step forward for computing, and yet another example of how Apple is far ahead of the curve. Bravo, my jaw dropped to the floor.
Another new feature is the Mac App Store, which is exactly what the name implies: a revolution in application delivery Linux users have been enjoying since the dawn of time: centralised application delivery, updating, and removal. Great stuff to have, but obviously nothing revolutionary. The Mac App Store will open within 90 days (ahead of Lion’s launch).
Steve Jobs mentioned it will not be the only method of application delivery. My mind added: “…yet.” The clock is ticking, people.
There’s some interface tweaks as well, such as the merging of Spaces and Exposé, which really needs to be seen to be understood properly. There’s also going to be application home screens à la the iPad which you can activate through an icon in the dock, including familiar features like application folders and such.
Lion is going to have more, but this was all they were going to show us today. Its release is planned for summer 2011, so we’ll know more by then.
MacOSX Lion is version 10.7, not 10.8.
Reserve the “…yet” thought for 10.8. 🙂
D’oh. Fixed.
Is it? Where does Apple actually state the version number? They only spoke of “Lion” and “next version of OS “…. Take a look at the Product page = no mention of version number at all.
Were does Apple give the version number? All they said was the OS is going to be the next version of OS X and that it will be named “Lion”. You have made a giant leap to 10.7 there. I don’t doubt it will be 10.7, but that version number was NOT released at the keynote yesterday and is NOT on the product page.
Steve Jobs listed the different felidae (cats) ascribed to the different versions; these amounted up to 7, with “Lion” being number 8 (note that the version number is NOT 10.8, because there first was an OSX 10.0)
This is already plenty of reason to assume that in the logical line of using felidae as names for the OSX series, it will be the follow-up to 10.6 and not the first one in a new series (i.e., 11.0).
Another reason to assume this one will be 10.7 is because of the way Apple treats its life cycles: they alternate releases between features and functionality. Snow Leopard was really aimed at consolidating the system’s backbone, without many noticeable changes to the users. It was to be expected that Lion would be focused on adding new features.
Thirdly, and this should be obvious enough: the amount of “major changes” is not sufficient to say the next release is fit for being the first one of a brand new series; it isn’t very different from Snow Leopard in look and feel. Personally I believe the Mac OS 11 series will be all-Cocoa, 64-bit-only, SSD-only, and ZFS-based, and I deem Apple keen enough to already have a team working on that for quite some time now.
In summary: there is no need to assume they will call it anything other than 10.7 and you can derive that from every aspect of the version’s place in the system’s life cycle.
Yes… all well documented…
Is there? Show me this evidence. Again, this is all pure conjecture. Sure, it might be true. Apple *might* create a 7″ iPad. Apple *might* create an App Store for the AppleTV. Apple *might* create an iPhone for CDMA. All of this is however, speculative at best.
Sure, each version up to SL added features and improved (in Apples rhetoric) on the prior version. SL was the first “stabilisation and feature freeze” version (though that is still not exactly true, as we all know – they changed stuff still.) So, I do believe what you are saying. But, still, Lion is the first version of OS X that will begin the convergence between Cocoa and Cocoa touch API. I fully expect we developers will move from the old Cocoa “NS” GUI API, steeped in NextStep, to the new world “UI” GUI API.
Really? Really, really? Do you really believe “Cocoa” has a future? I don’t. I believe (as mentioned above) we will move to the iOS style API.
There’s no proof they will call it 10.7 either. 10.6, when announced, was called 10.6 right off the bat. As I stated – where is there a version number on *any* of Apple’s current Lion marketing? Nowhere. I’m sure you may well be right, but it’s still way, way too early to be able to know exactly what their plans are.
First of all don’t you mean Lion 10.7 ?
(edit: Too slow)
This was an important day marking things to come.
Steve calling the MBA the future of laptops makes me think that this will trickle down to the larger forms. About time we got rid of dvd drives; what a waste of space and money.
As for, 10.7, I’m excited but I want to see more.
Does the AppStore application for the Mac mean we will eventually see it separate from iTunes? I’m only hoping, it needs a slim down.
Edited 2010-10-20 19:11 UTC
I second that thought; when I think about it I must have used my CD/DVD drive maybe a 1/2 dozen times in the last year on my laptop. It makes little sense having something I use so rarely to still be in the device. I’d sooner Apple keep the traditional 13.3 MacBook Pro design, take out the drive and replace it with more battery capacity or maybe beefier hardware specifications.
The AppStore, from what it looks like in the demo, will be separate from iTunes so I wonder whether we’re going to see a modularisation of iTunes into separate components. If they go along that route then it would be great – I’d love to see a synchronisation tool similar to Zune on Mac which is strictly for synchronising and nothing more. Allow me to use a media manager of my choice. Apple really do need to embrace the old UNIX principle of having a tool that does one thing really well rather than trying to be everything to everyone and thus suck equally at all of them.
These two statements are totally counter to the Apple way.
First Apple is not about choice – never has been – they are about vertical integration. Taking iTunes making it an optional access point to your content/devices is a pipedream.
Apple isn’t going to embrace the UNIX way. They are too busy removing its philosophy from the core of OS X, remember launchd. The Apple way a proven by released software is taking a lot of small programs that do their job well, and then making a monolithic replacement. What you want is a complete 180 from their current practice.
_YES._
I would hug you for saying that if you were a close personal friend.
so I experience the ‘offers endless possibilities to browse and purchase apps. ‘
Please take all My Money I love you Stevie!
…but same weight as my 13.3″ laptop, which has a better GPU, Core i5 CPU and faster storage. And a higher-resolution screen. Of course it costs more, but hey. This is a decent effort, though, and the MBA badly needed the refresh.
Errr your laptop definitely doesn’t have faster storage, unless you’ve installed an SSD in which case it will probably be slower than this anyways.
I’ve installed a really good SSD on my MacBook Pro and the difference is massive. Very often, it’s like running a computer which is 2-3 generations ahead.
Edited 2010-10-20 19:29 UTC
Why would his laptop ( a computer with storage specs you do not know) necessarly have slower storage than this?
Yes, it does. It has dual, RAIDed SSDs.
Can we get a link to a 2 drive with RAID support 13.3″ laptop?
Sony VAIO Z.
Options:
128GB (64GBx2) Solid State Drive with RAID 0 Technology
256GB (128GBx2) Solid State Drive with RAID 0 Technology
512GB (256GBx2) Solid State Drive with RAID 0 Technology
Hmm… Interesting. Not a fan of buying Sony products, but that was definitely a nerd’s wet dream for a ultraportable.
you win a small prize! indeed, That’s My Laptop.
Yes so your storage alone costs 40% of what this MBA costs. Thank you for reinforcing my point.
By the way here’s a link for the guy who asked for a dual raid solution for laptops.
http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=Product.disp…
You didn’t mention price in your first post, he did. Be careful of what you assume from other people’s posts, especially here. There are some ( awesomely) crazy people here whose equipment and experiences will blow your mind. Its one of the reasons why I hang around.
Hmm.. I would prefer a “RAID” of a real HDD with a SSD. It can not be done sanely at hardware level alone as some “system” will need to evaluate what data needs higher throughput and higher write speeds, and what needs much higher random access and less battery use. The new bttrfs for Linux should have the necessary capability though.
I too saw that in the Sony Style shop in Wellington. They’re very nice machines but one still can’t avoid the fact that you’re going to be saddled with Windows – the hardware maybe sexy but if the operating system is ugly as sin (usability, reliability, ascetically etc) it isn’t going to matter how great the hardware is, the operating system will always let it down.
I along with many others purchase our machines on the complete package rather than this over the top fixation on hardware specifications alone. It is all very nice to boast about hardware specifications but f the vehicle that enables you to run your applications (the operating system) is subpar then it won’t matter how good the hardware is – the machine is a let down.
…so replace the OS.
With what? Linux ROFL. Good one, I need a good laugh after seeing you stalk and spam almost every post I’ve made so far on this forum.
This is a comments section, not a forum.
Back atcha, too.
saddled with Windows? I work for Red Hat, remember, you really think it’s running Windows?
Steve Jobs further shows his true colours as a _non_-benevolent dictator.
The ‘system restore’ drive is the last straw. It’s as good as a reset button now.
Flash storage integrated into the machine? We’re moving closer and closer to their ‘real’ computers being as closed, _non_-standard and draconian as their phones.
Oh, and a 11.6″ Air? I thought netbooks were a dead-end, Steve? Ah, but it can’t be a netbook because it costs a fortune! BRILLIANT!
If I could afford the consequences, I’d punch the bastard in the face.
I can’t, though, so he’s safe from me, physically.
I can rant on the internet all I want, though.
You’re upset because they provide a restore thumb drive instead of a restore DVD?
I’d hate to hear what you think of SSDs.
Apple has had small laptops for decades, are you new here?
Is your post a joke? If not I’m concerned that there is some medication that you forgot to take.
I’m upset because it’s called a ‘system restore drive’, as though it’s anything special.
With any luck it’ll just be their evil software on it, just as though it was on a DVD. Likely it’s akin to the reset button I had on my Palm III, which ‘restores things to the default’. Considering it’s going to be less likely to lose, I think it’s likely that most tech support calls will start with “get out your system restore drive…”?
That’s either a non-sequitur or a strawman.
I said that the storage is built into the machine. You can’t change it. They control it. You can’t control it. “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it.”
Nonsesical argument.
None have been this small. This is a netbook that costs alot of money. Steve Jobs has never had anything good to say about netbooks. He made a netbook. I’m laughing at him.
Nope. I hate him. He’s evil.
If he had his way, only his programmers would understand computers. All the people who use software would would be plebians who look to him for guidance and new ‘magical’ devices.
He wants you to not know how the computer works.
He wants you to think that only Apple can do these ‘magical’ things.
He wants you to think Apple can do no wrong.
He wants to crush anyone who even comes close to touching any ground he’s gained in these efforts, whether they make any money off it or not.
He pushes for patents on everything, whether or not Apple invented it, and whether or not it’s an actual device or some concept with no intrinsic value.
He’s evil. He’s just not powerful enough yet for enough people to care.
That’s how it starts.
You’re funny.
Those bastards. Instead of a System Restore DVD, they provided a System Restore USB Thumb Drive, that they then evilly shortened to System Restore Drive. Clearly a plot that is aimed directly against you.
Yes, with any luck the system restore drive will actually restore things to the default. I mean, seeing as that’s what it’s designed to do. And, did you know if you play a Mac OS X DVD backwards there is a Satanic message on it?
Not only do they control it, but once you buy one it controls you. It does it by subtly adding subliminal messages to your music in iTunes. So DON’T USE ITUNES!!!!1!
I’m beginning to see your logic. I mean, up until now they only provided the big heavy laptops. And Steve Jobs has been consistent, big and heavy is the way to go. That 12″ iBook was SOOOO much bigger than this Air, ROLF stupid evil Steve Jobs and his tiny, tiny laptops. Hey, did I mention the OS X DVD backwards trick yet?
You, on the other hand, are clearly a level headed, well grounded individual. I salute you, sir!
He also is known to park in the handicapped spot, WITHOUT A PLACARD!!!!!!!
How could I have expected logic and reason from Apple people? Wait, I didn’t.
Yes, I’m angry and opinionated. You’re docile and cow-eyed.
There’s no reason in this day and age for a full default restore to be necessary. If you can boot, and the drive from which you are booting contains the system files, you should be able to repair it without ‘restoring’. You should be able to repair it.
The whole idea of ‘repair’ is beyond Apple users, though. “I got a new one free!” No, you payed for it in the initial price.
This has absolutely nothing to do with what I said.
It’s just ad-hominem. No reason for me to reply further.
Actually, it is smaller. It’s thin, and light, not heavy and relatively tough. The 12″ iBook was a subnotebook. This is a netbook. It’s underpowered, has SSD storage as the only option, is thin, has no optical drive, and is relatively fragile (and don’t give me that ‘unibody durability’ argument. It’s a brittle aluminium alloy that bends and fractures under conditions that plastic would recover from and zinc would shrug at).
It’s a netbook. Get over it.
I’m an angry opinionated person. The world needs more angry, opinionated people.
Complacency is what let the far-right take over the US.
“But this is just a computer!” Computers are in everything you own. Your car, every telephone of any kind sold, every TV, probably 1/3 of toys, even greeting cards! I don’t want closed software in the eventual voting machines. I want to be able to confirm that they’re not fucked-up.
I don’t want Apple to control what software I can and cannot use, especially if they don’t allow ‘duplication of functionality’.
I don’t want them in control of _anything_, other than the actual product I can purchase: the hardware.
The fact that you don’t understand that handing over control of what is or will be the very centre of your life. The computer has taken over much of what we used to do in multiple ways. Planning, communication, storage of information (when’s the last time you saw a photo album of recent events? A home movie on tape? Who keeps a deadtree journal any more?), reading, film/TV… They’ve all already been or will soon be replaced by the general-purpose computer.
Apples entire business plan and marketing strategy is to make the general-purpose computer go away, and replace it with a walled garden.
I find it funny that most people that decide to go into that garden either don’t notice the guards, or don’t notice that the guards are looking as closely at the people inside as out…
“The fact _is_ that…”
Typo, but it made that long/run-on sentence even more confusing.
You’re correct sir, “repair” isn’t even a word in the Apple user lexicon. I looked up “repair” in the dictionary included with Snow Leopard and it said “did you mean restore.” How much more evidence do you need? Next you’re going to say that there is a “repair” option in Disk Utility!!! I personally would be insulted if you said that by the way.
I’m not attacking you, I’m simply providing some relevent information so that you too don’t get sucked into the Cult of Apple ™(r)(c) through the subliminal messages. Cause I can hear the voices right now…
Oh, yea, you’re right, I’m soooo stupid, how could I have confused a sub-notebook and a netbook. I mean, how much more different could they be!?!?! I’m over it now, thanks!
DId you know that you need to ask personal permission from Steve Jobs to install software on OS X? Right now I mean, not sometime “in the future.” You send him an email and then a few weeks later he lets you know if you can install the software. Sometimes when he’s in a bad mood he’ll say no just because. I hate it when that happens. Also, too, OS X self destructs if you install software that has “duplication of functionality.” If you install Firefox, for example, every web page you load just goes to a video of Steve Jobs yelling at you, asking why you hate him and won’t use Safari. At first it made me angry, but I think I see his point now.
That’s deep man. Can we be friends?
Nothing in here that isn’t stupid and ad-hominem.
I’m angry and opinionated.
This user’s just trolling.
Does that mean we can’t be friends?
You are a user.
Ironically, users are actually the ones being used, because if you don’t understand what you’re using, you’re going to get used.
Once you understand what you’re using, you have little choice but to be a programmer. Even if you’re just using a language of physical gestures, that you have to manually repeat every time you want a sequence executed, you know what’s actually happening, and you’re intentionally causing it.
An old-ish saying: “The difference between users and programmers is that programmers know there’s no difference”.
I’d like to ammened that idea.
A user is someone who wants to not know what their computers are doing.
Make sure to have them check your blinker fluid next time you fill up the radiator bearing when you get your tires double-rotated.
(see, that’s me calling you stupid for being an Apple Person, a plebe, who doesn’t have the slightest desire to understand the world around them)
I’m not attacking you, I’m simply providing some relevent information so that you too don’t get sucked into the Cult of Apple ™(r)(c) through the subliminal messages. Cause I can hear the voices right now…
Oh, yea, you’re right, I’m soooo stupid, how could I have confused a sub-notebook and a netbook. I mean, how much more different could they be!?!?! I’m over it now, thanks!
DId you know that you need to ask personal permission from Steve Jobs to install software on OS X? Right now I mean, not sometime “in the future.” You send him an email and then a few weeks later he lets you know if you can install the software. Sometimes when he’s in a bad mood he’ll say no just because. I hate it when that happens. Also, too, OS X self destructs if you install software that has “duplication of functionality.” If you install Firefox, for example, every web page you load just goes to a video of Steve Jobs yelling at you, asking why you hate him and won’t use Safari. At first it made me angry, but I think I see his point now.
That’s deep man. Can we be friends? [/q]
This is the funniest shit I’ve read all day. LOL!
Well, that was insightful.
-_-
Have you heard of youtube? You should try it, you’d fit right in.
ROFL!
That response was classic.
How dare Apple be responsible and include a USB drive as a restore disc.
Why couldn’t they be like every other level headed PC company and include a partition on the hard drive and a pop-up on your desktop informing you that you need to spend the next eight hours and 200 blank DVDs to create a set of restore discs yourself? Why Apple, Why? Of course they would not even have to give you instructions either. Shame on you, Apple!
Again, it’s a restore drive, not a repair drive.
That’s what offends me.
But they call it a “Software Reinstall Drive” not a repair drive, so what is your beef with a name?
“Reinstall” is actually a further confirmation of what ‘restore’ would have indicated.
That they don’t support repair, but rather only a full system wipe.
Again, ludicrous in this day and age.
What’s ludicrous is that you are obviously stating as fact things you have never used. If you had used a Mac before, or even bothered to read the MacBook Air User guide on Apple.com, you would know that you can do repairs and other maint. with the reinstall drive. You can repair permissions, disk errors, reset password, and other utilities, likely the same things you can do with an install DVD.
You are not forced to do a complete wipe, which is called “Erase and Install”. You can also choose to re-install Mac OS X without erasing your user data, docs, etc.
Perhaps you should use something or at the least do a little research before you state “facts” and get all angry about something you know nothing about…
Well, I stand corrected, but they should call a spade a spade.
Again, I don’t have, use or want a Mac because they don’t do what I want, and do things I don’t want them to.
Steve Jobs runs a company, you’re free to purchase and use his company’s products or you are not.
Laptops at the end of the day are nothing but nice mobile cases for a circuit board containing silicon chips… they’re definitively not an ethos or the expected meaning of life. Good grief… Some of you need to get a grip (and a life).
Strawman again.
I said they’re the center of your life.
Like the kitchen used to be? You know? When people had families and ate food, and lived under roofs and bathed?
Oh, wait…
…
Well, you’re just gibbering!!! Why should I bother saying anything on topic!!??
*end moltar-on-natural-gas impression*
You just don’t understand any of this.
You buy products that have a notice on the box that tells you that inside the box is a contract, and if you open the box, you agree to the contract in the box.
I think that level of logic-fail should preclude you from breeding…
No, no it’s not. “Staw man” implies the statement is intentionally misleading the argument by altering the parameters. However, Steve Jobs exact response to your style of hysteria is along the lines of “We make products. We like them. You might not. Buy them if you want. If not, buy something else.” Jobs *openly* tells people not to buy Apple products when same people criticise them. His attitude is very much the exact position that the poster mentions. This is the company line. Not every employee might share it, but this is the company “ideal”, if you like. As a Apple hater, you don’t have to agree, you don’t have to like it – but they are the facts.
I never said anything about them being the ethos or way of life.
I said something entirely different.
Thus, by altering the parameters of what I _actually_ said, straw-man.
Nothing more to be said.
No. Not straw man. Again – you do not like Apple products, don’t buy them. This is a very “hippie” attitude to the issues you are wittering on about, but your entire line of hatred assumes that Apple cares about your opinion. They don’t. This is what really pisses the haters off. If the CEO’s reaction to your opinion is simple “buy something that makes you happy” it’s extremely hard not to sound foolish. But, still you carry on.
No, exactly. No need for your comment to have existed in the first place. But then, haters will always hate.
“It’s not a strawman! Why do you hate America!”
-_-
You are either stupid or you are deliberately misleading yourself and others. There are numerous instances of jobs publicly trying to put a spin on justifiable negative publicity (iPhone 4 comes to mind). Therefore your statement IS false. Besides the purpose of comments on this and similar websites is not to provide feedback or to influence any CEO but to share opinions and experiences between users and in some case professionals.
For someone who is wrong that was a very condescending post. At the “antennagate” event Jobs said:
1. We don’t think this is a problem, every phone does it
2. If you think it’s a problem we have 2 solutions for you
a) a free case
b) return the device within 30 days and get all your money back
That is the exact same, “we hope you like it but if you don’t please buy something else” attitude described by henderson101.
So how, exactly, was he wrong?
It is pointless to discuss with uninformed people therefore I will only provide you with a friendly advice: research a little bit more.
Still condescending, still wrong …
Here’s the link to the event: http://www.apple.com/apple-events/july-2010/
Here are reports about the event:
http://gizmodo.com/5589336/apple-antennagate-and-why-its-time-to-mo…
http://www.mondaynote.com/2010/07/18/antennagate-if-you-can’t-fix…
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/live-from-apples-iphone-4-press-…
If you actually click through the engadget link (but I’m pretty sure you won’t), note what was said at 10:10, 10:29 and 10:31. Or watch the video. Then you can come back and apologize for being wrong, again.
Edited 2010-10-22 23:49 UTC
Dude, get you head out of your a.. and learn how to read plain English before trying to post comments around here. “Hippie” attitude of supposedly following stance:
“If you like our product buy it, if you don’t I don’t care”
Is in deep contradiction with:
1. Publicly denying there is a problem
2. Crying that they are being treated unfairly by media (jobs himself)
3. Pointing fingers at other manufacturers
4. Giving away cases so as to appease consumers
nuff said
See, I said you wouldn’t bother reading the link, but I thought you could at least keep up with this thread …
I already pointed out numbers 1, 3 and 4 here http://www.osnews.com/thread?446671. I simply don’t feel the need to make them sound inflammatory. 2 is certainly true, considering since that press conference not a word has been said about the antenna and Apple has sold more iPhone 4s then any other smartphone in history.
But, unfortunately, not only did you not read the thread, or the links, but now you’re creating a straw man to tear down. No one claimed Steve Jobs ever said “I don’t care.” What henderson101 said, and what I quoted was:
“we hope you like it but if you don’t please buy something else”
What Steve Jobs said at 10:31 was
“And if you’re not happy, you can bring the phone back. We’ll give you a full refund within 30 days. No restocking fee. We want to make everyone happy, and if we can’t make you happy we’ll give you a full refund.”
We want you to be happy. If we can’t make you happy we’ll give you your money back. See, henderson101 and I read and/or listened to the English words that Steve Jobs said, we understood them, and then we recited them on OSNews. You either didn’t listen, failed to comprehend what was said, or are simply a hater and don’t particularly care about what actually happened. In any case, you’ve certainly flaunted your ignorance three posts in a row now. Ready for round 4?
Thanks for sharing the link!
__________________
http://moviesonlineworld.com>watch
I just wanted to break this sentence down, just for fun.
Was this meant to be a sentence of its own? You didn’t capitalise the next word, so I can only assume that you just don’t know where one thought ends and the next begins. …but we already knew that, didn’t we?
I am free to purchase and use his company’s products or I am not free to purchase and use his company’s products?
Are you saying I’m not free to just purchase them or just use them, that it has be all or nothing?
Also, it’s not his company. It’s the company of which he is the CEO. It’s publicly traded.
The MacBook Air is impressive? Really? It seems to me the worst of both worlds: *meh* performance, and *meh* autonomy, especially when you see how much space is stuffed with batteries. Performance-wise, they should have gone with ARM processors, but there are other contingencies, I know, I know (compatibility and Intel).
Also, I guess you can’t install another OS on it anymore? If I recall well (I can’t promise), Macs don’t boot on USB, and there is no disk drive anymore.
But yeah, it is very thin (with which sturdiness though?) and sleek, it looks like a concept rendering brought to life, untouched.
If only Asus were bringing the eee 1218 to stores…*sigh*
They need to be able to boot USB in some manner, because they have that ‘restore drive’.
That said, I’m thinking we’ll be seeing ‘jailbreaking’ become a necessity in the near future.
Oh. Good.
Might get one in a few years. Second-hand.
Edit: in fact, no. The SSD will wear down, and you can’t replace it as it is soldered onto the motherboard.
Edited 2010-10-20 20:21 UTC
http://images.apple.com/macbookair/images/design_power1_20101020.jp…
That doesn’t look soldered on. In the presentation you could see it had a ZIF connector. It wouldn’t make sense to solder the flash on for BTO. It’s using a simple metal clip over the pins and a rubber plug on the other end.
That’s… nice, and I am -again- wrong. Now, I don’t want to ridiculize myself any further, but I’m interested: are spare parts available under that format? Googling “ZIF SSD” doesn’t bring flash cells like the one on your picture.
ZIF is quite a standard format, a
http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=ZIF+connector&aq=f
Though not to be confused with theZIF connector of the old mac CPU upgrades
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/encore.html
oh the memories
Again, those ZIF are not looking like the flash memory chocolate bar of the MacBook Air internals.
Just an observation, as I don’t see this as particularly bad considering the type of device… But if it is ZIF it is a PATA interface, at best UDMA mode 5 – with a maximum transfer rate of 100MBps.
Like I said, considering where these things top out performance wise, that isn’t too bad – but the flash storage is likely quite a bit slower than what we are used to with modern SATA SSDs, at least when it comes to sustained throughput. Of course for flash the main benefit is random access, and thats (hopefully) descent – by that I mean the interface isn’t necessarily a bottleneck. It all depends on the flash controller…
It could just be shaped the same and use a completely different electrical connection.
Much as Dell did with the Mini 9 which has a Mini-PCIe-shaped custom SATA(?) connector/SSD setup.
Is they want to go back to a prietary PROM(though EFI is arguably just that…), that’s not too horrible. It’s what people have been dealing with forever: a bloated, annoying BIOS.
This one at least kind of _has_ to get out of the way when you start a real OS…
Turns out its sata… So it may look like a ZIF connector, but it is definitely something else (probably mSATA)
http://twitter.com/jsnell/status/28033014779
Of course they boot. You can run system from HDD connected via USB. It’s painfully slow but works.
A Core2Duo is “meh”? Compared to an Atom? Seriously?
If you can’t do truly calculation-heavy stuff like encode video, compile complex software, DAW/Video work, then there’s no advantage over an Atom 550.
Are you really going to do anything but watch ~720p-or-lower video, browse the web, check email etc on a netbook?
Higher resolution videos can be decoded, but you can’t display them without another monitor, and at that point why not just use your desktop, and you’ll have a desktop, because it’s still not powerful enough to replace that.
Compiling complex software? If you’re doing that you’ll probably know how to do it on a remote system.
DAW/Video work? The screen’s too small.
A netbook is a netbook. You don’t need a V8 to drive to the grocery store.
Since when can’t a Core2 Duo (you know, the CPU that took the performance crown from the Athlon, and hasn’t let go of it in the laptop arena) do any of those things? Even the 1.4 GHz C2D will run circles around the dual-core Atoms.
Yes. I do a lot more than that on my lowly Asus eeePC 1005HA running Arch Linux. 10.1″ is almost the right size. If a non-Apple netbook was available at 11″, I’d be all over that. The keyboard on a 10″ is just slightly too small. CPU performance isn’t great, but it’s not horrible. A ULV C2D would be perfect, if the battery life is there.
Because it’s really hard to lug your desktop on the bus over to your buddy’s place to watch movies on his LCD TV? Do you not understand the word “portable”?
Depends on your needs. A C2D CPU with 4 GB of RAM definitely could replace a desktop computer.
I compile software all the time on an Intel Pentium2 333 MHz system (not OpenOffice.org, but the FreeBSD OS every 10-12 months). Having access to a C2D would be heaven in comparison.
What part of Core2Duo CPU isn’t sinking in?
?? ‘Sinking in’?
This isn’t a real-time conversation. You’re wording things as though you’re replying to each sentence and expecting the next one to be in response to the last one you made.
I think you’re putting energy where it doesn’t need to be put with the way you’re using your computers.
I have a netbook, and I’d rather save my battery power/time and compile on a machine that’s on wall power/has the most powerful processor for that arch which I own. SSH is my friend.
It takes minutes to re-compile StumpWM on my Atom 270, and would still take minutes on a modern Atom. C2D would help things, but battery life _would_ be reduced, or weight would be increased.
The only thing that I see here which has anything that contradicts anything I’ve said is the point about hooking up to someone else’s TV.
All your gripes have adready been solved by the Lenovo X100e, though the battery life isn’t amazing. You will however get good free drivers for X.
I plan on replacing my Wind U100n with one once it dies (took a trip to Japan this summer, and Japanese AC power is generally ungrounded and isn’t always the most consistent thing… It’s had problems with reporting the charge correctly since)
Edited 2010-10-21 18:33 UTC
My responses have been about your “what good is a netbook since the CPU is so horrible” post, where you completely missed that the MBA has a Core2Duo CPU. And then you went off an a rant about how you can’t do anything remotely CPU-centric on a netbook, completely ignoring the fact that the MBA has a Core2Duo CPU.
…No.
You didn’t actually read the points I was making.
If you’re buying a netbook, it’s not going to be the most powerful system you own, if you’re smart.
The only point you’ve made is that using something very portable for watching HD video on an external monitor has its place.
The rest is better solved by using another computer.
Just because you _can_ do something doesn’t make it a good idea.
The CPU isn’t the only factor in most of these issues.
A battery at all, and the fact that using the CPU to its maximum will greatly reduce the life of said battery.
Small screen.
Total CPU power doesn’t change those.
Those make using a netbook for most things that _ALSO_ use alot of CPU power silly.
I hate to butt in, but the back and forth on this thread…
So you are essentially saying that attempts to make netbooks faster are a waste of effort – they are already fast enough because, well they’re slow… and thats ok???
….Really?
I see. NO, I don’t see. Hypothetical: LenoDellple releases a 10″ 2 lbs. netbook next week with a 3.2Ghz Core i5 in it with 3 hours of battery life… Are you saying you wouldn’t want to see that?
The Air is no i5, but it is much faster than an atom – sure there is a hit in battery life, but 5 hours is still pretty ok. How that can be seen as anything but a good thing boggles my mind.
And sure, Apple isn’t the first or only company to stick a Core2Duo in a netbook form factor, but you seem to actually be complaining that they made a faster netbook, well… just because it is faster. WTF?
5 hours on a charge is a little short for a netbook, but not by much… At that level losing say an hour or two of battery life to trade up to a ridiculously faster CPU is going to be a wonderful trade off for a lot of people. Probably most people.
As for the screen… I have personally seen at least 50 posts in the last 3 years where people complained about netbooks precisely because the screen resolution was just too low. Most of them said the same thing, if it wasn’t for that single thing, they would consider using one. Well here is one that has fairly decent resolution – its not mind blowing or anything, but it has crossed the threshold into normality.
I have looked at the thing every which way I can think of it find a fault – frankly the only major fault I can honestly point out is the price tag. And I wish the keyboard was backlit… Thats about it. It makes _some_ of the tradeoffs you have to live with on netbooks disappear – not all, but quite a few. I’m honestly considering selling my MBP 13″ and replacing it with the 11″ air model.
I use the MBP almost strictly for development, and I use it about 98% of the time (I have a few PCs, but mostly for recreational stuff – this is my workhorse). I run Windows on it, not OSX (call me weird, I just like the hardware). The way I see it:
Pros
1. Its **ALOT** smaller and lighter. And a 13″ MBP is already pretty damn small and light. This thing is tiny. I hate lugging around a lot of stuff – this counts as +5 pros for me personally.
2. The air is fast enough for what I do. I’m going to take a performance hit for sure, but I can live with it. If I had to do very large builds very often it might be no go, but I mostly do web development, so that isn’t an issue for me.
3. The screen is smaller, but it has higher resolution – and it isn’t glass so the glare isn’t as bad. I actually feel like in this case going from 13″ to 11″ is an improvement because of the increased resolution. I have good eyesight though, I realize this isn’t going to fly with most people…
4. My MBP has an SSD, but it’s after market and small (64GB). So at least for me the 128GB is an upgrade.
5. Keyboard is pretty much identical, except for the top row (which doesn’t much matter at all). Even steven there.
6. I have used my DVD drive like 3 times, and all 3 times it was to install OS stuff. I don’t want or need one – I can function perfectly fine with thumb drives.
CONS:
1. No firewire. Ill miss that, but I can live with USB.
2. Keyboard isn’t back lit. That one bothers me more than virtually anything else – I have really grown quite attached to that.
3. Slightly less battery life. But I could live with 3-4 hours to be honest, so while I am marking this as a con, It really doesn’t matter to me at all.
And that is comparing to a MBP. Comparing it to most netbooks is like comparing a BMW to a Ford Fiesta… I have an Acer Aspire One that I used for like 20 minutes, its a steaming pile of plastic shit with a keyboard only a 6 year old could love. And the screen… they may as well have used a light-bright for that. Yeah sure, the Air cost about 5x as much, but considering I used the thing for 20 minutes before I gave up on it and gave it to my kid makes it obvious that it was a $300 waste of money.
Good stuff ain’t cheap.
ps. As for you suggestion of the Lenova x100e – I have nothing against that machine considering its price tag. The screen is good but not quite as good as the one on the air (from reviews I have seen). It also runs _really_ hot and the battery life is only like 3 hours. That said, for $600 or so… all things considered it is one of the only descent netbooks on the market imo. But I personally am completely addicted to Apple’s touchpad – I don’t think I could go back at this point. So yeah, $1400 for a netbook is steep – plenty steep, but Ill likely spend it to get what I want. Since I can ebay my MBP for nearly what I paid for it (that is one aspect of Apple hardware that no one else comes close on – resale value) Ill end up paying $300 or so for it.
Edited 2010-10-22 05:15 UTC
Whatever, man.
If you’re willing to waste your eyesight on that physically small of a screen, and your time looking for a power outlet, that’s your prerogative.
I just think your desired workflow is sub-optimal, but then people try to do real programming in perl, too.
Specifically the people who are interested in battery life and the people who are interested in a performance machine.
The battery people will not be happy with a small portable machine that doesn’t browse the web or check their mail fast but dies twice as fast on them.
While the performance people will wonder why the hell they are playing their awesome games or watching 1080p movies on a 720p screen.
Its fine if all you want is lighter smaller mid-range laptop.
However given the form factor, screen size and resolution I’d say this machine wants to be a very portable device. Most people don’t buy a 11″ laptop as a desktop replacement or to get in some WoW time on the train. They us it for every computing. Everyday computing tends to suck if after a couple of hours of being on the go – you stop having a functioning computer.
Its not that they made a netbook faster, its that they made a netbook faster while significantly destroying its major strength – long continuous useage while on the go. If they made a faster netbook and still kept the 9hour battery life of the Eee – no one would be complaining. However they didn’t do that.
What you are failing to grasp is they didnt revolutionize the portable industry – they merely trying to homogenize it by making every size portable act like a mid-range laptop.
Edited 2010-10-22 21:42 UTC
Thank you.
Their vitriol was getting to me, and I couldn’t come up with a more detailed response without giving in to ‘RAAAAYJ!!’
You covered all the points needed, and did so well.
My point was simply that not everyone is interested in 8+ hours of battery life at the cost of everything else. Some people (like me) care about the form factor and weight more – battery life only needs to be good enough (5 hours is plenty for my purposes).
To each his own. I will say this much: if the Air shipped exactly as it is now except it had an Atom in it and 10 hour battery life it would be a monumental failure. Of that I have no doubt at all…
I should have talked about autonomy first, and performance second. The idea is “the autonomy is average, do we have good performances in exchange? No.”
The general principle seems to be that repositories really work rather well. When you explain to a new Linux user that the way they get software is just to install it from the repository, using the app software, whether its the Mandriva control centre or Synaptic or whatever, their first reaction is one of pleased disbelief.
So one’s instinctive shudder is not at the concept of an app store or repository. The shudder is that by now we know where Apple is going, and its the same place Amazon thought they were going too, its the ability to control what you load and thus (since apps and content are merging) what you access.
So we have to imagine for Apple a future in which they can remotely delete apps from your machine. One in which you can be sure the app store is the only way to install without jail breaking. And one in which access to content comes through apps, and the control over the apps is used to censor what content you access.
The problem with Apple is that whatever the positive innovations of the rest of the industry, they will find some way to turn it and use it in the direction of control and intellectual repression.
And if you doubt that, ask yourself what kind of state of mind would you have to be in to even think of banning Matlab, because it was written in the wrong kind of language, or to ban a book downloading app, because it could allow you to obtain a copy of the perfectly legal and in fact rather tame Kama Sutra, or to ban an app which provided cartoons of public figures, on the grounds that they might offend someone.
Yes, the people who will be bringing you the app store thought all those things were sensible, reasonable things to do, and their acolytes cheered as they did them.
Apple is one of the main enemies of intellectual freedom in Western society today, and people don’t even realize it, because its done under the guise of being cool and helpful.
i like macosx as is right now; its openness to unix stuff and that kind of things, but i’m afraid this new Lion version would turn my computer in a brick if I try to install something opensource or “unblessed” by Saint Steve.
By the way, all they have shown about Lion is such MacStore thing and a lot of eye candy available for iPads and iPhones today. What about the real OS? What changes/improvements/new stuff is being growing for the underground stuff? Probably nothing, I think.
Edited 2010-10-20 19:59 UTC
There is nothing to suggest you can’t still install apps just as you always could. This app store is just a place to make discovery easier; which is the only reason I see for developers to target it.
As Thom put it …
That’s nice conjecture, but conjecture does not equal fact.
Mac OS X Lion is also a conjeture right now, it is not a fact… so there is a lot of room to speculate yet
Edited 2010-10-20 20:37 UTC
People often forget that logic can be used to predict the future… or they forget what logic is, and decide that they want ‘the pretty one’ when they buy a computer…
Not really impressed with the Lion preview. The new Expose/Spaces integration is a nice refinement I suppose, but the App store (re: Linux package manager or Steam) is not something I cared about (although the multi-machine licensing is intersting I suppose).
What I wanted to see was more talk about the actual, under-the-hood changes. Better OpenGL performance for native games would be nice, as an example.
But a lot of those things are under the hood changes and I have a guess that the purpose of the demonstration was to show ‘higher level’ enhancements with WWDC being the place where they’ll show off the low level enhancements. OpenGL performance is more related to the lack of OpenGL being up to date and lacking certain extensions (that improve gaming performance) than necessarily optimisations per-say.
If it was just GL being slow, then OS X wouldn’t be the slowest of the big 3, and Apple wouldn’t be using it to accelerate their entire windowing system.
After having used macs since os x 10.3 I think I’ve reached the end of line. Once my macbook pro becomes unusable I will strongly be considering switching back. Lion looks mediocre and if that is what the future is going to look like then its only a matter of time before os x gets completely replaced by iOS on the desktop. I am more than happy with leopard and will continue to use it until that fateful day that my macbook pro dies.
Amen to that.
Amen to what?
That a person is willing to base his decision on a couple of high level features discussed about an OS which is like a year away before it is even released?
I’m optimistic that maybe what we saw was an example of the higher level enhancements worth showing off to the great unwashed masses and maybe through the usual developer channels they’ll announce the more technological focused enhancements to the audience that would understand them.
I understand that things shown are a bit of an anti-climax but having made the mistake in the past by rushing to judgement and switching to from Windows to Mac only to later regret it – I’d wait until WWDC 2011 next year to get a glimpse as to the future direction of MacOS X and how it relates to iOS.
Windows 7 may look nice from the outside but it is still the same debacle underneath the pretty exterior – and I simply don’t see things changing in Windows 8 either. They’re still using ancient deprecated API’s with their bundled applications included with Windows – that really shows the lack of attention to details when an API like Direct2D/DirectWrite have been out for more than 2 years and Microsoft’s flag ship operating system is still using GDI. The problems are getting worse, so based on that, I’d sooner stick to MacOS X.
We all don’t hate linux as much as you. I would have no problems with running linux on a netbook. In fact, all the apps I use right now in os x are not os x specific apps and all run on linux.
When I first switched to Mac I complained that the way the zoom button behaves is retarded. I was slapped in the face by Apple zealots telling me how it’s all about drag and drop and about a new paradigm and I should get my head out of my ass and think different. BTW I never did think “different”, because I can’t make myself retarded overnight (thanks Sizeup: http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ and Rightzoom: http://www.blazingtools.com/downloads.html )
Three years later, maximize comes to the Mac, and not just maximize but fucking full screen, though I guess now it’s OK, because Steve says so.
And how about the app store? Do you think Apple will let you use other repositories than their own? My guess is that they will hide behind their beloved idea of simplicity and say that offering the option to change repositories would be too confusing for their hip users.
Don’t get me started on the Finder. I’m willing to bet good money that the pile of crap that is Finder will remained untouched. It took one man with no access to Apple’s sources about a year to make Finder usable ( http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/ ). How long would it take Apple? Or Steve doesn’t want to make thinks complicated, because we are stupid?
I guess for 10.9 they are preparing some revolutionary changes like Cut and Paste in the file manager. Truly the most advanced operation system.
Well, goodbye and good riddance Mac OS X, hello Windows 7 and Linux.
I may sound like an apple fag when I say this, but full-screen is actually better than maximize (no opinion about zoom) on a Mac. Mac’s window management relies more on expose than something akin to taskbar i.e., the big-ass dock which eats up a chunk of space. Even so, you’ll notice that newer browsers on Windows are looking more fullscreen’esque when you maximize them.
It’s probably “intended” for applications which are productivity environments with lesser inter-application activity such as Aperture or Photoshop. But if it’s gonna be forced onto me with other applications, I won’t like it at all.
This has all the features of a netbook, only with multi touch and OS X software. Thought Apple wan’t getting into the netbook market?
Wrong! netbooks are cheap, small and not so powerfull computers. That mac is not cheap
Which netbook has a full-sized keyboard and a Core 2 Duo processor? Oh yeah, the $1300 Sony netbook.
The Asus UL30VT? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0032FOKXS
Netbooks are too small.
…
Here’s a 11.6″ Laptop!
Apple translation:
Netbooks are too cheap
…
Here’s a $1000 netbook.
Edited 2010-10-20 20:41 UTC
I had no idea Apple was using the Intel Atom and a POS GPGPU in their Ultra-portable.
I agree with your sarcasm.
I would like someone to point out to me the $300-$400 netbook that has SSD, 320M graphics, Core 2 Duo processor, and up to 4GB of RAM configurable.
Hmmm……..
Yes, it’s the size of a netbook (actually, it’s smaller). It’s just not an utter piece of shit like 90% of the netbooks out there, and is actually usable.
While looking at the photos posted on Engadget earlier today during the liveblog, I couldn’t help but notice how much it looked like a slightly wider, much thinner, aluminum version of my HP Mini 210 (which I was viewing the liveblog on incidentally). The resemblance is uncanny. I think I’m going to refer to the 11.6″ Air as Apple’s netbook for the foreseeable future; they finally figured out how to make one that doesn’t suck!
Now, in defense of my “utter piece of shit” Mini (as you would call it), in the few weeks I’ve owned it I have found only two things I don’t absolutely love about it: The trackpad and the battery life. The trackpad tries to be a buttonless multitouch unit like Apple’s, but falls far short. In Windows it is manageable, but in Linux it sucks big time. I’d much prefer a trackpoint or even a traditional touchpad with normal buttons instead of a clickable “button area”. The 3-cell battery barely gets me three hours of video or heavy browsing, which is adequate but far from ideal. At least I can swap it out it though!
Other than those two niggles, I really enjoy using it. The screen looks great, the keyboard is miles beyond other netbooks and many full notebooks I’ve tried, the processor speed is more than enough for its intended use, and the video is highly responsive and fluid especially under Linux. I also love the fact that it’s highly upgradeable; if I want bluetooth I can either add a standalone module to the extra PCIe slot, or replace the WiFi card with a WiFi/BT combo. I can add a 3G data card to that extra slot, or tether to my phone and put an HD video accelerator there instead. The hard drive is a standard 2.5″ SATA that can be upgraded to a larger capacity, or to an SSD for speed. There are three USB slots, an SD card reader, and a webcam.
In short, it’s all the netbook I need and it was under $300. As much as I am drooling over the Apple netbook, I can rest comfortably in the knowledge that my money was well spent on what I have now, and it meets my every portable computing need.
Yes.
You have said a series of logical, complete statements that fit together in a linear manner, connecting a number of thoughts together to form a complete picture of what you intended to say.
Man. Apple zealots really spew the bile now that they’re gaining in number… I often wished they’d get more market share just so they’d stop acting like any other OS was destroying their lives, but since they’ve swung back somewhat, they’re pushier and ruder…
I’ve had strangers verbally accost me and insult me because I didn’t use a Mac, or at least OS X.
Paraphrased conversation after some kid who just started talking to me out of the blue, and refused to let me get back to writing something in Emacs (don’t remember what it was…) told me that I should get a Mac, and wouldn’t leave it at “I like this, it’s all I need”
“I understand that it works for you. You have the right to use it and like it. I don’t like how it works, and it can’t do what I need and want it to.”
“You just don’t understand it! It’s so much better than Windows!”
“I haven’t used Windows in years.”
“What do you use then?”
“Linux, a very minimal, customised Linux.”
“What’s a Linux?”(seriously)
“Linux is an family of operating systems, built around a single core. There are several kinds for different uses.”
“That sounds confusing.”
“*shrug* just takes time to learn, like anything.”
“What I like about my Mac is that anyone can use it!”
“I can’t. Nothing in it makes sense to me. Took me 15 minutes to figure out how to start a terminal, and I ended up using Google.”
“You should give it some more time.”
At that point I had to tell him that I wanted the subject to be closed, and not brought up again.
Once someone dips into circular logic, I cannot ever see them the same way again. I just picture a void through which no light can penetrate situated just behind their eyes…
Ok, it’s late (for me, I have to be up for work in a few hours) so maybe I’m being dull, but is this sarcasm? And if not…ummm…thank you?
As to the rest of your anti-Apple-zealot rant, I’m going to assume you weren’t referring to me, as I don’t think I came off as a zealot in any genre. If anything I saw my post as very pro-HP Mini, but what do I know, I just wrote the damn thing.
As to your hatred of OS X, well to each his own of course, but I’m going to partially side with your seemingly well-meaning “kid” on the matter of how OS X is easy to learn and use, and add that it’s a very powerful UNIX OS as well.
Some background: I have been using Linux since 1999, OS X since 2005, Mac OS classic since middle school (late 80s) and DOS/Windows weaved throughout that time frame. There’s some BSD, BeOS (yay!), QNX, SyllableOS, Amiga, and CP/M in there too. I have yet to find an OS I hate, though I’ve found some to be fairly useless.
Given all that, I find OS X to be the quickest path to a *nix box that just freaking works, and a lot of the non-*nix stuff like AppleScript and the Services menu that provide amazing text and file manipulation abilities, combine to make one hell of a powerful OS.
I know it’s not for everyone; personally I wish Apple would come up with a better Finder (don’t we all, though?), and a lot of what it can do can be achieved in Linux or BSD with various levels of difficulty and learning curves, but the fact remains it’s a powerhouse of an operating system that somehow manages to remain simple and accessible to the non-technical general public.
So why haven’t I Hackintoshed my Mini yet? Well basically, I don’t need OS X on the go. Between Windows and Ubuntu, the netbook does everything I need it to. I’ve even considered nuking the Windows install altogether and triple booting Ubuntu, Slackware and Haiku. Ubuntu for day-to-day functionality as it more or less fully supports the hardware (trackpad silliness notwithstanding); Slackware for straight up geeky fun i.e. the challenge of getting the hardware to work better than it does in Ubuntu; and Haiku for nostalgia and to try to work out hardware bugs so the Haiku team can add another netbook to the “supported” list.
So, take a step back, breathe, and try to realize that hatred of an OS is just plain illogical. Despise the more annoying zealots, sure; we all are guilty of that and it’s warranted. But to hate an OS because you don’t understand it only shows a lack of logical thinking or at the worst, a childlike mentality. Please, by all means continue using and enjoying your minimal Linux install, and try to understand that we all want to use what works best for us, just like you do.
Nope, not sarcasm. As such, I haven’t yet read the rest of your follow-up.
There’s just been alot of vitriol spewed in the comments here, and most people are just shouting gibberish at each other.
I’ve been …colourful in my language, but if you look at the meat of what I’ve said, it follows logic, and the rest is opinion stated as such.
I simply admire your ability to see things for what they are, which seems to be a skill few possess.
Thank you for the compliment.
Read the rest of your post now.
You’re an Apple user, but not an Apple Person.
That said…
If you offered to sell me a classic car for 2000usd that was fully restored, I’d ask what the catch was.
There are catches with proprietary software and the ecosystem/enforced-abstraction that Apple creates/promotes with their products, services, and policies.
Lock-in, unfair business practices, developer abuse…
Then again, the only people getting hurt by the developer agreements are people trying to squeeze the plebes for all their fart-app, facebookspam, and silly shake-and-poke-your-phone dollar.
I didn’t criticise OS X so much as Apple People (the kind of people saying “ANYTHING THAT ISN’T APPLE IS SHIT STEVE JOBS SAID NETBOOKS ARE SHIT THIS CAN’T BE A NETBOOK!”, or the kind that start talking to me about their OS while I have headphones on, am typing, and trying to read about a completely different OS(Linux Format was open near me)), but since you went there…
I really, really dislike how OS X does things. Either type the name of the application or find it in a big list… huh? There’s all kinds of brain-dead throughout their system. They might have some cool tools, but they’re not making their money from people who know how to use them. They’re making their money from people who don’t know how to use anything but the dock. …and I mean the dock for their iPhone.
Me trying to use OS X on my dad’s iMac:
“There’s… no menu… If I had a command line, I could find the command to open a terminal… -_- Dammit… Where’s… Oh, you can search for the description… That’s not how the developer would have described it I guess… Umm…. maybe if I go to this Apple symbol in the corner, I think that did something back in elementary school… Wait, it opens a file manager window to launch the programs?? What is this? Windows 3.1?? ALPHABETIC ORDER???”
I think at that point I decided that I’d rather not watch my parents’ HDTV, and go use my own computer.
Cool text manipulation? I have Emacs.
I live in Emacs, tmux, zsh, Conkeror…
Do I expect everyone to do that? No.
Do I expect to not be accosted by strangers in cafés and bookstores (I was looking for a book on BSD or something once years ago, and a guy started telling me I should stop using Linux and hackintosh.
Same basic thing “nah, I get why people like it, but those are the very reasons it’s not for me”
“It’s perfect for everybody!”
“I don’t violate contracts”
“what?”
“it’s not licensed for use on non-Apple hardware”
“oh, no one cares.”
“I do.”
“…It’s really easy to do, too. I did it to all my computers. You should do it to your computer”
“It doesn’t do what I want. I use a tiling window manager, I have no window decorations. I use bitmapped fonts. I use terminals and Emacs. I don’t need anything OS X does, and it doesn’t let me do any of these things (I know and knew that you can use alternative window managers/xterm etc in OS X, but it’s hacky and weird. This guy was a space case with a 1000yd stare, and I wanted the conversation over)”
Then I said
“…and I have an AMD Processor in my laptop, anyway, so-”
“ah, so that’s why you didn’t do it…”
0_0 … *walks off in a huff*
It’s why I didn’t try it back when my computer first died of careless XP use, (I can never not see that OS’ name as an emoticon…) but within months I had a ThinkPad… and I put Debian on it.
By chance, have you taken the Autism Spectrum Quotient? That’s a serious question by the way. I took it not long ago and I scored a 25. Anything higher than 32 means you may have Asperger’s or high-functioning autism. Given my score and what I know about my social skills and (sometimes lack of) tolerance for well-meaning but pushy or nosy strangers, I’d peg you somewhere between myself and the Asperger’s threshold.
Please understand I’m not criticizing or poking fun at you, or at autism for that matter; merely making an observation.
Anyway, you said:
That sentiment can go both ways. A Mac user can say of a Linux box with a minimal X session as you described it, “That doesn’t do what I want. I use Expose. I use OS X Terminal. I use AppleScript. I enjoy the Mac’s beautiful antialiased fonts. I don’t need anything Linux does, and it doesn’t let me do any of these things.”
I’ll add my own item to that list: I use GarageBand to make music. I have tried for years and years to get a handle on the myriad Linux music creation apps, and Jackd alone is enough to give me high blood pressure. Never mind that a low-latency kernel is needed, you also must spend hours tweaking every little setting of every disparate program just to get even close to a usable setup. Custom distros like Ubuntu Studio try to bring all that together in a nice package, but it still falls far short. Even on Windows it’s much easier; FLStudio plus Cakewalk plus Sound Forge make a decent digital recording studio, but that’s three separate programs that don’t always play well together.
As far as I’m concerned, no single program out there in the Windows or Linux world can touch GarageBand for price (free with a Mac), feature set or ease of use. When I want to just sit down at the keyboard and spend a couple of hours wringing out a melodious thought, I can do it without the unnecessary frustration that would zap the creative moment.
And that is the point of all my ranting and raving above, and my mantra for years now: Use the tool that works best for you and for the job at hand. I wouldn’t use a nail file to hone an engine piston, just as I wouldn’t use a Linux box to create music, or a Mac to play Windows games, or a Windows machine to develop GNOME apps. All of those are possible, but highly inefficient scenarios and a waste of time and resources.
Of course, I’m dreaming of the day I can do all the above in Haiku OS. Figuring out how to get it to hone that piston will be the hard part.
Exactly.
Show the average person my computer and they’re either impressed, confused, or if they’re an Apple Person (not simply an Apple customer), they get offended, apparently…
It’s just my experience, but they seem to take issue with my not liking the way their default windowing system works… I don’t get it.
Linux audio is a massive PITA, atm, yes.
If I was to take the time to set up a DAW, I’d probably start with BSD, and dedicate the machine to that purpose.
It’s really quite sad. There’s talk among the jack and pulseaudio people that they hope to eventually be able to work together, one taking the other’s place as needed.
Edited 2010-10-22 02:12 UTC
I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at 17 years of age.
A tad bit late, if you ask me -_-
11 years back, I feel old, thanks
I think I don’t fall under the current usage of that terminology any more, though. I prefer ‘mildly autistic’.
It doesn’t have certain associations that Asperger’s has.
I’m glad you didn’t take offense at my observations.
I know a young lady with what I would consider Asperger’s, but her parents insist that she is to be referred to as “high-function autistic”. I don’t think she cares either way; she is comfortable with herself and that’s very fortunate. She happens to be highly gifted musically and has an amazing ability to process several different tasks at once when at a computer, almost like a machine herself.
At a social level, however, she is very underdeveloped. To my knowledge she has never had a true friend outside of extended family, nor a romantic relationship. She enjoys going out to places like the mall, but she invariably does something “not normal” and when strangers take note, she withdraws and shuts down for a while. She is in her early 20s but her mental and social maturity has remained around the pre-teen level for many years.
As for myself, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just plain odd. I’m socially apt enough to hide my weirdness from most people (it helps that I work in law enforcement, where most of my co-workers are far from normal too), yet I can be “out there” at times.
I’m both odd, damaged, and autistic… but I have alot of friends.
It’s _really_ hard to do, but I approach people, talk to them, try to ‘get out there’ and stuff.
I still end up hanging with weirdos, nerds, outcasts, and stoners. Of course, that’s a multidimensional spectrum, with many mixes.
I’m all of them and more, but I’m also aware of my bullshit.
So hang on, let me get this straight – you surrounded your self with loud mouth wankers and then extrapolate it over all Mac users? If you can’t see the obvious problem with such an ‘analysis’ then any post showing you the errors of your ways is a waste of time.
If you don’t like using a Mac then don’t use one – end of story. I don’t like running a Windows based computer hence I don’t run one nor do I care if anyone did run one. As long as I’m not expected to help you nor listen to your woes, I don’t care what you run.
?
Strangers verbally accosting me in public places is my fault _how_?
But it’s not as though I expected Apple People to be truly literate…
Yeah, the “it’s not for me” thought is sometimes hard to transmit when dealing with the least mature kind of Mac user, the one who uses it “because x told me it’s better, and I don’t regret it the tiniest bit”.
I used to think this way about Linux, when I was younger… Then I had to use Windows and realized that it was now an OK operating system and that the OS didn’t actually matter for what I want to do as long as it’s sufficiently flexible. Some never get that chance.
Today, I believe desktop OSs are pretty much on par. Each one is better in some areas and worse in others. There’s no intrinsic “superiority” anymore. There are only qualities like speed, flexibility, ease of use, good look, application compatibility, freeware catalog, repository system…
Edited 2010-10-21 06:02 UTC
Heh, the weird dude who was literally insisting that I hackintosh my computer was at least 40.
A good number of these people have been tithing since the 128k.
Well, *nix systems have the advantage of allowing you flexible access to the lower levels of the system, and in an approachable, programmatic manner.
Free operating systems give a much bigger opportunity for education, as well.
These are things I value, and I wish more people did, as well. It just seems insane to me to put something so amazingly powerful as a computer in front of you, and never bother to understand it.
Well, half of me agrees and half of me disagrees…
As an OS developer, I’m extremely sensitive to the argument that computer are wonderfully hackable machine and that it’s sad to imagine that one day we could, like with cars, become slaves of the vendor as far as their internals are concerned.
But as a computer user, including when writing and testing code… I just want the machine to work like a perfect black box ! I don’t care how it works, as long as it works perfectly.
I’d say we should always keep access to the machine at the lowest level, but let those who want a black box ignore what’s inside of it.
Hmm.
On my way into deep WI to help my uncle move(why else would I be in WI??), I saw many people on the side of the road with basic flat tires, either waiting in their cars texting/reading/on the phone, or just staring at the flat tire, scratching their head.
That implies to me that they didn’t know that step 1 is jack the car up until there’s no pressure on the rim…
I want an automagical car, too.
It’s not a reality, and I don’t think it ever will be.
Hiding the internals doesn’t eliminate bugs. It makes Windows.
Also, OS X has inherited BSD’s stability, but not its security, and years of marketing have people who love their magical black box unprepared for the viruses that will be coming soon.
I don’t see why it has to be one-or-the-other. Ubuntu is Doing It Wrong, but the initial stated goal was nice. I used it for a year until Mark started to do his best to be second-class Steve Jobs.
Ugh.
I confused myself and answered somthing you didn’t say, but rather what someone said to me afk the other day, in the conclusion.
I think that while for the most part your car should Just Work, everyone should understand how it works on a basic level.
I’ve met people that didn’t know you have to change the oil, etc.
Imagine a world where everyone gets charged for various services that were never done/don’t exist at the mechanic, but they don’t care, because they don’t know.
That’s the world of proprietary software as I see it.
What’s the benefit? Some of it is more featureful currently? I just don’t see the advantage of a few features being great enough to be told what to do.
Every time I use Flash or rar(the only proprietary programs I have installed) I sweat a little…
Have to agree. I’d like it if it was possible to do otherwise, but it seems it’s not possible. At least that was the conclusion of my thought experiments with the idea of a long-lasting security model on computer.
Vendor-controlled repositories are not a durable protection in a closed-source ecosystem. A properly hidden backdoor and some nicely designed camouflage can get an app validated by the instances and popular BEFORE it becomes offensive. The sole way I can think of to have a *very* secure ecosystem is to have the user know what an app is up to before he lets it run or not. Kind of like what the Android Market does, but better implemented. And to work properly, this system requires the user to have some basis of computer internals and security.
I think that elementary or high schools should provide a course on computer basics. It ends with an exam, through which you get a “computing license” that shows you know the bare minimum of computing basics. But at least here in France, it’s more trendy to fire teachers than to introduce new courses, so it’s probably not going to happen…
Edited 2010-10-21 19:17 UTC
Okay this has been bugging me for a bit now. OS X is closer to true Unix than Linux is, given its pedigree. Yet when you say *nix you seem to refer only to Linux and not the other Unix-like OSes. From Wikipedia:
Emphasis is mine. I know what you mean, and I’m sure everyone else here does too. I don’t disagree with your sentiments; I also feel that Free software is the most flexible and approachable from an experienced user’s perspective. But don’t forget that OS X is a *nix too, and has all that *nix power behind it as well.
That said, I also feel much more comfortable digging around in the Linux terminal than the OS X one. One of the great things about OS X though, is that you don’t have to drill down to that level nearly as often; the OS has a lot of hidden power in the GUI that just takes time to get used to.
And just for the sake of full disclosure, I’m typing this in Windows, because it’s the computer I happen to be at right now (just got done playing a Windows game).
I (grudgingly, look at systemd) include OS X in *nix.
The free OS portion following that is a separate point entirely, and would include non-*nix systems like Syllable and even ReactOS.
I think anything else you would have said would have been the result of misunderstanding again.
Well, in my experience, most modern desktop linux distros either work out of the box without touching a terminal or won’t work unless you really want to spend hours wrestling with them.
I never had to open a terminal on linux except for a few uncommon tasks (coding, anything which requires sudoing because most linux distros don’t have a “run as root” menu item in the file explorer, anything which requires launching an alien binary from the internet) for some time now.
Wait, Slackware isn’t modern?
I get what you’re saying though; the only time I’ve used the Terminal on my netbook (running Ubuntu Desktop 10.04) is to start the Easytether client for tethering to my phone. It’s CLI only, and while I’ve written a simple script to enumerate the modem, start the service and point dhclient at the device, it’s finicky and doesn’t always work with a simple double-click. I find it works every time if I open the Terminal and run the script from there.
That more or less defeats the purpose of having the script, as it’s only two commands — easytether enumerate | easytether connect and sudo dhclient easytether0, which if stored in the shell buffer are a couple of keypresses away.
I’m no programmer, but I can see myself one day finding the motivation to make a simple GUI interface to this process, probably using something as straightforward as Tcl/Tk.
I’d rather say that it’s not a desktop distro, though this is highly debatable ^^
“I can’t. Nothing in it makes sense to me. Took me 15 minutes to figure out how to start a terminal, and I ended up using Google.”
Really?
Open the disk drive > open “applications” > open “utilities”
And there you have the terminal app.
Of course you could just write “terminal” in the search field in any folder.
This really shouldn’t take 15 minutes to figure out.
Edited 2010-10-21 14:30 UTC
I eventually figured it out, as I said.
It’s stupid.
Why should I have to open the file manager to launch a program?
No other operating system does that save maybe Amiga clones…
But you don’t have to open the Finder to launch an App. It’s certainly an option, but here’s a small sample of the different ways to do it:
* Click the App’s Dock icon
* Press Cmd+Spacebar and type the App’s name, press Return
* Click the Applications Stack in the Dock, click the App’s icon
* Open Finder, type the App’s name in the search bar, press Return
* Open Finder, click Applications in the sidebar, double-click the App’s icon
* Create an Alias to the Desktop, double-click the Alias
* Open the terminal, type the App’s name and press Return
That’s not all of the ways, but I think it’s most of them.
Now, let’s look at a standard Ubuntu install:
* Click the Applications menu, click the correct category for the app, click the app’s name
* Press Alt+F2, type the app’s name, press Enter
* Create a .desktop file for the app, place in the Desktop directory, double-click the icon
* Drag the icon to the Panel, click the icon
* Open Terminal, type the app name, press Enter
* Open Nautilus, navigate to the /usr/bin or /opt folder where the binary file is located, double-click the binary file
* …and so on
They sound pretty similar to me.
I don’t use GNOME, and the moment I started to understand the OS in a fundamental way, I found it restrictive and insulting. I used KDE for a while, then realised I was manually tiling my windows, and hopped tiling window managers for a while.
The most approachable system for launching an application is through a hierarchal menu, followed by universal search. Why followed by? because universal search often feeds you garbage first.
The fact that they’ve never adopted any kind of menu is just freakish to me. I don’t know it, I don’t like how it works.
It’s not for me. Please don’t start doing what the weirdos who brought this up to me afk did, and start extolling the virtues of OS X, and telling me my opinion is invalid…
I never implied your opinion was invalid; indeed, I’m one of those rare people who respect the fact that we all have different opinions. It’s one of the things that make us Man rather than Beast.
I’m also not extolling the virtues of OS X; rather my post was an observation of the similarities (and complexities) of launching apps in Linux and OS X. I happen to feel differently from you regarding menus; I’ve never liked the Windows/Gnome/KDE way of presenting apps. Though I will say, I prefer Gnome/KDE’s Category > App paradigm to Windows’ Publisher > App mess.
I much prefer the Dock paradigm, though I think the freeware Docks available in Windows and the F/OSS ones available in Linux are much more powerful and flexible than the OS X Dock. That, along with the Finder, are two major areas that I hope Apple fixes for Lion.
I prefer… zsh.
I think KDE 4 did launching applications right : hierarchical category view when looking for an app, search when you already know what you’re looking for. I think a good OS needs both.
The sole thing I dislike in that menu is the auto-scrolling they implemented in the category view, it’s just… puzzling and pointless. People really can afford a click and should be left alone.
I’m far from a KDE fan, but I must agree that the launcher in 4 is a vast improvement.
To be honest, I think Windows 7 has just about gotten it right. It of course has the new Dock-like taskbar with an intelligent and useful feature set, as well as the type-to-search feature introduced in Vista. It even maintains the archaic All Programs menu, which has seen very little improvement over the past fifteen years but is probably a necessity for those making the jump from XP directly to 7.
I’m not a KDE user, but I am a KDE fan, mainly because I think Plasma is the best UI technology available atm.
NeWS reborn
Well, I like the KDE4 launcher better because hierarchical app organization is just better done. Using the All Programs menu on Win7 is really too much of a pain when you have an average amount of programs installed.
Then, the new taskbar is another debate… Myself, I use “expand mode” instead of the dock-like presentation where there’s only icons which you have to hover in order to get access to windows, since it allows me to target and click an opened window much more quickly. I rarely have more than 5 windows opened at a time, so it’s generally a good compromise.
The experiment is done, and Apple went in the direction I planned. Though they didn’t go as extreme as I said right away, probably because it would have resulted in instant user riot.
My prediction : they’ll progressively make future macs run iOS, and begin with turning the Macbook Air into a bigger iPad since no one cares about it anyway.
The facts : well, no touchscreen on the Macbook air right now, but that soldered flash memory, together with the non-removable battery introduced some times ago, and the disappearance of optical drive since the beginning of the Air line, clearly shows where future Apple hardware is heading, I think.
But where my previsions are most successful is with this new release of OSX. Let’s see : praising the virtues of full screen applications, introducing an App Store, application menu… The only thing we lack is a hardware home button at the bottom of the screen.
This clearly is clearly a transitional release of Mac OS X aiming at a general move of the Mac line to iOS. Anyone arguing the contrary is a blatant and dishonest liar.
I’m still curious to see how many Apple users will buy this and let their main computer gradually become as closed and tightly-controlled as a phone.
Edited 2010-10-20 20:31 UTC
It’s the honest liars that you really have to watch.
You are a master prognosticator.
My god, those facts are damning. Soldered flash memory, that is clearly connected to the motherboard using some connector, not actually soldered to it. And the disappearance of the optical drive. It completely disappeared, I mean there is no optional “MacBook Air SuperDrive” available on the MacBook Air’s Apple Store page. Hell, there isn’t even a “DVD or CD Sharing” section on the MacBook Air’s tech specs page. Damning facts indeed, it is a dire future for Apple’s hardware.
Notorious underhanded deeds. They are just trying to slip this under the radar and trick their users into using iOS like features on OS X. And they are so bold as to publicly say that that’s what they’re doing! It’s almost like a conspiracy: Apple is leading it’s users to the slaughterhouse.
I’m curious how many people will read this and actually believe your “facts” section.
1/The fact you have to go through complex procedures or the purchase of an external hard drive shows pretty well where Apple want to go.
2/Before, they couldn’t make the CD completely disappear, since there was no other easy way to buy applications. With this “App Store”, however, I bet they will make optical drives in a release or two…
Mac is a closed platform. If you don’t like something on it, you can do nothing about it (except switching to Big Evil Windows. But it’s overcomplicated, crashing all the times and full of virus, isn’t it ? That’s why you got a mac ten years ago !).
So Apple can do whatever they want with their customers, provided that they go sufficiently slowly that people adapt themselves step after step after ranting a little. If today Apple went “hey, your computer will only run fart apps from now on !”, people would have no choice but to leave since it would become useless from a professional point of view. On the other hand, if they go slowly enough that by that time Photoshop Touch and Logic Touch are available…
Your mocking about them hiding the changes is just nonsense. I never said they were hiding themselves. They cannot, and it’s not Apple’s way of doing things anyway. However, they can distort the truth in the way that user see the worst as beneficial from them. Like by saying “You’re getting all of iOS features on OSX ! See, you’re not forgotten !” instead of “You’re getting iOS on your Mac ! Ha ha ha pwnd you noob, all your computer are belong to us !”. That kind of marketting speech is something Apple is really good at.
Anyone reading, please replace “hard” with “optical” as I can’t edit the post. Much better this way.
EDIT : oh and…
Edited 2010-10-21 06:04 UTC
Your post was reasonably sound up until …
Nothing about this computer is in any way closed or tightly controlled any more then the last gen MacBook Air right? Or are you bitching today about some potential future you might not like.
I don’t even think it is that; he hates Apple and it is an around about way to attack them by dreaming up some conspiracy theory that has no basis in reality. If Apple gave away $200 cash with every laptop purchased he would claim that Apple was trying to flush the economy with money to raise inflation and crash the value of the US dollar thus Apple is the enemy of the United States.
The cold hard reality is that as the number of Mac’s grow the more you’ll hear conspiracy theorist crap from the peanut gallery and I simply don’t see it changing any time soon.
“WE WELL CONQUER! YOUR SOULS WILL BE SAVED!”
I like how you called him paranoid and speculative, then proceeded to say that you will gain a majority market share, and to shun the unbeliever.
Sounds like speculation and the words of kind of person I’d be paranoid about giving a say in anything.
This is my problem with capitalism run rampant.
Treating the market like a pure democracy while forgetting the fact that there’s never been a pure democracy, and pure democracy truly _is_ mob rule.
So, since there’s one born every minute, Apple will probably gain more market share, until they stop making real computers, and Steve dies.
I think there will actually be a few people that will jump off of very tall things that day, and I will laugh.
I never said that; when has ‘growing Mac numbers’ equal majority? if you actually read my posts instead of being a complete f–kwitt you’d see what my position is on the matter but then again lying seems to be something you’re quite comfortable doing.
For a person who has suddenly registered in the last 5 months you seem to have a lot to say for yourself. It took you 10 years to finally find this website and register or are you yet another person who has millions of sock puppets simply to stir up trouble in an otherwise harmonious forum.
Edited 2010-10-21 07:45 UTC
You didn’t state that it would end.
See, I used logic to follow through to a conclusion.
Unchecked growth continues forever.
The ‘shun the unbeliever’ was paraphrasing and hyperbole.
…well this just continues the saga of Apple People being uncabable of abstract thought.
Riiight…
-We already know what Apple is capable of by having a look at the iTunes-iOS ecosystem and the part of OSX’s TOS saying that you can’t install it on a non-Apple computer.
-This ecosystem has proven to be more lucrative (selling a phone for the price of a laptop and having Apple get a benefit for every single developer on the platform and a margin on every single app. Selling an expensive Mac to everyone wanting to try OSX)
-OSX will soon include an App Store, with the same TOS as iOS’ initial ones. Almost a pixel-perfect copy.
-It will also start to behave like iOS : full-screen applications favored, application grid with iOS-like folders.
What is a “basis in reality” for you exactly ?
Edited 2010-10-21 07:33 UTC
Stop being a jackass – if you’re saying that kind of shit on a forum it is clear that your parents didn’t beat you enough when you were young.
So what – Apple doesn’t differentiate between its hardware and software; the heart of the Mac is Mac OS X – no different than a firmware upgrade but instead of being a download you purchase it from a store. Don’t like the conditions then don’t purchase the product and use something else. Millions have exercised their right to choose and have gone for PC’s instead and guess what sugar dimples, you can do the same.
How the f–k do you have a lucrative thing going when the AppStore/iTunes only generates enough revenue to stay neutral on the books – so when the hell as ‘neutral’ in terms of profitability been equal to ‘raking in the cash’?
All you’ve shown is that the AppStore has come to Mac OS X as an option for people to install from, and Apple will probably use that as a way to sell their applications through – they might even break up their suite to allow individual parts of the iLife suit to be bought rather than forcing the purchasing of all the applications at once as they do today.
As for ‘full-screen applications’ – what f–king video did you watch? I watched a video where iPages was installed and ran like a normal application, accessible via the dock and this new gizmo they’ve added to access applications. Again you’ve provided no evidence that Apple will make AppStore the exclusive way to purchase applications nor have you provided any evidence that Apple is replacing one UI with another other than the appearance of a secondary option and your speculation that it will end up in that direction.
Here is the difference between you and I, I don’t pull stuff out of my ass with an authoritative post and claim that some how I’m privileged to information that no other bugger on planet earth is privileged to. I go based on what Apple has said publicly and what they’ve said publicly is that the AppStore will compliment the traditional way of purchasing applications just as the iPad isn’t designed to replace the tradition computer but to compliment it.
Edited 2010-10-21 07:58 UTC
This is not the point. The point is to prove that Apple are probably going to make macs run iOS because they can do it, it’s interesting for them to do it, and in fact they have begun to make moves in such a direction.
Don’t know what you’re talking about. But Apple is a highly profitable company, and most of that profit comes from the iTunes ecosystem. Theoretically speaking, this can easily explain by the fact that Apple do everything they can to own every single source of profit on the platform : being a mandatory actor in app sales, pushing forward their online store as much as they can without being sued for anticompetitive practice… They even invented a new kind of USB connector on the iPod and a new power connector on Macs so that they can monetize lost and cut cables too !
Considering that Apple own distribution rights for most major Mac software…
Read the article. And again : they can, they should, and they start to move in that direction. Either in words or in actions.
Nothing authoritative. This is a comment section based on a news article, in case you didn’t notice. The reason why it exists is that if you only read press announcements without analyzing them, you’re not going very far.
???
Who’s the jackass here??
You’re advocating child abuse. Even hyperbole should have some basic limits.
Wow, you saw that one coming. I had no idea you had so much pull with Apple.
Ah Man, they must have missed your memo on that one.
Wow those are some amazing “facts”. Similar to the “fact” that I am indeed the President of the USA. Oh wait that’s not a fact.
Oh please, you haven’t even seen the fargin OS yet. Steve showed only the App store. We don’t even know if the OS in the Demo was indeed Lion. So if you are getting “previsions” about this, then you better get some “prevision” glasses!
a blatant dishonest liar, hah? Wow how can anyone be a liar about something that has not happened and may never happen? How can you be called a liar for what amounts to a personal opinion?
I’m very impressed by the improved expose, or mission control as they are calling it. It seems like a very nice way to manage a lot of programs even when you have many running in full screen. It a nice improvement to the old alt-tab standard that windows and linux users are used to.
A lot of the other changes seems superfluousness to me though, the whole show all app icons on the screen thing is way to iphone for me, a dock and a quicksilver like app launcher are all I need. But I can see how some people will like it. In fact I dislike almost every change that just makes things work more like iOS. They might work ok on say the new macbook airs, but it just seems like a lot of wasted space for someone using a 27 inch desktop. But again I can see some people getting use out of it.
The app store is a great concept in theory. But for me it all comes down to one question, how easy is it to add new repos as sources. Centralized app repos are great and have a lot of benefits, but being locked to one and only one repo has a lot of risks and gives apples a shitload of control over developers and users, especially if they rule thing as capriciously and arbitrarily as they control their phone app store.
…and the details were light. We were shown a bunch of fluff and still know pretty much nada about 10.7. One of the more disappointing events.
I think more will come out over the coming months, as they are surely nowhere near beta phase right now. Steve said a Summer ’11 release, which to me means a beta around February or shortly after. That’s when we’ll start seeing the “under the hood” changes that are becoming the bulk of OS X version releases. After all, the OS has been around a bit longer than Windows XP, and there’s only so much left to improve that isn’t held back by the current hardware capabilites.
I absolutely love the 11.6″ Macbook Air. But the main problem for me is the processor. I don’t know why nobody is concerned about it. Its a 2 generation old processor running at 1.4GHz. I had a similar processor running Windows (I know its not the same). The performance is really bad when compared to my current Core i7 processor. Its only about slightly better than Dual Core Atom.
They are running out of big cats real quick!
Meh, I’m waiting for 10.xx Longcat
I was hoping for Ocelot.
I was going to buy a Macbook pro as my next laptop. Now I am not. Don’t like the Appstore, not because its not handy (because it is), but because I don’t trust Apple will keep the platform open… Don’t want to invest too much in a platform that maybe eventually will be completely locked down and where I have to ask his steveness for permission to use it.
When I watched the presentation with the full screen switching it reminded me on my good old AmigaOS, when I could switch between the screen with different resolutions and color depth. This looks very similar.
http://developer.apple.com/appstore/mac/resources/approval/guidelin…
These are approval guidelines for Applications in AppStore:
Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, Rosetta) will be rejected
Apps that are “beta”, “demo”, “trial”, or “test” versions will be rejected
Apps that download or install additional code or resources to add functionality or change their primary purpose will be rejected
Apps that require license keys or implement their own copy protection will be rejected
Apps that present a license screen at launch will be rejected
Apps that request escalation to root privileges or use setuid attributes will be rejected
Apps that add their icons to the Dock or leave short cuts on the user desktop will be rejected
Apps with metadata that mentions the name of any other computer platform will be rejected
Apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected
Apps that look similar to Apple Products or apps bundled on the Mac, including the Finder, iChat, iTunes, and Dashboard, will be rejected
Apps that enable illegal file sharing will be rejected
Are these guys completely nuts???????
No question here – PPC is dead, Java isn’t native language
Only final apps – remember about the target – it has to be dead simple and completely bullet proof
Trojans?
Mac store like app store will provide security and it should be only place where you should agree to license. Otherwise you buy something and agree for license then. I know it works like this now in many situations but it doesn’t mean it good for users
Security
no bloatware
Don’t know what it is and what is it about – misinformation?
You downloading app from Mac Store from Apple – there can’t by any confusion about developer of the app. They don’t want to be in the situation where shitty app will be called “apple app” just because it look similar to one of their app (or pretend to be one) i.e. iTunes + credit cart verification
Apple will not be reponsible… etc. – just covers their asses
Nothing wrong here. Just keep solid and good app, don’t mess with user system and don’t try to do evil. That’s all
Apple wants to make sure even a two-man micro-ISV hands over 40% of the sale. Want to be on the front page? That is going to require 60%.
Apple has a massive cash reserve but I guess that isn’t enough.
That is where they are headed and everyone knows it.
How ironic that Apple has become far more like big brother than IBM ever was.
1) It is 70/30 – the developer keeps 70% and Apple keeps 30%; compared to the retail channel which would involve marketing and so on, it is a great deal. For most companies getting a 70% return after taking out all the costs associated with retail channel operations, it is pretty good value. Then again, unlike you, I’ve actually worked in retail and now how much the vendor itself are shafted by every step along the line.
2) Their AppStore breaks even so it isn’t a money spinner – it merely facilitates sales of software to spur hardware sales.
Edited 2010-10-21 06:32 UTC
So then no-one makes money, because every return is a loss for the developer, but Apple doesn’t shell out a dime, unless they’ve changed that.
Sounds lovely.
“No one makes any money but us, because we sell an actual product, not a merely nebulous stream of bits”.
Whatever…
No reliance on optionally installed technologies? How does that even apply to Java?–it is included in Mac OS (at least currently…) and AFAIK only the Java-Cocoa bridge was deprecated. Adobe AIR apps, and any other apps that utilize third-party runtimes/frameworks (current or as-yet-unimagined) appear to be all locked out. So Apple effectively is trying to extend control over the development environment, just like they did on iOS.
But the kicker is the “No resemblance to Apple products” clause. Note that this is not limited to apps bundled with the Mac. All I can say to this is, fuck off. Seriously. You have got to be fucking kidding me. This is the Mac, not a freaking Gameboy with only licensed cartridges, not a freaking toy. This clause is so anti-competitive it makes Microsoft’s bundling of IE and WMP with Windows look like the act of a fucking saint.
Thing is, even if Apple never locks down the Mac platform like they have the iPhone, the majority of users will still probably look to the store to get their apps. So this spells the end of the long tradition of an open platform that offers apps to scratch every user’s itch, because it will no longer be economically feasible to produce genuinely useful software that doesn’t fit in on the App Store.
P.S. Full-screen apps and app folders are a joke–way to take some of the worst-implemented parts of the iPad and bring them to the Mac, yay!! Also, anyone with half a brain realizes that the lack of a touchscreen has zero to do with the “verticality” and everything to do with legacy software support. Sorry, Apple, but you completely and utterly failed to wow me this time. Mission pissing me off successful though! kthxbye
There is a major hole in your logic there buddy.
Define “don’t try to do evil”.
How do you know that your, or my definition of “evil” is similar to that of the AppStore?
What assurances are there that the definition of “evil” isn’t a moving target to be changed on convenience or whim?
Its an awful lot of trust you must have if you’re willing to let someone else define “evil” for you.
Why are you surprised? This is the same as the App Store for the iOS devices. If you don’t like it, buy an app from someone else. Steve didn’t say you could ONLY buy apps from the App Store. It’s just an additional option.
yeah as long as you can jailbreak your Mac, you will be able to do whatever you want.
No. They’re just turning OSX into iOS, so they have to introduce iOS’ draconian rules at some point, and the sooner the better.
After all, if it’s called “App Store”, it must follow the same rules as iOS’ “App Store”, right ?
Hmmn, thin in profile, thin in features but fat on price. Where I live, an 11.6″ Airbook with the configuration you’d actually want is a pound short of one large. And not even an SD card slot. If you want an SD card slot – surely a standard feature in 2010 – then the price goes from fat to morbidly obese. A Dell m101z, say, will do much more for half the price and when I take it abroad it’s unlikely to attract nearly so many of the wrong kind of looks, so chances are I’ll be keeping it for longer too.
Edited 2010-10-20 22:45 UTC
…for Apple. Looks good. I am still on for an iPad when the next gen comes out, but now it makes me wonder if I should wait until next Summer (assuming the next iPad arrives for the Holidays or just beyond) when Lion arrives, and see what hardware arrives with it. My wife isn’t QUITE due for a MacBook refresh, but if some crazy awesome iMac/MacBook/iPad evolved device comes out I don’t think I’ll be able to resist.
Apple doesn’t make computers anymore, these are just iTunes cash registers.
Considering that iTunes only breaks even your post looks stupid when the facts are presented. If you don’t like Apple then don’t buy their products – buy a PC if you want, see if I care.
Would ‘app-store cash registers’ have appeased you?
Of course not.
You track their individual divisions’ earnings, so not only are you emotionally invested, you’re probably financially invested.
That’s two reasons for you to live in The Nile.
Try not to drown.
I’ll walk over here on the land where it makes sense to be.
And what does iTunes, the App Store, etc. drive sales of? OSX and iOS .. so to imply they’re not profiting from their lock in strategy is ridiculous.
…
Maybe viewed in isolation, if Apple ONLY made the App Store or iTunes and DIDN’T make iOS or OSX .. then maybe what you said would be a passable excuse, but like Neolander said, they profit from nearly every possible angle in their ecosystem.
Apple makes money hand over fist by limiting choice. There’s nothing wrong with that, some people like the consistent experience it gives, me being one of them, but let’s be intellectually honest here.
and to think I wondered why I am *still* on the Haiku mailing list after all these years.
I’m glad there are people out there willing to give other operating systems a try.
I use (Debian GNU/)Linux exclusively on my laptops/workstations and have for years.
I used to think BSD was weird and stupid, but I just didn’t ‘get it’. It really is a different system.
The programs have the same basic purpose, and names, but different usages.
Even if Haiku is somewhat posix-compliant, it’s still something else, which is cool!
It’s still a single-user always-root system, but there are ways to get over that, and it’s not necessarily bad, if you’re not running too much that’s networked.
Personally I found the whole video a bit of a anti-climax which leaves me wondering whether it was an hurried attempt to show to the market “yes, we still give a crap about the Mac” hence what they showed off isn’t all partly spectacular. Lets be honest, what they showed off could have been accomplished using some JavaScript and HTML5 without too many problems – 500 lines of code later and voila you get what they demonstrated.
What I am hoping for is maybe this is just showing off some user visible features with the more technology based innovations being held off till WWDC given that WWDC is more suitable venue. I’m mainly thinking along the lines of the work they’re doing with steam and maybe we’ll see Apple finally get their ass into gear and upgrade OpenGL to 4.1 by the time Lion is released.
Apple also need to have a more balanced approach when it comes to their developer conference; not every developer is interested in iOS so how about getting some refocus on Mac OS X and iOS instead of WWDC being almost 90% focused on iOS. I’d also like to see Apple finally address many of the long standing complaints that third party developers have with Mac OS X in terms of buggy API’s that have long standing bugs that still haven’t been fixed.
Oh well, WWDC 2011 will be interesting to see as to whether there is going to be a rebalance – not that there is much of an alternative to Mac OS X given how Microsoft can’t be bothered fixing Windows to finally use Direct2D/DirectWrite instead of GDI through their operating system plus the inconsistent user interface experience and so on.
It’s early… they will leak tidbits of information as the months go by. I am sure there will be some interesting framework changes/additions and probably a lot of app changes/tuning that they won’t make a big deal of…
You’re “blown away” by an 11.whatever-inch laptop running a Core 2 Duo for $999? And since when is $999 an “aggressive price” for that a system that arguably competes with netbooks? Oh wait, I thought that was the iPad’s job…
The Thinkpad X201 has a 12″ screen, runs a Core i5 AND can get 10+ hours of battery life with the 9-cell battery–all for only a couple hundred bucks more than this MBA. What, is the ability fit into a Priority Mail envelope a deal-breaker feature now? I’m all for good industrial design, but the new models seem too form-over-function–even for Apple. And it certainly doesn’t seem a bargain at a $999 starting price.
And full-screen applications are an example of how Apple is “far ahead of the curve”? That engineer was totally starting the brainwashing campaign to convince people that an iOS-like experience with psuedo-multitaksing is what they should want. Yep, I guess MS got it all wrong with the Aero Snap feature that everyone seems to love. Oh, and as for being “far ahead of the curve” for this full-screen app thing, Moblin/Meego has had that since forever ago. And, though it definitely feels cool, it’s actually one of the features that really confines it to the netbook realm.
And a Mac App Store…like we didn’t see that coming. Probably a good idea, but by no means that revolutionary.
Look at vaio X
So far full screen was used in two kind of apps:
– video players
– pro apps – for editing
It is quite new approach – to create distraction free environment for user to do what he should do. In times where RSS, Mail, Tweeter, Facebook all are waiting for your attention there is real problem to start something and don’t be interrupted. It would be quite nice. I read that one thing that people like in iPad is that its distraction free (current official release doesn’t have multitasking). It could be “next big thing” – new type of work with your computer. As always like in all apple cases it looks obvious – why no one did it sooner? It’s their strong side – they redefine things that are used for years in obvious way and do it right.
Sarcasm fail.
Looks alright. Most people outside the angsty geeksphere will probably like it, I guess. Not my thing, though (Apple products are sorta like visual kei, imho … good for the fangirls)
*goes back to his crappy 5 yr old PC and out-of-fashion tiling WM*
I think most people just freaking out about how MacOS X will become iOS with its walled garden. But if you read rules posted above – in Mac store there won’t be apps with external frameworks (Adobe CS, MS Office) or which need root privileges for installation (video codecs). This only should give them a hint that Mac store will be just an addition – not a replacement for installation of apps (for most of mac’s apps there are no installations at all). Mac’s aren’t mobile phones. You can’t close them to bunch of simple apps- there are used by many pros. Therefore Mac store is just a graphical fronted to repo. Just that. Don’t freak out. It will be nice place where small developers can promote their apps and can cut distribution costs (online payments, hosting for download, marketing). If someone is a independent programer – he know what i mean.
About Macbook Air. The size doesn’t make it a notebook. Look at Sony Vaio TT/TZ 11,1′ – once it was my dream. Never fulfilled: 1800 – 3000 euro. But it wasn’t a netbook. It was a power notebook with small factor.
Netbooks are cheap and well – the quality isn’t best. Not many of them have alu body and Core 2 Duo (i suspect it’s UV). They most intel atom. If one of you thought that there should be a notebook in size of a netbook without crappy design/quality – you have a option now.
And seriously – the price is not so high – look at Sony Vaio X.
Beautifully put – I wish I could give you a whole box of cookies. I add to what you said, I can’t see AutoCAD, Microsoft Office or Creative Suite ever appearing in the AppStore but I could see the likes of maybe existing AppStore developers branching out into the desktop as well. Those who are already used to the AppStore on the iPhone and iPad will automatically start using it on the Mac as well – that isn’t to say that will replace traditional way but it will be a great way for start ups to get the kind of coverage which they probably wouldn’t normally get. I know when I went through the AppStore there were applications I would never have bought had I just saw them on the shelf or if I was forced to Google for it.
Agreed; and it also comes back to what you want as well; if you’re hell bent on wanting MacOS X (like me) then it really doesn’t matter what the other vendors have to offer, Apple is the only way to go. Same could be said for people who prefer Windows, they’re better off going for a PC vendor and they’ll find a vendor out there able to cater for what they want. With that being said, the MacBook Air is a unibody construction when compared to the PC world which tend to be plasticy garbage that creaks if you pick it up with one hand which gives me an unsettling feeling when I hear it.
Ordered the 11.6″ model.
I wish OS news had a “like” button. 🙂
LOL! You’re awesome, Thom!
Cool! Did you spring for the extra Flash? Are you planning on doing a full review and maybe even taking it apart, or at least the bottom plate off?
Can’t wait to hear how it performs. I have a MacBook with a 2.0 Ghz Duo and it feels a bit long in the tooth on things. Of course that could be because of the crappy Intel Integrated craphics too. I am a bit concerned about the seemingly skimpy 1.4ghz C2D…
OH MY GOD, MAC OS X CAN DO FULLSCREEN?!
I can easily live without a DVD drive, but I work in many places where wireless isn´t even allowed. Then, there is the issue of badwidth. Wireless, even wireless n, is super slow compared to gigabit ethernet.
Are you people willing to live without a basic ethernet port?
It´s the one true big thing missing from this thing.
I initially was not happy about hearing the updates they announced for OSX Lion. However, I got somewhat more optimistic watching the Keynote (indulging myself in the Reality Distortion Field).
Before I go into detail, I do want to make clear that these features alone are way too meager for me to make the move. I really hope Apple will come with more impressive features and expansions to the system come Summer 2011.
Of course, an oddity is that one of the features they discussed for Lion is the App Store, which they then say is made available to Snow Leopard users within 90 days (and FaceTime is available now)… So let’s move on to the other features.
LaunchPad… when I first saw a screenshot, I shared the fear many people expressed above. I don’t want my MacBook to turn into an iPad or ultra-large-iPhone! But then I realized that it actually solves an issue for which I had to come up with a workaround myself. I want quick access to many of my applications and I achieve that by having four folders in my Dock which expand in a grid: “Productivity”, “Audivisual”, “Graphics” and “System”. LaunchPad actually allows me to ditch those folders and use an app instead.
Full-screen apps… Steve Jobs actually called this an “invention” during the Keynote *coughCoughSnicker*. But again, it seems they pinpointed one of my frustrations. I use Preview a lot to look at documents and graphics, but I can’t switch between documents/graphics in full-screen mode. Returning to the system without having to leave full-screen mode is something I will quite like.
Window management. As someone who has used BeOS for years, I am a heavy Spaces user. The combination of Spaces with Exposé helps me to keep proper oversight and to quickly find what I need. Mission Control I am not so sure about. I often use Exposé just to distinguish between various Finder windows, not to see them piled up in a smaller view, which is what they demo’ed about Mission Control. So whether this is something I will like, I cannot say at this time.
Lastly, a general remark. As with OSX, I also thought the amount of improvement&expansion to iLife after two years was pretty disappointing, i.e. not enough for me to buy it. But I did notice that what they do, they do right. Professionally I am in cognitive ergonomics and watching just how they solved particular design issues in the most elegant way possible is a true pleasure. I am sure nobody will disagree when I say that Apple understand interaction design. And that is why I am on a Mac, even though I understand the fear of the Mac going the iOS way (there are a lot of seniors including my parents who also still need to keep understanding OSX!), and I can agree with those who rant about OSX deficiencies such as Tracker.
I think that, as with most of the little changes they’ve made to OS X over the years, people will find these changes useful.
Oh yes absolutely, aside from the thing I’ve mentioned, only look at the way they made audio editing easy in iMovie’11.
But there is also a cost/benefit tradeoff (with cost being both finances and effort); people will ask themselves: “Are there ample improvements for me to invest in this?”
In practice, you can see that in the figures. Half the Mac users have not made the switch to Snow Leopard: 1/3rd still runs Leopard, 1/6th works with earlier versions (non-Intel Macs). And again, I agree that the advancements are helpful: for about half a year, I used Leopard next to SL due to a compatibility issue with certain software, and I discovered I had grown used to certain improvements in SL that I really missed in Leopard.
This is why I don’t run BSD on my workstations.
The speed of GNU/Linux-based OSes spoiled me for basic productivity/entertainment.
BSDs are stable, much more ‘Unix’, and very well designed, but they’re so far behind that I can’t deal with it.
Debian’s going to be GNU userland with a FreeBSD kernel and fast development, but I want the reverse, BSD userland with a Linux kernel.
I get the feature-creep addiction is what I’m saying.
I’m an Emacs user.
I really don’t know what to do with my disappointment. I’m really very sad.
The “MacStore” way IS the IOS way: They’re closing everything down? After open sourcing and everything… it was only an excuse because the power was not there?
What will happen? Will the Developer Tools miss examples and code needed to write anything in kernel land? Will there be two sorts of Developers: the ones who make something for the Mac Store, and the ones who make things freely?
No more Little Snitch? No more device drivers from anywhere? Will the only “protector” of my computer be APPLE? or Steve himself?
This is really scary and ugly! This goes too far.
Steve, are You out of Your mind? What else did they transplant with Your liver? You’re making “1984” happen!
I’ve got some hope left that apple won’t be drawing the “Store” line too tightly, but think of it – why shouldn’t they? Just to keep a few, old customers loyal from the beginning? Why, when there are millions of NEW, brainwashed ones to draw money from…
You’re surprised?
Yes. Yes it was.
Yes. My father will have to purchase a new scanner because support was dropped.
A corporation can’t save you from corporatism, dude.
Get out while you still can.
*Bruce McCullough voice* “I vote with my dollars! They’re called ‘dollar votes!'”
I’ve got some hope left that apple won’t be drawing the “Store” line too tightly, but think of it – why shouldn’t they? Just to keep a few, old customers loyal from the beginning? Why, when there are millions of NEW, brainwashed ones to draw money from… [/q]
I seriously doubt they are closing things down the way the doomsayers are whining about! That would make absolutely no sense. No, regular applications are not going to go away anytime soon.
Again, nothing is going to change as that would make no sense. Developers will still be free to make products like VMware and others that require KEXTs. They just won’t be able to sell it on the MacApp store.
Yeah, no device drivers, that’s logical!
Wow, I can only hope that you are being sarcastic as this sounds like one of the most illogical posts I have read. It would be certain doom for Apple’s Mac business to go to this closed scenario that you describe. Sorry, no way it is going to happen.
All this is amounts to another way for Apple to sell software and the developers to get their apps to a bigger audience. Of course you are free to not use the MacApp store and continue to sell it yourself. Apple is not about to lock down the Mac this drastically. If they do what you describe then NO other applications will run. This would eliminate ALL the apps that exist today. Nope, sorry Charlie, no way in hades it is going to happen.
Yeah…
Fanaticism.
I perfectly agree: it would not make any sense… but wait, for who? for me, for you. But for Apple in the current mood they are, it makes perfect sense to earn 30% every time an application is sold. It’s the best way they could possibly make money.
I’m no doomsayer – at least not usually. It’s what Apple’s doing lately that scares me off. And I’m a very very long time customer, user, and developer. I’ve never been particularly fanatic, but I do like the quality of Apple products and their innovations. But what is happening now, is more and more pure greed in my eyes: Yes Steve, I see where You’re headed, and think that I don’t like it.
Again: I perfectly agree that it makes no sense. I just fear that Apple won’t be caring much about it: The ones who don’t care will be many more.
Wait and you’ll see. Drivers that need to be kernel extensions are going to vanish over time: USB classes can be done in userland, and interfaces can be provided to userland by the kernel for other interfaces as well. Ah, well, which interfaces BTW? Think MacBook Pro. Think MacBook Air: There is NO such interface… And think of the “advantage”: No EVIL app will be able to crash your computer anymore…
I sincerely hope that you’re right. I really do. But let’s wait and see, in one year we will know, isnt’it? Until then, happy Appling to everyone..
The battery life isn’t disappointing…they said 5 or 7 hours using newer testing models, however if they used older testing models they would have said even longer.
So now, you’re supposed to actually get 5 or 7 hours, not getting something that lasts way less than the claimed amount.
Anyway, nobody has seemed to correct that from the summary.
Not very long for a netbook…