With Snow Leopard finally been given a release date and a price, the comparisons with Windows 7 are starting to pop up all over the place, especially focussing on the price aspect of things. While Apple’s move to price Snow Leopard at 29 USD for Leopard owners is a very welcome one, the move doesn’t mean that Microsoft is getting a price beating from Apple.
No soup for you!
There are a few very important aspects to this whole pricing issue that many seem to overlook. The most important one is that the 29 USD will get you an upgrade copy. Not a full version. If Apple’s past behaviour with its Up-to-Date program is anything to go by, this means that you will need Leopard installed before you can install your copy of Snow Leopard, and that if you want to perform a clean install, you’ll need to install Leopard first, and Snow Leopard second.
In addition, Apple still hasn’t made anything known about a possible full retail version of Snow Leopard, and its possible price tag. This is an issue for users for Mac OS X Tiger, since they will not be able to buy Snow Leopard for 29 USD; instead, Apple suggests Tiger users buy a box set which includes iWork and iLife, which comes in at 169 USD.
While this 169 gives you some good value for your money, this price is actually not lowered at all – previous box sets, with Leopard and Tiger as the operating system, also went for 169 USD. This means that Tiger users will not benefit at all from the 29 USD price tag for Leopard. On top of that, what if you don’t want or need newer versions of iLife and iWork? What if you already have them? What if you don’t care about them at all? Apple is punishing Tiger users for not having upgraded to Leopard.
On the Windows 7 side, things look much, much brighter. Windows XP users are also eligible for the Windows 7 upgrade sets, so that people who bought their operating system in 2001 (!) are still eligible for the upgrade; that means 8 years of Windows purchases covered, versus only 2 (!) years of Mac OS X purchases covered.
Then there’s the issue of hardware cut-off points. Both Snow Leopard and Windows 7 went on a diet compared to their predecessors, and will see performance improvements on the same hardware. However, Windows 7 has a major advantage in that it can run on hardware that’s even as old as 7 years – my Pentium 4 2.8Ghz with 2GB of RAM from 2002 does its job as a Windows 7 media centre outstandingly, inlcudig instant sleep/hibernate/wake cycles, full HD playback, and all the bells and whistles.
Snow Leopard, on the other hand, will only run on Intel Macs, meaning that high-end machines still sold in August 2006 (PowerMac G5), with pretty hefty price tags, are now left in the cold. In other words, it is much more likely that Windows users will be able to run Windows 7 without having to invest in new hardware than Mac users do with Snow Leopard.
On top of all this comes the fact that the 29 USD price for Snow Leopard doesn’t even compete with Windows 7’s prices. As said, the 29 USD is for Leopard owners only, meaning that the price is utterly irrelevant when talking about switchers; they simply don’t benefit one bit from this pricing.
All in all, the 29 USD price is nothing but a (very welcome) gift to loyal Apple users who diligently emptied their wallets every time Apple asked them to, while the Windows 7 upgrade prices benefit even the most non-loyal Microsoft customers, even those who punished Microsoft for the abysmal Vista fiasco by, well, not buying into Vista. Seen in this light, Microsoft’s upgrade prices – which are still not confirmed, but will probably be round and about 50-70 for Windows 7 Home Premium, and 100-120 for Professional, seem a lot more useful to a lot more people.
Which is the better upgrade?
This is a really intriguing question. Which of the two operating system upgrades provide more value for your money? The problem with this one is that it includes a comparison to their predecessors, making it a little bit more complicated.
Snow Leopard is truly a release where the under-the-hood stuff is more important than user-visible changes. OpenCL, Grand Central, removal of PowerPC code, fully 64bit, they all aid in making Snow Leopard faster and leaner. There are also some interface tweaks, but they are small (but useful!), and certinaly don’t draw that much attention.
Windows 7 is a completely different story. Microsoft has made the operating system perform better than Windows Vista (and every report confirms that), with some even claiming performance on par with Windows XP, especially on more recent hardware. It could very well be that Snow Leopard gives a more substantial improvement in this area, but Snow Leopard has it easy; only very recent and powerful 64bit machines will see this benefit. Windows 7’s (possibly) more modest performance gains over Vista will benefit machines that are much older and/or much less powerful. For instance, both that old Pentium 4 box as well as my low-spec Acer Aspire One perform better with Windows 7 than with Vista. Similarly aged and/or specced Macs can’t even run Snow Leopard at all!
However, where the difference really becomes obvious is the interface changes Windows 7 introduces, and all the pulling-together of frameworks and features introduced with Windows Vista, and exposing them to users in much more useful ways than Vista did. The best example of this is Homegroup, which pulls together various technologies and features introduced with Windows Vista, and presents them in a way that makes managing your network and shared files (especially in combination with the Libraries feature) completely painless. Another example is that various driver upgrades no longer require a restart, such as graphics drivers.
The interface of Windows itself has also been massively cleaned up compared to Vista. It really takes some intensive usage to reveal just how much of the interface has been cleaned up, made more consistent, and overall prettified without losing functionality. My personal favourite is Windows 7’s Explorer file manager, which is such joy to use now, while the Vista one was a busy and clumsy mess. Of course, there are still trouble spots, such as the overly crowded Control Panel.
Snow Leopard simply doesn’t bring these kinds of massive interface improvements.
Conclusion
Overall though, while Snow Leopard certainly is a nicely priced upgrade to Leopard, and I’m sure going to buy the Family Pack to upgrade my parents’ iMac and my own Mac, it just doesn’t compare very favouribly to Windows 7 as an upgrade, in a multitude of aspects: supported machines, previous releases still eligible, and the number of people who are actually able to benefit from the upgrade. On top of that, I believe Windows 7 is a far more substantial upgrade than Snow Leopard, but I’m sure many will disagree with me on that specific one.
Hm, if I understand the article correctly, we don’t really know yet whether there will be a full retail version of Snow Leopard and we don’t really know yet how much the upgrade versions of Windows 7 will cost. Does it really make sense then to compare these aspects?
And though as someone owning a ppc Mac I understand the problem of Snow Leopard being only available for intel Macs, can you really compare the situation with Windows? After all, Apple changed the processor architecture of its computers whereas Windows lives in x86 land as it always did.
Finally, the article rightly points out that when judging the improvements the upgrades bring to the table, one also has to factor in the predecessors. However, after stating this, the article totally neglects this aspect.
I think that’s especially relevant considering Vista wasn’t really met with a lot of praise, to put it mildly, so MS really had to do something.
On the other hands, most Apple users seemed quite contend with what Snow Leopard’s predecessor had to offer, so why should Apple change the interface as much as MS did?
there will be a $129 version of SL, because there are a lot of people still running Intel equipped Tiger machines.
Also, SL is not as impressive of a jump from Leopard as Vista is to 7 because Leopard didn’t have the troubles Vista did. Thus, SL isn’t a “return to glory” the way MS hopes 7 will be.
One thing’s for sure; 7 is a nice OS, and definitely faster than Vista. But on identical hardware, it’s not faster than Leopard, and surely won’t be compared to SL.
Well, considering that Windows 7 is an update to make a bad operating system (Vista) tolerable, and Snow Leopard is an update to add technology to make OS X even better (technology such as Grand Central, OpenCL, hardware-accelerated H.264, and so on, isn’t even in Windows 7; much less in an OS that uses 6GB less than it’s predecessor), I don’t know how you can compare the two.
Also, you try to make Windows 7 a better dollar value for Windows XP users than Snow Leopard, at $29, is for Mac users.
That’s really funny, you should be aware that the upgrade prices aren’t likely to be even that low, since MS has already announced Windows 7 will be more expensive than Vista, much less a value compared to $29, or even a non-upgrade price of $169 which includes iLife and iWork ’09 (both of which don’t even run on Tiger, so the Tiger folks, all of whom, contrary to your article, don’t already have the much-improved iWork ’09 or iLife ’09, probably don’t mind the upgrade; especially at a price cheaper than both Vista and all of the prices announced so far for Windows 7.)
That was a RUMOUR, and a false one.
Thanks for correcting me, I guess that rumor used forged documents; not the first such rumor reported by gadget blogs, unfortunately. You still, however, haven’t proven to my satisfaction that Windows 7 is a better dollar value for people running anything other than Vista than a $29 upgrade.
It’s just his point of view. I don’t think he’s trying to convince people. You don’t have to agree.
The original rumour came from an OEM, IIRC it was a Dell document; from what I understand about the document, it was a discussion regarding the hypothetical scenario if Microsoft chose to increase the. There was never any evidence outside the OEM discussion – hence I don’t know why people keep repeating something that is obviously a load of bollocks to begin with.
And you say this because of another rumour, that could prove to be just as false?
Leopard was released in late 2007, so in fair comparison to Windows XP, old Macs still have fine six years (or four if must include Tiger) to live before your comparison starts to make any sense at all.
Edited 2009-06-11 05:14 UTC
The snow leopard features aren’t that substantial. Grand Central seems like a fancy name for a rather ordinary technology. Obviously every OS update is to “make an os even better”.
FYI, as a Tiger user, I *do* mind the upgrade to iWork and iLife. I don’t use the programs, and I don’t want to. I’d prefer to have a cheaper OS upgrade. Despite the hype I heard surrounding the applications, I found them to be missing features that free software already had. OS X, while still a better Os than windows, seems to be stagnating while Apple pursues the higher volume and higher profits of the mobile world.
If they aren’t careful, the lack of attention to the OS will bite them big in the future.
I’d agree if it were at the usual price, but for $29 it’s great.
So says the person who can’t be bothered doing some research – those sorts of comments are akin to the clueless ramblings of linux zealots who spit and spew over how ‘useless’ ZFS and DTrace is – until they of course implement their own flavour of it.
Snow Leopard was never meant to be a feature release; heck, when it was first announced they made it perfectly clear it wasn’t a feature release – but of course we have pogo stick bouncing hyped up freaks on the internet hyperventilating over every bit of titillating information that comes out of Apple as if it were the cure to cancer, the financial fiasco and world hunger all rolled up into one.
Several things:
A) while iLife and iWork work were lacking in some aspects in their initial releases, they have made up considerable ground as time moves on. Just because you once decided you didn’t like them, doesn’t mean that may still hold true today. Also, these apps are “ease of use” apps, not pro-apps. That’s why there’s Aperture where you outgrow iPhoto, and Logic where you outgrow GarageBand, etc.
B) an OS is supposed to stagnate at some point. An OS isn’t an application bundle like “Creative Suite” or “MS Office” but an “operating system”. The kind of functions an operating system provides to apps and users is fairly limited. There were a bunch of transitions that helped Apple introduce new features (Mac OS 9 [outdated crap] to Mac OS X [modern Mach/BSD/Unix base], PPC to intel, 32-bit to 64-bit, Carbon to Cocoa, QuickDraw to Quartz/PDF/OpenGL, etc.) but once you have laid these future-proof foundations, things come to a halt. Until quantum-computing takes hold, a modern OS covers all the bases: multi-user, multi-threading, multi-processing, distributed 64-bit computing with generalized slave computing on the GPU and SPU, scalable from embedded applications (iPhone, AppleTV) to super-computer clusters, with built-in backup and indexing. Exactly what is there to add to the OS, until a totally unforeseen technological shift comes along?
In essence, we have come to a point where except for advanced media processing and gaming, a reasonably modern computer has enough or more than enough horsepower and memory than most users will need for productivity applications.
The only way to drive sales is to increase people’s hunger for storage (video archives, paperless office, eternal backup, etc.) and to snaz-up the GUI such as to waste computing resources (animated 3D everything without really adding any key functionality).
So yes, an OS that doesn’t have fundamental flaws like Windows, will stagnate to a degree, particularly where things are visible to the user. There are of course developments: better compilers, more complete APIs, better power management, better debugging tools, etc. but none of that directly touches the user.
One could of course reinvent the entire computing paradigm along the lines of the “computer is wheels for the mind” but that would mean giving up the idea that people just can walk up to a computer and be able to use it by replicating the paradigms that are limited as much as their physical counterparts. (e.g. AddressBook is limited in much the same way as a Rolodex, because it tries to be a Rolodex replacement). To make information management fly, to take it out of the 2D/3D world of physical objects and into the N-dimensional realm of computing, would mean that people would actually have to become technology literate to take the next step in productivity increase, and which company reporting to shareholders is going to risk that loss in sales for “the greater good”? Computing, in that sense, is now stuck in the same place as it was before the Mac showed up on the scene: the basic paradigms are there, and to revolutionize things will take an inordinate amount of capital and several decades until it becomes mainstream.
So, once more, the stagnation is not surprising, the only way to evolve right now is if you have glaring omissions and functional deficits, and Windows has more of these than Mac OS X, so it has more potential to evolve. Big surprise…
It’s hilarious to watch Maclots whining about Vista. The differences between XP and Vista are least as significant as the differences between the “Classic” MacOS and OS X. But compared to the complete mess that Apple made out of the OS X transition, Vista has been an unqualified success.
With Vista, at least there was a decent alternative to upgrading (XP). But with OS X? The choice was: upgrade to an OS that ran like crap on then-current hardware and had no serious applications (for the first year or two, at least). Or stick with a horribly-outdated relic of the 80s that barely deserved to be called an operating system (aka, the “Classic” Mac OS).
An interesting historical note, to be sure. Kind of irrelevant to the subject of the article, Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard, however unless you’re running a shiny-new beige G3. Also, I should note that Apple offered a *free* update from 10.0 to 10.1. Where is my free update from Vista?
Which was they least they could have done, after charging for the public beta (and 10.0 through 10.3 were little more than betas anyway).
…you mean Service Pack 1?
I’d like whatever it is you’re smoking, good sir!
If you’d said the differences between Windows ME and Windows XP were as significant as the differences between OS9 and OS X then you might have something. However XP to Vista is rather like OS X 10.3 to OS X 10.4.
XP and Vista are both based off the same NT core.
LOL!
Try actually using Vista, or at least reading up on some of the new features it introduced.
There is a bit more to an operating system than its kernel, you know.
I have and the point stands. Look past all that stinky smoke around Vista.
Changes don’t automatically equal improvements. I can put new siding on a house, that doesn’t mean the house is suddenly brand new.
Just landed an older mac. For what it may be worth a Beige G3. Was really excited that I was able to find this machine really cheap and upgrade it to OSX, I found it to be light years ahead of anything that may have been offered at the time the OS was written.
What really turned me off was the fact that the version of OSX that I had on it would not let me run anything worth having. The browser selection for the system was near non-existent, the searches on Google turned up very few resources to find anything that may work on that system.
On the other hand, you can still find plenty of software for windows 3.1. Looking for software for such an old MS OS would not even present much of a hassle. I spent hours upon hours searching for software for the Mac and turned up nothing.
Long story short? Windows to me is a better buy if you want a really long relationship with your investment.
A beige G3 is from the 1990s. You won’t find many of today’s browsers to run on a PC that old either.
The age of the system really holds no relevance. Be it a G3, G4, G5 if it has XXX version of OSX you will not find a modern browser for it.
For what it may be worth, same G3 with a Debian install can run Firefox without issue.
A Beige G3 is from 1997-1999. Considering that OS X didn’t even exist then, I’m not sure if your complaint of not being able to find shareware for it readily makes all that much sense, much less running the latest version of OS X. A PC from 1997 can’t run Windows 7 or Vista either, and is not likely to run XP well if at all. Now, if you complained about not being able to run Snow Leopard on a PPC Mac from 2005, *that* would make sense, and I agree that Apple should support more than Intel, despite the fact that jetisoning binary compatibility for two CPUs at once saved a lot of space.
WOW!!! I put in my topic a G3 for what it may be worth….LOL!
Listen, Suppose I had a shiny G4, does it really matter when SOFTWARE IS NOT AVAILABLE?
Bash me for the G3 when it holds no relevance! If it is a G4 with OSX (insert version here) why should I not be able to run a modern browser?
I wasn’t asking for a “why does my 1999 G3 not run OSX 10.5”. I know the limitations of the hardware, I don’t need to know that.
Geez people!
Edited 2009-06-11 00:26 UTC
If you had a “shiny G4”, you’d be running Leopard right now, with all current software you want.
And there is tons of software still available for Panther (2003) and Tiger (2005). Tiger would run fine on a slightly newer G3 with the NewWorldROM, and all mainstream web browsers work with tiger currently.
Panther support is on it’s way out. I run Panther on a clamshell iBook in the kitchen. Browser support is now starting to cease. Firefox is stuck at version 2. Safari is really old. Camino won’t be available in version 2. Opera still is available at version 9 but a little slow.
Most other software is only available in an older version.
Other than the obvious trolling, what exactly was the point of your posts?
That windows is superior because a 10 yr old Apple computer can’t run the latest Firefox build in OSX? Can you even boot vista on your average 10 yr old PC?
BTW, a G3 can actually run the latest version of firefox:
http://firefoxmac.furbism.com/
So again, other than the obvious attempt at trolling, what was your point?
Yes must be trolling, that’s it!
Stated an opinion and everyone wanted to turn this into a G3 system issue.
Hate talking about an OS, the fanboys just can’t take the fact that they may not be using the best OS in the world.
My original post was not a troll. I was trolled and trolled back.
Thanks for the link!
I think the other posters were trying to make the point that you simply did not know what you were talking about regarding this specific issue.
Before you make such loaded and incendiary statements, maybe next time you should spend a minimal amount of time making sure at least you were correct. It literally took me 2 seconds to find the G3-builds of the latest Firefox version.
Because otherwise, yes… it looks like you are trolling.
My god, is that you Moullineuf?
http://www.osnews.com/user/uid:266/submissions
– Moulinneuf’s Accepted Submissions (50) –
The answer to your stupid question is no …
http://www.osnews.com/user/uid:4417/submissions
Chicken Blood No data found.
YOU are the troll with nothing intelligent to say who’s got more vote then comments …
Ah, screw it. I unfairly attacked you on this thread. I apologize for that.
I’ll save my criticism of you for on-topic posts. I’m sure an opportunity will make itself available before too long.
Edited 2009-06-11 21:09 UTC
Mate, you’ve been registered since 2006 and made a grand total of 20 posts; what that tells anyone of any reasonable level of intelligence is that you simply cruise this forum looking for threads to troll – then you dash away when people realise what a grade A loser you are.
I don’t believe I in any way bashed anyone in this thread. But just in case I did I am sorry!
But I challenge anyone to find 1 simple thing that I said that was wrong, at that point I will climb under a rock and rid myself from society.
Show me one place where you can find more software for OSX 10.1.X then you can for Windows 3.1.
You can’t do it? WHAT? REAAAAAAALY! Then it seems to be that I presented facts!
Just get off your soapbox fanboy and simply learn to except the fact that you are just that!
And I’m the loser?
Let’s see from the time that Windows 3.1 was release to Windows 95 release is three years, though you should really consider Windows 3.0 in the mix as well (released 1990), so you have 5 years worth of application development to compare against 10.0 and 10.1’s lifetime of 2 years before 10.2 was released.
Yes, very comparable. NOT. But wait, lets throw in the vendor adoption rate because most people were still using Mac OS 9 at the time. You didn’t see migration to Mac OS 10 until 10.2 hit.
That’s just the way it was.
You can call yourself whatever helps you sleep at night.
So since we really want to compare, lets go for a bang for the buck approach shall we?
So Upon release in 1999 my G3 was $2,999 and came with Mac OS 8.6.
Most people upgraded to OS 9, some cost had to be involved and since I can’t find a release price, lets assume $100.00
Then 10.2.x came about, I suppose that a lot of people running this system may have installed this. So we will say another $100.00
Of course these prices may be give or take a little.
So you have a grand total of $3199.00 wrapped up in a system that cannot run much of anything these days.
Compare you may ask? I will take that liberty!
Dell Optiplex GX100 (from that era).
Came with monitor and Windows 98 for $907.00.
Upgraded to Windows 2000 lets assume OEM and give it a price of $120.00.
Grand total $1027.00. And this machine still has TONS of software available including modern browsers.
We won’t even factor in the price of RAM upgrades to keep it fair.
So in 2009 I end up with a $3199.00 brick, or a Dell that still has life and plenty of software options?
Hence my first post!
…and your comparison problems starts there… The beige G3’s were discontinued in 1998.
You should be comparing that Dell to an iMac G3 (Slot Load) which ran around $999-$1299 for the most common models in mid-to-late 1999. “DV” models of this iMac are capable of running OS X 10.4 today.
And now you’re being a smart ass using sarcasm – how else is someone meant to take the post given that it has all the hallmarks of trolling.
What does that prove? it doesn’t prove anything other than that Windows has a lot applications out there – most of them monumentally crap. It doesn’t prove anything.
Your statement proves nothing. Its a empty statement that adds as much to the conversation as me jumping up and screaming, “I love my pink fluffy slippers and you can’t handle with me presenting these facts!” even though it has nothing to do with Windows or Mac OS X.
Considering you’re trolling a forum – it tells me that you have no life beyond being a parasite on the back of society.
Edited 2009-06-11 23:15 UTC
Lets see if we can find a definition for troll….hmmm got one. Straight from our friends at wikipedia:
“In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.”
Now, looking back at my first post I really see nowhere I fit into this description. I explained why I think a Mac is not worth it (and the news post was basically a Windows 7 vs Mac os. So it was on topic.
As far as being controversial, it may have got the better of the fanboys, but was not posted for that intent was just my opinion and in my topic it reads “at least to me” so an opinion was all it was.
relevant it was. I mentioned Windows and Mac in my post. So it seems to me it was on topic.
As far as not having a life, this may be debatable as you seem to know much about me. How tall am I may I ask? Just since you know me so well?
Or… Just for giggles point where I have been proven wrong 1 time? Maybe the date thing? My Mac was made in January of 1999 (could send a picture). Or maybe even the browser thing, that was only a very small problem and did not fix the problem in a whole.
So in the world of definition, I do not fit the badge of a troll! But on the other hand I have been attacked at every chance because people do not share in my opinion, and that is fine because opinions are like…well we all know the saying.
For my own use, I will always own a PC, Bottom line! No one is going to change my mind! I think my money is better spent elsewhere (not on a MAC), that is my opinion and I have a right to that.
Funny how everyone pointed to the fact I had a G3 and missed the point completely. Really is funny indeed. Could have just passed my post up if it got under your skin, but you decided to feed the “troll”. So really as you may claim, are you any better then I? I think not! LOL
Nice to see you ignore the ‘or’ within that definition of troll; it does not require that you fit all those requirements – not that you meet atleast one of those features. You made a post in a deliberate tone to provoke a response so therefore you fit the definition of a troll.
Other than obvious trolling, what exactly was the point of this OSAlert article?
Edited 2009-06-11 03:38 UTC
so true!
its a shame :/
A browser is written for an operating system, not the other way around. So your question should be – why don’t Mozilla have a version of Firefox 3 for Jaguar. And the answer is – because, despite its NeXT legacy and BSD + GNU Unix foundation, Mac OS X in its current shape and form is only 8 year old and as a result there have been some dramatic changes in the frameworks and in the OS infrastructure, especially between the early versions. In many cases supporting the older OS versions would be like supporting a whole different platform – and a platform that practically nobody uses.
Umm, installed the latest version of Safari (4.0) on a G4 just this morning – an original G4 tower running 10.4. Ever tried to install IE 7 on a Win 2K machine?
Major fail – try again…
So you are telling us you can compare OS X 10.4 (released april 2005) to Windows 2000 (released feb 2000).
Besides, IE7 isn’t even that great. Firefox 3.0.10 is still available for Windows 2000 a 9 year old OS. (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/system-requirements.html)
Sorry but Apple just cannot compete with Windows in terms of backwards compatibility. Windows may have lots of flaws but it is a master of backwards compatibility.
Edited 2009-06-11 06:28 UTC
Yes major fail for to expect a OS from 2001 to support a modern browser. The OS from 2000 will support the latest version of Opera and Firefox.
Browser is a very small piece of the problem. Finding any software is a chore.
This argument is useless! I expect an OS from 2001 to support at least some recent software, I suppose that is why I am a Linux/Windows user (I expect more for my hard earned money)!
I believe that just because a machine has a couple years under its belt, it doesn’t have to become a doorstop. I still have a lot of fun on little 1ghz machines and even some older then that.
We can speak about Mac OSX 10.1.X being a failure, we can even possibly put it in the same category as Windows ME and STILL you will find many many and I repeat MANY more programs that run on ME.
Funny thing is, that when this G3 came out it cost more then 3 maybe 4 equivalent PCs. Many PCs from that era are still running as basic internet machines and rather useful for that purpose.
I can install Firefox 3.5 on my mom’s 12 year old Pentium II 233 mhz with Debian on it.
There, I won the pissing match. What do I get?
Edited 2009-06-11 23:53 UTC
Apple announced the switch to Intel in 2005, completed it in 2006. They released 2 iterations of OS X in that time, dropping support for older processors each time, eg; the 800 MHz iMac G4 is not supported by 10.5. If fact, they do it for every release. They followed a similar timeframe when switching to PPC architecture fro 68k. I though in geek circles, everyone was aware of this. I leave you to ponder this; If it’s too good to be true, it probably is…
G4 Dates:
Last desktop mac using G4 Processor – Mac Mini withdrawn February 2006
Last portable mac using G4 Processor – iBook withdrawn May 2006
Both models 3 years old at their youngest. Chances that you have a new G4 mac are nil. QED.
I apologize for nitpicking, but this misconception bothers me greatly – the smaller size of applications and frameworks in Snow Leopard has nothing to do with the OS being Intel only. As an example let’s take one of the bigger bundled applications – Mail.app; on my computer it is 289 MB on disk, but the actual 32-bit universal executable is only 5.7 MB. With the 64-bit versions for both platforms it would have grown to no more than 12 MB. And the executables of the majority of applications are not nearly that big, usually around 1 MB.
The bulk of the size of the typical application bundle is the resources (nibs, images, etc.). And Apple have made some changes in snow Leopard to reduce the sizes of nibs by about a half. That, along with file system compression of the system frameworks is where most of the size savings come from. (if we are talking about the size of the OS installation there are also savings from not installing unnecessary printer drivers and language translations by default).
The most probable reason why Apple went Intel only is that developing, testing and optimizing the new low level improvements -64-bit kernel, OpenCL driver(s) and the Grand Central Dispatch libraries, for two fairly different architectures would have required much more development resources than Apple could spare.
While the business reasons for going 86×64 only are obvious, there are still some thorny issues with that policy.
a) Apple rushed to intel shipping an entire generation of 32-bit only machines which won’t be able to run SL, when waiting for a couple months longer would have made sure that any intel Mac ever shipped was 64-bit capable. So now, SL not only cuts off the entire PPC base, but also parts, albeit relatively small parts, of the intel base. Back then, my hope was that the intel version of Mac OS X would be 64-bit only from the get go, but they didn’t wait these few more months that could have made that a reality.
b) The G5 systems were SOLD heavily advertising their 64-bit CPUs. But Apple *never* shipped a fully 64-bit native OS for these computers. So in effect, people who bought these computers based on the 64-bit promise saw two OSs go by, each time hoping that they would be fully 64-bit capable, just to be disappointed each time, and then to be cut off when the first true 64-bit OS ships that finally would be able to take advantage of all the machines had to offer. e.g. the 8GB of RAM in my G5 have gone un(der)used for all these years, and when finally an OS comes along that could fully take advantage of it, the G5 can’t run it anymore.
What’s even more disturbing: Apple likely has a full PPC capable build running in-house. Just like Apple never gave up on the x86 platform (which they still had from the NeXT days), they are likely not giving up on the PPC platform until they have some other big-endian 64-bit platform (maybe some ARM variant) to play with.
The point here is, they sure as hell want to retain an endian-independent code base (such as not to be locked into a given CPU platform), and just like x86 allowed them to do internal testing of little-endian code, a PPC platform allows them internal testing of big-endian code.
So a single, final, fully 64-bit capable PPC release for G5 machines would really have not been too much to ask, even if it had been made available for free on a “non-supported courtesy upgrade” basis.
Knowing how much trouble heterogeneous systems are, I now have a G5 that still perfectly fulfills my needs in terms of performance, that I will have to replace to have a clean SL-only mini-LAN. (Example: dotMac nee MobileMe syncing between different OS verisons always has been a total nightmare)
While I agree with the gist of your point, can I ask you to point me to a source that states that Snow Leopard will only ship in a 64-bit configuration please? The current specifications posted for Snow Leopard by Apple state that an Intel processor is required, not that a 64-bit Intel processor is required, and I cannot find anything official (or even semi-official) to the contrary.
Agreed 100%, and it’s a real shame.
The dotMac syncing between 10.4 and 10.5 has always been a pain, agreed. But the jury is still out on whether it will be a pain between 10.5 and 10.6.
Due to the fact that 10.5 is the end of the line for Apple’s PPC userbase, I _expect_ they will keep Mobile Me consistent between the two architectures, however we’re talking Apple here… Vegas should really get a line on this sort of thing
The original poster speaks the truth.
Apple computers and the OS is a great platform. But there is no long term value in it.
Imagine me buying a Macmini G4 with Panther preinstalled. A year or two later, I couldn’t run current web browsers.
Apple fans love Apple. Apple does not love its fans.
Apple products are like that shiny new phone that everyone must have, but soon becomes obsolete (in the mind of the consumer of course).
I have now Leopard and Safari 4 works, will a Safari 5 work.
There is some truth to the MadTV and SNL skits about Apple.
I am happy I got a macmini and not something more expensive.
The only real value to Apple PCs now is that they are Intel based. If there is something that is not compatible any more. Just install the latest copy of windows and things will work.
Edited 2009-06-11 01:19 UTC
I don’t know about “soon become obsolete”, the latest version of OS X you need for most software is Tiger, and it was released in 2005. If you can’t find $129 in your budget for software over a nearly five year period, which was the cost of Tiger, you have bigger problems with running recent software than just OS obsolescence. Personally I’m glad that Apple updates their software every few years, and that you need to upgrade every 5 years or so. (*2 OS versions). It makes for a better operating system than Windows, which has a lot more cruft that keeps it buggy and insecure that it should have really jettisoned if they followed software engineering principles (e.g. refactoring) rather than milking it as a monopoly platform.
Microsoft is a monopoly due to business practices. If we were to talk about technology. It is another matter altogether. It is of greater benefit to businesses and consumers if MS creates a platform that can support older software.
Lets talk hypothetically about Apple. Lets say Panther was the last PPC version of OSX.
That would mean that I couldn’t use it as a music server, nor would be able to sync my ipod.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
Click on Macintosh requirements.
If this was my only computer it would be obsolete for this purpose. The end result being a new computer purchase.
Don’t tell me I could continue to use my old version of itunes, because that wouldn’t support my new iPhone 3Gs. (no I don’t own one).
Unless I have hardware failure this is still a perfectly good computer.
The only difference is Apple has made it obsolete. Microsoft does this too.
I am sure there will be version of itunes that won’t support Leopard.
We’ll wait and see on that one
What’s interesting is how long Apple’s own applications will ship as universal binaries. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the next version of iWork and iLife going Intel-only, just to further drive hardware sales.
Apple isn’t any different from the Microsoft+manufacturers bundle.
What are you talking about? I have a secondary Mac mini G4 running Leopard and the latest versions of all the same software as on my main Mac – an Intel based mini.
When Snow leopard comes out, it may not run on my G4-based mini like it will on the Intel-based one but new releases of software for the G4 aren’t going to just dry up, either. There are a LOT of g4 and G5 users still out there buying new software.
…and to whomever it was complaining about the 12 year old G3 not running new software, I hope you didn’t pay for that computer. The local colleges have been giving those away for several years now.
Please just erase the mention of my G3 away from my post (should have known better).
Point is I can hook up my windows 3.1 25mhz box and get online and find loaaaaads of software for that system. Possibly enough software floating around to fill my 500gb drive.
Flip it and software for Mac OSX 10.1.X (which released in 2001) and you will not find much of anything. That is about the time XP became a popular OS. When was the last time you had a hard time finding software for XP? Or lets not forget the fact Windows 98 is outdated, yet there is software all over the place for it also.
Everyone keeps pushing the fault on the fact I own a G3, but what they fail to realize is it don’t matter, not the point!
I have to go buy new hardware in order to enjoy a Mac properly. Or instead I could crank up my 450mhz box running Windows 2000 and find loads of still supported software.
Point you may ask? If you want to upgrade hardware to still enjoy a system you enjoy, buy a Mac! You want a system that will remain usable for many many years get Windows based system.
Or when they are both obsolete, install Linux and enjoy OSS
.
Edited 2009-06-11 04:21 UTC
There is a good reason for a lack of software for 10.1.x: it was a simple fix release and a lot of things were not in place. Up until 10.1.5, my printer wouldn’t even attempt to print and when 10.2 arrived, it didn’t work again because Apple had changed the printing innards and the drivers had to be reworked.
It wasn’t even until 10.4.x that the system was full-featured but there is still software for a minimum of 10.3.9, I believe that a lot of things were added with 10.3 and they finally started to work with 10.3.4 for me.
While 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2 were available, someone would be better off to run Mac OS 9.1 or 9.2.2 especially if they had other older equipment attached.
As far as Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7 goes, if they were both US$29, it would make more sense because they’re both maintenance releases with a little window dressing.
I don’t know; first thing I would probably do with a new PC these days is set it up for dual-boot, with Windows 7 and some Linux distribution, and Linux the default. After half a year or so if Windows doesn’t get used, it’ll be on my list of things-to-do to completely re-partition and install only Linux on the machine.
If the machine came with Vista, it’s a complete wipe and Linux-only install, or a dual-boot between XP and Linux. I want nothing to do with Vista. Period. It’s quickly becoming that way with Microsoft in general, as well… and my current setup contains no trace of an installed Microsoft OS. However, Microsoft has (somewhat) re-interested me with Windows 7.
Still, my trust in them has gone almost completely away, only being swayed by some nice features in Windows 7. I expect them to do something to annoy me and breach my trust even worse soon (likely anti-piracy, trust, security, DRM, or EULA related). Oh, wait… that already happened, in the form of their recent attempt to make Firefox as insecure as IE, without a warning or even a simple way to reverse it.
Either way, one thing will not change. While I started on Win95 and stayed until XP, Windows will never again be any more than a secondary, toy OS to me… as long as things remain the same, at least (and they probably will).
You’re rambling all over the map bud. Load up OS9 on your mac and you can find loads of software, too.
This really doesn’t have anything to do with how usable the hardware is and has a whole lot more to do with how fast the evolutionary curve was for early releases of OS X.
As far as development cycles go, OS X 10.1 is roughly equivalent to Windows NT 3.1 or 3.5. Early adopters used it but Apple didn’t even make it the default OS on their shipping systems.
It wasn’t until 10.2 that Apple pushed it as a default, as I recall. This is closer to Windows 2000 from a developmental perspective.
I have a 4+ year old Powerbook G4. It not only runs the latest OSX version like a champ, but I have the latest builds of Safari and Firefox running sans any issue. I have a dual G5 which is almost as old, running the latest pieces of SW without any issues.
Which it is ironic, because one of the things apple is known is for the longevity of their HW/SW platforms. So i can’t help but chuckle at the obvious FUD attempt by some of the posters in this thread. It seems that not knowing what they are talking about, doesn’t seem much of a deterrent for some of the forum members. LOL.
If you had bothered to upgrade to Tiger, or even Leopard, then you could run Firefox 3.0. If you didn’t, tough. Simple really. Nothing to do with a business loving it’s fans (I think that you mean customers). It’s in Economics and Marketing 101. Apple, like Microsoft, aren’t a sports team. They are not a religion either – or as some have suggested, a cult. They are businesses that are fundamentally interested in only one thing. To make money. That goal should be a driver to innovate. Some companies do, some don’t.
It seem to me that you think that things with Windows will be better. Well, I can tell you that it won’t be worse. I reckon it’ll be about the same in fact. Microsoft took 7 years to release a major update to XP. Now, they will have released 2 in less than 3 years. They are determined to “kill off” XP, initially saying that support for the OS would end in June 2007. Who’s to say that IE 9 will work on XP – IE 7 and 8 sure as hell don’t work on Windows 2000.
I think the fact as to whether IE 8,9 or whatever works with 2000 is moot. Look at browser market share, it is really easy to see that the browser that holds the top position actually works on 2000.
Backwards compatibility is a good thing. Whomever says it isn’t has much deeper pockets then I. I would also like to say that support for older hardware is growing in the Linux market.
There should always be a place for any older hardware! This keeps the landfills from having piles upon piles of working machines there.
You posted an article purely on conjecture? You guessed at the box price of Snow Leopard, guessed at the upgrade price of Windows 7, and yet speak so definitively. The gall of you. The sheer unmitigated gall. I want my two minutes back!!!
But you are right, compared to the steaming pile of animal fecal matter that Vista was, Win 7 is definitely more substantial. I still want my two minutes back though.
Edited 2009-06-11 00:07 UTC
Is Vista really that bad?
We all had big expectations for the next Longhorn/Vista MS OS and we were all disappointed that it didn’t bring the promised features and came so too late, but let’s stay real.
After using Vista for a while XP does look like crap. Yes I’m disappointed but the constant Vista bashing in the media and by the likes of you went way too far, it seems like Win95 is even a better OS than Vista now.
Vista may look better than XP but it feels and benchmarks dramatically slower than XP on the same hardware.
Software and driver incompatibility is forgivable after waiting seven years between releases, but the fact that even with multiple CPU cores and assistance from a ridiculously overpowered GPU for rendering it still managed to crawl like a dismembered dog uphill on an icy path with a hundred mile an hour headwind.
Windows Seven manages to provide a better user experience than Vista and feels snappier than, and benchmarks similar to XP, which goes a long way toward reinforcing the idea that Vista was a less than stellar release.
For what it’s worth I’ve been using Windows Seven for a few weeks now and I’m actually pretty impressed, I haven’t been impressed by any Microsoft OS since Windows 2000 when they managed to make NT run as fast as the DOS versions.
Windows Seven is a release I could actually stand to use as my day to day OS – I’m a total Unix-head otherwise (I’ve been turning up my nose at Windows and using Linux/Mac as my desktop since about 1998, so it’s a big thing for me).
Agreed on all counts. As much as I disliked Vista (having tried it) and as much as I know about the Mojave experiment and all that Windows 7 is just plain faster on my setup than even XP x64 was. I am running the RC right now as my main OS and it is absolutely rock solid.
I dont care too much for OS X Snow Leopard since I am not ever going to spend that much money to ‘only’ get a Mac. I would rather spend all that money on the hardware and run a Windows OS on top of it simply because I get faster hardware and I know what I am dealing with when it comes to Windows (being familiar and all that). Sort of reminds me of the saying – better the devil you know or something like that.
And people are going to bash me for saying this and claiming I am lying and all that but I know of a few people who are and were hard core mac users all their life but have switched over to Windows 7 and are using that as their main os more and more. They only lament the fact that final cut doesnt run on Windows but they are ok with using Adobe Premiere CS 4.
I for one am going to buy a copy of Windows 7 especially since the last copy I purchased was the XP 32 bit OS which actually came with a x64 copy (whole thing for 20 bucks as a student at a univ)
That’s because Windows 7 takes better advantage of modern processors. Windows XP was written in a time where home users did not have SMP/multicore machines, those only came later. Both Vista and 7 are much more optimised for these types of computers/processors.
Edited 2009-06-11 12:20 UTC
>> Snow Leopard simply doesn’t bring these kinds of massive interface improvements.
Wow, so now a valid strategy is to ship crap, and then be praised for improving it? Who cares how improved it is over the predecessor, the only important thing is how well the final product works, and all flamewars aside, they are probably comparable in that sense, with each having their own unique advantages.
I agree wholeheartedly to this as well.
This article should be on your blog, it’s completely you thinking Windows 7 is more of an improvement than Snow Leopard, with no real facts behind it, and basing the opinions on the upgrade price.
Should be on your blog with your other gripes and pet hates against OS X, not an Article on OSAlert.
The lastest versions of Ubuntu/Fedora are
faster than the previous ones,
runs on hardware older than XP on a bunch of different platforms,
come with a lot of software
cost zero money unit.
Value for money?
so your point is that it put OSX and windows 7 to shame.
However depending on the effort behind the wine project, I’m pretty sure Linux can capture a lot of disgruted vista user (because vista ), but I wonder why there wasn’t such a project for running OSX (or OS classic ) binaries under linux.
The only thing that itch me with apple is their locked ecosystem (ipod – itunes binding for example, and the fact that they enjoy a lot of momentum thanks to open source porting effort), most of the apple user ( and in fact most of computer users ) don’t care about it.
I understand the hardware cut, it helps Apple making their QA testing more manageable, whereas Microsoft need to face an exponentially growing number of configuration.
But let’s face it user will find value in their buying to justify their expenses, but remember you are not forced to updgrade.
There is such a project, GNUstep, but it requires re-compiling and as a Cocoa platform (though not as a NeXTStep API) it’s a bit incomplete. There’s also another one, cocotron, that works better on Windows than GNUstep.
Yet again, this must be a Thom filler day. Just a plain weird article. It really does read like someone who has very little experience with computers or operating systems, no sense of perspective.
I think the most ideal observations from this whole situation as we see Windows 7 and Snow Leopard appearing in the same timeframe:
– Customers win. So far, both look to be great operating systems. Good choices abound. Great prices too.
– Snow Leopard definitely starts on stronger footing. It’s not a makeup OS. Leopard is great – Snow Leopard is just going to make it better. However, this is a risk – is Snow Leopard a completely new version of Mac OS X? Is it just a new mutation that will lead to greater advancements yet to come? How long will Leopard be supported? Maybe Apple is mitigating this risk by offering the upgrade so cheap – for people happy with Leopard, it’s not much of a financial risk to take the plunge.
– Windows 7 is a makeup OS. Vista was a dud. Is it really going to be a smooth transition from XP to 7? What about people just now getting on the Vista train? And is it really all about perception? Vista really is a pretty decent OS, but the perception is that it stinks. Is 7 different enough to create a new perception among more than just the geeky? Are solid upgrade prices going to be enough to entice people? Will some still be happy with XP?
– Customers win regardless.
Spending anytime talking about Tiger and upgrading from Tiger to Leopard really points out how Thom is just out of it. What kind of issue is that? Who cares? If you are running Tiger, either you are pretty happy or your machine can’t be upgraded. Leopard has been out long enough as is. The PPC drop was announced years ago. It’s time to move on, though Leopard is amazingly fast (especially Safari 4) on both my G4 Cube and Powermac. The only reason upgrading from XP to 7 is an issue is because Microsoft screwed the pooch on Vista. Such is not the same with Apple.
For me, Snow Leopard is the better value. Vista runs great on my work PC, no need to upgrade for a few years. (Who wants to burn the money anyway with the economy as it is?) But my wife will be getting a Snow Leopard upgrade instantly as it is released. Meanwhile, a new Mac Mini will be taking up a little chunk of space on my desk come September.
Is this the golden age of computing?
Respectfully, I would like to contest a few points:
1) “The most important one is that the 29 USD will get you an upgrade copy. Not a full version.”
I couldn’t find that on their site. Based on past experience, Apple has consistently released their OS for $129, which covers both upgrade and full install. Compared to the (almost) entry level upgrade (only) cost for Vista, this is a good deal. As near as I can tell, $169 for the box set won’t be the only option.
2) “This means that Tiger users will not benefit at all from the 29 USD price tag for Leopard.”
Tiger is the last PPC version and the first Intel version. Anyone with a PPC machine obviously won’t benefit from Leopard or Snow Leopard at all. Anyone running Tiger on an Intel machine will benefit from both Leopard’s and Snow Leopard’s advances without having spent $129 in upgrading to Leopard in between. I think this is a more reasonable comparison to the XP users who opted to skip Vista and go straight to 7. Apple is not punishing Tiger users for anything.
3) “that means 8 years of Windows purchases covered, versus only 2 (!) years of Mac OS X purchases covered”
From my upgrade experience on the Windows side, the system requirements have always gone up significantly enough that it made more sense (for me) to purchase a brand new machine instead of trying to shoehorn a bloated system into a “small” footprint. On the Mac side, every release of OS X has performed better on the same hardware (when possible) than the previous version. So, coupled with the rate at which Microsoft and Apple release versions of their operating system, what I take from this is buy a new Windows machine every time you want to upgrade Windows and upgrade every 3-4 years or buy every other upgrade of OS X and still upgrade every 3-4 years.
4) “Snow Leopard, on the other hand, will only run on Intel Macs, meaning that high-end machines still sold in August 2006 (PowerMac G5), with pretty hefty price tags, are now left in the cold.”
Now hold on. A Tiger machine from 2006 isn’t ready for the scrap heap even if it’s hit a ceiling in OS upgrades. The trade-off between OS X boxes and Windows boxes is you can run almost any old software you’ve ever purchased on the Windows side at the expense of bloat, or you can run a trim, tidy OS X installation with a steady cut-off of backwards compatibility pushing you forward. This is not some sneaky, underhanded maneuver; this is a division in ideology and it’s nothing new. Besides, on both platforms I’ve long considered it the best practice to get everything you can get, both hardware and software, that you’ll need for the timeframe you intend to be on that particular box. So, if you get a compatible version of Office, it doesn’t matter that a newer version won’t run on your system. The fact that Microsoft needlessly updates their office suite to force compatibility-inspired upgrades is a matter to take up with Microsoft.
5) “the 29 USD price for Snow Leopard doesn’t even compete with Windows 7’s prices” and “Microsoft’s upgrade prices…about 50-70 for Windows 7 Home Premium, and 100-120 for Professional”
This sounds pretty competitive to me. Even $129 for an OS X full install vs. $100 for a 7 upgrade sounds pretty competitive.
6) “Microsoft has made the operating system perform better than Windows Vista”
Slashdot had an article comparing the latest version of Office on the latest version of Windows on the fastest available hardware of the time through the years and the trend was toward working taking longer because the software was slower. So, upgrading Windows has traditionally meant getting the same basic system and software (not to discount new features) to do the same work, but slower. By contrast, every version of OS X has run faster than the version before on the same hardware. Microsoft had vast room for improvement, whereas Apple has been running a tight ship all along.
7) “and every report confirms that”
The stuff I’ve read paints a different picture. 7 is still Vista under the hood. They just reordered the way things process so that instead of a long visual delay, you now get a short hesitation where it looks like nothing is happening, followed by a short visual delay, followed by another short hesitation. You’re not hanging without any visible cues as long and that creates the illusion of better performance.
8) “Similarly aged and/or specced Macs can’t even run Snow Leopard at all”
No, they can’t. I also remember getting boatloads of printers and scanners that worked fine for my Mac when my PC friends upgraded to XP and couldn’t use their peripheral hardware anymore. Sometimes you’ve got to purchase new hardware to use new software.
9) “The interface of Windows itself has also been massively cleaned up compared to Vista”
Actually, one of my biggest points of contention with Microsoft is every version of Windows forces me to go hunt for icons, menu items, settings, and programs I used to find easily. I recently saw Vista for the first time and I felt locked into the expanding Start menu. When I first saw XP, I cursed the fact the previous main menu was now a sub-menu item. I have similar beefs with OS X changing the meaning of their function keys, but on the whole I don’t feel like my productivity is going to take a noticeable hit while I try to relearn everything I once knew. Microsoft, if you’re listening, stop changing shit just for giggles.
10) “I believe Windows 7 is a far more substantial upgrade than Snow Leopard”
I actually agree on this point, but differ a bit on the reasoning. Microsoft starts over every time they release a version of Windows, reinventing the wheel, breaking compatibility, forcing backwards compatibility fixes that bloat the software, and adding features no-one really wants or needs. Apple has shown a plan of releasing the same OS repeatedly, with flashy features that wow users and with improvements under the covers that appeal to hardcore geeks. Interestingly enough, this time it seems their approach is to refactor their OS, which will probably break things, but to do it in a way that it appears almost nothing has changed. Quite frankly, I’m relieved ZFS is curiously absent because I was afraid of what things that would have broken that shouldn’t have. I really get the sense that they are refining their take on UNIX with every release and trying to turn a buck in the process. Microsoft, on the other hand, has always schizophrenically lurched from one get-rich-quick scheme to another and apart from the leverage they have with Windows and Office, none of them have been successful. I don’t dislike Windows because it’s a bad OS, I dislike it because if Microsoft had half the interest in Windows Apple has in OS X, it could be so much better.
Just to add my 2 cents…
In the past, the up-to-date versions, I have one for leopard, have been full installs except that you have to have 10.5 (or newer) to install. Once the installer detects that you have the required version you are free to do a full install, including wiping your HD. So what if you have 10.6 already installed and want to do a clean install, do you have to install 10.5 first? NO. In the past the installer would work if the installed version was the same or newer then the upgrade. So in essence, the upgrade disc will allow a full install.
This is wrong. Leopard runs just fine on a PPC Mac. I have installed it on various G5 iMacs and it runs great. No need for tiger here. Also tiger was not the last PPC version, leopard is.
Intel macs went on sale in Jan. of 2006. The PowerMac G5 was discontinued as of August 2006, It came out in October 2005. Anyone buying a G5 at that time should not be shocked that 10.6 won’t run on it. intel Macs were the future, everyone knew that.
Leopard runs on G4+G5 Macs.
To add to your point, I seriously doubt Thom’s claims about his machine that is acting as his media server can play back full HD with that P4. I really doubt it unless he is using some sort of software to offload the work to the gpu for playing back 1080p stuff…still I highly doubt it. System is just not powerful enough!
You’re absolutely right. I’m such a total tool! I see I wrote “full HD” in the article, while I meant “HD”. D’oh!
Fixing it right away.
No need for name calling
It is very hard to believe full HD as in 1080p is playable on a machine like that especially since everday at a hd anime site, I see people with C2D machines complaining they cant run 1080p bluray mkvs!
My main media center is an old AMD AthlonXP 2000+, with 1GB RAM. Connected to a 50″ Sony LCD, and looks absolutely gorgeous. Just to share, I found this site a long time back- http://interfacelift.com, with high res backgrounds, I actually enjoy looking at a desktop. Anyways I also have 7 installed on a laptop with 2GB RAM, but 1.6Ghz Intel Centrino. Both were upgraded from XP.
I do think Windows Media Player still needs a LOT of work. I use primarily Media Player Classic Homecinema, and the performance difference between the two is night and day. My one and only complaint is that by default I no longer have the Search option when right clicking on a directory or drive. In fact, it seems the ability to search is hidden throughout the OS.
Oh, and the “Status Bar” in Explorer is worthless, why it is still there I have no idea.
Windows 7 runs poorly for me on a single core P4 630@3ghz. This is with 2 GB of RAM and a decent video card. It seems that it struggles and uses just as much memory as Vista did. It can’t handle HD video (720p) .mkv files without stuttering. (this is not unusual for a non dual core processor). Windows 7 (and Vista too) run really well on my quad core machine with 6GB of RAM and a Radeon 4870 video card. I’m not complaining about windows 7, it seems to be Vista without all of the annoying little issues. However, ever since SP2 came out for Vista, I think it is a really good OS. Stable and fast on multi-core systems.
I have to agree with the previous comments about how this is basically a crap article. I have been reading this site since the beginning, and as a longtime os enthusiast and OSAlert reader I expect a lot more from the content on this site.
.. hardly any facts and a lot of gut feeling. This should be a blog post titled ‘I don’t like snow leopard because ..’
Are your statements based on first hand experience with both OS’? Subtle refinments like in Snow Leopard might be difficult to judge without any experience, because they don’t have the ‘all new’ or ‘bling-bling’ marketing character but are in the end much more helpful than any ‘cool new feature’. E. g. Dock-Expose looks like a useful refinment to me but is not “cool and new” because Mac user already know Expose. Compare this to the hype about the Win7 taskbar..
I keep hearing this quibble that 10.6 is a maintenance release. Apple has pulled the wool over your eyes! 10.6 is so much more… it’s nearly a complete reset of the OS and nobody knows the difference. The funny part is Windows 7 is just Vista with some more polish and it’s being treated as the second coming.
Thom that was the best article you have written, at least that I have read and by a long way.
Encouragement.
That’s what close friends and/or family are for.
…a more substantial upgrade because it is what Vista was actually supposed to be in the first place? Or at least closer to it?
Why would you compare an upgrade that has all along been clearly touted as a transitioning of the underlying OS components with one that actually claims to be more than that (and seemingly – at least according to those supposedly in the know – delivers)?
Two article in two days demonstrating how very obvious is your agenda and real allegiances.
The world, alas, is not that simple:
I have not long both downloaded and installed Windows 7, and have also switched to a MacBookPro running Leopard for work.
Window 7 is a big improvement for the home user, and its advantages over Vista (which I wiped from my Toshiba Satellite in an instant, installing XP, when I bought it in January 2008) are immediately obvious. I liked the reasonably quick and painless install process, and the hardware identification (although I had to re-run searching for drivers once installed to get the optimized ones). Things were back to where I might expect them to be, and it certainly looks and feels better than my Vistamized instance of XP.
However: once I started to activate Aero, once I started to add the ‘rest’ of the OS (Windows live apps, etc.) to see how the overall integrated Windows solution fares against the overall OS X integration, there was a speed and responsiveness decrease. Suddenly my ol’ XP partition became attractive again.
Leopard looked a bit heavy and to me fussy compared to Tiger on my home G4, once I had managed to hack the install. On my new MBP though, it’s a tremendous productivity instrument in comparison to XP; the hardware and peripherals support seem to have been much improved: my ancient Epson 1240 scanner even has a current Mac app available, whereas even for my XP work machine, I had to install the Twain driver and then find a freeware application to run on top (nothing from Epson and I have lost the original install disks).
OK, all this is anecdotal and subjective etc., but there you go; at work I will continue in my quest to squeeze that last bit of productivity out of my tightly integrated MBP (with Safari 4 beating FireFox – I don’t habitually use IE – hands down, for example); at home I will I think be entirely grateful for having a more modern Windows OS at my disposal, something I prolly would not get at work, since IT departments tend to be slow in their uptake of new OS’s
However – I am lucky: I am looking forward as a business user to the Snow Leopard upgrade since this is touted to bring full Exchange support, amongst other things, for prolly the $29 (or in the UK, ^Alb29) price tag; as a home user of Windows 7 I am full of trepidation, having experienced Windows pricing in the past, in respect of the time when my RC of Windows 7 gives out, and I will be forced to look at the lower end of the scale for Windows 7, a slide from the Ultimate version I am allowed to play with as a RC.
Apple have already started to cut prices generally, and I welcome this competition; if Windows isn’t for a change really clever with the way it offers this ‘upgrade’ for XP users, my business use of OS X is likely to be extended to new hardware at home, and a switch there too. On the whole I would say that for its own business model, the pricing of the ugrade route for its users will be far more critical to get ‘right’ for Microsoft than Snow Leopard will be for Apple – I hope Microsft has some sense and couples its OS improvement opportunity to equally compelling purchase ones.
PS I am not exactly becoming an Apple fanboy, but certainly feel like a bit of a fanboy groupie, and not without reason
PPS edited for syntax
Edited 2009-06-11 06:50 UTC
Let’s compare men’s pants and women’s skirt. What would you prefer for your money? Comparison assumes choice. What choice do we have? Upgrade Tiger to Windows 7?
Another funny thing is that everyone compares Windows 7 with Vista and never with Windows XP. For me, the most interesing comparison would be Windows 7 versus Windows XP. It it really that good from this point of view? Worth upgrading?
Wow, if we can’t compare Operating Systems upgrades running on the same processor architecture, with the same GPU’s then we shouldn’t compare anything.
What a bad article! are you working for Microsoft?!
I would love to see windows 7 running on a 7 years old computer… come on you’ve got to be realistic computer have a short life, application are design to use more and more resources, so old hardware won’t cope! Therefore your story about the new OSX not capable of running on G5/G4/G3… does not make any sense!
Microsoft is trying to have a none-really-working OS running on every platform while Apple decided to reduce the footprint, improve the code to get it working on one CPU type but very well!
64bit… is it the new fashion word to put in any article to look technical! anyway, I don’t know anyone with more than 4G of memory on his computer… it’s nice to have it, but for 90% of the population this won’t matter!
You should be talking about ZFS, dtrace… reall stuff! OSX is a killer, use it for just a month you will understand! I still got to use windows at work and every day is new surprise, I never really know what will happened… It’s been the same for the last 15 years for me, waiting for the new windows 98, that will fix all bugs, then XP, then^aEUR| STOP! I’ve got a mac for 4 years and I never face any issue.
Good luck and please do some more reading before writing something else!
You’re free to come visit my place and see Windows 7 running on a 7 year old computer, acting as my media server, playing media files from over my network, even playing HD content without a hitch. It boots quickly, wakes from sleep/hibernate instantly.
You may have a point about the media center… so what is the configuration of your 7 years OLD pc ? (CPU/Mem…)
How much memmory does W7 use while not doing anything?
Btw, you can still run a media center on old G4 cpu, not need to upgrade for the last version to get it running./
HD content hey.
I think someone’s telling fibs again.
And what’s the specs of this said HD awesome media center PC?
Intel Pentium 4, 2.8Ghz HT, 2GB of RAM, AGP GeForce 6200 video card. Bought in 2002, upgraded with a 6200 video card I had lying around. Runs Windows 7 without any problems, including HD content.
NOTE: Could be early 2003.
Edited 2009-06-11 12:16 UTC
“…and while you’re here you can feed my flying pigs and frolic in the woods with my Unicorns…”
I am not sure if the average joe blow consumer is going to care about dtrace or the filesystem but I do see where you are coming from. Great for a developer.
This is the best article I have ever seen on OSAlert. So unbiased and filled with insight.
You should use ‘sarcasm’ tags. People don’t get it otherwise ..
Not a bad article… However, you are comparing what is in each upgrade. You are not comparing what was in the OS you’re upgrading…
Tiger was great. Leopard was great. Snow Leopard builds on Leopard greatness.
XP was good in 2001. Vista was crappy on the outside but with pretty good and needed “under the hood” improvements.
7 is finally an usable OS based on Vista under the hood improvements.
So : YES it is a better upgrade, but only because Windows NEEDED an enormous upgrade like 7, unlike MacOS.
There’s a point I see repeated in comments of every article:
“Win7 is bad to good, Snowleopard is good to better”
1. Vista wasn’t bad; it was unfinished. The technical groundings of the OS had no issue. Almost everything bad with the OS was gone in SP1; so try compare SP1 to Leopard.
2. That’s a play on words… Win7 sees UI + technological improvements; Leopard sees only new APIs. Other than rewriting some components — which only brings consistency — there’s no change in the architecture afaik. So that’s a LOT of difference vs few new APIs..
3. It doesn’t matter; Vista despite the bad rap from all presses (even before it was even launched), managed to get a market share that was competitive with other os’es. Almost everyone is excited about Win7…
I disagree with the file manager bit. Explorer in Windows 7 is the most ridiculous piece of shit/junk/garbage/filthy zilch since it was introduced in Windows 95. I’ve stated my reasons here:
– You can’t undo more than one delete like XP.
– Advanced file type functionality gone. Can’t create secondary user actions/set default action, customize file *type* icon, MIME type, can’t even delete defined file types OOTB, can’t show or hide extension for only particular file types
– You can’t set permissions/ACLs on multiple selected items
– Standard actions like Cut/Copy/Paste/Delete require more than 2 clicks for mouse users (Organize menu instead of toolbar) – I thought menus was passe so where’s the consistency here?
– You can’t set customize your own toolbar buttons. The command bar is fixed and devoid of icons
– You can only edit metadata for JPEGs, MP3s, ASFs not for PNGs, AVIs, MPEGs, MP4/MOV, GIF. In XP you could edit metadata for any file.
– Column handlers in Explorer can’t display custom information from shell extensions
– Free disk space is not quickly accessible except from (My) Computer or drive properties
– Size of all files in a folder is not shown unless you select it
– Size of 15+ files requires clicking “Show more details”, again changing selection of a single file + 15 again requires “Show more details”
– You can’t map a network drive without assigning a drive letter
– Can’t customize folder background using desktop.ini
– Can’t set folder thumbnails using Folders.jpg
– Alt+Enter to see properties of selected items in left/navigation pane of Explorer doesn’t work
– Files are compulsorily autosorted, 100+ files pasted in another 100+ set get scatterred all across.
– Rename or new folder creation also autosorts assuming you won’t be doing any more action on that same item again. Several times, quickly pressing the New folder button and hitting Enter has given me the error message “Can’t find new folder” because it has been autosorted
– You can’t do batch actions on 15+ files from the GUI. The registered verb handler disappears after selecting 15+ files.
– You can’t open two different files types by selecting them and pressing Enter, e.g. DOC and DOCX. Must open them individually.
– WMP’s thumbnail preview lacks volume unlike the earlier DeskBand
– You can disable combining taskbar buttons but not grouping. Two windows of the same app e.g. Explorer, IE are always grouped, can’t set them to appear on extreme right as you were accustomed to for years
– Network activity animation isn’t shown in notification area. Dial-up users are screwed.
– Simple right click actions now require keyboard+mouse usage that is, Shift+right click
– There’s no UI to customize your search, you must memorize the search syntax
– Default setting of new taskbar requires 2 clicks to switch, first on button then on thumbnail instead of 1 click directly on non-combined button
– Common dialogs for Open/Save don’t remember their views
– Auto arrange and Align to Grid are not available in Windows Explorer
– The horizontal Sort bar that appeared for ANY view in Explorer now only appears for details view
– Left/navigation pane doesn’t automatically scroll horizontally for longer folder names like Vista, there’s no horizontal scrollbar either for manual scrolling
– Arrange By/Stack By is only available for libraries, not regular folders
– Restore previous windows at logon feature gone and not working anymore
I was going to post a comment as soon as I read Thom’s opinion that Win 7 Windows Explorer has been “improved” because for me, the new “improved” Windows Explorer is one the main reasons why I will not be moving to Win 7 from XP. (Lack of a “Classic” Start Menu, the new and broken Search (mal-)function, and the downright offensive Once-Click crap are some others.)
The new Explorer is pretty much nothing but severely reduced functionality and difficult navigation. The status bar is even less useful than before; the one-click functionality – which can not be reverted back to standard pre-Win7 behaviour – is not unlike a personal affront: I have been doing it one way for 15 years and now have to relearn it, for no benefit whatsoever. This new functionality has caused me nothing but problems on the desktop and in Explorer. Thanks to the light-gray font in the Folder Pane, using Win Explorer is now a constant eyestrain. The absence of vertical lines in the Tree Pane make it almost impossible to understand complex folder structures.
Not being able to right-click on a folder or drive and call up a search dialog from a context menu is a real problem because this has been replaced by a search box at the top of the GUI… which is kind of a throwback to the long-ago depreciated “Multiple Document Interface” which separated the menu bar from the window it was controlling. To me, this is about a retrograde, obtuse, and awkward a way of building a GUI as can be conceived. The “point your cursor at a file or folder and wait a moment and the focus will shift to highlight that item” is horrible: Microsoft says Win7 has “less clicking” but what they actually need to say is “Win 7 – Less Clicking, More Waiting”. I can no longer work at MY speed, I must work with constant pauses so that the computer can catch up. And now almost every part of the file pane is live, and I have to be careful about where I rest the cursor…
Well, I could go on, but my initial impression is this: For anyone who has to do any significant amount of file management, Win 7 is absolutely unworkable unless you want to invest in a decent replacement for the new Windows Explorer. (And a slavish clone of XP’s Windows Explorer would be perfectly acceptable, even though that too has a few obvious flaws…)
One the other hand, I really do not need to upgrade and can put it off until such time as my main apps no longer support XP. “Main apps,” you know, the apps for the sake of which I have a computer in the first place. And that will be quite a few years yet.
Wow, just wow, I am speechless.
I actually just now looked, and sure enough you can NOT set multiple file’s permissions within a folder. I would sure love to see the response from the dev team at to the logic of this?
As for the status bar. This is one thing that has bugged me to hell. ALL the status bar shows now is the number of files within a directory. Pointless enough that it need not be selected, and should either be removed, or maybe actually show something?
As for the Search options, these can be restored through registry editing. Under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\find
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\find
Then delete “LegacyDisable”.
Correct if I am wrong here, but I thought this came about back in Vista’s SP1 so as to be compliant with complaints filed by Google?
Try Explorer++. It’s as close you can get as possible to the original XP Explorer and it uses the shell namespace so we get lots of post-XP benefits (new file copying engine, Previous versions etc) . Submit feature requests to its developer to clone the real Explorer. The shell team has been on a rampage since the beta 1 of Longhorn I remember it started becoming horrible since then. Now they’ve even spoiled some of the taskbar and Start menu functionality. Explorer++ also supports libraries/XML saved searches. Unfortunately, bits and pieces are not there like the original Explorer but it’s less annoying and close to XP’s Explorer. It’s fast, free and supports tabs too.
Again most of the damage was done in that abomination called Vista (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_from_Windows_Vista#Wi…), (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_from_Windows_Vista#Wi…) and people still ask “What’s wrong with Vista?) but the shell team was commited to pulling more functionality for sake of cleaning up the UI and simplicity. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_from_Windows_7#Window…).
Edited 2009-06-11 19:16 UTC
Initial cost: free.
Upgrade cost: free.
Watching your friends marvel at Windows 7 (KDE 4): priceless.
Windows is windows, it won’t be infections immune due mainly to compatibility sins.
2nd: optimization in 7 is not great; it uses 890MB without anything running, osx 10.5.7 uses only 330MB; whose more efficient now?! Add to this if you have incredible amount of Memory then vista, or 7 won’t use it efficiently like osx which will cache the whole application in RAM to make it more faster.
The memory consumed by Vista and 7 will ALWAYS be high because it preloads frequently used programs. Does this memory consumption cause a slowdown? Not really; it’s flushed when apps need it (if i ain’t mistaken).
“because it preloads frequently used programs”
What frequently used programs?
Windows 7 was freshly installed and there are no programs loaded or installed or even run.
Whatever Win-7 is doing on your system, I can *guarantee* you that it doesn’t require 800 MB to run. I have the RC installed on a few virtual machines in VMWare Fusion on my Macbook. Most are 512 MB and one is only 384 and Win-7 seems to work well enough.
Like Thom, says, Apple hasn’t released details about a possible Snow Leopard full version. Perhaps Apple was waiting to see what Microsoft would do.
It’s also worth keeping in mind, while doing these costs comparisons that Apple has a smaller demographic than Microsoft does and there OS is still locked into their Apple Hardware. So for me, it makes perfect sense for Apple to charge more than Microsoft. Like another commentor pointed out, for Microsoft, the low cost is probably more circumstantial than pure unadulterated charity.
It’s hilarious to watch Maclots whining about Vista. The differences between XP and Vista are least as significant as the differences between the “Classic” MacOS and OS X. But compared to the complete mess that Apple made out of the OS X transition, Vista has been an unqualified success.
With Vista, at least there was a decent alternative to upgrading (XP). But with OS X? The choice was: upgrade to an OS that ran like crap on then-current hardware and had no serious applications (for the first year or two, at least). Or stick with a horribly-outdated relic of the 80s that barely deserved to be called an operating system (aka, the “Classic” Mac OS).
Well, say whatever you want about how Apple handled the transition from classic MacOS to OS X, but I think the move was the best thing Apple could have done at the time. I would love for Microsoft to do the same with Windows! Make something new and cut off all the old legacy stuff that is still in there! Make old programs run virtualized like Apple did with the old Mac OS.
The same goes for AmigaOS 4 for that matter, a lot of functionality has been skipped so you can run old programs (with the 68k cpu emulated) and I believe it has hurt the usefulness of OS4 a lot.
Sometimes you need to make decisions like this, and lots of people will complain and whine, some might even switch to another platform. But in the long term it’s for the best!
As far as I remeber, Snow Leopard was announces as a Leopard MacOSX for 64bit Systems only. Without major new features. Sure they included some new stuff, but the only purpose of this release was the merging to the 64bit architecture.
Instead of complaining that my old PowerBook will not run Snow Leopard, I congratulate Apple for the decision to throw out all that legacy crap!
Windows should do that too!
Microsoft, throw away that old API crap, like the old MME, OLE, DDE and others …
The article states:
“Another example is that various driver upgrades no longer require a restart, such as graphics drivers.”
Perhaps it was not intended to come across as such, but the inference is that this is a unique feature in Windows 7. In fact, that a graphics driver may not require a reboot is dependent on its adeherence to the Windows Display Driver Model which was introduced in … Vista.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480220.aspx
That’s also the reason why buggy graphics drivers no longer bring the OS to its knees. I’ve had first hand experience of that recently while trying a new driver for the Intel G41 chipset. All that would happen was that the driver would crash, the screen would temporarily go black, then the driver would be restarted seconds later. I cured that by downloading the version packaged by the OEM but my point is that, in XP, a similar bug would most likely have resulted in a BSOD or something equally catastrophic.
That aside, being a Vista user now, and having run some of the Windows 7 betas and toyed with the release candidate, I can’t really fathom what all the fuss is about. It’s really the same beast with a new lick of paint, some alterations to the shell, some (slightly exaggerated, imho) performance enhancements and questionable developments to the UAC model which Thom has been posting about lately. Some of the new features are pleasant (Libraries) or promising (e.g. DeviceStage), but I do think that the discrepancy between the Vista-hating and the Windows 7-loving has gotten a little out of hand.
Did you think a least 5 minutes before to write this useless peace of non sense?
“While this 169 gives you some good value for your money, this price is actually not lowered at all – previous box sets, with Leopard and Tiger as the operating system, also went for 169 USD.”
And what, here it is about to update to a major version of the operating system.
“This means that Tiger users will not benefit at all from the 29 USD price tag for Leopard.”
Why, they get a major operating version of Mac OS X, how can’t they benefit from that? And what the point to bring this story of $29 to Tiger users? Tiger users did not update to Leopard, so they still need to pay for Snow Leopard as it is for them a major update, fair enough.
“On top of that, what if you don’t want or need newer versions of iLife and iWork? What if you already have them? ”
Wrong a Tiger user may have iLife but not the last one because iLife 09 requires Leopard, so updating to Snow Leopard will bring to the user a major update of iLife together with a major update of iWork.
“What if you don’t care about them at all? Apple is punishing Tiger users for not having upgraded to Leopard.”
Stop bitching, do you really think that Snow Leopard + iLife 09 + iWork 09 for $169 is not a good deal? It is a very good deal, and the matter of the fact is that Microsoft does not propose you such a software package with such a price.
“Windows XP users are also eligible for the Windows 7 upgrade sets, so that people who bought their operating system in 2001 (!) are still eligible for the upgrade;”
Oh yes sure, given the total failure that Vista is among XP users.
“On the Windows 7 side, things look much, much brighter. Windows XP users are also eligible for the Windows 7 upgrade sets, so that people who bought their operating system in 2001 (!) are still eligible for the upgrade; that means 8 years of Windows purchases covered”
Ok, so Microsoft has been late to bring a credible successor to Xp, it took them years to complete Vista which end up to be a massive failure and now that period length is suddenly a good thing?
Plus, XP shipped in 2001, Vista came in 2007, that’s 6 years not 8. During the same time period, Mac users have had 4 major versions of Mac OS X, each one bringing major new features. How can this be called a “brighter” situation for windows users?
“versus only 2 (!) years of Mac OS X purchases covered.”
Wrong, Tiger shipped in 2005, Leopard shipped in 2007. 3 years, and again nothing prevent Tiger users to upgrade to Snow leopard, i don’t know what you aim of pretending the opposite.
“However, Windows 7 has a major advantage in that it can run on hardware that’s even as old as 7 years – my Pentium 4 2.8Ghz with 2GB of RAM from 2002 does its job as a Windows 7 media centre outstandingly,”
BS, no way that you can run Windows 7 on this kind of hardware properly, no way, XP is already slow on this kind of machine. Do you think that people are stupid or what? Windows 7 runs well on configurations where Vista runs well, that means on pretty recent hardware with recent graphics hardware. Plus, on the hardware that you describe, there is usually no way that you can run windows 7 or vista with the full graphical compositing. Vista/Windows 7 don’t do much more with graphics and compositing than Tiger which runs very well on Macs with G3 running at 500 mhz, and with GPUS with no more than 16 MO of GRAM. No way that you can run the compositing engine of windows vista/7 on this king of hardware, you simply don’t get the compositing, the modern graphics and Aero. What you get is a system which runs the old windows graphical engine.
Get your fact right, you don’t know what you are talking about.
“Snow Leopard, on the other hand, will only run on Intel Macs, meaning that high-end machines still sold in August 2006 (PowerMac G5), with pretty hefty price tags, are now left in the cold. In other words, it is much more likely that Windows users will be able to run Windows 7 without having to invest in new hardware than Mac users do with Snow Leopard.”
As i said, you can run Tiger, a system of the level of windows vista/7 with full modern graphics on macs with G3s and low end GPUS, you can’t do that with windows. Plus your comparison is totally flawed, because in between Apple has a major processor transition from Power PC to Intel. That makes the comparison meaningless as Apple has to at some point stop to support the PowerPC. Microsoft did not go through a major processor transition but still their system runs poorly on old hardware.
“On top of all this comes the fact that the 29 USD price for Snow Leopard doesn’t even compete with Windows 7’s prices. As said, the 29 USD is for Leopard owners only, meaning that the price is utterly irrelevant when talking about switchers; they simply don’t benefit one bit from this pricing.”
Bitching again, the point is that Microsoft will make you pay for an OS which partially fix VIsta, you will pay for an OS which fix the failure of vista, and you are the only one which seems to be happy about that.
“Microsoft’s upgrade prices – which are still not confirmed, but will probably be round and about 50-70 for Windows 7 Home Premium, and 100-120 for Professional, seem a lot more useful to a lot more people.”
Ok pay hundred of dollars to buy Vista and hundred more to have it fix and working, nice.
“Windows 7 is a completely different story. Microsoft has made the operating system perform better than Windows Vista (and every report confirms that), with some even claiming performance on par with Windows XP, especially on more recent hardware.”
Wrong, the proper to say it is that Microsoft is trying to fix a slow OS.
” It could very well be that Snow Leopard gives a more substantial improvement in this area, but Snow Leopard has it easy; only very recent and powerful 64bit machines will see this benefit.”
You have little information to judge about that.
“. Windows 7’s (possibly) more modest performance gains over Vista will benefit machines that are much older and/or much less powerful. ”
Wrong, the goal is to make windows 7 work better on machines which runs Vista. The old pc are out of question.
“For instance, both that old Pentium 4 box as well as my low-spec Acer Aspire One perform better with Windows 7 than with Vista.”
Those windows troll, really. The point is that you forget to say that on old hardware, it runs with most of the modern technologies switched off, technologies like compositing that has been introduced on mac in 2000.
“Similarly aged and/or specced Macs can’t even run Snow Leopard at all!”
Similarly aged and/or specced Macs runs an OS with modern graphics, not the similarly aged pcs. Plus again, you forget that Apple has gone trough a processor transition, that by definition means that at some point the previous processor architecture will be left over, so it means by definition that the OS won’t run on this architecture at some point, here it is snow leopard.
The way that you fail so miserably to get the correct facts makes your arguments totally meaningless.
“However, where the difference really becomes obvious is the interface changes Windows 7 introduces, and all the pulling-together of frameworks and features introduced with Windows Vista, and exposing them to users in much more useful ways than Vista did. The best example of this is Homegroup, which pulls together various technologies and features introduced with Windows Vista, and presents them in a way that makes managing your network and shared files (especially in combination with the Libraries feature) completely painless.”
Sure things that you could do with a mac years ago.
“Another example is that various driver upgrades no longer require a restart, such as graphics drivers.”
Sure they are just slower….
“The interface of Windows itself has also been massively cleaned up compared to Vista. It really takes some intensive usage to reveal just how much of the interface has been cleaned up, made more consistent, and overall prettified without losing functionality. My personal favourite is Windows 7’s Explorer file manager, which is such joy to use now, while the Vista one was a busy and clumsy mess.”
I can’t see major update on the windows interface, everything is still so cluttered, the interface widgets (buttons, etc) are still of the XP age, Aero is still ugly, and the ease of use and experience still bad. And the Explorer is also still a big ugly, messy peace of file manager,
“Snow Leopard simply doesn’t bring these kinds of massive interface improvements.”
Windows 7 has no massive interface improvements, period. On the other hand Snow leopard introduces really deep technologies and it is a major refinement of a system which is already far better than Windows 7.
“just doesn’t compare very favouribly to Windows 7 as an upgrade, in a multitude of aspects: supported machines, previous releases still eligible, and the number of people who are actually able to benefit from the upgrade. ”
Yes sure, Mac users will get a massively polished system with breakthrough technologies for $29, windows users will get a fix to their VIsta for hundred of dollars. Which one compares favorably?
“supported machines”
Again get your fact right, all your arguments are flawed.
” previous releases still eligible”
As its is for Tiger users, stop pretending the opposite based on flawed reasoning.
” number of people who are actually able to benefit from the upgrade.”
Are those people the ones who got two windows update in 8 years with one of them being a failure and the other one being a fix of the failed one? What about the people who got 4 major OS update in 8 years on mac? Is that surprising that the people who got so little OS updates will be larger in number to a new update (which again fix a previous one) than the one who got many OS updates? I don’t think so…
So the bottom of the story is that you got so upset that mac people will get a very nice OS update for just $29 but you, lover of windows 7, will have to pay a fortune for an OS which basically brings little to the table (also being insecure, ch the UAC issue) and moreover is a fix of an os that you already paid a fortune for it. And so you came up with your usual crap…
Thom I think you did a Dvorak… I mean what is this?
I almost never comment, but this time I felt I needed to.
If I remember well I paid a upgrade for Windows Vista 99 Euros (home premium). I do not know what would be the final price of windows 7 but I assume that Windows 7 Ultimate will be quite high priced… I think we should mention that the licensing scheme of various windows versions will be maintained..
Let me see 29$ versus at least 99$ is it fair?
Not to mention that overall vista user will upgrade because they (we) bought a crappy operating system and windows 7 is more or less a Vista that works.
I think that this is one of the worse article you ever wrote, maybe only second to you comparison between netbook and iphone…
OSAlert has always had a certain “amateurish” feel, but this article was surprisingly lame. I wouldn’t even call it an article – more like a rant. Next time try craigslist.
We are in the presence of two companies who seem to be competing on the different disadvantages of their products.
Apple cripples their product by limiting what it will install on. But within that restriction, they let you install unlimited times from one copy. Not legally of course, but they connive at it, and probably few families buy the family packs.
MS on the other hand lets you install on any machine your heart desires, but they do enforce registration so that you only get to install your one copy on one machine.
Now, lets see, does anyone make an OS that lets you install as many copies as you like, and on the machine of your choice….?
Oh, yes, I remember now!
SL is all about 64-bit, and efficiency.
Efficiency is however achieved in many ways. When you program, a lot of the time you deal with space/time trade-offs.
The reason why each release of OS X is faster than the previous version is that Mac OS X takes advantage with each version of memory getting cheaper, i.e. using space/time trade-offs.
The problem with that is, that older Macs have limits on how much RAM they can hold. e.g. my iMac G4 800MHz, which has plenty of CPU power, can only hold 1GB RAM, and thus is swapping like mad under Leopard (which is also why only 867MHz and up Macs are supported under Leopard, because these all can take 2GB or more RAM).
So many of Mac OS X’ system requirements have little to do with CPU power, but with the chip set’s ability to address RAM and the number of SIMM/DIMM slots available.
On the other hand, PowerMac G5 systems neither have an issue with addressable RAM (I have e.g. 8GB in mine, and that’s the 1st Gen G5) nor do they have an issue with CPU power, e.g. my dual CPU G5 running at 2GHz has still more CPU power than some MacMini from not that long ago, which can address less RAM. Yet, the MacMini will be able to run 10.6 and the PowerMac G5 won’t.
And that’s were all the reasoning goes out the window and a good number of PPC Mac owners will feel burned.
Someone said that Win7 over Vista was more like Mac OS X over Mac OS 9.
Total joke. Ever since WinNT, all Windows releases (Win2K, WinXP, VIsta, Win7) all are based off the WinNT kernel, much like ever since NeXTSTEP 1.0 all versions of NeXTSTEP, OpenStep and Mac OS X are based on the Mach/BSD kernel.
Mac OS 9 (and below) are a totally different OS, in EVERY RESPECT than Mac OS X. The only reason they kept the name is to pull the wool over the eyes of most users to prevent them from jumping ship in panic for fear of a totally new OS and the financial uncertainty Apple faced back in 1997.
Of course Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.1 kind of sucked, because it was rushed to market, and was forced to adopt many Mac-isms to hide the fact that it was a totally new OS. We would have had a much more quickly evolving OS if major developers (Adobe, Macromedia, Microsoft) had not balked at adopting OpenStep nee YellowBox nee Cocoa and if paniced Mac users had not rejected everything NeXT just “because it’s not the holy grail of Apple”.
So NeXT, after its inverse-take-over had to ditch a lot of its good technology and then take 10+ years to slowly reintroduce it as “new” through the backdoor to make it palatable to users and to arm-twist developers into adopting it.
How do I know? I used and developed on NeXT computers since January 1989, and have been on that platform ever since. So I know a bit about what’s new and what’s old concepts in new clothes using updated hardware.
NeXT used concepts that were at that time 10 years old (Xerox PARC 1980), and it took “only” about 30 friggin’ years until about half of it is accepted by users and hailed by the popular computer and technology “pundits” as “new, great technology”. BARF!
Maybe by the time I’m on my deathbed, I’ll see some commercial implementation of things I prototyped for my Sc.M. which in turn was based on some ideas from the mid 80s.
And people talk about technology moving quickly. Do they have any clue how slowly these things really move?
Snow Leopard and Windows 7 are both glorified service packs for Leopard and Vista respectively.
Leopard works, Vista doesn’t. Hence Windows 7 is a more substantial upgrade. IF it delivers.
LOL I like this ideology.
why is it called Snow Leopard?
Because it’s snow use to anyone!
While I agree with Thom’s view point in the article on many levels, I would still think that comparing the improvements Windows 7 or Snow Leopard bring to the table are like comparing Apples with Oranges. Windows Vista was such a big let down Microsoft would have so many improvements in the next version of their OS, Vista was a step backwards for Microsoft so definitely Microsoft would have to brings about more changes in the next version of Windows. Also Snow Leopard in my opinion has more under the hood changes (like its mentioned in the article) thats what count. A car with a new body and old engine would pretty much still be an old car. Windows 7 is Microsoft’s way of cleaning up their act (something Windows Vista should have been)
Why should Tiger users ‘benefit’ from paying the same price as Leopard users. Apple didn’t ‘benefit’ from Tiger users paying for the Leopard upgrade. Frankly, Tiger users are lucky that they aren’t being made to buy Leopard before they can upgrade to Snow Leopard, like XP users… This smacks of sour grapes to me.