Mac OS X Tiger Preview

[sUn]

Mac OS X Tiger

Would you look at that Sagey, look at all those new features.

Edit: Should I wait till that is released with the iBook? More likely I will not buy another version of OS X if I buy an iBook.

 

[Sage]

Actually, I already looked through all of it yesterday morning. For those interested (oh, none of you?), here are my opinions...

Spotlight – Definitely one of the best things to come to OS X... Apple finally realizes the importance of meta data, which will be "the next big thing" over the next few years. Looks implemented very well, and the automatic categorization is pretty nifty. 👍

iChat AV – The multi-dimension chatting is very cool.

Possibly more important though is the new H.264/AVC codec, which Apple will implement system-wide. I'm anxious to see how that pans out.

Safari RSS – Finally! I'll probably be using this once it comes out. This is really, really good, because it'll introduce RSS to the masses of people who would otherwise never even hear of it.

Dashboard – I'm a bit "eh" on this one... I would be wowed by it, but it's almost a direct rip-off of Konfabulator, which has been around for years now (and as you can see, the developer's pretty pissed about it). But, that aside, having it integrated into the system will work much better, and it allows for a few neat touches, such as flipping over a widget to adjust its preferences (looks like they beat Project Looking Glass to the punch!).

Automator – I'm particularly excited about this... it's like AppleScript for dummies (or people who just don't have enough time to fiddle with AS). This will be a tremendous productivity booster.

The rest I don't particularly care about, except for Core Image, which looks to be a very powerful, advanced technology (it's rather like Quartz Extreme taken to the next level). Unfortunately, I think my iBook's video card's too old to support Core Image (it does support Quartz Extreme though), but it's still interesting to me, nontheless.

To answer your question, Tiger is supposed to come out "in the first half of 2005"... that means at least 6 months away, and at most a whole year away. So, if you can wait that long, that's fine, but if not...

 

[sUn]

A whole year, how much do you think it will be to upgrade to it?

 

[Sage]

It has been and will always be $129.

 

[toyomatt84]

I was very fond of the iChat as well. Very innovative stuff, which seems to be what Macintosh is into.

 

[sUn]

It has been and will always be $129.

I'm assuming your going by $US? It still isn't that bad, I thought it would be like XP Pro at like $300-400.

 

[the_cobbinator]

The Automater looks pretty cool. So does Xcode. Heck, all of it looks nice. It's just too bad that I don't have an Apple.

 

[Burnout]

Eh, Macs still suck.



I'm sure I can find a comparable Windows program to all of those.

Well, maybe not, but that's not the point...Or was it...Or maybe it's just that I don't really...Uh..Well, you see.

Even though I hate Macs with the passion of a crazed hairy Indonesian door monkey, I do think they're kind of cool. Some things I've seen on them I wished Windows would implement, oddly enough I can't think of one right now...None the less, they don't seem to bad..

..Except that they're waaay overpriced.

scaM

 

[Shannon]

The only thing I have against Mac is that it doesn't run on Windows/Linux architecture. You have to go out and buy a whole new PC that is absurdely overpriced just to run the damn thing.

 

[Sage]

You have to realize though that Apple is a hardware company – As good as their OS is, hardware pays for their bread and butter. Here's an excerpt from a Daring Fireball article regarding this issue:

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Apple Is a Hardware Company

This point cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Apple is a computer hardware company. Selling hardware is how Apple generates most of its revenue. Their operating system software may well be the best aspect of their computers, but that does not make them a software company. Anyone who claims that Apple could simply switch to being a software company and make up for lost hardware revenue by selling additional software doesn’t understand how the company operates.

During the brief period of time when Apple licensed the Mac OS to other manufacturers, their revenue tanked. Too many people bought cheap clones from PowerComputing and Umax instead of higher-priced Macs from Apple, and the licensing revenue didn’t compensate for the lost hardware revenue. The situation may well have been good for Mac users, but it was terrible for Apple’s bottom line.

No matter how badly people clamor for it, Apple is never going to release a version of Mac OS X that runs on standard Wintel PC hardware. Whether it’s possible or not, it isn’t going to happen. A frequent comment regarding this rumor is something like “I’d love a version of Mac OS X that ran on my PC.” Sure you would, you cheap bastard. Apple’s Switch campaign is an attempt to get PC users to buy thousands of dollars of Apple hardware, not hundreds of dollars of Apple software.

Many people want this to rumor to be true, as they envision faster Macs that cost less. Meaning, cheaper computers from clone manufacturers. Yes, that business model has worked wonderfully for Microsoft, but Apple is not Microsoft. A fundamental aspect of Microsoft’s business model is that there’s only room for one Microsoft.

As I’ve written before, Apple’s primary goal for the Mac is very different than Microsoft’s goal for Windows. I wrote:

The only way to see the Mac as unsuccessful is to compare it to Windows on Microsoft’s terms — market share and raw profit. And that’s exactly how analysts and the PC press cover the Mac.

What they miss is that the Mac’s primary purpose is to be better. Windows’s primary purpose is to be ubiquitous. Both platforms have been successful in achieving these goals. That’s not to say they’re mutually exclusive. Apple would of course love to achieve higher market share. Love love love. And Microsoft doesn’t purposely make Windows uninintuitive. Well, maybe they do. But it’s not as bad as it used to be.

So while Apple would love to clip a few percentage points from the Windows user base, they’re never going to mount a full assault on Microsoft’s Windows hegemony. The vast majority of Wintel PCs are sold as disposable business plumbing — the adding machines and typewriters of the 21st Century. Apple wants no part of this low-margin market.

Thus, even if Apple were to switch to an Intel processor, they would not be switching to the standard Intel PC architecture. They’d continue making proprietary Apple hardware, but which happened to have an Intel processor on the motherboard. You’d still need to buy an Apple computer to run Mac OS X.

Dvorak alternatively ignores and confuses this issue. [Sage's note: Dvorak is a PC magazine columnist who insisted that Apple should move to Intel hardware] His latest column advocates Apple releasing both proprietary Intel hardware (based on the Itanium 64-bit processor) and releasing a separate version of Mac OS X that runs on standard PC clones. Oh, and he also wants Apple to continue manufacturing PowerPC machines. So he wants three Mac OS X platforms: PowerPC, Itanium, and regular PCs. And somehow this is supposed to make sense.

Part of Apple’s appeal is that their product line is clear. You want fast, buy a PowerMac. You want cheap, buy an iMac. Portable? PowerBook, fast; iBook, cheap. Apple moved to the PowerPC by dropping the 68K, alleviating any chance of confusion over whether to buy a PowerMac or a Quadra. If they were to switch to a new processor again, they’d need to do the same thing and drop the PowerPC. But that leaves the problem of what to do about existing PowerPC software.
------------------------------------------------------------

Also, here's a Slashdot comment that concisely drives a similar point home.

 

[Burnout]

You edited my post you Mac user!

 

[Sage]

Sorry, had to... I can't stand it when the width of the page gets all skewed like that. (Makes it very difficult to read other posts.) You can make a smaller thumbnail and post that if you really want to.

 

[sUn]

Let me guess, Burnout, was it that scaM wallpaper?