I went on and wrote a review about MacOSX 10.0.4 a month ago, but it was never finished as I had to fly to France for my own wedding. I came back and MacOSX 10.1 had been released. I scrapped completely the old text, as 10.1 brings some more speed and new features to the system, and restarted writting the review from scratch.A month ago I used a friend’s iMac 500 Mhz G3 with its RAM upgraded to 256 MB. It came with MacOSX 10.0.4 pre-installed. For the current review I used another friend’s iBook (latest model) upgraded to 384 MB of RAM and with MacOSX 10.1 installed. This series of MacOS usage during the past month was the second one in my life. The first time was back in 1998 when I used to work for a graphics design Studio and all the computers in the office were some extremely slow Macs (only myself and my boss had PCs in the whole company). My opinion back then was that either the OS was pretty bad or the hardware was just too slow. Or both.
I left MacOS in its own fate, until 2 months ago where I installed the BasiliskII emulator, running MacOS 8.1 for 68k under Windows. Funny that it ran faster under emulation in my 533 Mhz Celeron than in its original machine. And then two of my housemates bought an iMac and an iBook respectively. And I discovered MacOSX.
MacOSX is a (supposedly) modern 32-bit OS, based on the 15 year old BSD4.4 and Mach kernel, with a new, object-oriented GUI on top. Sounds familiar? Yes, NeXTSTEP was exactly the same. Not surprising, as Apple has purchased NeXT in 1996 and Apple’s today’s CEO is Steve Jobs who created NeXT too as well as Apple. While MacOSX is Posix compliant, its GUI API uses Objective-C and/or Java. There are these who say that Objective-C is superior to C++ and these who say that is not as flexible and advanced as C++. Well, there is always Java too. I just hoped that the developer tools would included in one of the CDs that come with the machine instead of searching all over Apple’s web site to find a free downloadable version.
MacOSX looks good (I said “looks good”, not “feels good”). The graphics UI designers at Apple have done a good job, but at places feels “too much”. Transparency where it is not needed making text sometimes unreadable, too much of a gradient in the scrollbars etc. All in all, it looks very good though and the GUI is consistent, but not without its problems. First off, I can’t say that I like the classic Mac menu bar on the top. It prevents multitasking from doing its job as it supposed to do it and it does not necesarrily make the system easier to use, as it probably made sense back in 1984 when the first Mac was introduced. Then, I still can’t figure out how to move files from the Desktop to ~/ using the Finder (the MacOSX file manager). Believe me, the context menus do not always work. I don’t know if it is a bug that I hit or me being unable to figure out “the easiest OS to use in the globe”, but it just didn’t always work for me. The other problem I have with the GUI, while it is a fact that it is looking good and consistent, it does not offer any revolutionary new concepts.
The OS is a unix underneath, so if you are familiar with Linux or BSD, you are going to love the ability to have a powerful shell in combination with a GUI that makes sense as opposed to the inconsistent XFree and its accompanying offerings. Setting up Apache, SSH, mySQL is even easier than other traditional unices, as you can find packages that can get installed through the MacOS .bin.hqx method rather than manually using the command line. There were a number of reports recently about security holes in the OS itself, but Apple has been releasing patches frequently since March, which was the original OSX release date. The integration between the BSD unix and the GUI has been done cleverly, older MacOS users will not even notice that they run on top of a unix environment.
The OS comes with several applications, like iTunes, office software, IE5.1, QuickTime and a DVD player (which plays exceptionally fast and without glitches I should add) among others. MacOSX also comes with a copy of MacOS 9.2 which, when called, it runs as a runtime environment on the background of OSX and provides compatibility with older MacOS apps that they have not being carbonized yet (not using the new API yet that is), like Photoshop and Quark 4 for example.
There are already a large number of native applications for MacOSX found on VersionTracker today and this number is increasing every day.
The biggest problem is that the system is big and slow. Yes, the 10.1 update made the system faster, but not fast. My previous review for OSX, based on an older and slower version was pretty much a grave for OSX’s speed. Things have changed to the better, but not a whole lot. WindowsXP still feels faster in common usage (closing down IE or openning the Trash directory for example). Resizing Finder in column mode is now… possible, but still with lots of lag in the response. When comparing this performance to the BeOS, which can resize or do everything needed while the system is already under the pressure of lots of CPU usage, MacOSX makes me laugh. If this is the “next generation OS” that Apple was talking about for years, I am not very imperessed, at least speed-wise. At places the OS seems that it lacks even proper multitasking. I am dissapointed by the general response time of the OS.
Also, the price for purchasing a Mac that can run this OS a bit fast (and make sure you fill it with extra memory if you want to have some luck with it) is too high. Apple hardware was always expensive, but if Apple really wants to gain more users off the PC platform (and these people will mostly be *nix geeks who seek a better gui than XFree), the price for the hardware should be dropped to something more realistic (have you seen how much Apple charges for an extra 128 MB DIMM?)
I was ready to buy an iMac for me some months ago, but I have now reconsider that doesn’t make much sense to spend $1,300 USD for something so underpowered (600 Mhz G3 – and please don’t give me the “megahertz myth”, which is pretty valid, but not so much in Apple’s case) and for an OS that except of a slick GUI does not bring anything new in the OS and technology scene, but just a life boat for Apple as a company in the whole. Nothing like a filesystem like XFS or BFS, not a good software manager like QNX’s, or the advanced (and easy to use) networking features that WindowsXP brings.
MacOSX lacks not the killer application, but a set of killer features.
Still though, MacOSX is in my opinion, the only OS that can compete head to head with Microsoft’s OS offerings one day. But this day, is not today.
Overall: 7.5/10
… just drag the file over the “Home” icon that appears at the top of the Finder window.
I want to move it, not copy it. But the Finder Mac menu on top, have the Move command disabled !!
Dear sir.
It is a surprise to me that such a misinformed Windows biased opinion would be published like this.
Comparing 2 OSs is not giving a personal “feel” about it, and windows biased people like yourself should restrain from giving your two cents about any other computing platform.
I am disgusted.
You should just be able to drag the item from the Desktop and drop it to the location you want. Admitting up fron that I don’t know what you are trying to do, is there a specific need for the file to go to the ~/ location, rather than in your user’s Home folder?
It is a surprise to me that such a misinformed Windows biased opinion would be published like this.
<P>
Care to elaborate exactly, *line by line*, which are the articles points you do not agree? Because I believe you are the biased one, not me.
I’m disgusted too.
You give no positive review of MacOSX but instead of destroying it. I’m sure you didn’t use MacOS X longer than any other OS because you just don’t want to relearn everything all over. You didn’t talk about DVD player, CD Burning, iTunes, and some important software such as Microsoft Word X, Illustrator 10, etc, etc.
We hope you won’t do any more review of MacOS X because you look just *SO* unexperienced with it. Maybe you should use it a little longer (but it shouldn’t take longer than when you learned how to wipe your ass)
Again, I’m still disgusted.
The author seems to forget how feature-rich Mac OS X really is, and the fact that Apple bundles quality, feature-rich software like Imovie, where there isn’t even a remote comparison in the Windows world. As far as “advanced networking” goes, the *nix origins of OS X allow it more extensibility and power than any Windows OS will ever see, especially not the Fisher-Priced Windows XP. Pound for pound, Mac OS X beats the crud out of any Micro$oft “product.”
Good review. I enjoyed it.
But I disagree that OS X offers “nothing new”
This is the first OS to offer a stable, supported ability to run:
1. every adobe app. (Photoshop runs in classic)
2. every popular UNIX app.
3. most popular Microsoft apps.
There are emulators one can run to offer these kinds of apps on other OS’s, and I can even run Windows apps using an emulator on OS X. But I’m referring to “out-of-the” box ability.
Linux on the desktop has been struggling because people think they want Internet Explorer and Office. Enter Mac OS X.
Before I had to use a messy combination of LinuxPPC and Mac OS to do my development.
Now, with OS X, I can code in BBEdit, compile using Sun’s command line java tools, run the compiled code using Tomcat, and design icons for it using Photoshop, create a website to sell my new software using Macromedia Dreamweaver, and test it locally using Apache and PHP.
One can sort of do this with Windows, using hacked versions of Apache and PHP and Tomcat, But OS X runs the real thing.
This is something new, believe me.
– miles
Eugenia (She not He) seems to be trying to move file(s) to the Computer location. This is the mount point of the system and is for mounted drives and network connection to appear (which can also be shown on the Desktop as a option). Files or other objects have to be moved or copied to a drive location not the computer location. It is best to move/copy items to the “home” location, because this is a multi-user OS. I would suggest spending a little more time on understanding the simplicity of OSX and try to empty the thoughts on the way you do thing in Windows or BeOS. I know that is easier said than done. I am often surprised how difficult people including myself, make things out to be, when in fact they where much easier to do than expected. As for the speed of the OS, the (runtime of OS9 makes the over all X experience slower at this time. OSX will get faster and faster and will become more and more customizable. It is a baby and no new OS was ever perfect from the start. They all evolve with time and user input.
I stand by my opinions regarding OSX. This is my honest opinion regarding OSX, and you can cry as much as you want.
Especially after reading today http://www.graphicpower.com/“>this and the editor’s adventures after the guy published another OSX review, I had anticipated all these Mac-fanatics to send hate mail and comments. Flame on, it won’t change my views regarding OSX (which btw, if you read the article, are much better than some other OSes that floating around).
The OS needs killer features down to the OS level, not just all these (great indeed) bunch of software you mention here.
As for experience, I have used OSX long enough (and lots of other OSes), and don’t forget that reviewers do not necessarily should be using the product for 12 months before they start writting the review. In fact this is one of the points, regarding usability of the reviewed product.
Have a nice day.
I’m interested in how despite all the negative aspects of OS X that were repeatedly shoved in our faces in this article, it still gets a 7.5/10 rating. Sure there were a few positive comments, but they were few and far between and even then they were laced in a negative context. Are you afraid to praise an OS offering from Apple just because your colleagues will call you bad names? I dont understand…….
You forgot to mention that XP will cost more to buy. You forgot to mention that XP copied OSX. You forgot to mention XP will shutdown your system because of Microsofts protection scheme when you add software or hardware to the original configuration.
You forgot to mention Apple is only at the half way mark of it’s total introduction of OSX. You should also mention that most IT professionals are going to avoid upgrading to XP for a lot of the reasons above. And my personal opinion OSX is way better than XP! I think the other gentleman would agree. Microsofts lack of interest in security issues with its software are also reasons to avoid XP. No java in XP either which is an internet standard! What were they thinking! OSX is here now and whether you like it or not it has the power to compete and can only get better as it is refined. It’s only been out for 6 months and the performance has improved ten fold so wait another six months it’s only going to get better.
>Files or other objects have to be moved or copied to a drive location not the computer location.
I tried to move the files to my home (eugenia) directory, not to /.
Please be aware that the problem was not always visible. _Sometimes_ it would move the file, and most of the times it wouldn’t. My guess is that it may be a bug of some sort, as I don’t have a better explanation for this behaviour. (yes, I “owned” the files I tried to move)
Congratulations on one of the funniest articles I’ve read in ages. Now run back to your big plastic PC my dear and push the pretty pointer around the screen. Isn’t it just so cool how it does that?
Eugenia, how old are you? Such ignorance is impossible beyond the age of 10.
This is huge can any othe OS burn DVDs from the OS level without a third party app? Let alone burning CDs from the OS.
While I agree Eugenia’s review was a little pessimistic compared to everything else I’ve read about OS X (plus my own experience with it), I think it was quite lucid. It’s not fair nor constructive to call someone windows biased when they’re obviously trying not to be biased at all. Eugenia has always been the most objective and informative she could be in all her reviews, and surprisingly enough, that seems to piss off a lot of people.
Anyway, OS X is great, the 10.1 upgrade makes it awesome, but there are more and more good things coming from microsoft too these days (GAWD I hate to admit it…) – so I guess in the end, we’re the ones who benefit from the race for The Number One Most Bestest OS Around
Mmmm, let’s see. We are OS news and we can’t take ourself serious if we don’t do a review on a new apple OS. So ask some PC-lover that has just about time before he get’s maried to borrow an apple, start this up and make some comments. With outer words ‘you could’t handel it the first time (10.0.4) and you sure as hell couldn’t handel it the second time (10.1). You better spent your time on your new wife.
I agree that Apple needs to do a major overhaul on their chip mega-“hurtz” thing. But I really felt like this article was unsubstatiative and you could tell it was not well thought out as grammar was even lacking in the article. Hole not Whole. Many other errors too.
“Nothing like a filesystem like XFS or BFS, not a good software manager like QNX’s, or the advanced (and easy to use) networking features that WindowsXP brings.”
Um…
does anything? I mean, an ideal standard is fine, insofar as it is a target to shoot for, but complaining about how something doesn’t live up to it is an idealist’s position.
Which is fine. Except that the rest of us have to live in the real world. And as far as I can see, having run off of the new MacOS and played with Windows XP, the strengths of the former outweigh the strengths of the latter.
I mean, as far as I could see, what Windows XP does is 1) deeply integrate even more programs (and copycat ones) into the operating system, 2) come with a horrifically ugly and unbearable interface (I can’t stand staring at it for 8 hours+ a day), and 3) make Windows more stable. Nothing new at all.
As far as the MacOS is concerned, it is still a little clunky (I miss spring loaded folders, and I miss the transparency of the file system – it was all so simple under 7 – 9), and, yes, the hardware needs to be improved (we’ve known that for over a year now, so complaining about it is beginning to sound whiny), and, yes, the developers need to get working, but, really:
For the first time in years, when I sit at home and work on Mac OSX after a day of Windows at work, I feel like I’m working with an operating system that has a future ahead of it that represents innovation (rather than imitation and regurgitation).
It could be a bug, no doubt . It is a new OS and I myself have found many. I am sure they will be fixed, sooner rather than later.
> The OS needs killer features down to the OS level…
Perhaps YOU would care to elaborate (line by line)? You didn’t mention ANY OS features. MacOS X is quite a marvel for an OS – combining FreeBSD, Mach, and a OS 9 runtime enviroment, and having it run at all – near flawless backward compatibility. I want to double click on a Win 98 binary some day, under XP.
Perhaps if you are so concerned about the OS features themselves, you should actually use the OS, and not have your educated opinion tainted by your distaste for the UI – I suggest you d/l and install Darwin. Then you would have a clear view of the OS itself.
I will just add to John’s post saying that I have been to many an Apple Mac OSX Seminars and you’d be surprised how many Windows users were there to be gently swayed into a mac world that many have been enjoying for years…and 10.1 is just the beginning. Apple’s time is now! XP and microsoft have turned their backs on their faithful and Apple is waiting with arms wide open! Funny how your article mentions an emulator for 8.1 claiming it ran faster on your peecee…hello Virtual Windows runs those horrid os’s on a mac and the demo they ran for X was scary fast and stable running 5 different OS’s. Later
For the UNIX-ignorant, ~/ means “my home directory”.
If you are trying to move something to your home directory, open your home directory and drop it in. If that doesn’t work, then there are only a few possibilities:
1. You are moving a file between drives. In this case the Finder will simply copy the file to the new location. You can tell this is happening because the pointer gets a little “+” next to it.
2. You don’t have rights to the file.
3. Something is quite broken.
I don’t know what could be behind option 3. I have been running Mac OS X on a number of machines since the public beta a year ago, and I have never seen this behavior, but of course ymmv.
I love the comments from the Apple fans. If only you channeled your energies into creating a better system instead of going berzerk when someone “insults” your operating system.
I was an avid Macintosh user in the early 90’s and then I got my hands on a NeXT box. All of these “innovative” thing that you claim to be so wonderful about OSX existed in the NeXT (save things like DVD that did not exist, but the UNIX kernel, the multitasking, Objective-C, etc). OSX appears to be nothing more than NeXT Step ported to the PowerPC and with a prettier interface (not to be mistaken for “more useful”), it uses gobs of memory and CPU, just like Microsoft and Linux, and from what I’ve seen provides poor performance and a clumsy user interface.
Not that the Microsoft side has much of an argument, and I’m not about to support them, but after working with both products I can say that I think the both suck equally; I just hold Apple to a higher standard, at least in terms of user interface.
Don’t be fooled, the only “intuitive” interface is the nipple (look up the word “intuitve”).
I think the review was fair and I’m interested in hearing arguments that are based on facts or quantitive figures (GOMS model analysis, etc).
Those of you who choose to banter fanatically are seen just as that.
Hi,
I’m a longtime mac and windows developer. I know both platforms well, although I probably know more about the mac then windows. If you wonder what longtime means: my first mac I developed on was a disk-less Mac 512…
I don’t agree 100% with most comments in the article, but I agree with some of them. Some of the remarks could be made out of ignorance, but the important thin is this: the author is a windows user, and her opinion is important if apple wants to gain market share. I have heard similar comments from other windows users so apple needs to study then and try to counter them by providing fixes.
I am and a UNIX-ignorant and did not know this. Thanks Jack.
I quite agree with the article. MacOSX is a nice alternative to Windows and Linux, but it is not my cup of tea, yet. I would want more out of it to switch over. I am also a BeOS user for sometime now, speed is what matters for me too.
Your appraisal of the Mac is a bit bizarre. Firstly, the cheapest iMac is $799. Admittedly, that’s 500 Mhz, but its a lot less than $1300. For $1300, you can have an iBook, which outruns and outfeatures any other notebook in its class (Firewire? Airport? 100bt? etc.). Mac OS X takes advantage of the G4’s velocity engine; you used only G3 machines.
Apple commands a price premium, but delivers a level of integration and built-in functionality I would love to get with our windows boxes. Macs are not for the home-brew computer crowd, though OS X is opening up a whole new vista of system level tinkering.
Certainly there are things that one can criticize about Mac OS X . I agree that speed is an issue, but 10.1 is considerably better than 10.0.4 and this will only improve (proof? check out:
http://newforums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4…
for a hack enabled window buffer compression in 10.1)
The sluggishness of the finder is due to an architecture that is technologically new: a third-generation display layer. (see John Siracusa’s insightful articles at Ars Technica:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/01q2/macos-x-final/macos-x-1.html
The Quartz layer does more (much more) than the display layers of Be OS, or any MS OS, and its capabilities are only beginning to be leveraged by developers. As processor speeds increase and OS X is optimized, the minor display speed issues (and they are minor) will disappear. I use Windows 2000 (on a dual 1000 Mhz PIII) everyday and I would far rather be on my 867 Mhz OS X 10.1 box. It is overall a far smoother and more productive environment. YMMV, of course.
True.
While I’m at it: your completely unfounded and unsupported remarks about XFree86 largely detract from my (and I assume others) ability to take your ‘review’ seriously. You should stay on the issue. If you don’t like the UI, state what’s wrong with it (specifically). Subjective remarks about the ‘feel’ coming from someone quite content with the feel of Windows (which I doubt most MacOS users could relate to) without any further mention of how it could be improved, or specifically what is wrong seems rather pointless.
Also, a new UI from apple doesn’t need to have any great new revolution of development. I think they got it pretty close to right the first time ’round.
I’m sorry that you had such a poor experiance using the worlds easist OS. It doesn’t really surprise me though, most people using any windows variant usually have to learn to stop making things so hard on themselves. I personally find your article to be pretty biased. You discuss things “Transparency where it is not needed making text sometimes unreadable, too much of a gradient in the scrollbars etc.” You don’t provide a decent alternative for anyone to gauge what would be an acceptiable alternative.
As for the the universal Menubar GUI aspects, it’s been around for decades. Apple isn’t going to just throw a good part of it’s userbase (which arn’t unix/windows/linux users) into a new OS that lacks any commonalities with what they’ve been using for years. Personally I WISH XP had such a menubar. I find that it is a wonderful organizational tool. Anyone who’s ever had to deal with asking a computer user “What version of windows are you running and how much ram are you using” will appreciate the simplicity to just jumping into the apple menu.
I will agree that although 10.1 is apple’s “mainstream release”, The OS is not fast enough, although as you mentioned this is a step in the right direction. XP is definitely more responsive, but it tries to do a lot less with it’s GUI. (If you can stand the default color settings). Yet that is a temporary thing, 9.2.1 is a marked improvement in speed vs older iterations of the classic OS.
Finally, If you’re content with buying RAM from apple you’ve either got more money than most of us, or you’re insane. 1.5GB of RAM was easily purchased for under 150$ from ENU electronics. RAM for my original imac (512MB) cost me 110$. You raise some interesting points, but you don’t back it up with enough research.
-Joseph
P.S: How about explaining why the “megahertz myth” doesn’t apple so much for Apple? Some of us still want the steak and not the sizzle.
> it uses gobs of memory and CPU, just like Microsoft and Linux
Linux? Gobs of memory? I can count the operating systems that have user bases > 10,000 which can boot on a machine with 4MB of RAM, on one hand – among which is Linux.
Would you care to elaborate?
Ever try to REALLY delete a program from any MS operating system? Did you get rid of every stinking file left over?
A package is a package and you DRAG the package to the TRASH and delete it (OS X). That is one of the MOST compelling reasons for enjoying Apple Operating Systems. With WINDOZE you never know what you will break or leave behind because there are so many places to hide files.
Add to that friendly, reliable hardware, point and click operation, a working interface and set up configurations that don’t rely on how obfuscated they can be made – gross system integration? That’s why I like Mac systems … AND MORE!
Eugenia,
How can you write a review if you don’t know enough about the OS to even know what to look for or what you are looking at to review it. You sound childish with your comments about expecting cry baby hate flame mail from mac-fanatics. You sound biased and eager to attract this negative attention. I am not sure if your review wins you brownie points with your fellow pc centric friends or if it is just a way to increase traffic to your site. Nonetheless, your review is more emotional than technical and lacks any substance.
A package is a package and you DRAG the package to the TRASH and delete it (OS X). That is one of the MOST compelling reasons for enjoying Apple Operating Systems. With WINDOZE you never know what you will break or leave behind because there are so many places to hide files.
<P>
I can do that with BeOS, exactly the same way.
> I can do that with BeOS, exactly the same way.
Yes – obviously, if you combine the ‘goods’ of every other operating system out there, you will always have something to complain about. It would seem that he was specifically relating this to Windows.
My question is: why was Eugenia chosen to do this review? As he/she states in the article, he/she has little experience with MacOS as a whole (does running a Mac emulator under Windows even count as Mac experience?) and was one of only two PC users in an office full of “underpowered” Macs. Fairly or not, this reads like the reviewer has an axe to grind – and I’d still feel this way if a Mac user who had always felt that Windows was too kludgy, insecure and unstable was chosen to review Windows XP on the basis of having used Windows twice and VirtualPC a while back.
Interestingly, the reviewer seems to mention and then quickly skip over some of the most important points concerning OSX: Java integration, free and powerful developer tools (did Eugenia really have a tough time finding them on Apple’s website? And yet he/she claims to have 7 OS’s installed, some of which, presumably, required at least a bit of digging around and configuring to even install? Why doesn’t this add up?), out-of-the-box stability and security (especially compared to Linux and/or Windows 98/NT/ME/2000/XP), enhanced AppleScript (especially with the publicly demoed AppleScript Studio), inclusion of Perl, TCL, tcsh, and so on. The whole *point* of OSX is that it’s Unix with a friendly face. Is it possible that Eugenia had trouble using OSX simply because he/she is so used to the Windows way?
As for speed – this I find confusing. I’m currently writing this from a Wallstreet PowerBook (300mhz G3 with 256mb RAM) and have no speed complaints – although in all honesty, OS9 is still faster on my machine. The same is not true of 10.1 on my 400mhz G4 with 384mb RAM. On that machine, OSX is honestly as fast as Windows 98 is on my 700mhz Athlon (Of course, if someone wants to argue that XP is faster than 98, well…) Perhaps a reviewer could take the time to test more than a single machine? Especially before writing a potentially negative review? That’s the way I always wrote my reviews. Kept me from looking silly.
At any rate, I think the sum total of the review is that it’s not particularly well done. Too much “It feels like…” and not enough substance. Especially for a website with technical readers. Clearly, a website like Ars Technica is in no danger from OSAlert’ competition.
The author should, for grins, install a copy of Public Beta on a machine and try it out. Yes, I know that you have to set your clock backwards to get it to work….
Such things as a working Apple Menu (in the upper left-hand corner), a true Finder, AirPort, DVD playback, CD authoring, and more have been near-flawlessly implemented in the year between the release of PB and 10.1.
While I’ll admit that it doesn’t have the performance of XP – but it’s getting there – look how many years Microsoft had to get it right (3.0 through ME = ten years, give or take) and still couldn’t make a machine perform well outside of the DOS shell….
//e
MacOS 10.1 is not (yet) perfect. So I decided to move to Windows but I was stuck there. What was I supposed to choose : NT 4, NT 2000, Win 95, Win98, Windows me, Windows XP personal, professional,… Why do you need so much OS ? OS 10.1 fits my needs, it’s fast enough for what I do (but it’s true Im’ a slow guy since I can only look at one window at a time). Most of the applications I need are now free (Open Source)…
Only a tight assed and frustrated person can write such an idiotic report. But this is a free country and she has the right to say what she wants. But this is a country for freedomof thought too, and I know for a fact (esp after reading this report) that this person is an idiot, and any future reports from this site should be desregarded as JUNK mail.
Yes, you can, and you can do it in Solaris from the command line. How many people have a SunOS box at home? And I will admit BeOS could have and maybe should have been Cupertino’s OS choice instead of BSD.
The point is that Macs are a lot more user friendly than WinTel, stability, installation, reliability,….
And, if I have/need to, I can run Windoze on my Mac at a reasonable clip (Virtual PC).
Hi. I’m no mac fanatic but theres a few things in the article i’d dispute. I’m just praying that html works in messages
.
<blockquote style=”PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px”>First off, I can’t say that I like the classic Mac menu bar on the top. It prevents multitasking from doing its job as it supposed to do it.</blockquote>
Don’t you think this is just down to user experience? You’re not used to having the menu there, it doesn’t mean its wrong.
<blockquote style=”PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px”>At places the OS seems that it lacks even proper multitasking.</blockquote>
That’s a bit vague, what does it even mean?
<blockquote style=”PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px”>an OS that except of a slick GUI does not bring anything new in the OS and technology scene</blockquote>
What does windows XP bring to the OS and technology scene? The aim of a consumer OS is usually to provide a consistent, easy to use, reliable interface, Not to bring some cool new toys to computer enthusiasts.
<blockquote style=”PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px”>… or the advanced (and easy to use) networking features that WindowsXP brings</blockquote>
Windows XP Networking may be easier to use, but the BSD networking in OS X is much more powerful.
Forgive me if I don’t understand exactly what you mean when you blast OSX for putting the menubar in a consistent location. You claim it doesn’t allow multitasking to “work like it was supposed to.”
I don’t understand this. It’s a fact that while a computer may be able to work in many programs at once, a person can only use one at a time (though that person may switch back and forth between them fairly rapidly). As proof of this, I challenge you to open any two files in any two distinct apps in any OS, at the same time. You’ll find that you can’t; you have to leave one and enter the other, even if only for a second, in order to get the job done.
Therefore, there is no need to display multiple menubars at once. Given this, the usability advantage of having the menubar in a consistent location, particularly when Fitts’ Law comes into play, far outweigh the disadvantages.
Or at least, that’s how it seems to me. But I didn’t invent multitasking, so I could be wrong. How do you think multitasking is “supposed to work”?
“Nothing like a filesystem like XFS or BFS, not a good software manager like QNX’s, or the advanced (and easy to use) networking features that WindowsXP brings.”
While a journaling file system would be nice, I haven’t had my 10.1 crash on me yet, nor have I had any problems with data loss or corruption on my drives. HFS+ seems to work fine for now, at least for the desktop OS… er… digital hub… that Apple is marketing the OS as. Who knows, maybe Apple or a third party will provide additional file system options in the future. It’s still young and Apple just wants to get people using it ASAP. HFS+ just makes the transition path between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X that much more simpler.
Also in the good-enough-for-now-category, Apple provides us with the Software Update system preference tool. While limited mostly to Apple sponsored packages, these tend to be the most important to upgrade. It would be nice to have more control of third party application updates like QNX’s software manager (which I have to admit I’ve never used personally so I don’t know if it’s as good as you seem to imply) or Ximian’s Red Carpet for Gnome offer, the current system works fine. There was no comment about it in the review, so I’m not sure if you even tried using it.
As far as “advanced (and easy to use) networking features” go, TCP/IP, AppleTalk, SAMBA, and NFS are practically seamless. And the NetInfo system is about as advanced as you can get. I would appreciate it if you could clarify your criticism, as I’m not sure how much more functionality one would want or require for most desktop or server tasks.
> The OS needs killer features down to the OS level…
Apache, NFS, Appleshare, SMB, WebDAV, OpenGL, Quartz, Quicktime, Carbon, multiple languages, hello???
Nonoche
I just couldn’t help myself, had to reply to this review
“First off, I can’t say that I like the classic Mac menu bar on the top. It prevents multitasking from doing its job as it supposed to do it and it does not necesarrily make the system easier to use, as it probably made sense back in 1984 when the first Mac was introduced. ”
Bollocks. It is intuitively *much* easier to move the pointer to the Mac menu bar and utilise it than it will ever be under Windows. Using Windows, you have to find & hit the bar – wherever it is positioned on the screen – which is only a few (32 ?) pixels wide. Under MacOS (any flavour), just move the pointer as far up as it will go and voila! you’re at the menu bar. Human interface studies have proved this time and again…
How do you argue that a menubar at the top of the screen prevents multitasking from doing a proper job? Please, elaborate.
“MacOSX is a (supposedly) modern 32-bit OS, based on the 15 year old BSD4.4 and Mach kernel, with a new, object-oriented GUI on top. ”
Old, yes. Tried & tested, yes. Rock solid, yes. Fast, yes. What’s the problem?
“The biggest problem is that the system is big and slow. Yes, the 10.1 update made the system faster, but not fast.”
Define “system”. Darwin, the unix underneath, is plenty fast. Screamingly fast. Go test for yourself.
The GUI needs tweaking & tuning, I’ll give you that, but considering that 10.0.0 – 10.0.4 were more or less public beta’s (tApple just had to deliver…). I’d say progress is darned good.
Cheers,
-Morten
You’re missing a very fundamental point here – what other company do you know of that has been ABLE to bring to the mass market a *nix based OS that was this easy to use?? Can you name even one? And don’t try to foist off the nonsense that Windows NT/2K/XP has all the goodness of Unix with an easy to use UI – even David Cutler’s not that good.
I also can’t believe that you are trying to say that Windows XP’s networking architecture is superior to X’s. Haven’t you read Steve Gibson’s report (https://grc.com/dos/xplaughter.htm) on the flaws in the Windows XP IP stack that will make it trivial to spoof an IP address. Now *there’s* an “advanced (and easy to use)” networking ‘feature’.
As far as the platform you tested on, there is no doubt that a G3 based platform is not ideal. OS X makes extensive use of the AltiVec engine in the G4, and is significantly (subjectively) faster with that CPU vice a G3. Granted, you probably shouldn’t have to buy a G4 to get the benefit of that speed advantage, but that’s business. Remember, Apple has to sell boxes as well as the OS. As far as buying RAM from Apple, c’mon – who the hell does THAT? Certainly not anybody that considers themselves even partly a geek.
I also can’t argue with the point about the BeOS. It is (was?) a much more modern OS. But there you have the chicken/egg problem. If you’re Apple and you’re trying to survive and thrive are *you* going to use an unproven OS without any significant commercial applications presence as THE successor to your existing OS? Again, business decision. Who the hell *wouldn’t* have liked to see the BeOS running on a G3/G4 after seeing it smoke on a 603e?!
Now as far as OS 8.1 running faster on your Celeron than on a G3, is that based on benchmarks, or just your subjective observations? Unless you have solid evidence backing this statement up, you make yourself sound as if you’re making a biased, uninformed statement.
I also can’t believe you’re slamming on BSD considering it is the most used hosting OS on the Internet, and one of the most secure *nix implementations out there. Okay, so it’s not the latest and greatest code base out there. Who cares?! Is it fully buzzword compliant? Yes. Is it easy to use? Yes (with concessions to Tog). Is it pretty? Damn straight!! So where’s your beef? I didn’t see anything substantive related to this point.
As far as the mhz myth issue, what do you mean it’s not valid in Apple’s case? A principle is either valid or not. Simply put, the mhz myth is valid. What’s your basis for stating it isn’t valid in Apple’s case? Do you have any benchmarks that show the OS carries so much overhead that it has a real, negative impact on applications? Or is this, once again, your subjective opinion?
I ordinarily refrain from being hostile towards women Eugenia, but you should know by now how Mac users are about their OS. And if you’re going to print a negatively toned column which appears to be entirely based on subjective opinion, and has the added burden of appearing biased, you’re going to take heat. If you have a solid basis for refuting any points I’ve made, or have replies to questions I’ve asked, I’d like to hear them.
I would like to close by saying that at least you did make some positive (or at least neutral) comments in the column. If you could do some more research and print an objective report, I’d love to see it. But until then, be prepared to take heat if you’re going to be negative towards the Mac, and appear as if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Regards,
mortarman
Well, I liked the review. Personally, I would consider getting a Mac with OS X (in addition to my PC…) but there so expensive! Geez.
What I really wish is that there was an OS that combined the strong points of BeOS, QNX, and Windows XP, and had a GUI that looked like a cross between Qube and the BeOS GUI… Also, this dream OS of mine would have versions for various diffrent processors but still be able to run the same binarys (isn’t Amiga doing something like that with Amiga DE?)…
“I can do that with BeOS, exactly the same way.”
Cool. You and the 3 other people who have BeOS.
I think your comments were respectable, but ultimately impractical. Thank goodness 1) apple has the loyal fans they do 2) apple caters to this fan base on the principle that Macs are the “computer for the rest of us” and 3) apple has found a new OS that can attracter developers (if only the developers learn how to produce good products!).
Be OS is gone. Linux was an “almost but not quite”. All the rest are for hardcore users who have time to learn CLI.
That leaves Windows and Mac for the rest of us. Is Mac OSX perfect? No. But can you honestly say that Windows would survive without the exclusive contracts and monopolistic behavior of it’s parent company? Can you practically state it has ever been a “friendly” OS?
A reviewer has an obligation to her audience, which must include the practical reality of the market. BeOS is tied to Palm, which is going bankrupt. Mac OSX does some amazing things, and puts them into the hands of everyday people like you and me. Windows simply forces us to conform to, and put up with, Redmond dystopias.
Here’s the issue. Computers need to be easy to use FOR THE MASSES. We geeks can pretty much figure out ANY operating system.
So, I gave OS X the “Wife Test.” My wife uses Windows 95 at work and used MacOS 9 at home. She always had issues with MacOS 9. I was always explaning stuff to her.
I switched to OS X 10.1 last week. Nary a peep comes out of the family room! The only issue I have is that there are no drivers for my scanner yet (Umax Astra 2200), and there is no RealAudio plug-in yet.
But my wife can be considered “The Masses” and I find that OS X is WAY easier for her to use than either Windows or MacOS 9.
I have not tried XP yet, nor do I really want to, but, if my wife is any indication, OS X does exactly what it is supposed to do. Make it better and easier to use a computer.
“Nothing like a filesystem like XFS or BFS, not a good software manager like QNX’s, or the advanced (and easy to use) networking features that WindowsXP brings.”
<P>
How many home users really need a super advance filesytem? Journaling… why? Maybe in a server environment, but for Joe Blow… who cares. Furthermore, Apple HAD to use HFS+ to make it backward compatible with Classic. Without HFS Classic would have been a royal pain in the ass.
<P>
What is “advanced networking?” I don’t know how much easier it gets that installing OSX and having it say, “would you like to use the network configuration I got from your DHCP server?” Do you mean connecting to other boxes, servers, what? Appletalk is about as easy as it gets.
<P>
Not to jump on the bandwagon, but you’re review of OSX would be like my review of WindowsXP… I wouldn’t have a clue how to write a constructive, well informed review of XP because I haven’t used it and don’t care to learn it.
>Files or other objects have to be moved or copied to a drive location not the computer location.
The focus manager of MacOS 10.1 does not recognize a drag gesture in an application unless it is the active application. Wether this is a bug or not is more a matter of opinion than code.
I just want to add that while MacOS X has a ways to go before it is “windows killer”, I do think that it is a huge improvement over the Classic Mac OS, and is able to compete for users that are not locked into Microsoft proprietary software. Additionally, I agree with most points made in the article especially in regards to the over doing of certain elements of the GUI. I do, however, disagree with is where you stated that Windows XP has more “advanced (and easy to use) networking features”. While I have never used Windows XP I do not see how it could have more advanced networking features since the vast majority of all networking standards have been derived on UNIX systems, and MacOS X with slight (source code) modifications can run any piece of UNIX software. Granted Windows XP could have easier to use tools, but I do not see how they could be more complete.
Additionally in regards to using XFS and BFS as filesystems. You could use them if you really wanted to since the core of the OS is Open Source, you’d just have to port them. Not for the average user, but if you really need there is nothing saying you can’t do it (I could be wrong, but I don’t think that Windows supports either XFS or BFS out of the box either). Same goes for alternative window servers and managers.
In response to John Horvatic:
“You forgot to mention that XP will cost more to buy.”
Not true of the home version, definitely true of the professional version.
“You forgot to mention that XP copied OSX.”
How so, exactly? Sure, I can name a few ways, but OS X has copied things from Microsoft, too (toolbar, anyone?). The funny thing is that who-copied-who is irrelevant; what matters is which is the best product.
“You forgot to mention XP will shutdown your system because of Microsofts protection scheme when you add software or hardware to the original configuration.”
This is so completely not true. Yes, XP has copy protection which could be annoying for some people, and I respect the opinions of those who don’t want any part of it. However, what you wrote is just dishonest; it has nothing to do with adding software and only comes into effect when making major hardware changes. And even then, you have grace period in which to contact Microsoft. You took a valid complaint and made it invalid by completely misrepresenting it.
“You forgot to mention Apple is only at the half way mark of it’s total introduction of OSX.”
Worth mentioning, yes, but when you’re talking about the quality of a currently-shipping product, it’s irrelevant.
“You should also mention that most IT professionals are going to avoid upgrading to XP for a lot of the reasons above.”
Is this fact or opinion? And, more importantly, how is this relevant to an examination of OS X’s quality?
“No java in XP either which is an internet standard!”
It’s easy to download Java freely, easily, and automatically when you come across it on a web page. You used to have to download iTunes, but I don’t remember anyone saying, “No MP3s in OS X either which is an internet standard!”
“What were they thinking!”
That’s easy; they’re doing their part to kill Java.
“It’s only been out for 6 months and the performance has improved ten fold so wait another six months it’s only going to get better.”
“Tenfold” is certainly an exaggeration, but you’re right about the improvement. Now that the foundation has been laid, we can hopefully look forward to some amazing things in OS X’s future. I for one and watching and waiting.
In response to Millenium:
“Given this, the usability advantage of having the menubar in a consistent location, particularly when Fitts’ Law comes into play, far outweigh the disadvantages.”
I can’t agree with this at all. Fitt’s law is a good law to consider, but it doesn’t necessarily override other factors. Quite simply, many Mac users are confused by the menu bar because of multitasking. When I used to tutor school teachers, one problem that always came up is they’d close the ClarisWorks document they were working on with the close button and then wonder why they couldn’t find “Shut Down”. Easy, right? The program is still running. But they couldn’t figure it out–that’s a problem with using one widget for all programs (and replacing its content when the current program is changed).
Apple has recognized this problem and that’s why they put the current application’s name in the menubar in OS X. This helps a bit but certainly does not eliminate the problem. However, in the process, it destroys a lot of Fitt’s law in its own accord; since the “File” and “Edit” menus are constantly moved slightly depending on the application name’s length, the motor memory used for going to them is lost.
A top-of-the-screen menu bar has other disadvantages, too. Say I like to leave my iTunes window in small form in the lower-right corner while I surf the web. To use its menu to say, get the song info or something, I have to move the mouse all the way down, click on the window to make it the active app, then move the mouse all the way back up to the top of the screen, use the menu, and then go back down to the iTunes window to change the volume or whatnot. Contextual menus, shortcut keys, and buttons help this problem, but they don’t help the “the top menubar is better” argument in the slightest.
In response to foamy:
“Journaling… why? Maybe in a server environment”
Journaling is actually much less useful in a server environment than at home. With journaling, you avoid “You didn’t shut down the computer properly” disk checks, which is much more applicable to Mom and Dad who don’t understand why they can’t yank the plug than system administrators with machines that are on 24-7.
“How so, exactly? Sure, I can name a few ways, but OS X has copied things from Microsoft, too (toolbar, anyone?).”
And whence did Microsoft get its toolbar? Anyone?
I’ll leave this as an exercise for the reader…:-)
“And whence did Microsoft get its toolbar? Anyone?”
If you’re implying that Apple invented the toolbar used in IE5 for the Mac (with its way of user customization) which Apple essentially borrowed for OS X, I’m going to be flabergasted…
As an international user, I was hoping you would have touched on some of the perils and possibilities of using Mac OS X from a non-English perspective. Of course, localization depends on cooperation of 3rd party apps, but from what little I’ve toyed the localization could be very nice. Just curious what a non-US centric user thinks of the localization implementation and possibilities for improving it.
I used to work in a similar graphic studio to what yours sounds like. The bean counters bought low end equipment when older models were being discontinued and kept them well past their usable life. I remember trying desperately to squeeze out just a bit better performance on old 68040 macs when the PowerPC’s were already in their second generation. But your subtle point about purchase price having a hidden correlation to processor speed (because of thrifty accountants) was right on target. I just wish it were easier to quantify proficiency increases in dollar amounts. It’d make upgrades (whatever your computer system) easier.
I also like your perspective on using emulation. Basilisk is a very cool emulator of the old pre-PowerPC platform and it really flies. Apple did a bang up job they did on the “Classic” environment, but I still use a Mac emulator (vMac) on Mac OS X to run ancient System 6 apps that no longer run even under Classic. Emulation is also pretty cool with other OS’s (I use Virtual PC to run IBM DOS that’s really cool). I’m not sure how valid your speed comparisons are between metal and emulation; I’ve always had terrific speed emulating metal that’s 3 years old or so. In fact, it’s more often the case that I need speed limiters to slow my emulator down (so sound and other functions work reasonably).
I won’t argue about the holy war of which computer language is better, but if you are looking for a good comparison I strongly suggest Timothy Budd’s “An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming”. I have the second edition and it goes into nice comparisons about what the various object oriented programming languages are good for. It doesn’t attempt to say which one is more marketable or even to say which one is “best”. He does a good job of pointing out where it’s most beneficial to use C++ or Java or Objective-C. Good code comparisons too.
The things you despise about the interface (single, global menubar, similarity to what has come before, strong contrasts) are things that I like. I agree with your assessment of some outstanding bugs and inconsistencies but lumping them in the same paragraph as your critique on interface design probably just goaded Mac readers. Of course no one likes bugs, to suggest that the home folder move and the contextual menu vagueries were designed in rather than simply oversights suggests some disorganization in either your evaluation or your presentation of your evaluation.
I’m interested in your assessment of speed and lag. I strongly agree with your assessment of BeOS’s speed; it was incredibly responsive. But so far I don’t agree with you on your assessment of Win XP being faster in feel than Mac OS X. In many, many ways they both seem comparable to me. There are a number of things that do feel faster on Windows XP and some that feel faster on Mac OS X. But in many cases I don’t notice much of a difference without a stopwatch.
At the tail end of your article you start lumping together things that Mac OS X fails to deliver: a journaled file system, a software manager, and advanced networking. I strongly agree about the file system need (but I actually hold out more hope that third-party Darwin developers will deliver it sooner than Apple will). I am not sure what exactly you mean by the software manager need. And I strongly disagree with you about the Windows networking layer (which I’ve had nothing but trouble with interfacing with standard Unix boxen). Though I only partially agree with your perspective, I do wish you had elaborated more on these issues rather than just throwing them unelaborated.
“And whence did Microsoft get its toolbar? Anyone?”
If you’re implying that Apple invented the toolbar used in IE5 for the Mac (with its way of user customization) which Apple essentially borrowed for OS X, I’m going to be flabergasted…
Oh no, no such thing. But Microsoft nicked it from somewhere else…
Cheers,
-Morten
I have never seen this many knee-jerk reactions, not even on Slashdot! Wow, is OSX that good? Everyone I asked said it was still sluggish (even version 10.1), and what they described got me quite aback. Now, if only half of what these OSX users told me is ture, then OSX is not the best thing under the sun, yet. Myabe it will be, but for now, it is still open to at least some criticism.
And guys, some of the comments were not genteel at all.
Eugenia, I’m with you, your opinions are more valid that anyone’s, you’re athorized to review and make your opinion about any OS around the world, because I think you’re just the best writing and commenting about this nice world, you’re much more than those ungrateful (with you) users, well done.
Camilo Pino
I find it ironic that if an Apple user criticizes an reviewer, that particular user gets slapped with the misnomer of a “fanatic”. I have never, personally, met an Apple fanatic. The only Apple users I’ve met are pretty much just like the Windows user, which is to say, nothing too special. They both made huge investments into their respective platform. Each has certain winnahs (on the hardware/software side) that I’m sure that the other side has been longing for. Of course, when you make a certain investment, you go to a certain distance to protect your reasoning.
As for Eugenia, yes she could have spent a little bit more time investigating the MacOSX, rather than giving it a superficial review. Congratulations on getting married by the way. Regardless, she already OUTLINED that fact in the very beginning of the article, that “simply put” she didn’t have the time nor the effort to actually churn out a well-thought out review. She didn’t hide that fact, she was blunt and straightfoward about that.
Of course, in which makes me wonder, why. . . she was selected to do the review on it? What about her friend whom she “borrowed” their iMac from? Why not ask them? Was it an OS-Review from a totally untrained computer user? or Windows User? Linux User? What? What was her platform that she relies on day by day on?
ONLY From that point, we can be certain to point out where she might act in a certain way due to habit created by the other platform. I Know I’m guilty of doing so, expecting all of the CD/Floppies to automatically pop up on the Windows side’s desktop is an excerise in pipe-dream, when on the Mac side it happens automatically. Just as watching the pseudo multi-tasking on the Windows Side out-perform the even furthur pseudo multi-tasking on the Mac (classic) 9.2.1, One has a certain measurement of expectation. What was the reference point that one used when comparing the MacOS X? That’s the real question? From that we can at least acknowledge our previous experience (as well bias) when doing certain tasks.
That, I suspect, just left a bad taste in most of the observers who posted (albietly short n nasty) remarks about Eugenia.
Again, I would hope that Eugenia would take this opporunity, to actually stick with the Mac OS X, and run it for at least a month (100% of the time, not 50/50), and learn its structures and intricates of its inner-working, rather than settling for a weekender test. I’ve learned that I tend to pick up things quickly when I’m left with NO OPTIONS of switching platforms. If I wanted to learn windows, I’ll go 100% windows for a month, learn all of its gems as well as its bugs. However, in that situation, I would be more persuaded to figure out a workaround that particular bug, or at least maximize the gem, as well as minimizing the bug. It’s a taste of adventure that we all should embark, searching and feeling validated when we find a solution!
Honey, Eugenia, don’t be too quick to dismiss other peoples comments. Yes I do understand that there’s a concept called “unconstructive criticism”, and You’ve gotten a few as well as dished out some yourself. But I do believe that there were certain valid ones, that perhaps you could address (by doing another review, say a month from now? Don’t rely on external reviews nor other peoples opinion on it, that’s called “mob mentality”, sure if you can’t figure out something, ask someone!) rather than trading few quips here and there in the feedback section?
As for the Mac users who decided to drop a few b.s. comments, come on. .you guys can do better than that. Point out what’s wrong with her review, deconstruct it with some valid statements. Don’t rely on hyperboles nor catch phrases to justify your position. If you’re such an expert on the Mac OS X , then why don’t you tell her the workaround, or at least pinpoint what she could have done otherwise. Educate her, grab this opporunity to convert her, rather than just bringing the worst in her.
Nobody likes to be chided, but then again, to quote some sitcom, it’s always the ones who proclaim themselves the most tolerant are the ones , when their opinion are tested, become the most intolerant.
That applies bothways.
Enjoy!
Jalamdhara!
After 6 years of enjoying my macs, I find osx to be not only slow but basically too hostile to use. Add to that the fact that I have to wait 2 minutes while classic boots to run any of my apps, and it becomes wholly unacceptable. If apple is serious about switching us over to osx, then I’m going to have to find something else. It looks like my next system will be a Pentium running Windows XP and will probably recommend the same thing when our graphics department goes through it’s next upgrade cycle.
It’s good to see honest articles like this one that aren’t afraid of pointing out the real problems that people have found with osx instead of glossing them over in hopes of fooling other people into spending money on a dead-end product.
“Opinions are like arseholse – everybody’s got one and everybody think that everybody else’s stinks”
Good night, everyone.
Cheers,
-Morten
Wow! I’m amazed at the knee-jerk reaction from many of these Mac users. Fortunately not everyone appears to be quite to reactionary…
I would love to try MacOS X but I don’t want to spend the money for the hardware. It looks cool and I really like the idea of having one box that can run Apache, mySQL (I’m assuming there’s a port), IE and has *nix underpinnings. Sounds like a dream for web design. But I just can’t bring myself to spending the money on the hardware. I’d rather throw my money down the hole that is BeOS and if things go totally dead there I’ll have a PC that’ll run Windows (yuck).
Maybe if Apple drops their hardware prices a bit I’d be tempted. Until then… I’m sticking with BeOS.
why is everyone so upset at the author’s comments? You read the article to see what one person thought. You saw what one person thought.
I can’t say the complaints aren’t valid. It’s criticizm like this that lets apple know where they need to improve.
If I was going to complain about the article I would say it focused too much on the negative and skipped over the positive, but I haven’t read any articles by this person before. Maybe that’s the author’s writing style.
I thought it was a worthwhile read, but I also intend to start running OS X 10.1 on my powerbook real soon, because of the unix-like features and capabilities. Namely, PHP and MySQL.
wow! what a lot of comments to a poorly written review… The overall rating could be considered fair, though.
Admitably, OSX isn’t all the best features of all operating systems rolled into one but on the other hand its got a fairly impressive assortment. I use it 24/7 now that the speed problems of 10.0.x are gone in 10.1…. I like it… enuf said.
Flamebait in broken English (God bless Babelfish). Very good work, Euginiania.
Man, you have absolutely NO idea what you are talking about.
The first time was back in 1998 when I used to work for a graphics design Studio and all the computers in the office were some extremely slow Macs (only me and my boss had PCs in the whole company). My opinion back then was that either the OS was pretty bad or the hardware was just too slow
What Macs were those? In my experience, it has always been the PCs which are SOOOO SLOOOOOWW. Such a statement is worthless.
I just hoped that the developer tools would included in one of the CDs that come with the machine instead of searching all over Apple’s web site to find a free downloadable version.
You don’t have to “search all over Apple’s web site” to find them. Just log into the developer site. It’s two clicks away.
Transparency where it is not needed making text sometimes unreadable,
Please give an example where this happens.
First off, I can’t say that I like the classic Mac menu bar on the top. It prevents multitasking from doing its job as it supposed to do it and it does not necesarrily make the system easier to use, as it probably made sense back in 1984 when the first Mac was introduced.
You are so mistaken here. First, how could the location of the menu bar “prevent multitasking”??? Second, it’s Windows’ menu location which goes totally contrary to on of the basic principles of GUI design: Motion memory. The menu bar on top of the screen is much easier to reach.
Then, I still can’t figure out how to move files from the Desktop to ~/ using the Finder (the MacOSX file manager).
Open a window with the files/folders you want to move to your home directory. Select them. Drag and drop onto the home icon in the window toolbar.
Believe me, the context menus do not always work. I don’t know if it is a bug that I hit or me being unable to figure out “the easiest OS to use in the globe”, but it just didn’t always work for me.
Well, they work for me. But it could be a bug.
Also, the price for purchasing a Mac that can run this OS a bit fast (and make sure you fill it with extra memory if you want to have some luck with it) is too high. Apple hardware was always expensive, but if Apple really wants to gain more users off the PC platform (and these people will mostly be *nix geeks who seek a better gui than XFree), the price for the hardware should be dropped to something more realistic (have you seen how much Apple charges for an extra 128 MB DIMM?)
There is a reason why Apple’s hardware is a little more expensive than generic crappy PC hardware. Try to open the case of a PowerMac, for example. Why don’t I hear people complaining about the cost of a BMW?
You don’t have to buy RAM from Apple, BTW.
I was ready to buy an iMac for me some months ago, but I have now reconsider that doesn’t make much sense to spend $1,300 USD for something so underpowered (600 Mhz G3 – and please don’t give me the “megahertz myth”, which is pretty valid, but not so much in Apple’s case)
Any why not? Care to elaborate?
Still though, MacOSX is in my opinion, the only OS that can compete head to head with Microsoft’s OS offerings one day. But this day, is not today.
For me, it was yesterday.
Well Eugenia – yes you ARE sure to get a bunch of flames on this article from Mac fans, but then again, I don’t think they’re any worse than some of the Linux fans on Slashdot or elsewhere …it’s usually the younger posters who make a noise.. I wouldn’t take it as a measure of most Mac users.
But anyway – I must say, I don’t think it was a very good article, flawed inconsistent logic and a less than thorough process to the whole article.
Firstly though, yes you ARE right – OS X has been WAY too slow… criminally slow with regards to 10.0.4 imho… it will get faster, but you’re right to knock it for its feel as YOU used it. It’s not as great
However – there are a few things I think you got wrong. Your comment on Basilisk is without merit – I’ve heard this one from some ignorant Windows people for ages – Basilisk is pretty useless emulator – you WILL be aware that it only runs legacy 68k code – ie. it won’t run the vast majority of professional apps made for Macs over the last 8 years or more… It is out of context to compare it to running programs on Mac hardware , seeing as it is only able to run software made for 10 year old pre-PowerPC hardware anyway! Seems a bit of a cheap dig Eugenie?
As far as the interface goes, yes I would sometimes agree that they went overboard on some of the transparency and other pieces, but issues like this and where the menu bar sit are purely subjective. It doesn’t feel comfortable to YOU because you are used to the “Windows-esque” way of doing things. Same as I find Windows interfaces, networking and file managment illogically complex and uneccesarily convoluted. The Mac menu bar’s position was never copied merely because of copyright issues and Microsoft trying to differentiate themselves – it is a no worse solution than a bottom menu bar, and is hardly less suited to multitasking, (whatever that changes). It relates to common principles in design and usage. Humans read and view information (and rank the importance of items) from top to bottom and left to right. It’s a simple law that doesn’t change in significance just because computers get faster or technology advances!
But once again a matter of opinion and experience.
Then lastly, bringing Mac hardware prices into the article goes beyond the bounds of what the article presents itself as. This is supposed to be a OPERATING SYSTEM review – tainting it with re-hashed whining about expensive hardware isn’t exactly what readers expect from good unbiased journalism. This is OS Review not OS Opinion right?
Lastly – “…advanced (and easy to use) networking features that WindowsXP brings…” Advanced and easy??? Well – I’d have to differ with you there of course… but anyway.. heheh!
Anyway – I think unbiased OS reviews are pretty much impossible to find…
and often with good reason – computers are just used for SO much these days that it’s like comparing apples to oranges. They’re so often used by different people in different industries that you can’t say for sure what platform is “BEST”. I used Windows for years and struggled with Macs at first because I couldn’t uderstand the filesystem or the Finder and a whole bunch of stuff till I discovered that everything was so much simpler – that I was looking under everything when it was right in my face all the time. However, everyone’s got a right to their own favourite.
Mac users will pay a whole bunch more for hardware that works as it’s advertised to and lets them get working from the beginning , no false starts, no configuration hassles and no imcompatibilities. Many other users buy PC hardware because it’s cheaper as well as more readily available and customisable notwithstanding the higher risk of dummy parts and driver-hell.
(btw – I often think PC hardware is way overpriced when I come up against the absolute frustration of setting up a new video workstation that is *only* 2/3rd’s the price of a comparable Mac solution, but spends the first 3 weeks in pieces as we swop out cards, switch sound boards and reinstall the system 5 times with different drivers and such to get it in *running* order – THAT is a waste of time and a lot of business lost!)
As regards the “supposedly” new operating system – well yes you’re right, but then again – name me a consumer friendly desktop system that IS really as new as it’s advertised! Microsoft will be saying exactly the same with XP, even though it’s based on NT technology with equally old roots. Operating systems at some point all share a lot of basic older fundamentals. Granted OS X is VERY close to NeXT’s OS – it’s no secret and it certainly hasn’t stayed the same – just like NT.
I think interested readers would have benefitted more from a run through of issues like installing ease and time, setting up email, setting up multiple users, getting to know the quirks of the file system, connecting to the internet etc etc
But your comments are worthwhile and I hope you continue to review Mac software as it improves. I agree – in the absence of any other decent user-friendly and well-supported Desktop OS’s out there – Mac OS X is the only competition to Windows in it’s space. Hope this criticism was constructive
Thanks Eugenie!
You may want to try WinXp first before you make to jump. Why not just keep the Classic 9 running and hey you could even have it start up on login or boot. BTW, I use 10.1 with classic always on as a designer 8 hours a day with no more reboots or systems crashes. Works for me. So long OS9, you were great but its time to get busy.
I would like to comment on a few themes that have presented themselves here.
OS X isn’t modern:
This is said as though it’s a bad thing (and hints that XP is modern – laugh ‘til my fern pops…). The fact is that NeXT was an OS that was WAY ahead of its time. From a developer standpoint, I have never seen such a clean platform to program for. OS X is not just a port of NeXT, but even if it was, it would be light-years ahead of anything Wonder Bill is producing up in Redmond.
The megahertz myth:
I hate to burst the bubble of the author, but my 500Mhz G4 tower drastically outperforms my 1.4 Pentium 4, even with half the memory. To test this I ran Linux on both machines. The Apple wins hands down.
OS X is flawed and buggy:
I use Linux most of the time and Windows and OS X at work. I’m cool with bugs as long as the system is stable and there are work-arounds to accomplish what I want to do. It’s the flat out design flaws and instability that piss me off.
Microcrap XP wins in the piss-me-off arena. The idea of exposing sockets the way XP does on a non-multi-user OS has got to be the single biggest design flaw of the last 10 years. I bet authors of programs like code-red are teeming with excitement for the mass release of this OS.
Windows stability has increased, although it is still not even in the running when compared with other OSes, but look how many years it has taken Microsoft to pull it off.
OS X may not be perfect, but it is far better than the competition, and it’s not even a year old yet.
The “Intuitive” discussion:
Okay, nipples are intuitive. I’ve always felt there was something very special about them, or at least I’ve always really, really liked being around them, but I never could describe them quite as adroitly as mr. black did. Thank you sir.
The sensitive subject:
Eugenia, my opinion concerning OS X does not agree with yours. I used to hate macs, but OS X changed that impression for me (well, that and running Linux on a Mac and being blown away by the performance). Your opinion concerning Macs is probably unchanged by OS X. That is okay, and that is why I think choice in these matters is a great, and necessary thing.
Im glad someone with enough sense and maturity stood up to represent the Mac users. I read so many of these “flames” and I feel sorry that some people resort to hostilities to prove their point, author of this “article” as well.
I applaud CocoMonkee for his maturity and even-handed positive objective look at this obviously poorly made article.
CocoMonkee you represent everything that is good about being mature and showing platform ‘patriotism’-not platform ‘nationalism’.
Eug you should be taking notes since from Coco.
“I left MacOS in its own fate, until 2 months ago where I installed the BasiliskII emulator, running MacOS 8.1 for 68k under Windows. Funny that it ran faster under emulation in my 533 Mhz Celeron than in its original machine.”
Just want to say how ridiculous this comment is. I use DOS 6 in Virtual PC on my G4. The apps that I run are much faster on my Mac than on my original PC machine for which they were designed. Does that mean that PCs suck? No. It means that I’m running software on a 450MHz machine that was meant for a 133MHz machine. Of course it’s going to run faster – even under emulation.
yep… he pretty much summed up why I think the article is poorly written. thx
I agree with Mr. Black, and I thought the review was fair. It never ceases to amaze me how mac users react to a negative review of anything mac related. Some of these flaming responses ring almost of religious fanaticism. I’m a huge mac fan, and have used them since the beginning. But I can’t understand people who blindly accept whatever crap apple pushes out and defend it as being great, when if they would just be objective, they would realize that it’s not all as great as Apple claims.
Don’t get me wrong, I think OS X is great. When compared to the other mainstream OS’s, I think it has the best balance of features and ease of use. But it could be soooo much better! Currently, both OS X and Windows XP suck, and each individual must determine which sucks less for them. It’s our responsibility as computer users and consumers to bitch and moan about what we don’t like, to ensure that it gets changed in the future.
I hope Apple continues to listen to its users and refine OS X into the lean, mean, efficient tool that it should be. After all, the OS is just a tool, it facilitates your working with your files and programs. Anything that interferes with that goal is needless fat that should be trimmed off. I want the ability to turn off all the eye candy. I’m an interface designer for heavens sake! I’m not impressed with eye candy. An element of the interface either adds to, or detracts from the usability of that interface. If it detracts, toss it out. I want to be able to get rid of the shadows, transparency, childish animations, and garish colors. OS X is very attractive at first glance, but it gets old after a 10 hour day staring at it. I want the OS to use very little RAM (especially at the ridiculous prices apple charges) and be fast and responsive…
Does that sound like too much to ask?
I really like Mr. Black’s nipple idea. But I am a realist. I know I would never get any work done if the interface features nipples.. 8^)
Cheers,
vb
to move a file hold down the command (apple) key while dragging, just dragging does a copy.–
Well, OSX does bring some neat things to the OS arena. iMovie, iTunes, the digital camera image capture, 5.1 surround sound and greatMIDI built into the sytem are all pretty cool features that come out of the box. Plus, the ability to tun commercial apps and *nix apps is very cool. Overall, it offers a very nice use expreience.(plus it has insane clor management, which is nice for us graphic designers)Built in sbm is very nice as well….
I have 10.1 on a Dual 450 G4, and while pleased with it’s slight increase in speed, I’m still dissapointed with overall preformance. I STILL the the spinning beachball WAY TOO MUCH. It feels like: a)the finder is not multithreaded; or, b)the carbon api doesn’t do such a hot job with multiple processes. I don’t know really. Maybe some of you guys can educate me on this.
I will say though that being able to run 30 apps(some of which are big–like lightwave)all at the same time with no problem is very nice. My win2k box feels more responsive, but there is no way I could load it down like that with so many huge apps and not see a crash or considreable system slow down.
To me, it feels like its not quite done yet.
Maybe the author should REVIEW the english language. How can I believe this man knows what he is talking about when he cannot even type a proper sentence. In my I love Windows, I love MacOS, I like Unix. Everything has it’s purpose. But this should not be considered a review by anyone. It is simply a personal experience, by a serious bonehead.
Next time put some information that is useful in your article.
The comparison of the Windows-based Macintosh emulator to a hardware 68K Mac is absolutely ludicrous for a number of reasons.
First off, the 68K line of Macs ended in 1993. The most powerful 68K Mac released, the Quadra 840, featured a 50MHz processor. Not only that, it also featured 2 separate AT&T 55MHz chips designed to handle just audio and video functions. These functions included capturing video, and the hardware included a composite and S-video input and output. This was in 1993, mind you. Desktop video is not entirely new.
Now, do some math – a 50MHz Motorola 68040, even accounting for a “MHz myth,” will never be as fast as a 533 Celeron, even with the Celeron’s paltry cache, that was released in 1998 or later.
Not only that, but 99% of all the apps anybody would need to do real work are PowerPC only. There are older versions of Office, Netscape, and all the others that will run on 68K processors, but for the most part, all recent apps require a PowerPC at the very least, preferably a G3. So emulating a 68K Mac will allow you do to…. none of the things that a current Mac can do. NONE. Running the OS is great, sure, but what’s the point if you have to run PageMaker 2.0?
Now bear in mind also that any G3 or G4 based Macintosh can also be a Win95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, etc. computer as well through emulators such as SoftWindows or Virtual PC. Virtual PC can even accomodate any type of Linux or Unix distribution that you wish to install. And with the exception of processor-intensive apps like 3D, audio, or video (and why would you want to do any of those things on any other computer but a Mac?), it runs at the full speed of a current PC. So if we do run into something that is a PC-only .exe file, guess what? We can run it.
Through Mac OS X, I have personally used VIrtual PC and the Classic layer at the same time. Let’s count – my 2 year old 350MHz G3 was running Mac OS X (a Unix-based system with a massive GUI front end), the Classic Mac OS 9.2, and Windows 98 all at once. They were all responsive and perfectly usable. Try that on a *ahem* Celeron.
Mac OS X isn’t perfect – but as far as networking goes, you are insane not to realize its power. It talks to AppleTalk over IP, regular AppleTalk, Samba, and NFS. In other words, it can connect to just about ANY SERVER YOU THROW AT IT, out of the box. No additional installs. And what do you have to do to wield this power? Press “Apple-K”.
The GUI is slow. I’ll give you that. But they have also built into the system a way to cache data used in the window server that offers lossless 10:1 compression for the handling of menu drawing, freeing up RAM and CPU cycles because it doesn’t need to decompress the data to use it. Ingenious no? It wasn’t put into the 10.1 release, but will be in a future update. Anyone who wants to turn this feature on can visit MacNN.com and visit the forums. Its fairly simple.
Before you bash an OS that you don’t know how to use simply because you are ingrained in the hoops and loops of a clearly inferior OS (Windows, nootch), try “thinking different.” Use you intuition instead of learned routines and you’ll get much further, in computing and in life.
I was most disgusted by the writer’s terible writing skills.
“only me and my boss had PCs in the whole company”
Writing a biased peice is one thing. But, if you’re gonna do it, at least SOUND professional. This guy has no credability in my eyes.
I am a mac user, a windows user and a various flavours of linux user. I have spent a lot of time using various operating systems and I can write novels on many OSes from the first steps of the install process to how well it performs under various program tests. One thing I can tell you is that if you are used to a thing, like the way windows works for example, then you expect other things to perform in a similar fashion in order for you to deem them worthy of your time and energy. I know this for a fact and it comes down to this: every OS has a learning curve for the complete novice. Some are steeper than others but make no mistake, there are major differences in using the various OSes. People tend to find the most comfortable UI and overall system feel is the one they first learned on. Therefore being a (primarily) windows user and spending a day or two on a mac will only provide you with frustration. Likewise if one has never used windows, there will be a lot of problems adjusting to it and if asked, that person would provide a negative review of it. Personally, I find MacOS X to be the most stable consumer OS and the best overall for the tasks that I would call “general use”. For example, writing, web surfing, various flavours of development etc. It’s also an excellent machine for internet servers and on the newest ones, intranet servers as well with the new gigabit ethernet cards that are standard issue. The current performance level of MacOSX is acceptable on even a mid-level iMac with a decent amount of ram (256MB+). As an aside, Windows also performs well for all of these tasks in most cases. My main problem with Windows is that not everything “just works” and it’s very bad for the sheer amount of attention that needs to be paid to things like virii and security.
Mind you, this is a general review and I could post in depth about many aspects of many OSes.
Thanks for reading.
>Writing a biased peice is one thing. But, if you’re gonna do it, at least SOUND professional. This guy has no credability in my eyes.
It has nothing to do about being biased or being terrible. It is about being Greek. Nothing more.
BTW, “this guy” is a gal.
>The other problem I have with the GUI, while it is a fact that it is looking
>good and consistent, it does not offer any revolutionary new concepts.
Wow! I think it says a lot about a company when people *expect* revolutionary new concepts from them.
Furthermore, the GUI world has been slowing down lately, along with user’s OS needs. They both seem to have stabilized now that Crap 95 and its buggy friends have been banished to the history books.
I don’t blame Apple for completely changing the back end of their system and making the front-end more aestetically pleasing. Shame on those who think they did a bad job.
some line-by-line points, eugenia:
>>> A month ago I used a friend’s iMac 500 Mhz G3 with its RAM upgraded to 256 MB. It came with MacOSX 10.0.4 pre-installed. For the current review I used
another friend’s iBook (latest model) upgraded to 384 MB of RAM and with MacOSX 10.1 installed.<<<
have you ever got your hands on a G4?
>>>This series of MacOS usage during the past month was the second one in my life.<<<
no surprise.
>>>MacOSX is a (supposedly) modern 32-bit OS…<<<
supposedly? at least try to appear objective.
>>>MacOSX looks good (I said “looks good”, not “feels good”).<<<
just wondering what constitutes “feel” for you? especially since you are not a mac user to begin with.
>>>The graphics UI designers at Apple have done a good job, but at places feels “too much”. Transparency where it is not needed making text sometimes unreadable, too much of a gradient in the scrollbars etc.<<<
i think it looks great and have no trouble with text at all.
>>>I don’t know if it is a bug that I hit or me being unable to figure out “the easiest OS to use in the globe”, but it just didn’t always work for me.<<<
it’s probably that you didn’t make an honest effort to figure out how to do things properly in the first place. could also be that after several years of windoze brain-washing you wouldn’t recognize how intuitive the mac gui really is.
>>>…while it is a fact that it is looking good and consistent, it does not offer any revolutionary new concepts.<<<
again, what do you consider “revolutionary”? there truly is no more “revolutionary” a computer company in existence than Apple. windoze zealots seem to selectively forget that if not for the mac os and so many “apple first” technologies, the world of personal computing would be a much different place. i wonder if we’d all still be stuck at the command line.
>>>The biggest problem is that the system is big and slow.<<<
>>>Yes, the 10.1 update made the system faster, but not fast.<<<
>>>…MacOSX makes me laugh. If this is the “next generation OS” that Apple was talking about for years, I am not very imperessed, at least speed-wise. At places the OS seems that it lacks even proper multitasking. I am disapointed by the general response time of the OS.<<<
if you’d have kept up on the development builds of os x, maybe you’d have a greater appreciation for the monumental task of creating a brand new os. you’d see how far os x has come in terms of speed and stability in a relatively short period of time. to prove my point, just look at how much snappier 10.1 is over 10.04. there is still much system-level optimization to be done, but it’s just a matter of time until your complaints become moot points. for crying out loud – this is only the x.1 update! os x is only a few months old!
>>>Also, the price for purchasing a Mac that can run this OS a bit fast (and make sure you fill it with extra memory if you want to have some luck with it) is too high. Apple hardware was always expensive, but if Apple really wants to gain more users off the PC platform (and these people will mostly be *nix geeks who seek a
better gui than XFree), the price for the hardware should be dropped to something more realistic (have you seen how much Apple charges for an extra 128 MB DIMM?)<<<
prices should be dropped? i can walk into a store and buy a brand new imac for under $800 and be sure that it will do everything i want it to. no software problems, no hardware problems, no irq settings, no bios – nothing. the mac has always been “plug-and-play” whereas windoze has been “plug-and-pray”. this alone is one of the great advantages apple has over every other computer company – they have control over their harware AND software. one reason pc manufacturers can undercut apple in the price department is because they don’t have the research and development costs apple does. apple trailblazes certain technologies (firewire, airport, imovie, built-in usb, all-in-one enclosures, etc) and the dells/gateways of the world jump on their coat-tails. i’m glad to invest $799 for an imac when i know i’m getting peace of mind, ease of use, style and innovation. as for apple’s prices on memory, so what? it’s not like apple forces you to buy your memory from them.
>>>…and please don’t give me the “megahertz myth”, which is pretty valid, but not so much in Apple’s case<<<
you can’t have it both ways. in whose case is it valid?
>>>…a slick GUI does not bring anything new in the OS and technology scene, but just a life boat for Apple as a company in the whole.<<<
naysayers like you have been predicting the death of apple for years now. aren’t you getting tired?
>>>MacOSX lacks not the killer application, but a set of killer features.<<<
actually, this is backwards. even in it’s early stages, os x is feature rich and stable. it will just take a little time before developers catch up and give us carbonized versions of our most important aps. then, i believe, many more users will make the switch to x as their primary os.
>>>Still though, MacOSX is in my opinion, the only OS that can compete head to head with Microsoft’s OS offerings one day. But this day, is not today.<<<
you’re right. that day is not today – it was yesterday. i’ve been using the mac os and windoze for years. there is absolutely no comparison to the amount of productivity, ease of use and pleasure i get from using my macs as opposed to any pc.
in closing, i too think you should refrain from writing future reviews of the mac os if you can’t at least be objective. the problem with being intelectually dishonest in a forum like this is that you may be, to a certain degree, influential to others who might not know any better. also, you’re writing style seems to be a bit incohesive. are you by chance a student? would be amusing to find out. hope you read this.
biff
FWIW, I love the new OSAlert.com.
I especially liked the Linus interview, and this article.
(I share all of your expressed opinions on OSX)
Thanks for having revived this wonderful site!
If one it going to say that MacOSX does use file systen xyz and that makes it bad… one should say why XYZ is better. Not to mention that i dont recall reading that winXP supports XFS or BFS either.
Does Windows XP have multi-homing like OSX? Where you can setup your internet connections (ethernet, airport, modem) and the OSX will use whichever connection is present. If your OSX machine is hooked up to ethernet, it will use ethernet, unplug it, and it will _automatically_ use the airport connection, if both are not present, it will _automatically_ use the modem.
Does Windows XP have this kind of feature?
ninetysix
is what your review gave me, not because of its lack of any insightful opinions on OS X other than “it’s not windows,” but because of your apparent lack of command of the english language. grammar so convoluted makes me think that’s why you like windows so much.
If you reformat the hard drive and install a new. For more tips on speeding up Mac OS X visit my FAQ:
http://www.index-site.com/Macosxspeed.html
Once you finish these tips and reboot, you’ll be surprised. It is as fast as any PC out there, and what’s more if you have broadband, networking is even faster!
That’s OLD news. DirectCD for Windows has been able to do this for years. I don’t know about DVDs, but I would expect it would support those as well. Also, KreateCD is going to get integrated with Konqueror, so KDE will be able to do it too. Either way, its not that great. CD/DVD burning just isn’t a drag & drop paradigm because of the way the hardware works, and it is a hack to try to pretend it is.
half ass review from one half ass columnist.
Most readers posting comments to this story are getting much too personal responding to this article. While many of the points are based on an uneducated experience, each is entitled to his (or her in this case) own opinion.
Speed as it is described in this article is based solely on perception. As one can read on nearly any Mac OS X enthusiast site on the Internet, a window is drawn only after it has been sent through the graphics layer of the system. Apple’s System Overview document explains the purpose behind the PDF element of Quartz. Because screen display is output from essentially the same core service as printed documents, an on-screen document is truly WYSIWYG. To see the implications of this approach, one needs to look no further than Image Capture’s ability to attach a colour profile to a photo. Furthermore, open up ColourSync Utility and plug in a digital camera. It is amazing to see it automatically set up the accurate profile (if it is one of the 20 to 30 cameras supported out of the box).
After writing this past paragraph, I feel that the rest should be left to the System Overview. In closing, however, consider the fact that when you resize a window, you are really resizing a rather large PDF (likely TIFF) image.
OS X 10.1 even on a 450MHz G4 is too slow. Dollar for dollar, a Win XP machine runs circles around an OS X machiine. For $1600 these days, you get plenty of PC and while a 1.6GHz PC may be no match for a dual 800 MHz G4 under Photoshop, the fact is that the rest of the computing experience is much much slower on the OS X machine. And it costs half as much to boot.
If 10.0 was “slow,” 10.1 is “not as slow.” I totally agree with the speed assessment in the review.
Don’t get me wrong, Motorola has had a hand in this as well. And I’m sure Apple’s developers are still working their butts off on the next round of revisions. It still hasn’t come together and hopefully Microsoft will shoot themselves in the foot a couple more times before I’m tempted to jump ship even more.
Lots of replies (and flames among them) in our comments section regarding this article, but I will try to follow up and explain my position.
First of all, because it seemed to bother some of you, while I very honestly wrote my “history” with Macs, I have used it long enough to be able to write down these remarks. Reviewers are using products, sometimes, just hours before starting writting an article. I used OSX for more than a 1.5 months, and MacOS8 in the past years. Usability is one of the reviewers points anyway.
Maybe some of you disliked the wording of the article (bear in mind that I am not English, plus I couldn’t care less about grammar, we do OSAlert for fun, we don’t get paid here), but it is remarkable how no one picked up the good things I wrote about the platform (yes, please re-read you are going to find the good things).
Most of you were not happy for comparing OSX to XP, but I am sorry, I can’t help but doing so, especially when I am between “Should I buy this iMac or not?” for a month now, and I am sure that lots of PC users would like to know the positives and negatives of OSX. And how it stacks up against XP, its biggest rival today. It makes sense to compare at some point.
OSX has some good qualities (a good friend emailed me about some of these qualities: “double buffering, good opengl stack, SMP, great dev tools, Packages etc”), but in my personal view still lacks some of the features I want to see in a _modern OS_ (and no matter how much “constructive critisism” you do here today you aren’t going to change my opinion about OSX) down to the kernel level. Mach kernel is a classic but also an old approach. Something like FreeBSD 5 would may be more like it for my taste. But that’s just me.
I am sorry if the article was too little for you, next time I may try a bit harder, but the fact is, I stand by my opinions about the OSX platform.
The funny part is that people think that I hate Mac or Apple. Which is NOT TRUE.
I like ALL OSes (this is why I am on osnews), and I am seriously thinking of buying an iMac for two months now (I am waiting till we move to our new house first).
The article I wrote was a sincere and honest piece. You may not agree with it, but at least you should agree that it was sincere.
I don’t know how to make you understand that I am no enemy of any sort for Mac, I just wrote what I experienced.
In fact, I do clearly say that MacOSX is the only platform that can out thrown Microsoft. I do not believe that Linux is able to do so for several reasons, but OSX CAN. But just *not yet*. The OS lacks some features that PC
users would like to see, plus some raw speed. And that is my honest, personal opinion. And people are getting all worked up because I wrote what I believe.
Different people, want different things and believe different things.
For now, have a nice day.
re: In closing, however, consider the fact that when you resize a window, you are really resizing a rather large PDF (likely TIFF) image.
Personally, as an end user, I shouldn’t have to make considerations for the OS. It should “just work”!
Also, color profiles don’t require PDF displays. OS 9 handles Colorsync very well without the use of a PDF-based display system.
” The OS needs killer features down to the OS level… ”
Hello- Apple accomplished the Holy Grail of OS. Marrying a useable GUI with Unix.
There are major differences between 10.0 and 10.1. For example NSDocument now behaves like it uses an FSRef instead of a POSIX file path. This means you can move files opened with NSDocument with other applications and NSDocument will still use the same file.
Unfrotunately it takes a mac user to understand the subtle yet significant improvements in HI (human interface). The loss of productivity due to the speed of resizing windows or CPU cycles per dollar is DWARFED by the gains made by a consistent HI. It’s not a ‘feel’ issue.
> “Given this, the usability advantage of having the menubar in a
consistent location, particularly when Fitts’ Law comes into play, far
outweigh the disadvantages.” I can’t agree with this at all. Fitt’s
law is a good law to consider, but it doesn’t necessarily override
other factors. Quite simply, many Mac users are confused by the menu
bar because of multitasking. When I used to tutor school teachers, one
problem that always came up is they’d close the ClarisWorks document
they were working on with the close button and then wonder why they
couldn’t find “Shut Down”. Easy, right? The program is still running.
But they couldn’t figure it out–that’s a problem with using one
widget for all programs (and replacing its content when the current
program is changed).
The problem is that the Mac gets it half right. It has the menu bar in
the right place, at the top of the screen, but it runs everything on
one screen. So the menus keep changing.
The correct way to support full multitasking (a new thing on the Mac)
is to have each program running on its own public screen. Only little
utilities should ever run on the Finder screen, and probably not even
them.
Then your programs menu (top right) will switch you to a fresh screen
with its own menus for just one program. Right now I have 6 screens in
use, for browser, email client, word processor, file manager, TCP
stack, and finder/desktop. The only thing on this screen is the
browser – no disk icons, docks, etc. Select from the Screens menu and
I am instantly in the word processor, exactly as I left it (no windows
rising up from a task bar).
Watching these Mac zealots flock from god knows where in defense of their beloved platform is hilarious. Great laugh. Its not amusing though to see them behave like teenagers insulting the reviewer (even mixing her gender).
I’ve bought MacOSX when it was released on 24 March, and can honestly say that its one of the most uninspiring systems I’ve worked with. Apple made a big mistake by not going with BeOS. MacOSX is incredibly slow and seems featureless compared to BeOS – and thats R4.5 we’re talking about since BeInc haven’t updated its OS since June 1999 (buzzers know what I mean).
Last night while encoding MP3’s from BeOS I was still able to listen to the CD while encoding. iTunes skips MP3’s so often that I cannot use it. No database type queries, no journaling, limited attributes (resources for Mac zealots), no preemptible kernel, limited hardware support etc.
Frankly, the only good thing from MacOSX is the Dock. Everything else has been seen before 10-15 years ago on BSD/NeXT (and the dock is from that era also).
And yes, I’ve had a Mac since 1998. Win2000 is much more usable. Dont get me started on BeOS.