Apple ships Intel-based iMacs and MacBook Pros

[Nite_Moogle]

After months of speculation about their latest big announcement, Apple has released its first Intel-based computers in the form of improved iMacs and the new MacBook Pro. The new intel iMac (http://www.apple.com/imac/) and a new Intel Powerbook now called MacBook (http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/). Both featuring Intel dual core processors up to 2Ghz, and ATI Radeons x1600 for gfx acceleration.

You’ve dreamed about it long enough. Now it has a name: MacBook Pro. Powered by a dual-core Intel engine. Up to four times the speed of the PowerBook G4. Eight times the graphics bandwidth. With built-in iSight for instant video conferencing on the move. And Front Row with Apple Remote to dazzle everyone in the room. Wait no more. MacBook Pro starts at just $1999.Rev up your digital life at speeds twice as fast as the previous iMac. Intel Core Duo and iLife ’06 raise the bar — again — of what makes a personal computer so personal. Enjoy everything you love about iMac, only turbocharged, starting at $1299.
The iMac and MacBook Pro are both available for immediate order from http://apple.com/.

Thanks, Nimos.

[Nadreck]

I've already ordered the MacBook. It's a reasonable price considering the tech specs, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with it as a dual boot OS X/Windows (for gaming).

[GrinR]

Wait a sec.. Intel chips run faster than the PowerPC? NO FUCKING WAY.

[Nite_Moogle]

I didn't want to editorialize, but I want to get my hands on x86-based OS X so bad. This is going to be a huge paradigm shift in the way people use their operating system.

[Schnoogs]

My favorite quote from Steve Jobs...

""The new iMac is two to three times faster than the iMac G5," Jobs said in a speech introducing a range of new products"

The same guy who just a while ago claimed the G5 was 2 to 3 times faster than an AMD or Intel.

Apple is the KING of B.S. marketing. For a decade they touted their hardware as being faster than Intel based PCs and now all of a sudden, since they've changed, Intel solutions have become the best thing since sliced bread.

What's worse is the fanatical Mac fan base will be praising the switch to Intel after a decade of trying to convince PC owners that Macs are faster than Intel based PCs.

(I myself own a few apple products so don't read into this that I'm anti-apple)

[agentgray]

Intel Dual Core?

So this is Apple Core?

[GrinR]

Ahhhh... the magic of ignore.

Unread Today, 01:08 PM

Assassin
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[Nite_Moogle]

What's worse is the fanatical Mac fan base will be praising the switch to Intel after a decade of trying to convince PC owners that Macs are faster than Intel based PCs.
I think this misconception is because pound for pound the G5s can execute more instructions per megahertz than x86 chips can. A PowerPC running at 1000 mhz is something like a 1800 mhz x86 chip in terms of actual performance.

The problem is that the x86 chips are WAY faster than the PowerPC chips.

[Schnoogs]

I think this misconception is because pound for pound the G5s can execute more instructions per megahertz than x86 chips can. A PowerPC running at 1000 mhz is something like a 1800 mhz x86 chip in terms of actual performance.

The problem is that the x86 chips are WAY faster than the PowerPC chips.

I think what Apple use to do a lot is they would run specialized benchmarks or in many cases Photoshop plugins that were optimized for the G3,G4,G5 and contrast that with those same plugins on a Windows box and sure enough they would dwarf the Intel results.

It always made me mad because my apple loving friends in college would claim that their ultra expensive mac was faster than my PC even though for gaming and development things ran much faster on mine and cost considerably less.

Now those same guys who bashed Intel go on and on about how great Intel must be for Apple to have switched. Brand loyalty to the extreme.

(GrinR is ignoring me because I didnt call him the next day)

[EyesNoMore]

Has it actually been confirmed that Windows will install and run on these new Macs? Doesn't it seem likely that Apple and/or Microsoft wouldn't want Windows running on a Mac?

[Schnoogs]

Has it actually been confirmed that Windows will install and run on these new Macs? Doesn't it seem likely that Apple and/or Microsoft wouldn't want Windows running on a Mac?

There are a few sites dedicated to just this. On one site they got a Beta of the new Mac OS to run on a PC that had NEARLY identical hardware.

The key are the drivers. Rest assured that people are working on this as we type...one way or another they will swap OS's!!

[Nite_Moogle]

Has it actually been confirmed that Windows will install and run on these new Macs? Doesn't it seem likely that Apple and/or Microsoft wouldn't want Windows running on a Mac?
Apple knows there are a lot of people out there that would like to dual boot, say, graphics artists. They said a few months ago this would be possible.

The REAL question is whether or not OS X will run on non-Apple hardware.

[Malovech]

I think it safe to say that an Intel powered Mac will be faster than an Intel powered Windows box. The best thing about a Mac is it's Unix-based OS, now that it is being run on decent hardware Windows is looking less and less worth the time.

[Schnoogs]

The REAL question is whether or not OS X will run on non-Apple hardware.


As I stated before this has already been achieved.

[Schnoogs]

I think it safe to say that an Intel powered Mac will be faster than an Intel powered Windows box. The best thing about a Mac is it's Unix-based OS, now that it is being run on decent hardware Windows is looking less and less worth the time.

Don't be fooled by the "Unix under the hood" logo. Apple's GUI is very processor intensive and adds all sorts of additional infrastructure and overhead.

Your statement is purely speculative and may be difficult to ever prove.

[Nite_Moogle]

As I stated before this has already been achieved.
Not legally. I'm talking about putting in the DVD from Apple that says "OS X 10.4" and putting it in a home-built computer and installing it.

[Metal Jesus]

I'm disappointed they didn't announce a sub $1,000 ibook personally.

[bapenguin]

This is a friggin ripoff. I was seriously considering buying one of these puppies but 2000 for a 1.67ghz with 512 meg of ram. boooooo!

Remember that intel's dual core implementation is shoddy at best...you can see the article linked today regarding the Athlon FX60+ for explanation of the differences.

If this came out at 1500, i'd be all over it.

[Malovech]

Don't be fooled by the "Unix under the hood" logo. Apple's GUI is very processor intensive and adds all sorts of additional infrastructure and overhead.

Your statement is purely speculative and may be difficult to ever prove.

Compared to the Windows kernel it's hardly speculation to say the Apple OS is far more efficient. The very fact that it was meeting Windows head to head while using substandard hardware like the PowerPC is proof enough.

[Schnoogs]

Not legally. I'm talking about putting in the DVD from Apple that says "OS X 10.4" and putting it in a home-built computer and installing it.

Oh I see what you're saying.

[Schnoogs]

Compared to the Windows kernel it's hardly speculation to say the Apple OS is far more efficient. The very fact that it was meeting Windows head to head while using substandard hardware like the PowerPC is proof enough.

To be honest I think most people are familiar with the Windows GUI and know next to little about the kernel.

I don't even know what you mean by "meeting head to head" since similar apps ran faster on AMD based PCs and games have almost always faired better on the PC.

How have they met head to head and the PowerPC isn't "substandard" to say the least. It's good enough for the XBox 360! ;)

[Nite_Moogle]

There is the matter of the triple CPU dual core nature of the 360 to consider. Consoles require much less CPU power than PCs do to produce similar graphics results. It isn't a fair comparison, the original Xbox had only a Pentium 3 733 mhz processor delivering graphics that required a far more robust PC to deliver. If Microsoft had designed the Xbox 360 to run off a single-die CPU that required amazing speed you can bet your bottom dollar they wouldn't have used PowerPC to do it.

[Schnoogs]

You realize the clock speed on those Xbox 360 chips is 550 mhz, right? Have you ever tried loading Windows XP on a 550 mhz Intel processor? In this case the per-cycle efficiency of the PowerPC wins out over the raw power of an x86 chip. There is also the matter of the triple CPU dual core nature of the 360 to consider. Consoles require much less CPU power than PCs do to produce similar graphics results. It isn't a fair comparison. If Microsoft had designed the Xbox 360 to run off a single-die CPU that required amazing speed you can bet your bottom dollar they wouldn't have used PowerPC to do it.

First off never compare clock speeds...its meaningless. There's a reason Intel no longer uses them in the names of its CPUs.

My 2ghz athlon is much faster than my 3ghz P4. Apples to Oranges.


Baxk to my orginal point...its very difficult to quantify the Mac OS and Windows. Talking about clock speeds is irrelevant...plus you forget about architecture. GPU's on video cards run at low clock speeds but are HIGHLY optimized for what they do. Big deal, who cares.

I don't think you can back up your claim that the Mac OS will run faster on Intel than Windows because what are you going to use to measure the peformance difference?

Tell me one benchmark that could be used to prove that?

I'm not trying to argue I just think people are biased to thinking that Windows is slow compared to unix so people assume that since the Mac OS is built on top of unix its some how faster despite the overhead of the GUI and Aqua.

[EyesNoMore]

You realize the clock speed on those Xbox 360 chips is 550 mhz, right?
I thought they ran at 3GHz. Am I wrong?

[Nite_Moogle]

Whoops, you're right, I was looking at the GPU speed. Edit to fix!
My point about the multi-threading still stands.

[rubek]

Where I work, we do a lot of intensive rendering and large High res print work.
Every designer here is using Dual Processor G5's, including myself, and from my direct experience comparing the 2 platforms, the G5's and it's OS are the most bloated, overhyped, laggy pieces of shit I have ever used.

Everyone here pipes on about how the Mac OS is so much faster with production, rendering, etc, but I can't even switch between Photoshop and itunes, without waiting about 5 minutes. Rendering, Saving files, Opening files, all basic functions are faster on PC's I have used.
Sure theyre pretty, and the OS has a some nice elements to it, probably a lot more nice elements than XP, but Macs always seem to be viewed with starry eyed fan-boyism. It's amazing what some shiny bits do for people's perceptions.

[Schnoogs]

Where I work, we do a lot of intensive rendering and large High res print work.
Every designer here is using Dual Processor G5's, including myself, and from my direct experience comparing the 2 platforms, the G5's and it's OS are the most bloated, overhyped, laggy pieces of shit I have ever used.

Everyone here pipes on about how the Mac OS is so much faster with production, rendering, etc, but I can't even switch between Photoshop and itunes, without waiting about 5 minutes. Rendering, Saving files, Opening files, all basic functions are faster on PC's I have used.
Sure theyre pretty, and the OS has a some nice elements to it, probably a lot more nice elements than XP, but Macs always seem to be viewed with starry eyed fan-boyism. It's amazing what some shiny bits do for people's perceptions.

I agree 100%.

[Nite_Moogle]

You think? Man, we have one OS X 10.4 server here and it's bees knees. I love working on that thing over the Windows 2k servers. The OS X server is a wimpy G4 and the Windows 2k server is a beefy P4-based system.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good terminal window and open-source software.

[Hg-203]

Has it actually been confirmed that Windows will install and run on these new Macs? Doesn't it seem likely that Apple and/or Microsoft wouldn't want Windows running on a Mac?

I've got the same question, now we've got answers to the opposite, that the hacker community will be able to put OSX on an windows box, but is there any documentation that it will be possible to put windows on an apple box?

As to if apple will ever sell an unlocked down OS X for the X86 instruction set. I would say no for the near future, 5 to 20 years from now... I can see apple moving away from a hardware based company to a software based company like Microsoft.

[Royal Fool]

Assassin's signature made me chuckle.

[XenonCJ]

Compared to the Windows kernel it's hardly speculation to say the Apple OS is far more efficient. The very fact that it was meeting Windows head to head while using substandard hardware like the PowerPC is proof enough.Hah, hardly... 1st off noone will really know till we see some REAL benchmarks with equal hardware.

2nd Apple is not an real enterprise product... There are no REAL Apple server-class machines out there. (Sorry the Xserve crap is, uh, crap)

See Windows Server 2003 (all variations)

[jeffbax]

My favorite quote from Steve Jobs...

""The new iMac is two to three times faster than the iMac G5," Jobs said in a speech introducing a range of new products"

The same guy who just a while ago claimed the G5 was 2 to 3 times faster than an AMD or Intel.

Apple is the KING of B.S. marketing. For a decade they touted their hardware as being faster than Intel based PCs and now all of a sudden, since they've changed, Intel solutions have become the best thing since sliced bread.

What's worse is the fanatical Mac fan base will be praising the switch to Intel after a decade of trying to convince PC owners that Macs are faster than Intel based PCs.

(I myself own a few apple products so don't read into this that I'm anti-apple)
Often times it was a valid claim. G5 is a beast of a chip that really won't be fully realized now, and the G4 was also very good for its time. The problem arises when you are still on a 187 MHZ Bus 4 years later.

Compareing my 1.5 GHZ G4 with my 1.533 GHZ Athlon XP, the G4 slams it when it comes to a lot of things like encoding audio and video, while also consuming less power. OS X also feels more responsive and fluid IMO. Windows is fast, but it is like a speedy car that feels cheap and like it will fall apart at any moment.

I hope that x86 Macs means that Mac gaming will get a big boost with both faster and more native ports, and WINE.

I'm about to build a new PC, but I might just go for the iMac instead.... since I just got a 12" PB when the latest revision came early in 2005.

I just love OSX so much. It would be amazing if VirtualPC could run DirectX now.... but I won't hold my breath.

[Steele Johnson]

You get what you pay for. Macs have always been priced higher than Wintel machines. But on the other hand, you're paying for a computer that's far more stable and has a more "user friendly" interface to go with it. Some may argue that point, but I'm just basing that on being a user of both platforms. I just feel that OS X is designed better than Windows. If anything, OS X has a much better implementation of protected memory. That alone keeps the system quite stable. Background processing/multitasking, etc, just feels much smoother on a Mac. To each his own.

[Montolio]

I have never owned an Apple computer of any kind and these are some truly beautiful machines. Since there seems to be a few Mac users in this thread I have a quick question - is upgrading things like the GPU just not an option because of the design or can you simply pop the back off the iMac and insert a new PCIe card? The Universal software design (runs on both platforms) seems like it will help make application transition smoother and the Rosetta tech (emulator) is just plain cool. Things just keep on changing.

[Nite_Moogle]

The biggest problems in upgrading Macs have been 1) the PowerPC board itself and 2) lack of driver support. If you check the NVIDIA site, there's no listing to download OS X drivers of any sort for their GeForce series. Things might be changing soon but up to this point upgrading them beyond the mundane things like new hard drives has been pretty tough.

[Schnoogs]

I hope that x86 Macs means that Mac gaming will get a big boost with both faster and more native ports, and WINE.

I remember once reading that John Carmack said that it was the Mac OS and not the hardware that was limiting game performance.

We'll see.

[Kyle Jones]

Kudos to the local boys! Go Intel, boost your sales, and get more money/jobs pumping into Pacifica... erm, I mean Oregon.

[ezra]

Assassin's signature made me chuckle.

Me too.


Hee hee hee.

[lpmiller]

This is a friggin ripoff. I was seriously considering buying one of these puppies but 2000 for a 1.67ghz with 512 meg of ram. boooooo!

Remember that intel's dual core implementation is shoddy at best...you can see the article linked today regarding the Athlon FX60+ for explanation of the differences.

If this came out at 1500, i'd be all over it.

Uh, these are the new dual core procs though, not what has come before. This is based on the centrino core, and a 1.67 dually will be PLENTY fast. Mhz is irrelevent these days.

[51|RandoM]

I think it safe to say that an Intel powered Mac will be faster than an Intel powered Windows box. The best thing about a Mac is it's Unix-based OS, now that it is being run on decent hardware Windows is looking less and less worth the time.

It isn't safe to say. :-) There are plenty of slow UNIX implementations out there, and there are plenty of slow windowing systems to put on top of them. Apple happens to make one of the slowest, one which is also difficult to slim down for performance. Much of the power and robustness of a typical UNIX implementation is wasted on a desktop/laptop, and devoting all of those resources towards maintenance of a multi-user environment isn't worth it for many people. Windows itself is more stable, and more secure than it has ever been, in contrast.

You also seem to be making the assumption that people buy an OS because of the hardware that it will run on. It seems to me that people buy an OS that their applications will run on, then pick the hardware for the job. Seeing how this is a daily gaming news... with attitude site, I'd say that Windows doesn't lose any battles with Mac, regardless of what hardware you run it on. Just compare the currently available games for either platform. :-)

It is funny to see the Apple marketing flip flop. I wonder if they even realize they're slapping their existing customer base in the face, or if they do so, if they care?

[netcraazzy]

Only Mac that has caught my eye is the Mini, they are just so damn small and quiet! I've come very close to buying one several times as a 2nd computer but the G4 processor in it makes me cringe. Here's hoping for a centrino based Mini.

[net7runner]

I'm talking about putting in the DVD from Apple that says "OS X 10.4" and putting it in a home-built computer and installing it.

Apple will never do this. They make almost all of their money through the required hardware that comes with the OS.

[Bydo_Empire]

Great move for Apple, the new machines look great. The PPC line was great for the time, but it didn't progress as fast as Apple (and users) expected. When they were released, the G5's probably were the fastest chips you could buy... they just got eclipsed by Intel in subsequent years.

I just got a barely used (but super cheap) dual G5 for my home studio and I just love it. Things work right away that just didn't on my pc. For instance, if I booted the pc without my keyboard powered on, it would never recognize the midi device. I'd have to shut everything down, turn on the keyboad and then reboot. Media Player never recognized my mp3 player. And so on. Of course, I'm comparing my four-year-old 1Ghz p4 that only boots about half the time and has had four years of crap piled onto it. ^_^ I still need the PC to finish Morrowind, though... someday... It's taking me some time to get used to OSX, but overall I really like it. Seems fast, stable, and I like some of the features. I probably wouldn't have bought a mac at retail price, but since I got it cheap, I'm a happy camper.

[Schnoogs]

Love the ad on Apples website...

"What's an Intel chip doing in a Mac? A whole lot more than it's ever done in a PC"

I'm sure everyone who has an Athlon 64 dual core is just kicking themselves right now. ;)

It is nice to see Apple switched their benchmarks to show the new Macs compared to older G5's instead of their old benchmarks that made rediculous claims like "G5 is 3 x faster than the Pentium 4 3ghz". They would either resort to comparing the G5 to some 2 year old x86 processor OR use benchmarks that were optimized for the Vortech and weren't optimized for x86 or SSE2/SSE3.

[Dabombpizza]

It is funny to see the Apple marketing flip flop. I wonder if they even realize they're slapping their existing customer base in the face, or if they do so, if they care?

And how are they slapping those customers in the face? The thing that makes me gripe is iLife '06, it truly is a yearly upgrade with Apple. But I suppose ther are perks to that.

Remember, OSX runs on universal binaries, so the most programs that run on x86 will run on PPC too.

[Schnoogs]

And how are they slapping those customers in the face? The thing that makes me gripe is iLife '06, it truly is a yearly upgrade with Apple. But I suppose ther are perks to that.

Remember, OSX runs on universal binaries, so the most programs that run on x86 will run on PPC too.

What about apps that call Windows API's? I would imagine the vast majority of Windows apps call native API's and access the registry.

[Neosho]

It is funny to see the Apple marketing flip flop. I wonder if they even realize they're slapping their existing customer base in the face, or if they do so, if they care?

Not being any more of a dick than i typically am, i don't think any mac users understand the difference between the 2. Barring the few mac users on here who have the an idea as to what's going on, most mac users are idiots.

I worked at frys over the summer, (god damn did that job suck) and it seemed that the mac users were more typically the unquestioning type. For the most part, the PC users were ignorant, but the mac users were overbearing assholes. I had them tell me that USB thumb drives were not compatable with macs. I had them tell me that any kind of memory could go into macs. I had them tell me that iPods are mac only. I had them tell me that macs are the fastest machines on the market because only they can use dual cores. It got so bad that me and one of my friends began to keep a running tally of how many idiot mac users we could run into in a day.

It's sad, because i started on a mac, i kinda liked them way back in the OS 7-8 days...when i was like, 10. After the first time our mac died though, and there was nothing you could do about it, i was kinda frustrated. Then i got my first windows machine, and discovered that while my 98 machine crashed alot, once i got things figured out, it was quite stable and happy to do whatever i told it to. Being met with a mac sad face and a button to restart isn't my idea of user friendly. Also, being told that the only solution to my broken computer is to send it back to them isn't that wonderful either.

I was a mac certified tech, as well...although that's pretty outdated now.

Also, to whoever said that macs seem to multitask faster...that's cause you've got a pretty animation distracting you from the program actually taking longer...pretty neat, huh? (However, i'm runing an x64 3000, OC'd up to 2ghz, Venice core, so i'm not exactly skimping on the multitaskability)

[lpmiller]

no, OS X actually does multitask faster, depending on the particular tasks involved. It's a fairly irrelevent benchmark in the age of dual cores, though.

And as far as not fixing a mac - uh, they fixed up just like PC's did, you just need to know enough to do it, just like with PC's.

[Schnoogs]

no, OS X actually does multitask faster, depending on the particular tasks involved. It's a fairly irrelevent benchmark in the age of dual cores, though.

And as far as not fixing a mac - uh, they fixed up just like PC's did, you just need to know enough to do it, just like with PC's.

I think he's referring to the fact that if your mac motherboard dies you're not going to run down to Frys to buy a new one.

It's the difference between an open format and a proprietary format.

[Neosho]

That, and the older versions of the mac OS were less than optimal for self repair. The newer one is apparently much, much better, but i don't want to deal with it....too far into the PC camp.

[TKO]

Hehe.. Nice to see that Mac hate still dies hard with some people. ;) Me, the only thing that kept me with the PC for so long: Games. And with the PC becomming a second class citizen to consoles in that respect, there's really nothing to keep me with Windows.

To answer a question I saw on here.. upgrading a graphics-card in a Mac isn't such a tricky thing (provided you got a model where it's a sepereate card, of course.) NVidia and ATI don't release drivers on their site because Apple releases them on their behalf as a part of the OS updates. Put in a better card and it'll just work.

And there is no slap in the face from Apple here with CPU switch. They have planned for this possibility since before OS-X was released. It's the most CPU agnostic OS I've dealt with. Apps compiled to work on the x86 work on G3/4/5's by default.

Heck with the nasty *nasty* vulnerabilites/viruses and s--t that keeps comming out for Windows, the nice thing with using a minority system like the Mac is it's just so darned safe. (Not especially through any features of the OS itself, I stress, more coz Windows and IE/Outlook (as such efficient portals to the OS) get all that lovin' hacker attention.)

Macs really are nice to use these days. Horsepower and price are nowhere near the issues they used to be. (This ol' 1GHz mini-mac works just great compared to the overspec'd PC next to it.) A machine that runs near-silent, will that goes to sleep in a 1/2 second, has a database near-instant searchable filesystem, where windowing is handled by the graphics-card, not the CPU, like it should be (and will in Vista), and where the fonts of *all* languages are beautifully anti-aliased (and it's multilingual out of the box too.) And quite apart from all that, as someone who has done software support for Windows and Macs for the last few years, the Macs just have far fewer avenues to f**king-up now (a huge generalization that I'm sure will open me up to much flaming.) ;)

[mister_slim]

It is nice to see Apple switched their benchmarks to show the new Macs compared to older G5's instead of their old benchmarks that made rediculous claims like "G5 is 3 x faster than the Pentium 4 3ghz". They would either resort to comparing the G5 to some 2 year old x86 processor OR use benchmarks that were optimized for the Vortech and weren't optimized for x86 or SSE2/SSE3.
I thought those benchmarks were mostly just focusing on the tasks the G5 was good at. If you're just looking at how well it crunches numbers for video or music (which is something many Mac power users care about) the G5 does pretty well.

[XenonCJ]

I've always felt Macs have always just been there for people who couldn't quite figure out how to use a PC. So they could then say to thier expert PC using friends, "I know something you don't know!"

I have to hand it to Apple's marketing team though, Macs are, and have consistently been, the most overrated computers on the planet.

[TKO]

I thought those benchmarks were mostly just focusing on the tasks the G5 was good at. If you're just looking at how well it crunches numbers for video or music (which is something many Mac power users care about) the G5 does pretty well.
Yeah, I'm suprised anyone would consider benchmarks seriously. They are usually just a merger of stats and spin. :) Even liking Macs as I do, I never saw similarly drastic (real-world) speed benefits.

I'm kinda sad to see Apple stop using the G5 coz its design was quite gorgeous: No old CISC baggage, and the Altivec implementation (compared to the i86 equivalents) was just beautiful. ..But it has been obvious for a while that IBM and Motorola (I forget the new name for their chip manufacturing group) aren't interested in playing the MHz game that Intel and AMD do. ..A slow CPU, no matter how beautiful its internal design, is still slow. And few people will ever care exactly what what their CPU is doing, just how fast it does it.

[AntB]

Apple should have went with AMD.

[TKO]

I have to hand it to Apple's marketing team though, Macs are, and have consistently been, the most overrated computers on the planet.
Hehe. That's priceless. ..So it that, like, the way Microsoft always touted Win95/98 as a stable (giggle), multitasking, user-friendly (snort) OS? (As opposed to a fragile, kludged, DOS-wrapper?) :D ..Or Win98 starting apps faster than 95 (sure, in the first week or two), or WinXP being faster and more stable than 9x? (faster is a stretch.. they mentioned boot-up a lot, never the ghastly slow shut-down. And it damn well *better* be more stable - less would be goddamn criminal. Anyone else here had to troubleshoot 9x dial-up problems for a living? Gaaaaah!) ;)

Honestly, you shock me with this revelation that marketing teams would dare bend the truth. I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! I'm got half a mind to call my local political representative! ..or maybe I'll just sleep. yeah. :)

[Schnoogs]

Hehe. That's priceless. ..So it that, like, the way Microsoft always touted Win95/98 as a stable (giggle), multitasking, user-friendly (snort) OS? (As opposed to a fragile, kludged, DOS-wrapper?) :D ..Or Win98 starting apps faster than 95 (sure, in the first week or two), or WinXP being faster and more stable than 9x? (faster is a stretch.. they mentioned boot-up a lot, never the ghastly slow shut-down. And it damn well *better* be more stable - less would be goddamn criminal. Anyone else here had to troubleshoot 9x dial-up problems for a living? Gaaaaah!) ;)

Honestly, you shock me with this revelation that marketing teams would dare bend the truth. I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! I'm got half a mind to call my local political representative! ..or maybe I'll just sleep. yeah. :)

I'll take Microsoft marketing anyday. At least they don't lie with the benchmarks. At least they don't try to take credit for technology they didn't pioneer or bring to the market first (Like their upsurd claim about 64 bit...ever heard of Opteron).

[Balthasar]

Everyone here pipes on about how the Mac OS is so much faster with production, rendering, etc, but I can't even switch between Photoshop and itunes, without waiting about 5 minutes.
I've always heard that where the PowerPC (And Athalon line) excel are performing single processes, whereas Intel chips are generally superior at multitasking. I can't say I know a whole lot about it though, but it would make sense then that gaming consoles would use PowerPC chips, considering how specialized they need it to be.

[Neosho]

I think it's the implicit dishonesty of the apple marketing that pisses most of us off. I wouldn't mind so much if they'd just admit that their product isn't always superiour...but then again, you even halfway mention that macs are bad at something and they blow a freaking gasket.

Edit: As i've said before, i'm not really anti mac, i just find their products to be overpriced, bloated, filled with useless shit (like slowmo minimizing windows), and a pain in the ass to mess with on any level. I'm not interested in buying a new, 200$$ OS every year, either. At least with windows i'm updating once every couple years. And with windows i can customise the install to only take exactly what i need. (using some installer mods)

[TKO]

I think it's the implicit dishonesty of the apple marketing that pisses most of us off. I wouldn't mind so much if they'd just admit that their product isn't always superiour...[SNIP]
hehe.. Oh, I would really love to see any of the big electronics companies comming up with remotely honest marketing these days. I'm not going to defend Apple on this point, coz they tell plenty of marketing lies, just .. like .. all .. the .. others. Go on, start on the WindowsXP Tour on your PC. It's just *dripping* with marketing BS, sans the numbers. (Or, read any Sony Press release, or an MS press-release on XBox360 backward compatibility ..sorry, can't think of a Nintendo example right now.)

Newsflash: All the big boys in the computer/console game are bastards. MS is still here through anticompetitive behaviour, Apple is here thru design. Sony through branding. ..all the honest companies got stomped into the dust a long time ago.

Edit: As i've said before, i'm not really anti mac, i just find their products to be overpriced, bloated, filled with useless shit (like slowmo minimizing windows), and a pain in the ass to mess with on any level. I'm not interested in buying a new, 200$$ OS every year, either. At least with windows i'm updating once every couple years. And with windows i can customise the install to only take exactly what i need. (using some installer mods)
Eh? Buying a new OS every year? Why? It does actually come free with the hardware (unlike windows, with all that activation crap.) No, microsoft don't make frivilous OS updates. We really needed that Windows Millennium we did. Incredibly fragmented and confusing product line for the consumer for the longest time. "Windows Millennium? 2000? ..wtf!" ... "I'm using Windows97", "No, you mean Office 97. What version of Windows?", "I don't know!" :D

You can't seriously mean that bit about installing only what you want in the OS? Have you been using Linux all this time and believing it was Windows? :) Oh, you mean you can install the lot, the disable the bit you don't want? (What about all that disk-space already used?) ...Last MacOS install I did I could choose what printer-drivers, languages, OS-languages to install, as well as options for x11 and sorry, I forget the rest. All from a nice MacGUI, when booted off CD. Minimum OS installation (though IMHO not practical): 857MB
No installer MOD required. (your desire to use one hardly being a glowing endorsement of Windows.)

Hehe, I can understand that you really don't like MacOS. But honestly, from what you say, it doesn't sound like you've used it much. More like you've walked into a showroom, tinkered around with it for 5 minutes (or 2?), scrunched up your nose in disgust and walked away. ...There's plenty of ways to tinker with MacOS too. But not being based on the aged WinNT it's difficult to remove stuff and make it look as basic (and ghastly-primitive) as a pared-down WinXP.

I'll just look at the hardware specs for that Apple laptop (http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/) and think how darned stonkingly fast its gonna run, well anything. Even those squishy minimizing windows. :D (I realise now, da whole minimizing thing ain't important: aside from the fact it can be configured: hiding the application entirely (command+h) and exposé mean I haven't minimized a window on a mac for ages.)

Note: I am using my Mac and PC right next to each other. It's just disappointing to realise, once I got used to both OS's, how I'm only using the much more powerful PC for some games, ripping music/movies, and HD-storage.

[Schnoogs]

MS is still here through anticompetitive behaviour.

No they're actually still here becuse they make an OS for a completely open platform that is cheap and easy to upgrade and they've focused heavily on gaming which has impacted the entire gaming world.

If you don't understand why people find Apple so dishonest read the following link...it's not just that Apple lies but its the manner in which they lie.

iProduct (http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/iProduct.gif)

[Neosho]

http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html

That's how i customize the windows installer. It actually remakes the boot cd for you, without the parts that you don't want.

When it comes to the OS, it seems like every year or so, apple is releasing a new OS, that's "Strongly recommended" to upgrade. Millenium edition was a Piece, and that's not really a suprise. Everyone i knew was on top of things enough to realize that, and either went to 2k or stayed with 98SE. Now that XP's out...it's all kinda a moot point, as i don't think i've had my computer crash in about 6 months. (Well, barring where i was messing with my core speeds and such, that'll make anything crash)

You're right about how long i've used it though...I spent about 30 minutes at work trying to get it to (re) install the printer drivers for the printer that it had been connected to for the last 3 months. For some reason, on that day it decided that those drivers had to go bye bye, and i couldn't figure out how to get them back. What would have been a 2 minute job on the PC sitting next to it turned in to me fucking around for 30 minutes and then finally just telling the user to call the mac support department. Also, for some reason when i connected our remote hard drive to a mac, it wouldn't let me touch any of the files on it....wtf?!?

Also, there's commands to hide everything like that in windows as well...windows key+d goes to your desktop, hiding everything, etc.

When it comes to your last note though...what are you using your Mac for? Word processing? It seems to me that you prefer the mac interface (which i've always hated, it's too attention grabbing, with the damn bouncy icons and shit). What work are you doing on the mac?

[Montolio]

To answer a question I saw on here.. upgrading a graphics-card in a Mac isn't such a tricky thing (provided you got a model where it's a sepereate card, of course.) NVidia and ATI don't release drivers on their site because Apple releases them on their behalf as a part of the OS updates. Put in a better card and it'll just work.

Thanks TKO.

I know my question may have seemed silly but I've touch a Mac like maybe twice in my life - way back when when a relative purchased the Apple IIc and to troubleshoot a G4 TCP/IP problem at work years back.

[Balthasar]

Note: I am using my Mac and PC right next to each other. It's just disappointing to realise, once I got used to both OS's, how I'm only using the much more powerful PC for some games, ripping music/movies, and HD-storage.
You might be better off doing the ripping of music and movies on the mac, if it's not too old.

[Neosho]

Why would you do that? If you've got the storage space on the PC...use that.

[TKO]

Thanks TKO.

I know my question may have seemed silly but I've touch a Mac like maybe twice in my life - way back when when a relative purchased the Apple IIc and to troubleshoot a G4 TCP/IP problem at work years back.
No problem. Actually, it's a valid question coz Macs are generally a complete unit, rather than a box you can swap bits out of. They also don't depreciate as quickly as PC's (especially the laptops ..they hold their resale value *real* well here), so often when ya wanna upgrade it's easier to do the whole Mac.

To Balthasar: I'll rip music on either machine (and only swap if a particular drive isn't handling some scratches well), but movies usually take a few hours of intensive CPU, so the PC gets that task coz I'm using it less. ..the disk it finally goes on doesn't matter as each machine has access to the others hard-drives.

The very good reason I'm sticking to the MacMini (http://www.apple.com/macmini/) these days (regardless for any like/dislike of the OS) is that it's a quick machine, not much bigger than a stack of 5 CD's, that runs damn near *silent*. ..Working on a machine with no dvd-drive/fan/hdd noise is bloody nice. When it only cost me $600US, well damn, when was the last time you saw an apple machine that didn't have your wallet hurting at the mere consideration of a purchase?

[TKO]

When it comes to the OS, it seems like every year or so, apple is releasing a new OS, that's "Strongly recommended" to upgrade. Millenium edition was a Piece, and that's not really a suprise. Everyone i knew was on top of things enough to realize that, and either went to 2k or stayed with 98SE. Now that XP's out...it's all kinda a moot point, as i don't think i've had my computer crash in about 6 months. (Well, barring where i was messing with my core speeds and such, that'll make anything crash)
You're right that MS are at a very good point now with XP .. it's a great (probably their best), mature, OS and shouldn't require much updating now (apart from vulnerabilities which, up until SP2, were scary with the damage they could do.)

OS-X *is* getting big updates too frequently. IMHO the operating system was still at a *beta* level at 10.0 and was released too early. But OS 9 was primitive: with no memory protection or pre-emptieve multitasking I kinda understand the pressure to release 10. It's main problem is that it's just not mature yet. Like Win95 (and Vista) it was a major re-write, and will take a while to settle. But that said, anyone with 10.2+ is in a good position, and purchasing any new big releases isn't necessary ..most recent improvements are IMHO fluff to the average user. (nice fluff, but hardly essential.)

Though XP is mature, there's lots of messy technological baggage holding it back: We're still living with 8.3 filenames even though they theoretically stopped being a problem in 1995. The FAT filesystem is horrible, and still the main format for most peripherals. Task priorities are primitive, and I'm often tweaking them manually when running lots of stuff. Foreign language (especially Asian) implementation is patchy. Also I'm often fighting the OS in silly ways.. can't delete a 700MB file because the *OS* hasn't finished checking it yet? (If I ask for it to be deleted surely it could stop parsing it. I use Directory Opus (http://www.gpsoft.com.au/) to avoid shit like that.) And those damn web-browser elements that keep creeping into the Windows Explorer.. (whoever decided the Web and OS should be one should be *shot* :) Certainly security wasn't a concern of theirs.)

MacOS isn't better than XP tho. They both have their good and bad points. All nitpicking about specific points aside, I just like my mac coz it's quicker for me to boot/sleep/wake/generally-use, and damn near silent. The beauty of that last point is hard to put into words.

You're right about how long i've used it though...I spent about 30 minutes at work trying to get it to (re) install the printer drivers for the printer that it had been connected to for the last 3 months. For some reason, on that day it decided that those drivers had to go bye bye, and i couldn't figure out how to get them back. What would have been a 2 minute job on the PC sitting next to it turned in to me fucking around for 30 minutes and then finally just telling the user to call the mac support department. Also, for some reason when i connected our remote hard drive to a mac, it wouldn't let me touch any of the files on it....wtf?!?
Yup. I could well imagine the remote hard-drive thing being weird. PC-format Pen-drives, CDs, Cameras, and Networked drives I've found to be brilliant. For hard-drives I've only found it good when using FAT32, which I hate. So I use an HFS+ format drive or stick with the network, personally.

Of course fixing problems depends on familiarity with the OS. I've had the same problems moving to MacOS as I did with XP (I'd hardly used NT/2k so my thinking was still very Win9x.) But using OS-X since the 10.0 beta, I've had a long time to get used to any quirks - foreign file-systems and network printing certainly being problems I remember in the past. And I did get genuine Apple training at 10.0, which helps a bit in understand their intentions (and dislike of hearing people say "OS ex" instead of "OS ten") ;)

Also, there's commands to hide everything like that in windows as well...windows key+d goes to your desktop, hiding everything, etc.
That's true. I was more thinking of hiding individual programs (kinda like minimizing does under Windows.) Command+H will hide an individual program, without each of its windows cluttering the dock. So I do that instead of minimizing. ..The whole minimize button, and it's annoying squishy minimize effect is IMHO just there to keep your average (but maybe not OS-X familiar) user happy with a standard way to get windows out of the way.

..Either that, or selecting program windows with exposé (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/expose/) (which you really have to try if you have access to a MacOS 10.3+ machine. ..sorry, the language used in the link is full of sales-bullshit-speak) It really is one of the most powerful things OS-X has tried to improve everyday use of a windowed environment. (If you don't believe that, consider that Microsoft is doing something similar in Vista.) And spotlight (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spotlight/), which becomes really powerful in a database-like filesystem where searches find the main hits near-instantly. ..Spotlight is so good I can happily live without a start-menu or dock now.

When it comes to your last note though...what are you using your Mac for? Word processing? It seems to me that you prefer the mac interface (which i've always hated, it's too attention grabbing, with the damn bouncy icons and shit). What work are you doing on the mac?
First I have to say: bouncing, minimizing, and even the dock (see The Register's bootnote here (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/27/a_fresher_linux_for_macs/) for my opinion on it), are the first effects I change (http://www.nwsphere.com/screenshot/hide_dock.html). :D Sure, Apple go over-the-top and over-designed generally. But it's easy to tone that down. The important thing is their OS is always giving useful feedback (minimizing shows exactly where the window has gone to, bouncing icons show you the program is starting, and most things slide/move/animate to a new state so the user doesn't get lost by something suddenly appearing/going.. hopefully.) :)

Note: One of my first questions at my 10.0 training was "can I turn off that minimizing effect?" The dude's response? "No, but you can do this:" He holds the shift key and clicks the minimize button, which makes it minimize in slow motion. *sigh* I think it was designed for the maximum dislike of tecchie people. :)

As for what I do with it? Well, this posting was massively delayed coz I was setting up a virtual Windows 98 (http://www.nwsphere.com/screenshot/win98shutdown.html) machine to play with DOS stuff. (I forgot how much I have to tweak 98 to get it 'nice') :D I use it for web-browsing (Firefox), IM (AdiumX (http://www.adiumx.com/).. like Trillian (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/) but prettier and more stable), e-mail (Thunderbird), Music (iTunes), Image Editing (Photoshop), Web Design (DreamweaverMX, but often just TextWrangler+FTP), Emulation (MAME, ScummVM, UAE, VICE, Basillisk, etc), a little bit of Gaming (that area where PC's still excel), Playing DVD's or DivX's (VLC (http://www.videolan.org/)), Writing discs (Toast), loading my MP3 player, and unloading my digital camera (Mac support for cameras is damn nice.) I should probably also give credit to the Dashboard (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/dashboard/) which became a really useful thing for me once I started playing (http://www.nwsphere.com/screenshot/mac_dashboard.html) around with it. I do use Office, but not often. Usually just when someone sends me some Word/Powerpoint thang to look at or work on. (ie: Like most people who've had to support it, I prefer to only use it now when I have to.) :)

At work, the Shell got a lot of use too (love Unix shells) :) ..and the MS Remote Desktop application to connect to Windows Terminal Servers. Also, the ability to plugin another Mac thru firewire and just use it as an external hard-drive, was invaluable. No matter how fubar'd and OS might be, files can always be got at. I would kill to have this feature on Windows boxes.

Okay, I've written far too much. Time to send, yeah? (If anyone is still around to read it) ;)

[mister_slim]

That's true. I was more thinking of hiding individual programs (kinda like minimizing does under Windows.) Command+H will hide an individual program, without each of its windows cluttering the dock. So I do that instead of minimizing. ..The whole minimize button, and it's annoying squishy minimize effect is IMHO just there to keep your average (but maybe not OS-X familiar) user happy with a standard way to get windows out of the way.

I'm so addicted to that. I use the stickies to keep lots of little notes and lists around, and it's hidden almost all the time. It's a ton of little windows, so there'd be no point in minimizing each one, but this way they're always right there.

[Neosho]

Yeah, me and a bunch of my techie friends were laughing our asses off at the slow mo minimize.

I think that's the most fun i've ever had with a mac, actually...slow mo minmize ftw. We were seriously laughing for like, 10 minutes.

[mister_slim]

Yeah, me and a bunch of my techie friends were laughing our asses off at the slow mo minimize.

I think that's the most fun i've ever had with a mac, actually...slow mo minmize ftw. We were seriously laughing for like, 10 minutes.
Some of the 3D stuff in Vista is even better.

[TKO]

Some of the 3D stuff in Vista is even better.
Hehe .. yeah, I'm real curious to see Microsoft's take on this. So long as they have a way for us to view it slo-mo, all should be sweet. :D

It was pretty funny aye Neosho. I get the feeling some coder spent so much time on the effect that he put in the slo-mo so people could really appreciate what it did ..or laugh their ass off. ;)

[mister_slim]

Hehe .. yeah, I'm real curious to see Microsoft's take on this. So long as they have a way for us to view it slo-mo, all should be sweet. :D

I like the one where it rotates a bunch of stacked windows so you can kind of see a little bit of each window. Basically, like Expose but with Fancy 3D!

[TKO]

I like the one where it rotates a bunch of stacked windows so you can kind of see a little bit of each window. Basically, like Expose but with Fancy 3D!
Hehe .. Well, you can hardly have Microsoft's new OS being out-fancied by Apple, eh? :) I'm seriously interested to try this out (well, eventually.. right now I'm just keeping up to speed on XP so I can support it well.)

My real hope is that they can do a decent quick-search-tool like Spotlight. Something so the Start-Button stops trying to be the lauch-point for so many things. (I mean, it works, but it always felt kinda klunky to me.) Decent equivalents of Exposé and Spotlight will have me sold on the next Microsoft OS-beast. ..If the consoles' increasing hold on the games segment still leaves me with a reason to get a PC, that is. :)

[jeffbax]

I remember once reading that John Carmack said that it was the Mac OS and not the hardware that was limiting game performance.

We'll see.
That is one part, since the OS handles OpenGL and not the driver directly and Windows is better at just focusing on one process while Mac is better with multiple, but Vista will likely have the same issue, but I think that hardware and the fact that games are written for x86 is a big issue.

[jeffbax]

Not being any more of a dick than i typically am, i don't think any mac users understand the difference between the 2. Barring the few mac users on here who have the an idea as to what's going on, most mac users are idiots.
While I'm sure there are a lot of idiots (as is any joe schmoe computer user), in my experience the PC users are often even dumber, at least when it comes to talking about Macs... usually to a great extent.

Mac users are usually familiar with Windows and PCs be it due to work or they didn't always use a Mac, while Windows users keep saying the same retarded arguements year after year when chances are it hasn't been true for a decade.

[jeffbax]

I like the one where it rotates a bunch of stacked windows so you can kind of see a little bit of each window. Basically, like Expose but with Fancy 3D!
More like, like Expose but retarded.

Stacking the windows is the dumbest thing I've ever seen, you still have to scrub through and squint to find what you want, just like the taskbar already is... probably even slower.

and Expose is already 3D accelerated, like the whole Mac OS.