Paul Thurrott on OS X Leopard

[leojei]

Who cares who steals what? At the end of the day it's about who's got the best product and I'll be using both operating systems anyway. I'll wait till they're both out before I draw my conclusions.

I so agree with you, Syphonic. But I dont like how Apple recently advertise its own products and use clever-wordings to skew the statistics figure. Apple has been a legit-play company and the recent actions have completely shattered that image to me. MS and Apple are the same afterall.

[Quillz]

i agree... those macbooks are a bit overpriced... just look at the cheapest macbook... 512MB of memory and like 60gigs of space... competitors offer at least 1GB of memory and at least 100gigs of space for the same price...

i highly doubt the eyecandy we call the case costs a lot to manufacture.

The first "rule" is to never buy RAM from Apple, as they overcharge quite a bit. Beyond that, I honestly don't find the MacBook to be terribly expensive, although the E1405 that I bought with practically the same specs was almost $400 cheaper.

[KeR]

I tried to read the comments in this thread and then I realized I was wasting my time: Half the members commenting here about OSX have never tried the OS or have done so at an Apple store which hardly gives them any right to voice their ignorant opinions. Having tried both I would have to say Vista has some things that OS X doesn't and the same is true the other way...the thing is you can't really compare Apples and Oranges ;)

[the godfather]

I hate Paul Thurott, he's always been biased.

i read the article. and although there are some praises for OS X and Apple, at the end of the day its still "Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows" :rolleyes:

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I tried to read the comments in this thread and then I realized I was wasting my time: Half the members commenting here about OSX have never tried the OS or have done so at an Apple store which hardly gives them any right to voice their ignorant opinions. Having tried both I would have to say Vista has some things that OS X doesn't and the same is true the other way...the thing is you can't really compare Apples and Oranges ;)

Yay, the voice of reason. :yes:

[Boiling Ice]

I don't get why Bootcamp is such an insentive for some people to get a mac..it makes no sense. If you're gonna buy a computer and run windows, than BUY A WINDOWS MACHINE. Most people buy Apple laptops for the OS as a complet experience, so if you're aming at a laptop that can run windows, than why not save some cash, and buy one thats cheaper than the MBP? There is that plus Boot Camp is a pain in the ass to run. Buy a Mac to run Windows, you're just asking for trouble...:/

For me the case is like this (I game alot + I have lots and lots of pictures and movies of my kids) so I need to game and make DVDs, I thought that Windows will be enough for pictures and movies. Which is..... if you never tried to use Mac for such purpose, I used my friend's mac and I got hocked to it. So I think BootCamp will help me in that case insted of buying 2 machines :)

so back to the artical, I think in general it was fair. I hate to read about who copied who. I just love it when I see a company comes up with an idea and then another company take this idea and make something new and cool with it -polish it-. Apple comes with great ideas and even when they copy an idea they make it REALLY good. In terms of features, Apple is making a hell of a good job. And by copying ideas will just make the compitition greater for the consumers. But I hate the whining of those copied us and such.... who gives a f**k, just show us what you can give us and then we will judge who is worth the buy

Edited August 11, 2006 by Boiling Ice

[aboi]

I remember in the pass years I see how windows fanboys use to bash apple. Now it looks like these MS fanboys are getting butt hurt cuz our friends from apple said some mean things about windows. grow up people

I tried to read the comments in this thread and then I realized I was wasting my time: Half the members commenting here about OSX have never tried the OS or have done so at an Apple store which hardly gives them any right to voice their ignorant opinions. Having tried both I would have to say Vista has some things that OS X doesn't and the same is true the other way...the thing is you can't really compare Apples and Oranges ;)

true but apple taste better :D

[wicker_man]

The problem with Paul's article is that he posted it on his site is called "WinSuperSite" - talk about biased opinion. We all know who Paul Thurrott is and what OS evangelist he is. I do admit that he sprayed his writing with bits of low-level praise about the upcoming features, but overall he just doesn't get the point.

Why does he call Spotlight an "Apple's version of Windows Search" when today's "Windows Search" can actually be called a version of Spotlight as Spotlight, when it came out, despite its limitations, has offered search results in a more advanced way that of XP's.

Mail.app. While I shiver in cold sweat from fear of all those FFs and CCs with all that stationery in the upcoming version of Mail.app, Apple is the company that has done it the right way. There is no way in Hell one can compare stationery options of Outlook Express to Mail.app's. The photo resizing feature is the best of what I've seen so far. Yes, let's say Apple copied MS this time, but they have done it the proper way, with enough eye candy and improvements to make it be worth using.

Time Machine. I am not sure what Vista will have as an answer to that, but Time Machine itself is, again, a proper implementation of MS's Volume Shadow Copy service - something that is hard for users to even operate (as I've never seen any office monkey using it in my career, ever).

Things like that can go on. Now, Paul has also voiced his opinion basing on what he has seen during the Keynote, so just like Windows evangelists say about Vista's broken features, I'd say about Leopard that it's JUST A BETA, and a damn good one if you consider the length of the development cycle of Vista and Leopard. And, with the recent reports of resolution-independent UI, QT improvements, collaborative features in iChat, iCal and I am sure a handful of other programs, you've got to admit Leopard is shaping up better than Vista at this point.

[Smigit]

The problem with Paul's article is that he posted it on his site is called "WinSuperSite" - talk about biased opinion. We all know who Paul Thurrott is and what OS evangelist he is. I do admit that he sprayed his writing with bits of low-level praise about the upcoming features, but overall he just doesn't get the point.

1stly use propper paragraphs, it makes things ALOT easier to read. By propper I mean space them. :)

2ndly yeah, there is alot of bias there but that considered, if you look back over say the past 12 months you will see many articles by paul being extremly critical of Microsoft and Vista as a product. At the same time his review of panther (or was it tiger) was pretty much glowing. He is a writer that seems to waver on his oppinion on a weekly basis as I agree, the above did sound a bit like an apple bash but quite often he highly praises apple too.

Edited August 11, 2006 by Smigit

[gigapixels Veteran]

I honestly don't agree with what he's saying against Apple. He has a couple of good points, but it sounds like he's just doing the Apple bashing that Microsoft so hesitantly stays away from.

[Lare2]

Funny how a Microsoft cheerleader creates all this hipe ... :laugh:

I don't own a mac, (have expierence on them) and as a windows user it's not hard to see that the Mac OS X is a superior OS.

[MrCobra]

Apple in my opinion is childish when it comes to competition. Apple seems to through everything they can at consumers and Microsoft, yet microsoft stays very quiet when it comes to television.

Because MS doesn't need to resort to childish antics and bash it's competition.

I wish I could install OS X on my windows computer, because IMHO I don't want apples overpriced hardware, just their OS along side XP (or vista).

It runs absolutely beautiful on my AMD system.

If Apple wants more marketshare they should maintain 2 copies of OS X. 1 would be for genuine Mac hardware and the other would be for "generic" hardware.

[wicker_man]

1stly use propper paragraphs, it makes things ALOT easier to read. By propper I mean space them. :)

Sorry if my post was hard to read, however, I have logically separated my thoughts by line breaks. Although you should be paying more attention to your spelling in this case ;) :

propper->proper

oppinion->opinion

If Apple wants more marketshare they should maintain 2 copies of OS X. 1 would be for genuine Mac hardware and the other would be for "generic" hardware.

There is a 99% probability that Apple wouldn't do that, as they didn't do that even in their hardest years. Opening up OS X like that means letting it run on beige boxes LEGALLY, which is what Apple wouldn't do - they want their box design to accompany it.

[dangel]

So Microsoft now has a monopoly on Animation, better tell Pixar, Disney, etc. :rolleyes:

Also, Whatever happened to Avalon, I remember it was going to be some great big thing, part of WinFX (the new API, the way forward), and now, WinFX is apparently a optional component, and has been cut back a bit.

It's a shame, Longhorn was going to rock, now it's a shadow of what was promised.

Some facts for you (as you're devoid of them apparently) - WinFX not longer exists - it's now called .NET 3.0. Avalon is actually the "Windows Presentation Foundation" (WPF) which is fundementally part of Vista and far from optional - and, scarily enough, exposes a whole bunch of accelerated drawing functions to developers - obviously radically different from what Apple were wittering on about. Spend some time with Expression, delve into XAML - the whole things fabulous for developers and designers alike.

[Fourjays Veteran]

I remember Paul Thurrott being very critical of Microsoft and Vista not so long ago. All the Apple fanboys agreed with him then. Now he is being critical of Apple, he is biased. :rolleyes:

[osirisX]

If Apple wants more marketshare they should maintain 2 copies of OS X. 1 would be for genuine Mac hardware and the other would be for "generic" hardware.

Apple doesn't care for marketshare in that way. They are a hardware company that builds a proprietry OS.

[dangel]

To give you a more recent example, can we have DX10 on XP? Why Vista only? Can't run newer games on XP at full fledged graphics now can I? I know this is not "backward" but it's still breaking compatibility with their own software to purposely make you upgrade.

Because fundementally it's either far too much effort (techinically) to re-engineer the OS (XP) to fit DX10 or just too time/cost expensive - even MS with all their resources can't afford to keep fixing the (very) broken wheel that is XP to try and shoehorn new features in. There comes a point in development where you realise you would of done it all differently if you were to do it again and that's _entirely_ what's gone on with Vista - MS are making a big effort to free themselves from horrible legacy code that's just _bad by design_.

With DX10 and vista you'll get far less overhead, no context switching penalties etc which all means better framerates and a smoother experience for the end user (no more windowed directx apps slow down for example). So what if you have to pony-up for a new OS? How often do MS make you pay for your upgrades? Once every HOW MANY years? Compare that to OSX..

[Beastage]

I remember Paul Thurrott being very critical of Microsoft and Vista not so long ago. All the Apple fanboys agreed with him then. Now he is being critical of Apple, he is biased. :rolleyes:

Thank you very much :yes:

[dangel]

I remember Paul Thurrott being very critical of Microsoft and Vista not so long ago. All the Apple fanboys agreed with him then. Now he is being critical of Apple, he is biased. :rolleyes:

Well - god forbid - that we have anyone judging Apple by the same metrics that people apple to Microsoft. I mean, it's pure heresy to suggest that you're 129USD 'upgrade' is just a bunch of minor patches/updates to the core OS. If MS came up with a new version of XP (perhaps they could use breeds of dogs - XP 'german sheperd' or XP 'rotweiler') each year with the same sort of the 'features' and charged you 129USD for it then there would be howls of laughter from the mac 'elite'.

Shock news folks - Apple are just another corporation with an interest in their profit line - _just_ like MS.

[Boiling Ice]

If Apple wants more marketshare they should maintain 2 copies of OS X. 1 would be for genuine Mac hardware and the other would be for "generic" hardware.

someone correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know that the biggest portion of Apple's profit is from their H/W sales, so opening their OS to market will harm them.... again as far as I know

[Smigit]

Sorry if my post was hard to read, however, I have logically separated my thoughts by line breaks. Although you should be paying more attention to your spelling in this case ;) :

propper->proper

oppinion->opinion

Yeah it was just advice, small typos like double 'p' wont make reading what I wrote painful. Line breaks help but not alot, white space is preferable. I'm not having a shot at you just letting you know because when you write as much as you did it's really uninviting to see it all presented as one block of text. Many users including myself will usually just skip over post that dont paragraph as it's a strain on the eye to read the post so if your going to the effort to make a sizeable post you may as well present it in a way that people can read.

And I do confess spelling is one of my weakness but it's not something I would actively worry about (in regards to other people) as long as the words still flow naturally. Your example wasnt so bad anyway but, I've seen people do reviews here with 3 pages of text all as one block and it's sad to see someone go to the effort to write that much to have it largely ignored because they couldnt make it readable.

[Ironman273]

I tried to read the comments in this thread and then I realized I was wasting my time: Half the members commenting here about OSX have never tried the OS or have done so at an Apple store which hardly gives them any right to voice their ignorant opinions. Having tried both I would have to say Vista has some things that OS X doesn't and the same is true the other way...the thing is you can't really compare Apples and Oranges ;)

Then you totally misunderstood this thread. It's not another Windows is better than Apple thread. It's about the attitude that Apple portrays and how, although it plays into the hands of Apple fanboys, really hurts Apple by alienating them to many people that find that angle distasteful. I know, I know, "we don't care!" Well, Jobs obsviously does because his bashing is intended to drive the uninformed over to Apple with skewed information and half-truths.

For the Thurrott haters, as Beastage said, you're picking what information you want to hear from him. The original posts says that he generally writes about Windows. That doesn't mean he can't have an opinion about anything else. People that are dismissing the article because they "hate him" or his site "is a Windows site so it's biased" are being extremely narrow minded. But then again, I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from such a group. :no:

[markwolfe Veteran]

It's about the attitude that Apple portrays and how, although it plays into the hands of Apple fanboys, really hurts Apple by alienating them to many people that find that angle distasteful.

Well, it doesn't seem to be hurting them an awful lot. Most people I know don't really care. Only those that probably tend to already get wound up about Apple, Google, Microsoft, Linux, etc. already are getting wound up about this "distasteful" advertising and P.R.

Apple's sales are up: source

And their marketsare seems to have doubled (based on hits to w3schools) from March 2003 to now: source

They are a small fish in a big pond, and have plenty of room for growth and to re-tune their marketing strategy. Right now, they need their name out there, and to be remembered (and even discussed). There is no such thing as bad publicity, is the expression, I believe.

[dagamer34]

Everyone should read this to realize that Paul is still an MS supporter. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/26B5...CCA542AC6B.html

[giga Veteran]

Everyone should read this to realize that Paul is still an MS supporter. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/26B5...CCA542AC6B.html

Some snide remarks about Paul but he does make some good points.

On innovation:

Historically however, Apple's hasn't unveiled lots of new, raw technologies as Mac OS X marketing features. Apple's core competency has always involved finding new ways to apply, present, and enable previously unused or inhospitable technologies, unlocking them for use by us mere mortals. At WWDC, they demo tools and solutions to assist developers.

Apple didn't invent the computer; they built one of the first computers that was ready to use. Apple's Mac didn't invent windows and mice; it was a new implementation of existing technologies that found practical applications for a graphic user interface; a refinement of some ideas that had been floating around, mostly unused, since the sixties.

Think of Safari's Bookmarks. Safari clearly didn't invent the idea of bookmarking a web page, but it did make using, organizing, and finding bookmarks far easier than anything Netscape or Microsoft had ever done before. Bookmarks are really useful, but existing implementations commonly went unused because they were so poorly conceived.

The same also applies to the iPod, iTunes' music store, iLife applications, and pretty much everything else Apple does. A pattern emerges!

Now consider how many entirely new things Apple invented for Tiger: metadata? searching? RSS? video chat? widgets? automation? screen readers?

Guess what: it?s not the idea that matters, it?s the execution. Few things in Tiger had never been done before; what was new and innovative was that Apple found better ways of doing things and presented them in ways accessible to users.

From that perspective, it makes sense that Apple would announce some new and elegant solutions to common problems users actually face. Everybody knows that users' data is frequently not backed up; Apple delivered an ultra simple interface that requires no expertise in data management. Similarly, Spaces allows users to organize their workspace as a natural, intuitive extension of Expos?.

On Spotlight and Windows Search

Apple didn't copy Microsoft's failed attempts to turning the file system into a big database. For a decade and a half, Microsoft has been trying to find ways to stuff JET and SQL into Windows in various ways: the Object File System of Cario in the early 90's, early vaporware plans for NTFS, Storage+, the Relational File System, and more recently WinFS, a key pillar of Longhorn. All that talk went nowhere, because the company couldn't ever figure out how to make it work.

Rather than tagging along after Microsoft, Apple went with plan Be. They hired former BeOS developers who had already delivered the basics of a metadata centric file system. Rather than make the file system into a database, they designed a database for file system metadata. They integrated it into the kernel, so it would update every time the system touched a file.

The result? If Spotlight's metadata database gets corrupted, you can build a new one without losing your data. Try recovering from a database failure when all your files are in the database, and you'll see why Microsoft's WinFS efforts failed.