161 replies to this topic

[track09]

Can I make a suggestion here?

Go outside and get some fresh air, everyone.  It's clear both of you have your minds set on what you like, and these debates mean 0 to anyone else really.  It's

[EFI]

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

That is exactly my point.  Because Apple decided to not license their DRM, this is the result.  How else can another mp3 player manufacturer get into the market that Apple has with its iTunes store if Apple won't license the drm.  It ensures that people won't be buying any other mp3 player out there if it won't play the songs they purchase on iTunes.  Apple has made other claims before that they retracted, just like Microsoft did with this.  Now if you are going to mention the drm free music Apple now sells, there is one flaw in that.  I don't want to pay a premium for individual songs to have it drm free.  Because now the record companies think they can charge you a premium to be able to have fair use in the music you buy.  The higher bitrate won't matter to ordinary consumers.  All they will see is a lower price and they'll buy the cheaper price, still be locked into the drm which keeps them from buying another mp3 player that isn't made by Apple.  I do like it how the price for full albums didn't change though.  And I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Actually, Apple's DRM enabled music costs the exact same as Microsoft's DRM enabled music. Here is where Microsoft gets sneaky. On the Zune Marketplace, Mirosoft charges users with a point based system to begin with...not a dollar based system like the iTMS. Each song is in the Zune Marketplace is worth 79 points. Now to the average consumer..they would think that this means 79 cents/song. However, this is how Microsoft's points/dollar conversion works:

  $5 = 400 points  
  $15 = 1200 points  
  $25 = 2000 points  
  $50 = 4000 points

Thus:

1 point = 1.25 cents
Therfore 79 points = 98.75 cents

So if the iTMS music store charges 99 cents/song, this means the Zune market place chargres 98.75 cents/song. Since you cant pay 98.75 cents...it has to be 99 cents, which is essentially the same as the iTMS. But thats not the full sneaky part. Because you have to purchase points at a bulk, you cannot use up your points completely, and you will be left with some, however that wont be enough to buy even a single song. For example 400 points divided by 79 points/song = 5.06. Since you cannot purchase 1.2% of a song, this means you will eventually have to keep coming back to the market place, and purchase more songs, and more songs, and more songs...essentially falling into this interest free loan you will be giving to Microsoft. Apple's iTMS on the other hand, charges your credit card for exactly 99 cents, not more, not less, so you can quit anytime you want, and you wont have any balance like the point system that the Zune Marketplace creates. Plus in order to purchase songs from the zune market place, you first have to purchase a gift card, as this is the only form of transaction. Pretty weird if you ask me. Atleast Apple offers DRM free music....Micrsoft doesnt even do that, and still wants more and more of your money.




  

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

Remember how many consumer electronics that are released where the first generation isn't all that great.  Yet after the 2nd generation they pick up the pace and end up being something consumers really want.  Remember this, Microsoft always gets it right by the 3rd version.  So just because the first one wasn't all that great, doesn't mean that additional generations of it won't suck.

Except there are 3 major problems with your argument there.

1. Windows 95 - Good
    Windows 98 - Great
    Windows 2000 - Poor
    Windows ME - Beyond crap
    Windows XP - Great
    Windows Vista - Ok

I dont see an improvement here.

Apple on the other hand, has been like this.

    OS 9 - Beyond crap
    OS X 10.0 - Crap
    OS X 10.1 - Poor
    OS X 10.2 - Ok
    OS X 10.3 - Good
    OS X 10.4 - Great

So this generation improvement statement only applies to Apple, not Microsoft, atleast when history is taken into account thus far.

2. While Microsoft is preparing the next generation of Zune...Its not like Apple isnt doing anything and just watching. They too are working quiet undercover on the next generation 6G iPod(s). So this parallel competition will continue into the future.

3. Constantly saying that Microsoft will improve, and improve in the future for every single argument is just worthless at most. The same can be said for any company out there, including Apple.


  

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

But that doesn't happen with everyone.  That's why there is sites like this out there.

Yes, thats true, it doesnt happen with everyone, however not many individuals will like to open up their iPod and user service it either, if you get what I mean. Many individuals if not most would want to get it done from a professional, an Apple Store so to speak.

  

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

And that to me isn't easy because the terminal is the command line, add it to the gui.  Where as if I want it to show up in Windows Vista, I just click the sidebar icon in the system tray.  If I want it back in the desktop only, just click anywhere.  All is needed is a mouse here.  No keyboard shortcut.

While I understand many would not like using the Terminal, there are softwares as well, that can do this for you using a simple GUI. One example from the top of my mind is a program called "Amnesty", which allows you to do this. There is another one I saw at Macupdate.com, which is a freeware, that allows you to just drag and drop your widgets to your desktop.


  

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

It didn't support that.  But it did give Apple an idea to build upon and Microsoft built upon that even more.

Umm,  Windows Vista's WDS didn't buid upon OS X's spotlight in any way whatsoever. Saying that is just completely false. Only now did Microsoft "catch up" so to speak, with a feature similar to that of Spotlight. There is no feature in Windows Desktop search as of January 31st 2007, that wasent already there in OS X Tiger's spotlight on April 29, 2005.

  

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

The integration of it doesn't matter much when it's the only app that you need for video editing.  And adobe apps do integrate nicely with each other.  And I'd rather have an app that was built to do one thing well instead of trying to be everything to everyone.

Adobe's applications only started integrating excellently as of the new CS2 suite. Before that, some applications integrated, and some didnt...it was half and half. According to your last sentence, what you are saying is that iDVD is trying to do everything, iMovie HD is trying to do everything, and iPhoto is trying to do everything. This is clearly not the case. iLife is not an app, if thats what you were thinking, its merely a package name thats all. iMovie needs iPhoto and iDVD, iPhoto needs iMovie and iDVD, and iDVD needs iPhoto and iMovie. Any one of these softwares on their own cannot accomplish as much as what they could if they worked together through integration. And no, they are not trying to be everything to everyone, this tone just shows ignorance on your part thats all. Any professional would know that using Final Cut HD, Logic Express, and DVD Studio Pro would be the professional choice. iLife is merely the average joe to enthusiast level softwares. If you want to go beyond that, there is another level of softwares avaliable from both Apple, as well as Adobe.


  

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

If you don't want to build your own, you can go to any small computer store and have them build it for you.  And still get a 1 year warranty with it.  And there are lots of those kind of stores around.  So I think it is quite a big percentage of the market.  Plus upgrading is far cheaper then buying a while new computer.

Yes you can go to a small store and have them  build it for you, but its not going to be free, which you failed to mention, and will increase the overall cost of your computer even more, which in a way beats the purpose now doesnt it?

  

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

There you go making that mistake again with OS X.  It is never a full version.  Because you get it with every mac, every version is considered an upgrade.  Plus with how often Apple charges for OS X and how often they release a new version, compared to how often Windows has a new version out, Windows is cheaper.  You can't get around that fact.

Because an individual gets OS X with a mac, its considered as an upgrade? That makes no sense whatsoever. The full installation disk of the operating system is included with your Mac...not an upgrade disk (which doesnt exist), but a FULL OS X disk. Full meaning if you were to wipe out your Mac, you dont install OS X 10.0, and then a 10.4 upgrade disk on top of that, in which case your argument would be true...but thats not the case now is it? Your argument is like saying Apple shipped OS X 10.0, and then gave the 10.1, 10.2, 10.3,  and 10.4  as upgrade CD's. Your argument/concept is flawed there. Each iteration of OS X, is its own complete DVD.

OS X does not need to wait 5 years between each version in order for it to be considered as a full version, according to your ideology. OS X 10.3 to 10.4 has just as much feature improvement as Microsoft's XP to Vista does. Security, yes, GUI, yes, extra applications, yes, cool new visual features, yes.

Now with Windows on the other hand, your argument works perfectly, because if you get Vista Home Premium...its considered as an upgrade...from Vista Home Basic. Yes, all of them come with full version DVD's...but there are still upgrade DVD's.

OS X is also cheaper than Windows, no matter how you look at it:

OS X 10.0 - $129.99USD
OS X 10.1 - Free Upgrade
OS X 10.2 - $129.99USD
OS X 10.3 - $129.99USD
OS X 10.4 - $129.99USD

OS X Total = $519.96

Windows XP Professional = $299USD
Windows Vista Ultimate = $399USD

Windows Total = $699.98

So as you can see, OS X still comes out cheaper than Windows, and this is not including the upgrade versions for Windows either, nor the server versions for OS X and Windows (which will increase windows price significantly), and the family pack (which again, will increase Windows' price greatly).


    

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

And for most home users, Windows Vista Home Premium will be just fine.  They don't need to edit file permissions, they don't need to have user based file sharing, they don't need to join a windows domain server, they don't need the file encryption bitlocker.  Hence they don't need those features that business and ultimate would provide.  Otherwise they have all the features that were shown.  Although their is the issue with the shadow file copying feature not showing up in Windows Vista Home Premium even though its working in the background.  So that needs answering I think.

Actually, they do need file encryption bitlocker. Why should the added security (which is one of Vista's main features, or so we are told) be compromised for money? This shows that Microsoft is willing to compromise customers security for more money....by removing an essential "new" feature and making it avaliable only on the highest and most expensive version of Windows. You also forgot to mention that Home Premium users do not get subsystem for unix based aapplications, SecureStartup, Single Session Virtual PC, and Multi Language User Interface.


    

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

See here as to more details for the answer.  Also, if I recall, Quartz Extreme feels more sluggish on a macbook compared to a macbook pro because the macbook has the onboard graphics compared to an actual video card that is on the macbook pro.  Yes that's the language I will use to describe it.  And most PC's that are sold in the last year or so has this 128 MB of video memory on them, so that's not an issue for most.

Quartz Extreme feels more sluggish on a Macbook compared to Macbook Pro? Thats like saying Aero Glass feels sluggish on a Dell Inspiron with integrated graphics compared to an Alienware Area-51, which could run it perfectly. Your pointing out the obvious twice....once with Macbook vs Macbook Pro....twice with Integrated graphics vs dedicated graphics card. Actually most PC's sold within the last year or so do not even come close to featuring 128MB video ram...especially the laptops. Go and checkout Dell's mainstream laptop line (the inspiron..and not the XPS), and you'll know what I mean. Or check out Acer's website, and their main stream products (the travelmate, and not the Ferrari). Growing statistics prove that Laptops (especially in the business stream) are slowly replacing desktops, which is even more serves the evidence that more and more PC's are underpowered for Vista. This will change in the future, and one day, pretty much every desktop or laptop will have a dedicated graphics card with minimum 128MB, however this day is far from being close.



    

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

And I recall that OS X needed this hardware accelerated gui because of how slow it was without it.  It was getting a lot of heat before it had it.  Windows on the other hand didn't enable such fancy graphical effects if it made the gui slow and unresponsive.  And for the ones that it did enable, you could turn them off.  Apple insisted on enabling those and not even giving you a way to turn it off.  All because they had to have the eye candy.  It was nothing more then that.  Not even linux with kde or gnome didn't enable fancy animations if it wasn't gpu assisted.

Actually, the "OS X needed hardware accelerated GUI because it was slow without it" argument only stands up to OS X 10.1 Puma, which has been discontinued for pretty much almost 5 years (Aug 24, 2002) now, so your argument is ridiculously obsolete. Every iteration of OS X after that, was hardware accelerated, and its speed was increased in every version to a noticible amount, due to better and better support. Windows on the other hand, during the same generation, had a fisherprice style GUI, and did not feature hardware acceleration, until 2007, with Vista, some 5 and a half years later. And you (who I assume is using and so rightfully defending Windows Vista) is talking about eyecandy out of all the people? This is almost too comedical to even make a serious argument. Its obvious your just trying to irritate me by spurting out useless, and downright incorrect statements, but hey, Im keeping my cool, I'm not the one who looks like a fool by saying OS X concentrates on simply eyecandy, and Vista does not.



      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

And there was one more thing I forgot to mention.  When quartz extreme first came out, the amount of memory on graphics cards was 32 MB.  So that is why it was set to that.  See here.  So just like Aero Glass, the amount of graphics card memory it needs was set for the amount that was available and considered average for the day, which today is 128 MB.

Only thing being that Quartz extreme pushes out superior animations (Genie effect, QuickSilver activate, iChat AV live webcam reflections, Scale Effect - which is the exact same fade back effect Vista uses for window minimizing, double-clicking, and maximizing, only that OS X had that some 2 years ago) than Aero, on 1/4th the memory  even on modern modern applications running on older Macs.

      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

And that is the entire point of buying that keyboard for the app launching and multimedia buttons.  Otherwise there would be no point in buying it.  So my original point still stands.

Well, this might be a personl thing, but I myself have never used those buttons, on my Logitech keyboard for my gaming PC. All I use are the volume/forward/and backward media control buttons...and occasionally the sleep button.



      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

You are right, mp3 is the most open format.  Technically though wav is because it is uncompressed and easily editable.  But avi is also editable when it's uncompressed.  Same thing with mp4 as I said before since the specs of it are published.

Actually wav and avi are not an open format, becuase for one they are proprietory to Microsoft, and two, by default you cant edit it on Macs. You would need a 3rd party software to do that. However, with MP3, you can.

      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

And thank you for the link.  Yes I didn't like what Microsoft did their then either.

No problem, glad you enjoyed the read.

      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

Eventually though Windows will force you to put in the admin password whether you are logged in as the admin or not, which is how it works right now when you are logged in as a regular user.  But it's easy enough for me to create a regular user account.  But because of the huge userbase, they have to move slower with this.  But I think it's a good first step.

"Eventually", and "good first step", are not enough to stay in the competition, especially with Apple. I'm not saying Apple never did this...they did, with OS X 10.0, and 1.1, but then later quickly started filling in the gaps and they were on their way, within a matter of 2 years. Microsoft had 5 years to perfect this single feature...and they didnt. I dont think that deserves an excuse no matter what.



      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

Tell that to the makers of tivo.  They make the better pvr, but most people will settle for the cheaper one with the similiar features.

Thats one exception where I have to agree.



      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

And you were only able to show me 3 examples their.  So it's not as big a problem as you claim it is to be.  And since it happens to any OS out there, it's not a good enough reason to say OS X is better because of the smaller amount of hardware for it.  To me it's a disadvantage and nothing that is beneficial.  Prices are higher too with fewer competititors always.

Considering you asked me to show only (because you were that confident) one , and I showed two, saying that I was "only able to show" you 2 examples sounds foolish and embarassing on your part, dont you think? Whatever the number, I made it clear that it is a bigger problem than you imagined it to be now isnt it? My point proven.


      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

And alot of apple users still think of Windows as being Windows ME or 98.  So it goes both ways.

Actually, thats not true considering that:

1. Apple's Mac market share is increasing faster than any other PC manufactuer out there...so this means that more people are relating to Windows XP, rather than Windows ME or 98, because its 2007.
2. Only a portion of Mac users have used macs since well...foreever, in order to think that Windows is like Windows ME
3. I come from using Windows 95, 98, ME, XP, and yes, Vista, both Beta 2, Pre-RC1, and RTM
4. Considering that OS X can take on both XP (way to easy), and Vista, I think most Mac users relate to XP, becuase thats what almost all versions have been solely competing against.


      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

But does it have realtime updated thumbnail previews of each window/application you have open?  It does, but it doesn't help with the way they implemented it space wise.  In Windows Vista you can move your mouse pointer over each item in the taskbar and get a preview thumbnail for it where as in OS X it shows that as the icon itself which takes much more screen real estate so you can only have so many applications open.  Hence why I still prefer windows.

Look again, the images I linked clearly show that those are infact realtime thumbnail preview of each window/application I have open. Actually, the dock gets smaller and smaller as more windows are minimized, assuming the dock is taking up your full horizontal resolution of your screen. This might sound bad, but it is infact better than Vista's, because in Vista when when you start getting grouped tabs for similar open applications...you cannot preview them anymore, I wonder why you failed to mention its shortcomings there. Only when your applications are separe on the taskbar, you can get a live preview.


      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

Their is also the start button which gives me access to the entire list of applications installed along with preferences etc without having to hunt down through multiple folders.  It also groups applications windows together so that their is more room on the taskbar at the bottom, which I appreciate because it makes it easier to find stuff.  And every application that is installed is added to the programs list automatically for the start menu.  With OS X you gotta keep adding them manually to the applications list that it maintains and then delete the shortcut/alias when you uninstall it.  Windows automates this all for me.

Launching applications in OS X is almost laughalbly quicker than doing the same in windows....because all your selected apps that you put on your dock are already there. You dont even have to open a window, just click the app, and your set. OS X's uninstall process is also light years ahead of Windows's. All you do is drag the application icon (from your application folder) to the trash, and empty the trash...and thats it. Because most applications in OS X are contained in a single package, there is no mess of files scattered. Your app is uninstalled. Now Ill be honest, this works with 80% of OS X's software out there, however there are some that leave .plst files or other config files in the system. Now this is only 20% of the softwares out there....compared to 95% of Windows software, which still leave either some folders around, or dll's/registry keys still hanging about. This is even more so a nightmare, when your dll becomes shared with another application, from the other's software's location. Some softwares for OS X also come with uninstallers too, but in general, Windows does automate for you...but its not a clean uninstall 95% of the time.


      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

And if I wanted a better file manager, I could get one.  Like this one.  But I can do everything their with the windows file manager right now.  Plus some other applications installed like winrar to archive files/folders.  And the expose feature that is in OS X is also available in Windows Vista through the app myexpose.  I've seen it work and it works great.

OS X has a bult in archiving option for zip files too. WinRar is avaliable also for OS X, and there are other softwares such as Stuffit (both OS X and Windows versions), that do a lot more. You wonder why windows users want to copy OS X's Expose feature into Vista. Could it perhaps be becuase they dont like Flip3D, and want something thats eyecandy..and actually productive. Pretty fun still, considering Vista is only out for 4 months.

      

pyrates, on May 6 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

If you remember earlier on, Windows Vista had all these great animations when it was in the alpha stages, but it was found out it wouldn't increase productivity at all.  So that's why it doesn't have as much today.  But as you can probably see, their is api's exposed to do those animations that you want it to do.  Just give third party software makers time.

1. It doesnt increase productivity now either, especially Aero Glass. Its strictly eyecandy, nothing more, nothing less.
2. Time is not whats is going to sell you at the moment. If every company said..."give us time, some other company will come along and make use of our API's better than we did", it will just sound bad, and this goes for Apple also, so I'm not picking on Microsoft on this one.

[pyrates]

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Actually, Apple's DRM enabled music costs the exact same as Microsoft's DRM enabled music. Here is where Microsoft gets sneaky. On the Zune Marketplace, Mirosoft charges users with a point based system to begin with...not a dollar based system like the iTMS. Each song is in the Zune Marketplace is worth 79 points. Now to the average consumer..they would think that this means 79 cents/song. However, this is how Microsoft's points/dollar conversion works:

  $5 = 400 points  
  $15 = 1200 points  
  $25 = 2000 points  
  $50 = 4000 points

Thus:

1 point = 1.25 cents
Therfore 79 points = 98.75 cents

So if the iTMS music store charges 99 cents/song, this means the Zune market place chargres 98.75 cents/song. Since you cant pay 98.75 cents...it has to be 99 cents, which is essentially the same as the iTMS. But thats not the full sneaky part. Because you have to purchase points at a bulk, you cannot use up your points completely, and you will be left with some, however that wont be enough to buy even a single song. For example 400 points divided by 79 points/song = 5.06. Since you cannot purchase 1.2% of a song, this means you will eventually have to keep coming back to the market place, and purchase more songs, and more songs, and more songs...essentially falling into this interest free loan you will be giving to Microsoft. Apple's iTMS on the other hand, charges your credit card for exactly 99 cents, not more, not less, so you can quit anytime you want, and you wont have any balance like the point system that the Zune Marketplace creates. Plus in order to purchase songs from the zune market place, you first have to purchase a gift card, as this is the only form of transaction. Pretty weird if you ask me. Atleast Apple offers DRM free music....Micrsoft doesnt even do that, and still wants more and more of your money.

I never liked the points systems.  But the only reason Microsoft created the zune store was to see if the Apple model worked.  But now that DRM is going down hill for online music, I'm glad it's gone.  I'm still faulting Apple, they had a monopoly on online music sales, Microsoft doesn't with the Zune drm or the plays4sure drm.  That's what is different with iTunes.  But I want the 99 cent songs on iTunes to be DRM free, make the $1.29 songs cost more only because they are higher quality, not because they are DRM free.  Because once you buy the 99 cent song, it's trivial to remove the drm.  So make it DRM free in the first place, agree?
  

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Except there are 3 major problems with your argument there.

1. Windows 95 - Good
    Windows 98 - Great
    Windows 2000 - Poor
    Windows ME - Beyond crap
    Windows XP - Great
    Windows Vista - Ok

I dont see an improvement here.

Apple on the other hand, has been like this.

    OS 9 - Beyond crap
    OS X 10.0 - Crap
    OS X 10.1 - Poor
    OS X 10.2 - Ok
    OS X 10.3 - Good
    OS X 10.4 - Great

So this generation improvement statement only applies to Apple, not Microsoft, atleast when history is taken into account thus far.

2. While Microsoft is preparing the next generation of Zune...Its not like Apple isnt doing anything and just watching. They too are working quiet undercover on the next generation 6G iPod(s). So this parallel competition will continue into the future.

3. Constantly saying that Microsoft will improve, and improve in the future for every single argument is just worthless at most. The same can be said for any company out there, including Apple.

One flaw with ur argument their.  The kernel in use for Windows 9x/me editions was by definition impossible to be completely stable since it lacked memory protection and what not.  Where as Windows 2000 was actually considered to be Microsoft's best version of Windows.  What exact reason would you call it poor for?  And Windows ME was Microsoft's attempt at integrating features in Windows 2000 into the Windows 9x kernel.  Just because they have the same name, doesn't mean they are all the same underneath.

That's what I like about competition, because it breeds improved products for us consumers.  What I would like to see is Apple release their to be a standard API for online music stores that is vender neutral so that any mp3 player out there can work with it just as easily as iTunes and the ipod does.  Sure it may break Apple's monopoly, but it will happen one day.

Yes Microsoft does constantly improve as any other company out there.  Some we like, other's we don't.  Besides, didn't it just post its biggest profit margins for the 1st quarter?  So it must be doing something right.

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Yes, thats true, it doesnt happen with everyone, however not many individuals will like to open up their iPod and user service it either, if you get what I mean. Many individuals if not most would want to get it done from a professional, an Apple Store so to speak.

The car companies say the same thing for not revealing the computer diagnostic codes when working on the car engines.  When in fact, they only charge you more compared to other mechanics who give the same level of service.  If those mechanics can't be told the codes, then they can't compete.  And if you recall, Apple customer service telling ipod customers that they should buy a new ipod rather then get the battery replaced.  Only after the bad publicity, did Apple start replacing ipod batteries at customers requests.
  

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

While I understand many would not like using the Terminal, there are softwares as well, that can do this for you using a simple GUI. One example from the top of my mind is a program called "Amnesty", which allows you to do this. There is another one I saw at Macupdate.com, which is a freeware, that allows you to just drag and drop your widgets to your desktop.

Very good then.
  

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Umm,  Windows Vista's WDS didn't buid upon OS X's spotlight in any way whatsoever. Saying that is just completely false. Only now did Microsoft "catch up" so to speak, with a feature similar to that of Spotlight. There is no feature in Windows Desktop search as of January 31st 2007, that wasent already there in OS X Tiger's spotlight on April 29, 2005.

Well then, I was wrong.  But what I wasn't wrong was that Apple got the idea originally from Microsoft.  And then Microsoft used Apple's implementation and added additional searching functions.  Their is no advanced option for Spotlight, where as in Instant Search their is.
  

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Adobe's applications only started integrating excellently as of the new CS2 suite. Before that, some applications integrated, and some didnt...it was half and half. According to your last sentence, what you are saying is that iDVD is trying to do everything, iMovie HD is trying to do everything, and iPhoto is trying to do everything. This is clearly not the case. iLife is not an app, if thats what you were thinking, its merely a package name thats all. iMovie needs iPhoto and iDVD, iPhoto needs iMovie and iDVD, and iDVD needs iPhoto and iMovie. Any one of these softwares on their own cannot accomplish as much as what they could if they worked together through integration. And no, they are not trying to be everything to everyone, this tone just shows ignorance on your part thats all. Any professional would know that using Final Cut HD, Logic Express, and DVD Studio Pro would be the professional choice. iLife is merely the average joe to enthusiast level softwares. If you want to go beyond that, there is another level of softwares avaliable from both Apple, as well as Adobe.

You are correct, but their is options on the PC side to do exactly what Apple has provided.  At least it is good enough for me.  I can install iTunes, replace iphoto with picasso, iWeb isn't suitable to me would rather code my own website using a server that has lamp on it, no need for garageband since I don't do pocasts, as I said I can use adobe elements to do the movie editing, use virtualdub to do video cuts with avi, or even avisynth which I consider to be much more powerful, it can also handle 1080i and 1080p sources using many free tools that are only available for Windows, and of course Nero for dvd burning.  So I got everything here that I need.
  

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Yes you can go to a small store and have them  build it for you, but its not going to be free, which you failed to mention, and will increase the overall cost of your computer even more, which in a way beats the purpose now doesnt it?

Actually because you are buying all the parts at once, you can get a discount plus the 1 year warranty if they build it for you.  That's been my experience at least.
  

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Because an individual gets OS X with a mac, its considered as an upgrade? That makes no sense whatsoever. The full installation disk of the operating system is included with your Mac...not an upgrade disk (which doesnt exist), but a FULL OS X disk. Full meaning if you were to wipe out your Mac, you dont install OS X 10.0, and then a 10.4 upgrade disk on top of that, in which case your argument would be true...but thats not the case now is it? Your argument is like saying Apple shipped OS X 10.0, and then gave the 10.1, 10.2, 10.3,  and 10.4  as upgrade CD's. Your argument/concept is flawed there. Each iteration of OS X, is its own complete DVD.

It makes perfect sense.  Again you must insist in comparing the full price of Windows, when no one who has an earlier version of windows on their computer, needs to buy the full version.  They will buy the upgrade version.

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

OS X does not need to wait 5 years between each version in order for it to be considered as a full version, according to your ideology. OS X 10.3 to 10.4 has just as much feature improvement as Microsoft's XP to Vista does. Security, yes, GUI, yes, extra applications, yes, cool new visual features, yes.

They are all upgrade versions because it assumes the mac you are installing it on has a copy of OS X on it already.  Just like every OEM PC that is sold out their.  The only reason for buying a full retail copy of Windows, or the OEM copy is because you are building your own PC which never came with Windows on it.  Every Mac comes with OS X.

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Now with Windows on the other hand, your argument works perfectly, because if you get Vista Home Premium...its considered as an upgrade...from Vista Home Basic. Yes, all of them come with full version DVD's...but there are still upgrade DVD's.

For that you'd use the anytime upgrade.  There is no need to buy an upgrade version of Windows Vista anymore from the stores.  The upgrade version in the stores is mainly for people who are running Windows XP.

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

OS X is also cheaper than Windows, no matter how you look at it:

OS X 10.0 - $129.99USD
OS X 10.1 - Free Upgrade
OS X 10.2 - $129.99USD
OS X 10.3 - $129.99USD
OS X 10.4 - $129.99USD

OS X Total = $519.96

Windows XP Professional = $299USD
Windows Vista Ultimate = $399USD

Windows Total = $699.98

So as you can see, OS X still comes out cheaper than Windows, and this is not including the upgrade versions for Windows either, nor the server versions for OS X and Windows (which will increase windows price significantly), and the family pack (which again, will increase Windows' price greatly).

Correction.  The $129.99 is an upgrade price, stop confusing this.  And the $299 is for a full version.  Same thing with the $399 price.  Originally the upgrade price was $199 for Windows XP Professional, and $259 for Windows Vista Ultimate.  And that grand total comes to $458.  So therefore it is cheaper either way you look at it.  What you just did their, you need to correct.  Why would anyone buy a full version of Windows if they already have one at home on their PC?  They wouldn't.  And your calculations their need to reflect that.

And if you're going to count OS X 10.0 as coming with the mac at the time, then you must also count Windows XP as coming with the PC as well.  So even then, Windows is still cheaper.
    

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Actually, they do need file encryption bitlocker. Why should the added security (which is one of Vista's main features, or so we are told) be compromised for money? This shows that Microsoft is willing to compromise customers security for more money....by removing an essential "new" feature and making it avaliable only on the highest and most expensive version of Windows. You also forgot to mention that Home Premium users do not get subsystem for unix based aapplications, SecureStartup, Single Session Virtual PC, and Multi Language User Interface.

Studies showed that consumers didn't want or need file encryption.  Besides, their is a better solution out their called TrueCrypt.

Same thing with the unix utilities.  If they want that, they can download Kubuntu for that.  It's free.  And again, these features consumers didn't want.  Only the consumers who want it can get it.  But if they don't want it, they don't have to pay for it.
    

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Quartz Extreme feels more sluggish on a Macbook compared to Macbook Pro? Thats like saying Aero Glass feels sluggish on a Dell Inspiron with integrated graphics compared to an Alienware Area-51, which could run it perfectly. Your pointing out the obvious twice....once with Macbook vs Macbook Pro....twice with Integrated graphics vs dedicated graphics card. Actually most PC's sold within the last year or so do not even come close to featuring 128MB video ram...especially the laptops. Go and checkout Dell's mainstream laptop line (the inspiron..and not the XPS), and you'll know what I mean. Or check out Acer's website, and their main stream products (the travelmate, and not the Ferrari). Growing statistics prove that Laptops (especially in the business stream) are slowly replacing desktops, which is even more serves the evidence that more and more PC's are underpowered for Vista. This will change in the future, and one day, pretty much every desktop or laptop will have a dedicated graphics card with minimum 128MB, however this day is far from being close.

I know people who bought inspiron laptops and Vista runs fine on them with the full aero glass interface enabled.  If Apple wasn't the only maker of mac's, I bet you their would be alot of Mac's at first that couldn't run Quartz Extreme.  So just like at the beginning when Quartz Extreme first came out, eventually all PC's will meet this demand.  I don't see the big deal here.  Microsoft is thinking ahead for the future here, not the past.

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Actually, the "OS X needed hardware accelerated GUI because it was slow without it" argument only stands up to OS X 10.1 Puma, which has been discontinued for pretty much almost 5 years (Aug 24, 2002) now, so your argument is ridiculously obsolete. Every iteration of OS X after that, was hardware accelerated, and its speed was increased in every version to a noticible amount, due to better and better support. Windows on the other hand, during the same generation, had a fisherprice style GUI, and did not feature hardware acceleration, until 2007, with Vista, some 5 and a half years later. And you (who I assume is using and so rightfully defending Windows Vista) is talking about eyecandy out of all the people? This is almost too comedical to even make a serious argument. Its obvious your just trying to irritate me by spurting out useless, and downright incorrect statements, but hey, Im keeping my cool, I'm not the one who looks like a fool by saying OS X concentrates on simply eyecandy, and Vista does not.

It's still a valid point.  People were complaining on how slow OS X was and how much better it became once it got quartz extreme added to it.  All the points were valid, u can't ignore them now.  And sure Apple came out with it first, but rarely does a company that came out with a first of a kind product ever own that market.  Microsoft caught up.  Deal with it.
      

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Only thing being that Quartz extreme pushes out superior animations (Genie effect, QuickSilver activate, iChat AV live webcam reflections, Scale Effect - which is the exact same fade back effect Vista uses for window minimizing, double-clicking, and maximizing, only that OS X had that some 2 years ago) than Aero, on 1/4th the memory  even on modern modern applications running on older Macs.

It's enough to show the gui is hardware accelerated without effecting the productivity level.  And to me, I'd get annoyed having to wait until that Windows minimizes itself like that everyone.  Is there a way for me to turn it off?  Nope.  Apple don't let me do that.  And again, the 128 MB is the average video card now a days.  Hence why they shot for that goal.  It may seem like a lot to you, it's not to me.  Here's more details on Aero Glass.
      

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Well, this might be a personl thing, but I myself have never used those buttons, on my Logitech keyboard for my gaming PC. All I use are the volume/forward/and backward media control buttons...and occasionally the sleep button.

Then why did you even buy it?  I buy it because of the extra features it provides.  If I didn't use them, it be a waste of money to me.
      

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Actually wav and avi are not an open format, becuase for one they are proprietory to Microsoft, and two, by default you cant edit it on Macs. You would need a 3rd party software to do that. However, with MP3, you can.

They can be read by applications in windows and in applications in linux.  So they are a standard in the sense of the word.
      

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

"Eventually", and "good first step", are not enough to stay in the competition, especially with Apple. I'm not saying Apple never did this...they did, with OS X 10.0, and 1.1, but then later quickly started filling in the gaps and they were on their way, within a matter of 2 years. Microsoft had 5 years to perfect this single feature...and they didnt. I dont think that deserves an excuse no matter what.

They got here and it doesn't matter how long it takes really.  But Apple enjoy's its niche.  Just like Microsoft enjoys its monopoly.
      

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Considering you asked me to show only (because you were that confident) one , and I showed two, saying that I was "only able to show" you 2 examples sounds foolish and embarassing on your part, dont you think? Whatever the number, I made it clear that it is a bigger problem than you imagined it to be now isnt it? My point proven.

I don't consider it embarrassing at all.  But thank you for pointing that out.  It still doesn't convince me that we'd be better off with the small amount of hardware for Mac's compared to the vast amount of hardware available for PC's.
      

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Actually, thats not true considering that:

1. Apple's Mac market share is increasing faster than any other PC manufactuer out there...so this means that more people are relating to Windows XP, rather than Windows ME or 98, because its 2007.
2. Only a portion of Mac users have used macs since well...foreever, in order to think that Windows is like Windows ME
3. I come from using Windows 95, 98, ME, XP, and yes, Vista, both Beta 2, Pre-RC1, and RTM
4. Considering that OS X can take on both XP (way to easy), and Vista, I think most Mac users relate to XP, becuase thats what almost all versions have been solely competing against.

You can play with numbers all you want.  How about the PC market share in terms of percentage over all?  You'll still see Apple is still at less then 7% of the market place.  Where as a PC manufacturer could have 18%.

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Look again, the images I linked clearly show that those are infact realtime thumbnail preview of each window/application I have open. Actually, the dock gets smaller and smaller as more windows are minimized, assuming the dock is taking up your full horizontal resolution of your screen. This might sound bad, but it is infact better than Vista's, because in Vista when when you start getting grouped tabs for similar open applications...you cannot preview them anymore, I wonder why you failed to mention its shortcomings there. Only when your applications are separe on the taskbar, you can get a live preview.

You are correct.  But no matter how many applications I have open, I can mouse over the minimized area for them on the taskbar and get a realtime thumbnail update of them.  When according to you in OS X, the thumbnail image just keeps getting smaller and smaller.
      

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Launching applications in OS X is almost laughalbly quicker than doing the same in windows....because all your selected apps that you put on your dock are already there. You dont even have to open a window, just click the app, and your set. OS X's uninstall process is also light years ahead of Windows's. All you do is drag the application icon (from your application folder) to the trash, and empty the trash...and thats it. Because most applications in OS X are contained in a single package, there is no mess of files scattered. Your app is uninstalled. Now Ill be honest, this works with 80% of OS X's software out there, however there are some that leave .plst files or other config files in the system. Now this is only 20% of the softwares out there....compared to 95% of Windows software, which still leave either some folders around, or dll's/registry keys still hanging about. This is even more so a nightmare, when your dll becomes shared with another application, from the other's software's location. Some softwares for OS X also come with uninstallers too, but in general, Windows does automate for you...but its not a clean uninstall 95% of the time.

Sure if you have a small amount of apps.  If you have a larger amount, Windows expands quite well to handle them.  Just adds them to programs menu list.  All automatically when you install them and when you uninstall them, it takes them out.  I find that much easier.  And when you install iTunes, is it just drag and drop?  Nope.  It has an installer too.  This is on OS X by the way.
      

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

OS X has a bult in archiving option for zip files too. WinRar is avaliable also for OS X, and there are other softwares such as Stuffit (both OS X and Windows versions), that do a lot more. You wonder why windows users want to copy OS X's Expose feature into Vista. Could it perhaps be becuase they dont like Flip3D, and want something thats eyecandy..and actually productive. Pretty fun still, considering Vista is only out for 4 months.

Some like flip3d, some like expose.  But they have the choice in Windows at least.
      

EFI, on May 6 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

1. It doesnt increase productivity now either, especially Aero Glass. Its strictly eyecandy, nothing more, nothing less.
2. Time is not whats is going to sell you at the moment. If every company said..."give us time, some other company will come along and make use of our API's better than we did", it will just sound bad, and this goes for Apple also, so I'm not picking on Microsoft on this one.

Aero Glass enables vector scaling graphics.  I don't think Quartz Extreme has that yet.  So that no matter how high a resolution your display is, it will look the same size.  See here for more info.

And because Microsoft has such a large cash reserve, they can afford to take their time and do it right.

[EFI]

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

I never liked the points systems.  But the only reason Microsoft created the zune store was to see if the Apple model worked.  But now that DRM is going down hill for online music, I'm glad it's gone.  I'm still faulting Apple, they had a monopoly on online music sales, Microsoft doesn't with the Zune drm or the plays4sure drm.  That's what is different with iTunes.  But I want the 99 cent songs on iTunes to be DRM free, make the $1.29 songs cost more only because they are higher quality, not because they are DRM free.  Because once you buy the 99 cent song, it's trivial to remove the drm.  So make it DRM free in the first place, agree?

Well, Microsoft still has a drm on the Zune as well, and they ditched the playsforsure drm altogether unexpextedly. The reason why iTunes drm currently feels stronger is because of the market share of the ipod. If you wanted to remove the DRM from any song purchased from the itunes music store, just burn the song onto a CD-RW, and then rip it back into itunes. Simple as that, the drm is now removed. Ofcourse I still  keep the songs with drm, but there are ways to circumvent this protection system.
  

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

One flaw with ur argument their.  The kernel in use for Windows 9x/me editions was by definition impossible to be completely stable since it lacked memory protection and what not.  Where as Windows 2000 was actually considered to be Microsoft's best version of Windows.  What exact reason would you call it poor for?  And Windows ME was Microsoft's attempt at integrating features in Windows 2000 into the Windows 9x kernel.  Just because they have the same name, doesn't mean they are all the same underneath.

The reason I called it poor was from many experiences that not only I had, but also in grade school when we used to use Win2K. It was bsod prone. Maybe there was something wrong, but that was just from my experience.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

That's what I like about competition, because it breeds improved products for us consumers.  What I would like to see is Apple release their to be a standard API for online music stores that is vender neutral so that any mp3 player out there can work with it just as easily as iTunes and the ipod does.  Sure it may break Apple's monopoly, but it will happen one day.

Microsoft is following the exact same proprietory model that Apple did with the iPod now arent they? You cannot use songs purchased on the Zune marketplace with any other music player out there, so in reality Microsoft is also attempting to follow in the same stronghold as Apple is. Now the playsforsure devices are another story, and those are intercompatible, but as I mentioned earlier, Microsoft alread removed focus from those devices, and the entire playsforsure partners.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

Yes Microsoft does constantly improve as any other company out there.  Some we like, other's we don't.  Besides, didn't it just post its biggest profit margins for the 1st quarter?  So it must be doing something right.

It did post its profit marigin for the 1st quarter, however these numbers are far from the truth. The first quarter revenue was primarily concentrated on sales of Vista, and Microsoft posted that they had sold 20 million within the first two month or so. However, what they failed to include in this calculation was how much was made in just the retail sales, and how much was made in just the OEM sales. This "biggest profit margin" was the result of the inclusion of the OEM sales as sell, and does not yield a proper and true judging of Vista's sales.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

And if you recall, Apple customer service telling ipod customers that they should buy a new ipod rather then get the battery replaced.  Only after the bad publicity, did Apple start replacing ipod batteries at customers requests.

Yes, that is correct, and was wrong in the part of Apple. I agree.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

Well then, I was wrong.  But what I wasn't wrong was that Apple got the idea originally from Microsoft.  And then Microsoft used Apple's implementation and added additional searching functions.  Their is no advanced option for Spotlight, where as in Instant Search their is.

There is no function in windows desktop search that is not already there in Spotlight. This "advanced" option that you are asking for in spotlight, is avaliable from the system preferences menu > spotlight, where you can tell spotlight what items/folders to search, and then configure its privacy settings on things it should ignore. Can you name one feature of WDS that's not in spotlight already?
  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

You are correct, but their is options on the PC side to do exactly what Apple has provided.  At least it is good enough for me.  I can install iTunes, replace iphoto with picasso, iWeb isn't suitable to me would rather code my own website using a server that has lamp on it, no need for garageband since I don't do pocasts, as I said I can use adobe elements to do the movie editing, use virtualdub to do video cuts with avi, or even avisynth which I consider to be much more powerful, it can also handle 1080i and 1080p sources using many free tools that are only available for Windows, and of course Nero for dvd burning.  So I got everything here that I need.

Garageband is not only for podcasts, you can use it for general audio mixing/editing as well. Here is what I dont get...you point out things that are windows only (like tools for avisynth), yet to dont like the fact that iMovie, iPhoto, and iDVD are only for OS X. Whats wrong here? Each operating system has some softwares that are designed specifically for that particular OS. iMovie HD, can handle 1080i, and 1080p outputs as well, just to let you know. The only software that I would agree with you on would be Nero, which I miss. Roxio Toast, as mentioned before, is crap compared to Nero 7.
  

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

Actually because you are buying all the parts at once, you can get a discount plus the 1 year warranty if they build it for you.  That's been my experience at least.

But how much does it cost for them to build it for you?
  

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

It makes perfect sense.  Again you must insist in comparing the full price of Windows, when no one who has an earlier version of windows on their computer, needs to buy the full version.  They will buy the upgrade version.

Actually, upgrade versions (not only from my personal experience, but from friends as well) for Windows rarely go smooth at all. Upgrade versions way to often corrupt your files, or make some programs unreponsive, and there is no safe and definative way to be sure that upgrading will keep your files still working. The reason why I included the full version of Windows in the calculation was because OS X does not come in upgrade versions...just the full version DVD, so its only fair to compare the full version of a Windows CD/DVD.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

They are all upgrade versions because it assumes the mac you are installing it on has a copy of OS X on it already.  Just like every OEM PC that is sold out their.  The only reason for buying a full retail copy of Windows, or the OEM copy is because you are building your own PC which never came with Windows on it.  Every Mac comes with OS X.

I dont think you are quite understanding the way OS X ships. It is merely the full DVD, thats all, there are no hidden features in the DVD that seperate it and thus making it an upgrade version. It doesnt matter whether you are going from 10.3 to 10.4, you still go through the full DVD, not an upgrade DVD.


  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

For that you'd use the anytime upgrade.  There is no need to buy an upgrade version of Windows Vista anymore from the stores.  The upgrade version in the stores is mainly for people who are running Windows XP.

While there is an online alternative to upgrading Windows Vista, many individual still prefer to upgrade through having a physical copy, not by means of a virtual one, so to speak. There are still upgrade versions for Windows Vista on retail outlets also.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

Correction.  The $129.99 is an upgrade price, stop confusing this.  And the $299 is for a full version.  Same thing with the $399 price.  Originally the upgrade price was $199 for Windows XP Professional, and $259 for Windows Vista Ultimate.  And that grand total comes to $458.  So therefore it is cheaper either way you look at it.  What you just did their, you need to correct.  Why would anyone buy a full version of Windows if they already have one at home on their PC?  They wouldn't.  And your calculations their need to reflect that.

Actually, I was correct, and you are wrong. OS X does cost $129.99. The only other price for OS X, is a family pack, which is $199, and Server licence, which is $499, however the server, and family pack are not included, because we are strictly talking about the single client versions...hence why I never included Vista family pack license, Vista Business or Enterprice as a seperate price(s). You can fully wipe out your Mac hard-drive...and do a fresh and FULL install of OS X from the DVD whether its 10.2, 10.3, or 10.4. This is why I included the full version of Windows as well. You cannot do this (legally), with a Windows Vista upgrade DVD. So there you go, OS X is still more cheaper than Windows, and my point still stands correct.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

And if you're going to count OS X 10.0 as coming with the mac at the time, then you must also count Windows XP as coming with the PC as well.  So even then, Windows is still cheaper.

Um..no it doesnt, look again. I did include Windows XP as well.
    

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

Studies showed that consumers didn't want or need file encryption.  Besides, their is a better solution out their called TrueCrypt.

speaks for itself I guess.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

Same thing with the unix utilities.  If they want that, they can download Kubuntu for that.  It's free.  And again, these features consumers didn't want.  Only the consumers who want it can get it.  But if they don't want it, they don't have to pay for it.

True.


      

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

I know people who bought inspiron laptops and Vista runs fine on them with the full aero glass interface enabled.  If Apple wasn't the only maker of mac's, I bet you their would be alot of Mac's at first that couldn't run Quartz Extreme.  So just like at the beginning when Quartz Extreme first came out, eventually all PC's will meet this demand.  I don't see the big deal here.  Microsoft is thinking ahead for the future here, not the past.

The scenario when Quartz Extreme first came out was a difference scenario. OS X 10.2 was never slow becuase the hardware couldnt handle QE, it was a bit slow because QE was not developed or fine tuned to what it is today in Tiger. Right now, you can run QE on a Mac that was designed to run Jaguar, and QE will run perfectly fine. If Microsoft was thinking ahead, then they would have dropped the nearly 12 year old compatibly API's, and move cleanly forward. This compatibility plays a huge part in exposing windows exploit holes. If Microsoft was thinking ahead, they would have implemented WinFS on Vista, and this would have bene a true step forward to windows. None of this happened, and this is why it gives the image of Vista being a mere facelift to XP.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

It's still a valid point.  People were complaining on how slow OS X was and how much better it became once it got quartz extreme added to it.  All the points were valid, u can't ignore them now.  And sure Apple came out with it first, but rarely does a company that came out with a first of a kind product ever own that market.  Microsoft caught up.  Deal with it.

1. Apple's iPod
2. Intel's processing microchip
3. Nintendo's N64, and Wii
4. Sony's Playstation 1, 2, and 3
5. Microsoft's Windows
6. Google's search
7. Adobe's Photoshop
8. Apple's iTunes
9. Microsoft's Window's Media Center
10. nVidia's GeForce 8 Series Dx10 cards (so far)
11. Boeing's 737NG and 747 series

12. soon the iPhone

....and much, much more.

Saying that Microsoft has caught up is nothing more than a bad joke at most. OS X Tiger is still more than able to take on Vista, let alone how Microsoft is feeling about Leopard on the way.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

It's enough to show the gui is hardware accelerated without effecting the productivity level.  And to me, I'd get annoyed having to wait until that Windows minimizes itself like that everyone.  Is there a way for me to turn it off?  Nope.  Apple don't let me do that.  And again, the 128 MB is the average video card now a days.  Hence why they shot for that goal.  It may seem like a lot to you, it's not to me.  Here's more details on Aero Glass.

128Mb isnt a lot to me. It seems like its a lot when the same effects could be done in Windows XP, or in OS X with 1/4th the hardware requirements.
      
  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

Then why did you even buy it?  I buy it because of the extra features it provides.  If I didn't use them, it be a waste of money to me.

Well, it came in a package, with the mouse, so I was getting a good deal, and besides, all I ever use windows is for gaming only, so I see no use for that feature anyways. I dont have any applications installed in Windows other than Nero, so these features would be pointless for me, however like I said...it came with a good mouse, so I was getting a 2 for 1 price kind of deal.
      

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

They can be read by applications in windows and in applications in linux.  So they are a standard in the sense of the word.

Yes, they are a standard, just like Mov, Asf, etc. However, they are not universally read. Mp3's can be ready by any modern platform. And yes, applications can be programmed to read avi and wma files...this is what Windows media player for Mac, or VLC player does, however the operating system cannot read it by default. The key word there is default, as in it should be able to read it just after a fresh install without any 3rd party apps allowing it to.
      

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

They got here and it doesn't matter how long it takes really.  But Apple enjoy's its niche.  Just like Microsoft enjoys its monopoly.

Wow, it doesn't matter how long it takes really? Are you serious? This one 5 year gap itself was enough shake Microsoft to rethink its strategic planning due to overhyped and underacheiving operating system, which most people immediately realized wasn't worth it for the 5 year wait. Another gap like this one would sure seal Microsoft's fate and downfall, thats a given. Even Microsoft pledged that they would never make the same mistake of waiting 5 years inbetween two major Windows operating systems again.
      
  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

I don't consider it embarrassing at all.  But thank you for pointing that out.  It still doesn't convince me that we'd be better off with the small amount of hardware for Mac's compared to the vast amount of hardware available for PC's.

That was not the point whatsoever, your side-tracking here. Yes, it could happen on any platform, that includes OS X, but the point was to prove that it was indeed possible to do a hardware drive related exploit, that was the purpose, nothing more, nothing less.

      
  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

You can play with numbers all you want.  How about the PC market share in terms of percentage over all?  You'll still see Apple is still at less then 7% of the market place.  Where as a PC manufacturer could have 18%.

Oh god, dont tell me you are actually going to use the age old market share statement as your main argument. You cannot compare the market share of Macs to PC's. Thats not how it works. That would be like saying that the corner car tuneup shop fixes more Honda NSX's than Honda's Mugen Racing does. While its true, you cannot compare them. HP and Dell both sell PC's with wide range of hardware configurations, hence their market share is higher than PC. The real imprtant value here would be how well they are doing, which is measured by their growth rate. Dell went down by some 11% compared to previous year, and HP is up by just a few percents, with Toshiba, Acer, etc. following. Apple tops them all, with the most growth rate in the past 2 years, and continuing into the future. You cannot deny the numbers...the REAL numbers.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

You are correct.  But no matter how many applications I have open, I can mouse over the minimized area for them on the taskbar and get a realtime thumbnail update of them.  When according to you in OS X, the thumbnail image just keeps getting smaller and smaller.

Thats not an argument at all, your just restating the incorrect again. You cannot get realtime previews in Windows Vista once you start getting grouping, which happens when you start having too many of the same applications open. On OS X, you can have many applications, be it same or different open, and still get a full size live preview...and it appears larger when you put your cursor over it as well, like in the picture below:



So even if you have more windows minimized, and the dock does get smaller, just putting your cursor over the area will magnify the windows, so you'll know which is which easily. You cant do this on Windows Vista, because if you have the same applications open in differnt windows...it will group them, and disable live preview. If you have too many different applications, then your taskbar space for each application will get smaller and smaller, until you can barely even read out the application name on the bottom, which will only probably be like 3 letters.
      

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

Sure if you have a small amount of apps.  If you have a larger amount, Windows expands quite well to handle them.  Just adds them to programs menu list.  All automatically when you install them and when you uninstall them, it takes them out.  I find that much easier.  And when you install iTunes, is it just drag and drop?  Nope.  It has an installer too.  This is on OS X by the way.

If you have a large amount of apps in Windows, it becomes a disaster trying to find the right app, because all you will see are folder icons, thats it. You have to go deeper into the folder to find the application, if you dont have it in the quickstart menu, or on your start menu. Windows Vista now enhances this disaster, becuase you have to scroll to get to the application you want, which is even more time consuming. Yes, iTunes does have an installer, but that is one of the few programs which do. Most often, it is the system updates, patches etc, that come with an installer. All the other apps just come in a single package (ie drag and drop).
      

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

Some like flip3d, some like expose.  But they have the choice in Windows at least.

There are choices in OS X as well. There is the traditional alt-tabbing feature, then there is Expose, which allows you to clear everything you are currently viewing, rearrange everything you have open so you can select the windows you want, or show the application windows to front. There are 4 organizational features by DEFAULT in OS X, wheras there are only two by default in Windows Vista...Flip3D, and the traditional Alt-Tab.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

Aero Glass enables vector scaling graphics.  I don't think Quartz Extreme has that yet.  So that no matter how high a resolution your display is, it will look the same size.  See here for more info.

Actually, OS X Tiger has resolution independance support already, however it is not revealed at user level in the GUI. Apple made the technology avaliable early itself, so developers can take advantage of this feature in their software, until Apple officially incorporates this at the user level in Leopard . Moreover, the correct term for this feature is called resolution independance, which is what it is officially referred to as...not "vector scaling graphics". The coming OS X Leopard is completely natively resolution independant.

  

pyrates, on May 9 2007, 12:35 AM, said:

And because Microsoft has such a large cash reserve, they can afford to take their time and do it right.

Large cash reserve = Yes
Take their time = Yes
Do it right = No

[pyrates]

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Well, Microsoft still has a drm on the Zune as well, and they ditched the playsforsure drm altogether unexpextedly. The reason why iTunes drm currently feels stronger is because of the market share of the ipod. If you wanted to remove the DRM from any song purchased from the itunes music store, just burn the song onto a CD-RW, and then rip it back into itunes. Simple as that, the drm is now removed. Ofcourse I still  keep the songs with drm, but there are ways to circumvent this protection system.

  
Sorry, but I'd rather not lose the quality in the aac file I bought.  The worst thing you can do to a compressed audio file is uncompress it and recompress it.  And that is exactly what you're doing.  There are lots of capable mp3 players out there that can read the aac format, but Apple prevents that from happening by putting the drm on it.  And there wouldn't be nearly as much a problem with it if Apple would license their drm.  At least with the Microsoft drm, I can have my choice of portable players, I'm not forced to choose between one hardware maker.  And that is exactly what Apple is in trouble for over in Europe.  I'm glad they got EMI to open up.  But still, I don't want to pay a premium to have my music be drm free.  Fair use is a right, not a privalege.

And if Microsoft's zune took over as much as Apple's iTune's store did, I'd be against it too if they served up drm with their songs too.  The only place drm makes sense is in online rentals and subscription music services.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

The reason I called it poor was from many experiences that not only I had, but also in grade school when we used to use Win2K. It was bsod prone. Maybe there was something wrong, but that was just from my experience.

I've used it since service pack 3 and now service pack 4, and it is quite stable to me.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Microsoft is following the exact same proprietory model that Apple did with the iPod now arent they? You cannot use songs purchased on the Zune marketplace with any other music player out there, so in reality Microsoft is also attempting to follow in the same stronghold as Apple is. Now the playsforsure devices are another story, and those are intercompatible, but as I mentioned earlier, Microsoft alread removed focus from those devices, and the entire playsforsure partners.

I just hope all drm schemes go down the drain for online music and any kind of online media that you download to buy.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

It did post its profit marigin for the 1st quarter, however these numbers are far from the truth. The first quarter revenue was primarily concentrated on sales of Vista, and Microsoft posted that they had sold 20 million within the first two month or so. However, what they failed to include in this calculation was how much was made in just the retail sales, and how much was made in just the OEM sales. This "biggest profit margin" was the result of the inclusion of the OEM sales as sell, and does not yield a proper and true judging of Vista's sales.

That is the overall profit that the sec report has.  I'd like to see where you got your info from.  But yes it did include the deferred profits from the Vista upgrade coupons given to oem's.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

There is no function in windows desktop search that is not already there in Spotlight. This "advanced" option that you are asking for in spotlight, is avaliable from the system preferences menu > spotlight, where you can tell spotlight what items/folders to search, and then configure its privacy settings on things it should ignore. Can you name one feature of WDS that's not in spotlight already?

Seems to have everything that spotlight has.  Therefore it doesn't give me incentive to switch, not that I was planning to in the first place.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Garageband is not only for podcasts, you can use it for general audio mixing/editing as well. Here is what I dont get...you point out things that are windows only (like tools for avisynth), yet to dont like the fact that iMovie, iPhoto, and iDVD are only for OS X. Whats wrong here? Each operating system has some softwares that are designed specifically for that particular OS. iMovie HD, can handle 1080i, and 1080p outputs as well, just to let you know. The only software that I would agree with you on would be Nero, which I miss. Roxio Toast, as mentioned before, is crap compared to Nero 7.

  
You are correct.  And all the software that I use on windows suits me just fine.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

But how much does it cost for them to build it for you?

  
It doesn't cost me a thing at all.  Again, I get a discount for buying all the parts at once.  And in order to get that one year warranty, I gotta let them build it for me.  Not a big deal really.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Actually, upgrade versions (not only from my personal experience, but from friends as well) for Windows rarely go smooth at all. Upgrade versions way to often corrupt your files, or make some programs unreponsive, and there is no safe and definative way to be sure that upgrading will keep your files still working. The reason why I included the full version of Windows in the calculation was because OS X does not come in upgrade versions...just the full version DVD, so its only fair to compare the full version of a Windows CD/DVD.

You can install the upgrade version of Windows doing a clean install.  All it asks you is for the previous version's windows cd and that's it.  You can install it cleanly.  The exception is Windows Vista where you can either upgrade within windows or you can install cleanly with no key and then do an upgrade within it where you then put the cd key.  And so far Microsoft isn't gonna close this, which I'm glad.  So yes, the upgrade version is definitely comparable here and you are only sticking with it to make your arguement look good, when it is fundamentally flawed.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

I dont think you are quite understanding the way OS X ships. It is merely the full DVD, thats all, there are no hidden features in the DVD that seperate it and thus making it an upgrade version. It doesnt matter whether you are going from 10.3 to 10.4, you still go through the full DVD, not an upgrade DVD.

That's right, but Apple knows you'll have OS X on your mac at home, so it doesn't need to worry if you need to buy a full or upgrade version.  It's always an upgrade version.  If you could buy a mac without the OS, then they would start to do that check.  But right now they don't need to.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

While there is an online alternative to upgrading Windows Vista, many individual still prefer to upgrade through having a physical copy, not by means of a virtual one, so to speak. There are still upgrade versions for Windows Vista on retail outlets also.

Well now that all versions are all on one dvd, it's changing.  Just like Apple only needs to include one copy of OS X when you have the family 5 pack.  People are beginning to realize that if you already have that key, you can get a cheaper price on getting just the key for the version you bought.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Actually, I was correct, and you are wrong. OS X does cost $129.99. The only other price for OS X, is a family pack, which is $199, and Server licence, which is $499, however the server, and family pack are not included, because we are strictly talking about the single client versions...hence why I never included Vista family pack license, Vista Business or Enterprice as a seperate price(s). You can fully wipe out your Mac hard-drive...and do a fresh and FULL install of OS X from the DVD whether its 10.2, 10.3, or 10.4. This is why I included the full version of Windows as well. You cannot do this (legally), with a Windows Vista upgrade DVD. So there you go, OS X is still more cheaper than Windows, and my point still stands correct.

Read my response above.  You can do that easily with an upgrade version and all you are doing here is trying to prove your point which is vastly wrong and inaccurate.  Because reality shows no consumer will buy the full version of Windows Vista when you can buy the upgrade version for less money.  Or even another choice, the oem version.  Which is always full and costs less then the upgrade retail version.  It's just tied to your motherboard if you decide to upgrade it.  That would be the only time you'd need to get another version.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Um..no it doesnt, look again. I did include Windows XP as well.

    
The mac that you bought the os x 10.0 for came with os 9, therefore being an upgrade.  Therefore that windows xp cost should be an upgrade to since it would be installed on an oem pc, and the total cost coming to $458.  Again, Windows is cheaper because they don't come out with a new version every year or so.  They put all the features in one upgrade that you buy once and end up being cheaper.  You can't beat math.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

The scenario when Quartz Extreme first came out was a difference scenario. OS X 10.2 was never slow becuase the hardware couldnt handle QE, it was a bit slow because QE was not developed or fine tuned to what it is today in Tiger. Right now, you can run QE on a Mac that was designed to run Jaguar, and QE will run perfectly fine. If Microsoft was thinking ahead, then they would have dropped the nearly 12 year old compatibly API's, and move cleanly forward. This compatibility plays a huge part in exposing windows exploit holes. If Microsoft was thinking ahead, they would have implemented WinFS on Vista, and this would have bene a true step forward to windows. None of this happened, and this is why it gives the image of Vista being a mere facelift to XP.

There's a problem with this.  Because of Microsoft's huge market share, they have to maintain compatibility to a certain extent.  You can do this with the mac because of it's small market share, but not with Windows.  And if you're saying the QE was faster then in Jaguar, why do you think its fair for Apple to charge you for fixes that should have been included already?

And just because WinFS was dropped, doesn't mean Microsoft doesn't stop working on it.  Remember they wanted to implement it since 1993.  It's just put on the back burner for now.  It's not going away.  Plus a alot of those features they had to drop because it wouldn't have been finished on time.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

1. Apple's iPod
2. Intel's processing microchip
3. Nintendo's N64, and Wii
4. Sony's Playstation 1, 2, and 3
5. Microsoft's Windows
6. Google's search
7. Adobe's Photoshop
8. Apple's iTunes
9. Microsoft's Window's Media Center
10. nVidia's GeForce 8 Series Dx10 cards (so far)
11. Boeing's 737NG and 747 series

12. soon the iPhone

....and much, much more.

Saying that Microsoft has caught up is nothing more than a bad joke at most. OS X Tiger is still more than able to take on Vista, let alone how Microsoft is feeling about Leopard on the way.

Once they get the iPhone out that is.  Right now it's $499 or $599 depending on which model you want, and you gotta get a voice plan and a data plan to use it, on a 2 year cotract minimum.  Therefore it won't be cheap.  But hopefully it'll drive the price of data plans down.  This is far different from the iPod.  You didn't need a monthly fee with the iPod.

And just because you deny that Microsoft has caught up, doesn't make it so.  They have.  Deal with it.  But again, this is all opinion.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

128Mb isnt a lot to me. It seems like its a lot when the same effects could be done in Windows XP, or in OS X with 1/4th the hardware requirements.

Again, Aero Glass enables much more features that require more graphics memory.  See here for info on it.  And it turns out I was wrong on Aero's requirements.  You only need a 64 MB of graphics memory to run it.  And at the time QE was being designed, you'd have a desktop resolution of 1024x768.  Hence why you only need 32 mb.  But now resolutions on average are 1920x1200.  At least mine is.  So 64 MB makes sense.

Do you have any older video cards that come with only 32 MB that work with QE at a high resolution of 1920x1200?  If so, I'd like you to try it out.  See here as well for needing more then 32 mb of video ram for QE.  Directly from the site by the user Jigglelicious:

That might hold true if you're talking about a 2d rendering. However with Quartz Extreme, the entire desktop is rendered in 3d, with each window using up its own texture. Not to mention that OSX is double buffered, which means twice the VRAM usage. In my experience, 32mb quickly runs out at 1280x1024. Will the mini run 1920x1200? Sure. But you might find something like expose to be more choppy than you'd like. Photoshop won't be affected, though.

But when you have quite a few windows open, it needs that extra ram.  It caches the textures of those windows, even the ones you can't see so that when you move them into view, their is no tearing or clipping.  Does QE do this too or does it just handle the current windows you have open that you can see?
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Well, it came in a package, with the mouse, so I was getting a good deal, and besides, all I ever use windows is for gaming only, so I see no use for that feature anyways. I dont have any applications installed in Windows other than Nero, so these features would be pointless for me, however like I said...it came with a good mouse, so I was getting a 2 for 1 price kind of deal.

      
If I were you, I'd find a way to use those extra buttons on it.  It's a waste to me if I can't use a piece of hardware to it's full potential.  Maybe this might help.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Yes, they are a standard, just like Mov, Asf, etc. However, they are not universally read. Mp3's can be ready by any modern platform. And yes, applications can be programmed to read avi and wma files...this is what Windows media player for Mac, or VLC player does, however the operating system cannot read it by default. The key word there is default, as in it should be able to read it just after a fresh install without any 3rd party apps allowing it to.

      
The standards are there that tells Apple how to read those formats.  Apple just chooses not to read them.  And I said avi and wav, not wma.  I don't like wma and wmv.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Wow, it doesn't matter how long it takes really? Are you serious? This one 5 year gap itself was enough shake Microsoft to rethink its strategic planning due to overhyped and underacheiving operating system, which most people immediately realized wasn't worth it for the 5 year wait. Another gap like this one would sure seal Microsoft's fate and downfall, thats a given. Even Microsoft pledged that they would never make the same mistake of waiting 5 years inbetween two major Windows operating systems again.

Yep, hence why this won't happen again.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

That was not the point whatsoever, your side-tracking here. Yes, it could happen on any platform, that includes OS X, but the point was to prove that it was indeed possible to do a hardware drive related exploit, that was the purpose, nothing more, nothing less.

This isn't even a windows issue or an OS X issue.  You brought it up trying to defend the small amount of hardware for mac's compared to the amount of hardware for pc's as being a good thing when it's not at all.  Try again.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Oh god, dont tell me you are actually going to use the age old market share statement as your main argument. You cannot compare the market share of Macs to PC's. Thats not how it works. That would be like saying that the corner car tuneup shop fixes more Honda NSX's than Honda's Mugen Racing does. While its true, you cannot compare them. HP and Dell both sell PC's with wide range of hardware configurations, hence their market share is higher than PC. The real imprtant value here would be how well they are doing, which is measured by their growth rate. Dell went down by some 11% compared to previous year, and HP is up by just a few percents, with Toshiba, Acer, etc. following. Apple tops them all, with the most growth rate in the past 2 years, and continuing into the future. You cannot deny the numbers...the REAL numbers.

You can play with numbers to make yourself look good or look bad, but it's the overall market share that can only determine how far you've gotten.  You liked to show how Apple's overall growth mattered, and I showed you how it didn't matter.  And according to here, HP's laptop sales are up 40%.  The overall profits were $1.8 billion compared to Apple's $770 million for profits.  See how you can easily manipulate numbers now.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Thats not an argument at all, your just restating the incorrect again. You cannot get realtime previews in Windows Vista once you start getting grouping, which happens when you start having too many of the same applications open. On OS X, you can have many applications, be it same or different open, and still get a full size live preview...and it appears larger when you put your cursor over it as well, like in the picture below:

You are correct.  But where you are incorrect is the thumbnails not showing in Windows Vista when a bunch of windows are grouped together.  I tried it with opening up 21 explorer windows and when they were grouped together, I was able to see a live thumbnail of them.

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

So even if you have more windows minimized, and the dock does get smaller, just putting your cursor over the area will magnify the windows, so you'll know which is which easily. You cant do this on Windows Vista, because if you have the same applications open in differnt windows...it will group them, and disable live preview. If you have too many different applications, then your taskbar space for each application will get smaller and smaller, until you can barely even read out the application name on the bottom, which will only probably be like 3 letters.

      
See my above statement.  And when you have that many applications open, the same thing occurs in OS X.  They get smaller and smaller.  The only fix their is to buy a bigger monitor with a higher solution.  Can't do this with OS X if you have the iMac.  Hence why I prefer PC's.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

If you have a large amount of apps in Windows, it becomes a disaster trying to find the right app, because all you will see are folder icons, thats it. You have to go deeper into the folder to find the application, if you dont have it in the quickstart menu, or on your start menu. Windows Vista now enhances this disaster, becuase you have to scroll to get to the application you want, which is even more time consuming. Yes, iTunes does have an installer, but that is one of the few programs which do. Most often, it is the system updates, patches etc, that come with an installer. All the other apps just come in a single package (ie drag and drop).

      
I don't know where you got this from where you only see folder icons, but I see the full names of each folder in the start menu.  From there I can browse down to where the application is that I need and all it's shortcuts are their.  

And I found it annoying at first having to scroll, but I like it now knowing I don't need to worry about the start menu closing on me if I wonder the mouse cursor off accidentally.  It's quite useful.  You should try it sometime.

And if you want to delete the prefences when you remove an application, you need to hunt down where it's stored.  Even if you know where it is, an uninstall wizard is much easier to tick an option and have it do it all for you.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

There are choices in OS X as well. There is the traditional alt-tabbing feature, then there is Expose, which allows you to clear everything you are currently viewing, rearrange everything you have open so you can select the windows you want, or show the application windows to front. There are 4 organizational features by DEFAULT in OS X, wheras there are only two by default in Windows Vista...Flip3D, and the traditional Alt-Tab.

That's where the task bar comes in handy.  It automatically puts together applications for you automatically before it groups them if you have enough windows of the application open.  Like if I open up firefox twice, they are put right next to each other no matter what is open.  Makes it easy to see what is open.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Actually, OS X Tiger has resolution independance support already, however it is not revealed at user level in the GUI. Apple made the technology avaliable early itself, so developers can take advantage of this feature in their software, until Apple officially incorporates this at the user level in Leopard . Moreover, the correct term for this feature is called resolution independance, which is what it is officially referred to as...not "vector scaling graphics". The coming OS X Leopard is completely natively resolution independant.

So then technically Microsoft came out with it first, does that mean Apple is copying Microsoft now?  Because you said originally it doesn't matter who showed it first, it's who brings it to market first.  And Microsoft did that.
  

EFI, on May 9 2007, 09:15 AM, said:

Large cash reserve = Yes
Take their time = Yes
Do it right = No

Not all companies do it right all the time, I don't like how IE 7 looks so I tend to use firefox.  But to say Apple always gets it right is a big assumption.  I can hardly wait to see how the sales of the iPhone do when it comes out.  It could be another newton.  It better have a removable battery though.  Every other cell phone does.

[EFI]

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

Sorry, but I'd rather not lose the quality in the aac file I bought.  The worst thing you can do to a compressed audio file is uncompress it and recompress it.  And that is exactly what you're doing.  There are lots of capable mp3 players out there that can read the aac format, but Apple prevents that from happening by putting the drm on it.  And there wouldn't be nearly as much a problem with it if Apple would license their drm.  At least with the Microsoft drm, I can have my choice of portable players, I'm not forced to choose between one hardware maker.  And that is exactly what Apple is in trouble for over in Europe.  I'm glad they got EMI to open up.  But still, I don't want to pay a premium to have my music be drm free.  Fair use is a right, not a privalege.

No you dont, you dont get any choice of MP3 players from Microsoft's DRM as well. You HAVE to use the Zune in order for the drm (protected wma) to work properly. Trouble in europe? Microsoft was in a bigger trouble in Europe than Apple was in. Remember the versions of Vista that Microsoft had to solely remove media player, and media center for...yup you guessed it. Its the Vista N Edition. This is the edition that was forced out of Microsoft becuase they were monopolizing in an anti-competitive manner...the EU got fed up, and filed an anti-trust ruling which was far greater than the one that Apple had to face for the iPod. The Zune's DRM is poor if not miserable at least. 40%  (source wiki) of the songs purchased on the Zune marketplace cannot be shared through wifi (or as Microsoft calls it.."squirted"), which makes the drm restriction on the Zune very tough. Secondly, the Zune cannoot even play songs purchased from Microsoft's own MSN music service, which in a way is Microsoft stabbing its own customers.

  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

That is the overall profit that the sec report has.  I'd like to see where you got your info from.  But yes it did include the deferred profits from the Vista upgrade coupons given to oem's.

My source was from CNET. OEM sales do not count. Most PC makers ship with Vista, whether the customers like it or not. Only Dell has the option currently of Linux or Windows XP. It is not considered a proper sale if something is shoved down the end consumer's throat. They should have a choice, and this choice is reflected on purchasing decisions that in turn sell retail copies. This retail sales number has yet to come out.
  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

Seems to have everything that spotlight has.  Therefore it doesn't give me incentive to switch, not that I was planning to in the first place.

WDS has everything spotlight has had; for what...2 years ago? That should atleast give you the slightest signal to switch...but then again, its your call, and according to the last part of your sentence, it looks like your windows bound...so nothing can be done here.
  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

You can install the upgrade version of Windows doing a clean install.  All it asks you is for the previous version's windows cd and that's it.  You can install it cleanly.  The exception is Windows Vista where you can either upgrade within windows or you can install cleanly with no key and then do an upgrade within it where you then put the cd key.  And so far Microsoft isn't gonna close this, which I'm glad.  So yes, the upgrade version is definitely comparable here and you are only sticking with it to make your arguement look good, when it is fundamentally flawed.

Yes, while there is a way to circumvent the EULA in Vista (go figure), and actually use the upgrade version to install the full copy...most individuals are not aware of this nor will try anything like it. Its not that Microsoft has not done anything about it so far....its that Microsoft cannot do anything about this, because this circumvention still complies with the EULA...thats the beauty in it. Regarldess of this fact. It is still sold as upgrade versions, thats the point, and OS X does not come in upgrade versions...its a full DVD. See, this is what happens when Microsoft makes 20 different versions....it confuses the end user. My argument is perfectly fine....I just dont see where your getting that "OS X is an upgrade only, becuase every mac comes with it" ideology, when infact each new iteration of OS X, has loads of new features, a new GUI, more applications, and increased stability. I think that goes out of the "upgrade" term, and into the "full operating system" arena.
  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

That's right, but Apple knows you'll have OS X on your mac at home, so it doesn't need to worry if you need to buy a full or upgrade version.  It's always an upgrade version.  If you could buy a mac without the OS, then they would start to do that check.  But right now they don't need to.

I'm sorry, but that cant get any farther from being false. Apple makes quick iterations to OS X, so while I can see why that might sound like "upgrades" to some...its not in reality. Read back on the some 3-4 posts regarding this already. If you could buy a Mac without the OS...it would essentially be a PC, and thats never going to happen.

  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

Well now that all versions are all on one dvd, it's changing.  Just like Apple only needs to include one copy of OS X when you have the family 5 pack.  People are beginning to realize that if you already have that key, you can get a cheaper price on getting just the key for the version you bought.

Exactly.


  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

Read my response above.  You can do that easily with an upgrade version and all you are doing here is trying to prove your point which is vastly wrong and inaccurate.  Because reality shows no consumer will buy the full version of Windows Vista when you can buy the upgrade version for less money.  Or even another choice, the oem version.  Which is always full and costs less then the upgrade retail version.  It's just tied to your motherboard if you decide to upgrade it.  That would be the only time you'd need to get another version.

Yes, OEM versions cost significantly less than even upgrade versions...but the average consumer does not know what OEM even means, let alone what the version is used for. Consumers purchase the full version of Vista because they know they dont have to deal with upgrade compatibility issues, and softwares not working. Just because you buy the upgrade versions doesnt mean everyone else in the world does the same thing. Pretty much everyone I know who got Windows XP in 2001 purchased the full version to upgrade from 2000/98. There are way too many problems with upgrade versions, this is why users avoid it.
  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

The mac that you bought the os x 10.0 for came with os 9, therefore being an upgrade.  Therefore that windows xp cost should be an upgrade to since it would be installed on an oem pc, and the total cost coming to $458.  Again, Windows is cheaper because they don't come out with a new version every year or so.  They put all the features in one upgrade that you buy once and end up being cheaper.  You can't beat math.

Why would I want to beat math, when I'm already correct in my calculations. Your the one who is going wrong on the math. I included OS X 10.0, because that was the version that started competition with Windows XP, not OS9. From there on, it is OS X 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 vs Windows XP, Windows Vista. OS X only comes in 1 price for the client versions, and this is $129.99 and is the full version, meaning you can wipe out your Mac, and still install OS X completely. Up until Windows Vista, you cannot do this with XP, therfore, it has to be the full version for Windows XP. Now do the calculations...and OS X still comes out cheaper.
  

  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

There's a problem with this.  Because of Microsoft's huge market share, they have to maintain compatibility to a certain extent.  You can do this with the mac because of it's small market share, but not with Windows.

Certain extent does not have to stretch as far back as Windows 95...thats just pushing your luck too far, and for the last time...market share has nothing to do with this, so stop using that aging and proven pointless argument. The reason why OS X cut support from OS9 to OS X, was because they were fundamentally two different operating systems with different codebase.

  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

And if you're saying the QE was faster then in Jaguar, why do you think its fair for Apple to charge you for fixes that should have been included already?

Because Core image was not introduced in Jaguar. It was only introduced in Tiger, and this could not be implemented in Jaguar, hence why the performance is slower on 10.2. Your thinking like a Microsoft OS developer....you want to pile up all the features on top and on top of the existing codebase, without realizing how much of damage this could actually do to the future of your operating systems. Once you come up with something good...you cannot go back to the previous version, and create a compatible layer for that...this is a typical Microsoft approach. You should move forwards, not forward...and 2 step backwards.



  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

And just because WinFS was dropped, doesn't mean Microsoft doesn't stop working on it.  Remember they wanted to implement it since 1993.  It's just put on the back burner for now.  It's not going away.  Plus a alot of those features they had to drop because it wouldn't have been finished on time.

So your admitting that Microsoft underachieved on Vista?
  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

Once they get the iPhone out that is.  Right now it's $499 or $599 depending on which model you want, and you gotta get a voice plan and a data plan to use it, on a 2 year cotract minimum.  Therefore it won't be cheap.  But hopefully it'll drive the price of data plans down.  This is far different from the iPod.  You didn't need a monthly fee with the iPod.

Only time will tell I guess, only time will tell.


  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

And just because you deny that Microsoft has caught up, doesn't make it so.  They have.  Deal with it.  But again, this is all opinion.

If this is all opinion...then dont tell me to deal with it. In your view, Mircosoft may have caught up. But in my view..copying time and time again, failing to deliver features is not called "catching up".
  

  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

Again, Aero Glass enables much more features that require more graphics memory.  See here for info on it.  And it turns out I was wrong on Aero's requirements.  You only need a 64 MB of graphics memory to run it.  And at the time QE was being designed, you'd have a desktop resolution of 1024x768.  Hence why you only need 32 mb.  But now resolutions on average are 1920x1200.  At least mine is.  So 64 MB makes sense.

Do you have any older video cards that come with only 32 MB that work with QE at a high resolution of 1920x1200?  If so, I'd like you to try it out.  See here as well for needing more then 32 mb of video ram for QE.  Directly from the site by the user Jigglelicious:

That might hold true if you're talking about a 2d rendering. However with Quartz Extreme, the entire desktop is rendered in 3d, with each window using up its own texture. Not to mention that OSX is double buffered, which means twice the VRAM usage. In my experience, 32mb quickly runs out at 1280x1024. Will the mini run 1920x1200? Sure. But you might find something like expose to be more choppy than you'd like. Photoshop won't be affected, though.

But when you have quite a few windows open, it needs that extra ram.  It caches the textures of those windows, even the ones you can't see so that when you move them into view, their is no tearing or clipping.  Does QE do this too or does it just handle the current windows you have open that you can see?

Actually, you need 128Mb to run Aero Glass if you want to fully run it smoothely..as recommended by Microsoft...which means your still wrong. The 64Mb is only on low resolutions such as 1024x768. if you want to run it at the resolution that your running at...you would need a minimum of 128MB GPU ram, but preferrably 256MB, because your going into the HD range. ABout the link to MacRumours you posted, yes, if you were to go higher than 1280x1024, then 32MB of Vram, would be pusing it a bit. It definately would not be smooth at 1920x1200, but that being said, no one in their right mind will be running their ancient G3 or G4 hooked up to a high res LCD. Most of them dont have DVI ports, so it wouldnt matter by default anyways. However, I've seen Mac Mini's at the Apple store hooked up to 23" cinema displays...and run perfectly smooth. The mini uses 64mb vram though, but this is still significantly lower than what Aero needs to push out at 1920x1200.
      

  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

If I were you, I'd find a way to use those extra buttons on it.  It's a waste to me if I can't use a piece of hardware to it's full potential.  Maybe this might help.

Well, like I said, I only use it for gaming, but thanks for the link, Ill give it a shot neverthless.
  
  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

This isn't even a windows issue or an OS X issue.  You brought it up trying to defend the small amount of hardware for mac's compared to the amount of hardware for pc's as being a good thing when it's not at all.  Try again.

No no, I originally said that it was possible to create exploits (in serious cases viruses), through hardware drivers. You said that this is not possible, and that you would like to see a single example. I showed you 2 examples. Yes, this is not a windows nor an OS X issue, since it can happen on both platform. My point however, was to prove that it is possible to do a driver related exploit, that was merely it.
  

  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

You can play with numbers to make yourself look good or look bad, but it's the overall market share that can only determine how far you've gotten.  You liked to show how Apple's overall growth mattered, and I showed you how it didn't matter.  And according to here, HP's laptop sales are up 40%.  The overall profits were $1.8 billion compared to Apple's $770 million for profits.  See how you can easily manipulate numbers now.

2010: Apple larger than Microsoft?
http://10layers.com/...than-microsoft/


Apple's Mac market share tops 5% with over 30% growth
http://www.macworld....share/index.php

<h2 class="single" id="post-30720">Why Apple Inc. Will Hit $200 per Share in 2007</h2>http://ce.seekingalp...m/article/30720


Mac share of surfers doubles in eight months : Apple is eroding Microsoft's online market share
http://www.computerw...ticleId=9018641


Mac shipments expected to soar
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=5012


Apple shares hit new all-time closing high - again
http://macdailynews....comments/13565/
http://quotes.nasdaq...o...&page=multi

Intel Based Macs can Save Your University Money
http://education.zdnet.com/?p=941


Pennsylvania university pulls PC plug, goes all-Mac
http://computerworld...&intsrc=hm_list


Big Mac Attach at Wikes University
http://chronicle.com...dex.php?id=1890

Apple Overtakes Dell In UK Market
http://www.macworld....ype=allchandate

45 Percent of computers purchased at Princeton this year were Apple Macs
http://www.dailyprin...rts/16162.shtml

Nearly Half of Computers purchased at Harvard This year Were Apple Macs
http://www.thecrimso...aspx?ref=515324

Oh I think the statistical numbers favour Apple over Microsoft (Dell, HP, Toshiba etc) all right.



  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

You are correct.  But where you are incorrect is the thumbnails not showing in Windows Vista when a bunch of windows are grouped together.  I tried it with opening up 21 explorer windows and when they were grouped together, I was able to see a live thumbnail of them.

Can you show a picture of this? Not that I dont believe you or anything...but even when Paul Thurott says this is not possible...I want to see how you did it.

        

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

See my above statement.  And when you have that many applications open, the same thing occurs in OS X.  They get smaller and smaller.  The only fix their is to buy a bigger monitor with a higher solution.  Can't do this with OS X if you have the iMac.  Hence why I prefer PC's.

No, all you have to do is increase the magnificantion level of the dock, and no matter how small your dock gets..it will magnify the same amount. Here is an example below:



From the above picture, you can clearly see that the live previews are magnified to a perfectly viewable amount. This is a full resolution shot..it was not altered in any way.
  

        

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

I don't know where you got this from where you only see folder icons, but I see the full names of each folder in the start menu.  From there I can browse down to where the application is that I need and all it's shortcuts are their.  

And I found it annoying at first having to scroll, but I like it now knowing I don't need to worry about the start menu closing on me if I wonder the mouse cursor off accidentally.  It's quite useful.  You should try it sometime.

Eitherway, its much better looking at application icons themselves with the software name to decide rather than looking at folder icon with the software name. Visually OS X's method is better, but its a personal preference really.

  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

And if you want to delete the prefences when you remove an application, you need to hunt down where it's stored.  Even if you know where it is, an uninstall wizard is much easier to tick an option and have it do it all for you.

There are several applications for OS X that can make the uninstall process a breeze, the ideal example being AppZapper, here are three shots of it in action:

1. Open up App Zapper, and move the application over the drop zone:




2. Next AppZapper will automatically find all the necessary preference files and other misc files associated with that application...now all you have to do is click Zap, and all the files of that app including the app will be moved to the trash...which you just empty, and thats it. Its that simple to uninstall:




  

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

So then technically Microsoft came out with it first, does that mean Apple is copying Microsoft now?  Because you said originally it doesn't matter who showed it first, it's who brings it to market first.  And Microsoft did that.

No, technically Apple came out with it first. Its already there in Tiger, as in the feature is very well there. Only the developers can take advantage of that however. If a developer wanted to create a resolution independant application, then they can do it no problem, because the developer tools to make that resolution independance in that app are already there in Tiger. Apple already brought it to the market first, Microsoft only followed suit. Were taking feature here.
  


    

pyrates, on May 10 2007, 12:09 AM, said:

Not all companies do it right all the time, I don't like how IE 7 looks so I tend to use firefox.  But to say Apple always gets it right is a big assumption.  I can hardly wait to see how the sales of the iPhone do when it comes out.  It could be another newton.  It better have a removable battery though.  Every other cell phone does.

There are numerous reasons why the iPhone won't end up like the newton. Think of the iPod halo effect. This was not present when the Newton was around. Only time will tell.

[pyrates]

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

No you dont, you dont get any choice of MP3 players from Microsoft's DRM as well. You HAVE to use the Zune in order for the drm (protected wma) to work properly. Trouble in europe? Microsoft was in a bigger trouble in Europe than Apple was in. Remember the versions of Vista that Microsoft had to solely remove media player, and media center for...yup you guessed it. Its the Vista N Edition. This is the edition that was forced out of Microsoft becuase they were monopolizing in an anti-competitive manner...the EU got fed up, and filed an anti-trust ruling which was far greater than the one that Apple had to face for the iPod. The Zune's DRM is poor if not miserable at least. 40%  (source wiki) of the songs purchased on the Zune marketplace cannot be shared through wifi (or as Microsoft calls it.."squirted"), which makes the drm restriction on the Zune very tough. Secondly, the Zune cannoot even play songs purchased from Microsoft's own MSN music service, which in a way is Microsoft stabbing its own customers.

Actually I was referring to the plays4sure.  I don't like the zune model either.  I do like the wifi where you can send someone a song wirelessly.  But that's the only place where drm should apply.  On content you rent, not own.  So goodbye to drm and hello interoperability.

What I would like is for apple to release a set of api's for their itunes store so that other mp3 players can sync with it the way the ipod does.  I know it does work with some, but not in exactly the same way.  Course I prefer the old fashioned method of dragging and dropping mp3's on my iriver mp3 player with a folder structure to group stuff together.
  

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

My source was from CNET. OEM sales do not count. Most PC makers ship with Vista, whether the customers like it or not. Only Dell has the option currently of Linux or Windows XP. It is not considered a proper sale if something is shoved down the end consumer's throat. They should have a choice, and this choice is reflected on purchasing decisions that in turn sell retail copies. This retail sales number has yet to come out.

Well if OEM sales do not count, I wouldn't call it a complete report.  People buy a windows pc because windows is on it.  It is their choice to buy it.  If they didn't want to buy it, then you know they could buy a mac.  But they chose the windows PC.  Their is no shoving vista down their throats here despite what your opinion states their is.

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

WDS has everything spotlight has had; for what...2 years ago? That should atleast give you the slightest signal to switch...but then again, its your call, and according to the last part of your sentence, it looks like your windows bound...so nothing can be done here.

Windows for my main OS yes, but as I said I also use linux too.  I just prefer the gui in the way windows presents it.  Not to mention that right now windows users can get all the newer hardware such as hd dvd and bluray.  Why hasn't apple released a laptop or a desktop machine with hd dvd or bluray capability playback yet?  Another reason to not want apple, I don't like having to wait.

Also my parts for my computer upgrade should come next week.  Nice upgrade too.  Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 4 gb of ram and a new motherboard with sli capabilities and 2 gigabit lan ports.  Gonna be nice.  And less then $1100 USD.  This is why I'll stick to pc's even if Windows goes away, linux is right around the corner.

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

Yes, while there is a way to circumvent the EULA in Vista (go figure), and actually use the upgrade version to install the full copy...most individuals are not aware of this nor will try anything like it. Its not that Microsoft has not done anything about it so far....its that Microsoft cannot do anything about this, because this circumvention still complies with the EULA...thats the beauty in it. Regarldess of this fact. It is still sold as upgrade versions, thats the point, and OS X does not come in upgrade versions...its a full DVD. See, this is what happens when Microsoft makes 20 different versions....it confuses the end user. My argument is perfectly fine....I just dont see where your getting that "OS X is an upgrade only, becuase every mac comes with it" ideology, when infact each new iteration of OS X, has loads of new features, a new GUI, more applications, and increased stability. I think that goes out of the "upgrade" term, and into the "full operating system" arena.

When you buy a copy of OS X, apple knows that you have a copy at home already because all mac's come with it on it.  So yes it is an upgrade, except they don't need to do any checks.  No difference here.  And I don't know of any consumers who would buy the full version when the upgrade version is all they need.  Plus it's not hard for consumers to learn that their is oem versions available out their too.  So now they'll know they can save even more money.

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

I'm sorry, but that cant get any farther from being false. Apple makes quick iterations to OS X, so while I can see why that might sound like "upgrades" to some...its not in reality. Read back on the some 3-4 posts regarding this already. If you could buy a Mac without the OS...it would essentially be a PC, and thats never going to happen.

Yep, so in this case you are being shoved OS X down your throat, because hey, apple doesn't let you buy a mac without it.  See my above post where again, I explain to you how it works.  You buy a mac, it comes with os x, you want to upgrade to the new os x version, you buy that version with apple knowing you already have a previous version.  What is so hard to understand about that?
  

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

Yes, OEM versions cost significantly less than even upgrade versions...but the average consumer does not know what OEM even means, let alone what the version is used for. Consumers purchase the full version of Vista because they know they dont have to deal with upgrade compatibility issues, and softwares not working. Just because you buy the upgrade versions doesnt mean everyone else in the world does the same thing. Pretty much everyone I know who got Windows XP in 2001 purchased the full version to upgrade from 2000/98. There are way too many problems with upgrade versions, this is why users avoid it.

How many consumers do u know that bought the full version instead of the upgrade version?  All the ones I've talked to bought the upgrade version.  And consumers are smarter then you realize, give them some credit.  And just because those consumers thought they had to buy the full version doesn't mean all of them will.  If those are the reasons that you insist on using the full version prices, doesn't mean the upgrade version prices doesn't exist.  Whatever is the cheapest legal route, is the method I will make the comparison.  If there is discounts that can be applied to OS X versions, then I insist you apply them.  But it must be available to everyone, not just academia usage.

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

Why would I want to beat math, when I'm already correct in my calculations. Your the one who is going wrong on the math. I included OS X 10.0, because that was the version that started competition with Windows XP, not OS9. From there on, it is OS X 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 vs Windows XP, Windows Vista. OS X only comes in 1 price for the client versions, and this is $129.99 and is the full version, meaning you can wipe out your Mac, and still install OS X completely. Up until Windows Vista, you cannot do this with XP, therfore, it has to be the full version for Windows XP. Now do the calculations...and OS X still comes out cheaper.

Your math is based on a fallacy.  Definition of fallacy: a misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning.  And anyone who buys the new version of os x every year when they started on a mac with os x 10.0 or 10.1 compared to a windows user who bought a computer with windows xp and bought an upgrade version to vista spends less money.  Anyway you want to look at that differently?

This is the same thing that some mac users use to say dell pc's aren't cheaper then mac's because the coupons that dell offers can't count.  They are their, so count them.  Just like you have to count the different versions of windows vista with full, upgrade, and oem.

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

Certain extent does not have to stretch as far back as Windows 95...thats just pushing your luck too far, and for the last time...market share has nothing to do with this, so stop using that aging and proven pointless argument. The reason why OS X cut support from OS9 to OS X, was because they were fundamentally two different operating systems with different codebase.

If apple has 90% of the market share, you'd be thinking differently.  Oh wait we can relate that.  The mp3 player market apple has 90% of the market or so.  Apple when it releases each new version of itunes has to ensure the very first ipod still works with it.  So because apple has a much smaller share of the market when it comes to computers, they can drop support much easier.  And when apple switched over to intel processors, they cut support for the ppc chip's because of their small market share.  For Microsoft it also has to do with application support.  When a windows software developers wants to make an application, they want to make sure it runs on as many versions of windows as possible without having to recompile a version for each version.  This makes the software developer's life easier.  But still they do enable the developer to make their application only run on the newest version of windows too if they want.  Their is also old applications that corporations still use that Microsoft must maintain compatibility with.  Another example is that most applications in windows assume you have admin right, in Windows Vista Microsoft had to make sure that compatibility was still in their even if you ran as a normal user.  And they did a pretty good job of it I think.
  

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

Because Core image was not introduced in Jaguar. It was only introduced in Tiger, and this could not be implemented in Jaguar, hence why the performance is slower on 10.2. Your thinking like a Microsoft OS developer....you want to pile up all the features on top and on top of the existing codebase, without realizing how much of damage this could actually do to the future of your operating systems. Once you come up with something good...you cannot go back to the previous version, and create a compatible layer for that...this is a typical Microsoft approach. You should move forwards, not forward...and 2 step backwards.

Well thank you for the answer.  Now I know why Apple charged for it.  It's a new feature.

Those compatibility layers do work because as you advance you can drop them without worrying about the newer version because the older layer is only for older applications.  Just like Microsoft dropped 16-bit support with the x64 version of Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista.  Imagine if you developed a revolutionary new plug for the wall that used less electricity, but it required a whole new design for the wall socket.  Would you just make everyone change over to the new one without thinking that all the existing appliances that use the older version would have to be thrown out?  Never.  Instead you gradually introduce it.  Same thing with getting us off using oil.  Perhaps if hydrogen takes over, it'll be a slow process because again, it is in use so much.  But you must consider all the older users.  I'm guessing you're not a software programmer.
  

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

So your admitting that Microsoft underachieved on Vista?

They were too broad in all the features they wanted to support.  And they were public with it.  Apple could have been the same way with Leopard, they just weren't public about it.

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

If this is all opinion...then dont tell me to deal with it. In your view, Mircosoft may have caught up. But in my view..copying time and time again, failing to deliver features is not called "catching up".

  

You're correct.  You don't have to deal with it.  But the rest of the PC industry sees it as that.
  

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

Actually, you need 128Mb to run Aero Glass if you want to fully run it smoothely..as recommended by Microsoft...which means your still wrong. The 64Mb is only on low resolutions such as 1024x768. if you want to run it at the resolution that your running at...you would need a minimum of 128MB GPU ram, but preferrably 256MB, because your going into the HD range. ABout the link to MacRumours you posted, yes, if you were to go higher than 1280x1024, then 32MB of Vram, would be pusing it a bit. It definately would not be smooth at 1920x1200, but that being said, no one in their right mind will be running their ancient G3 or G4 hooked up to a high res LCD. Most of them dont have DVI ports, so it wouldnt matter by default anyways. However, I've seen Mac Mini's at the Apple store hooked up to 23" cinema displays...and run perfectly smooth. The mini uses 64mb vram though, but this is still significantly lower than what Aero needs to push out at 1920x1200.

      
It still runs on only 64 mb of video ram.  Microsoft may recommend 128 mb, but it still doesn't change the fact that 64 mb is enough.

But as I said, with the current implementation, is the gui supporting independent resolutions in tiger?  No.  One reason why Microsoft recommends 128 mb of video memory.  And isn't Microsoft insisting on modern hardware to run this?  Why would they want to cader to older hardware when the current hardware will be the future?
  

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

Well, like I said, I only use it for gaming, but thanks for the link, Ill give it a shot neverthless.

Glad you liked it.
  

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

No no, I originally said that it was possible to create exploits (in serious cases viruses), through hardware drivers. You said that this is not possible, and that you would like to see a single example. I showed you 2 examples. Yes, this is not a windows nor an OS X issue, since it can happen on both platform. My point however, was to prove that it is possible to do a driver related exploit, that was merely it.

And I was wrong.  But what I wasn't wrong about was that this is no reason to say that the broad variety of hardware thats available on the pc market is a bad thing, it is a good thing.  Because with lots of competition, prices go down and consumers get the most for their money.

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

2010: Apple larger than Microsoft?
http://10layers.com/...than-microsoft/
Apple's Mac market share tops 5% with over 30% growth
http://www.macworld....share/index.php

<h2 class="single" id="post-30720">Why Apple Inc. Will Hit $200 per Share in 2007</h2>http://ce.seekingalp...m/article/30720
Mac share of surfers doubles in eight months : Apple is eroding Microsoft's online market share
http://www.computerw...ticleId=9018641
Mac shipments expected to soar
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=5012
Apple shares hit new all-time closing high - again
http://macdailynews....comments/13565/
http://quotes.nasdaq...o...&page=multi

Intel Based Macs can Save Your University Money
http://education.zdnet.com/?p=941


Pennsylvania university pulls PC plug, goes all-Mac
http://computerworld...&intsrc=hm_list


Big Mac Attach at Wikes University
http://chronicle.com...dex.php?id=1890

Apple Overtakes Dell In UK Market
http://www.macworld....ype=allchandate

45 Percent of computers purchased at Princeton this year were Apple Macs
http://www.dailyprin...rts/16162.shtml

Nearly Half of Computers purchased at Harvard This year Were Apple Macs
http://www.thecrimso...aspx?ref=515324

Oh I think the statistical numbers favour Apple over Microsoft (Dell, HP, Toshiba etc) all right.

Nice links.  But how often in the market place does one company get a monopoly over a product on the market?  Very few.  Apple with it's ipod's and Microsoft with it's OS are the very few exceptions.  Most other products have many companies that build them.

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

Can you show a picture of this? Not that I dont believe you or anything...but even when Paul Thurott says this is not possible...I want to see how you did it.

Here ya go.


        

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

No, all you have to do is increase the magnificantion level of the dock, and no matter how small your dock gets..it will magnify the same amount. Here is an example below:

Good implementation.  I still prefer if application windows were grouped though.

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

From the above picture, you can clearly see that the live previews are magnified to a perfectly viewable amount. This is a full resolution shot..it was not altered in any way.

  
And now you can believe me.
        

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

Eitherway, its much better looking at application icons themselves with the software name to decide rather than looking at folder icon with the software name. Visually OS X's method is better, but its a personal preference really.

And I prefer looking at the folder name.  That is easier for me.

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

There are several applications for OS X that can make the uninstall process a breeze, the ideal example being AppZapper, here are three shots of it in action:

1. Open up App Zapper, and move the application over the drop zone:


2. Next AppZapper will automatically find all the necessary preference files and other misc files associated with that application...now all you have to do is click Zap, and all the files of that app including the app will be moved to the trash...which you just empty, and thats it. Its that simple to uninstall:

That is a nice little app.  Why isn't it included in OS X by default?

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

No, technically Apple came out with it first. Its already there in Tiger, as in the feature is very well there. Only the developers can take advantage of that however. If a developer wanted to create a resolution independant application, then they can do it no problem, because the developer tools to make that resolution independance in that app are already there in Tiger. Apple already brought it to the market first, Microsoft only followed suit. Were taking feature here.

  

If it's not available to the end user who is not a programmer, then it's not available.  It will only be available to them once Leopard comes out.  And since Microsoft made it available first to the end user, according to you, they got it first.  It's also one of many reasons why Vista needs 128 MB, or 64  MB if you want the bare minimum, of video memory.  What will you say if Leopard requires 128 MB of video memory when it is released?
    

EFI, on May 10 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

There are numerous reasons why the iPhone won't end up like the newton. Think of the iPod halo effect. This was not present when the Newton was around. Only time will tell.

But when it comes with a monthly bill that is higher then some people's cell phone plans, it might push them away.  But I wait and see what the result is.

[webmonkey44]

form+functionality...

[riktor]

I will give my experience and my thoughts on this and then let the debate reinsue.  Im tech junkie, Ive built numerous PCs based on what people want to do with them and financial requirments.  I have also built stuff for myself.  That being said, alot of people seem to want to ask me for computer advice, and I alway give advice freely based on what the needs of that indivudal or family of what there function is on there computer.  I have been a avid PC devotee for a numerous years for a number of reasons but convience being the most promminant.  I have used the original IBM XT with IBMDOS 3.1, and also every version of windows except ME, and Vista.  So for me it was the fear of having to start over that kept me with PCs.  

All of that has changed now and this is where I will add to the talk.  I believe apple's niche for certian people is its form, some people buy apple for the asthetics, just as some people pay the huge premium for alienwares cases (guilty of this my self).  And I do believe that apple may sacrafice some of the function for the form but I think the phrase is better left like this.  Form and Focused Function.  See Apple, like any good company, knows who its customers are, and the focus that function to them and can cut out the function that doesnt overall serve there customer base.  

I will give an example of my starting to notice apple as a more then just a pretty computer.  I was in college for 3 years learning a degree in computer animation.  I will be honest and say I dread everyday I had to use premier or after effects on G4s.  They were slow beyond my reckoning along with other reasons.  I bought my wonderful (sort of) Alienware Area 51m and my mac problems were behind me since I could do projects on PC now.  I will be honest and say the my PC with premier pro rendered video at the minutes compared to hours of the mac.  But I wasnt aware that these macs were stripped of ram and other theivary by previous students as well as antiquated and barely running at all, I just assumed it was typical mac.  Though they did tend to be slower.  It was a couple years later, near graduation, when I had to use a mac again and my experience was much different.  I had traded my laptop for a desktop.  I was tired of Alienware's tech support and had worked out all my issues barely before the warranty expired (theres a debate for form and funtion).  I had decided to focus my field study digital environments and matte painting, which for those who don't know, is alot of photo manipulation and painting mixed with some 3d.  It was at the point of using my desktop same specs as in my sig, that I had found some flaws in windows when it came to professional apps.  I was working in Photoshop with a 4096 x 2142 @ 300dpi image.  This image also had about 75 layers by about this time, and though it was still working quite smoothly it would randomly crash after a certain point.  No warning about anything the screen would just drop.  Eventually it came to the point where I would save after 4-5 functions because it would crash if I tried to perform more.  I read up on the issue and found it was windows and issues with its cap on how much memory and virtual memory to an app.  This was not isolated to PS but to all apps and 3d apps had been crashing while rendering because of this reason as well.  So it was time to come up with a work around as I usually did, I didnt have much time to finish so it had to be quick.  I dropped the DPI of the piece to 250, and it did work for about another 10 minutes but now half done and unwilling to drop quality lower I was having still the same problem.  I had earlier convinced a tech at my school to drop wacom drivers for my tablet on a dual G5 tower at my school and decided I would take my painting to there and work because it was completely in effecient to save a 500mb file every 2 minutes.  The next day I worked on my project on the mac.  It didnt crash once and the file doubled in size.  I couldnt even do more then open it in windows but on the mac it was completely workable.  I gave begruged to apple at this point but didnt make a switch, I just told my self that I would buy a mac for PS and do 3d on windows or linux.  I did try to fix the windows issue by trying 64 bit edition but that still was limited because of the 32 bit nature of PS so I just conceded mac was better at Graphic work, and concete that most made long ago.  

Fast foward to now, Vista is out.  Core Duo macs are now the new age of Apple.  I have readup on workflows for professionals in my industry and let me say every one of them has macs in there.  Whether it be compositing in Shake or editing in Final Cut, and with NAB and other trade shows mac just gets stronger.  But for Vista, theres the typical issues of hardware not working with the new OS, but the worst thing for me being a 3d guy too is the Vista prevents direct access to hardware from drivers... this casuse serious problems in 3d apps that use opengl and causes a sub XP performance that is not tollerable for a suposed better OS, that and with the overhead of OS's programs.  So I searched for the alternative, linux was great but took a little more tweaking then I had time for.  Then I found OSx86, It didnt function at first with 4.5 but by 4.8 my system was fully functional with OSX.  By then I started to think if a hack works this well what would a real mac be like?  So I have orded a MacBook.  

For me it was that Apple focused on my the needs of my function.  Sure they have always been pretty but I still want something that works, or else I would buy another Alienware.  Also from what I have seen from the responses in here it seems consistent that they sacrafice funtions that arent focused to there demographic.  For example, clocking down the ATI cards to reduce heat in the Core Duos.  Well they are reducing the heat for you, do you need all that clock for video editing, compositing, or 3d?  For photoshop or making a webpage?  How about for creating DVDs or editing your bands next great album?  That is the demographic for the MacBook Pro not gamers, sure apple has the campaign of we can do games too but there still limited on the quanity of games out there, what hardcore gamer is gonna say I need a new lan party laptop, I better buy a new mac.  Alienware, Voodoo PC, Sager, Dell XPS, and others fits this bill.  But with that said a MacBook Pro could push those graphics fairly well even with the lower clock.  So its not that they didnt want to make it look less pretty is that they could adjust the function for those it was geared to, who woudlnt notice or miss it.  

For those who say, well mac mini doesnt impress me, or the onboard graphics of the GMA 950 are horrible... let me say Mac Mini and MacBook are not for you.  Your obviously not who they are geared for if the do not interest you.  But MacBook interests me, for Photoshop, Shake, Final Cut Pro, and minimal amount of 3d all with long battery life great portability.  The only thing I wish for in the macbook would be Firewire 800 and higher rez LCD but as with most laptop users Im willing to sacrafice for portability.  And for those who say I can do what I want because of the graphics, read up on it... GMA950 performs as well as G4 notebook with a Radeon in OpenGL which I have seen 3d work done to quality.  I would love to have a MBP but I also have to think budget, apps are expensive.  

And for mac mini, this is how I recommended it for a friend since she only emails and surfs.  Its small and powerful, it will support apple's future OS's for a few years.  It is easy to use.  It has an extremely low security risk of virus and spyware, and since her computer is riddled with that stuff it is definately a high point for the average user.  And lastly it can use her current USB mouse + keyboard and monitor.  It will also give her extra options of picture editing and home video creating with iLife.  For that price yeah she could get PC that is better but, the virus thing is what is casuing here to ticked off with here machine now... and yes you could say that she should get a copy of McAffe or Norton, but most people who are computer illiterate fail to keep it upto date after the supscribtion runs out.  Macs are easy to learn and are better then PCs in maintinance for the average user (and the computer illiterate are the average user which most gurus forget)  

So with this all said and my fingers tired.  Apple does like there form, they are known for it.  I can pick and apple out of product placement in a snap.  But at the same time they are concerened about there demograpic, by creating one the most reliable OS's based of creating and easy to use UNIX (in which unix has proven to be one of the most reliable)  Making sure that apps just work when you click on them.  Catering to the professional crowd like me, with a MacBook that can do what I need to for not alot of cash to MBP that can do 2k film composites of King Kong back in NAB 2006 which is unprecidented for a laptop in that price range with the features of MBP... to creating a 3d and editing workhorse in Mac Pro offering the creme de creme of performance in a stable environement.  To mac mini for the average (illiterate) user who are tired of windows and are looking elswhere but dont have the knowledge to screw with linux.  To iMacs which can handle the beast of video editing and 3d but are designed to a compacted work space that most Graphic Designers would enjoy.  

I still have a PC, and I still do most of my 3d there, but this new journey with Apple has been a joy every step of the way.  Sure apple may not have the latest and greatest processor or power toy that PCs have but does one need it?  You could argue the pro artist would desire it, and true we would, but when we are in the middle of production we lock down the system so that no changes can be made once everything works and upgrades are made with considerable thought.  Apple also utilizes that time between significant hardware release to create a product that is absent of as many bugs as possible.  Something that the average, again illiterate, new Vista users would desire greatly.  I will say apple has it pitfalls, and without being a apple user for a long time I was swayed by that, but the benifits in there specific focus on the functionality of what I do finally became abundant and clear and I have plunged in.  

So my $.02 and let the debate ensue.

[Dwight F]

EFI, on May 6 2007, 11:56 PM, said:

1. Windows 95 - Good
Windows 98 - Great
Windows 2000 - Poor
Windows ME - Beyond crap
Windows XP - Great
Windows Vista - Ok

I dont see an improvement here.

Holy mother of fugnuster! You do realize in that list you are mixing DOS Windows and NT Windows, two very different products? And skipped the first iterations of both too. Further I really got to question your judgement, stuff is really bass-ackwards. Rating 2000 as 'poor'? I'm not sure exactly how it earned that? Or at least exactly what criteria you are using?Oh and yes people clung to DOS too long. Arguably MS should have just told everyone to pound sand and not put out that last one (Windows ME). Tried to pile too much 'new' on top of a dead foundation. EDIT: Oh, and I assume you are comparing XP post SP1 to Vista? Because pre-SP1 XP had some seriously rough edges. Plus hardware/drivers had time to grow under it.

@ riktor: Just one small but important comment about your post.

http://www.opengl.or...ticle/vol003_9/

Understable why you believe what you do. Deliberately or not, I think the early Vista alpha/beta builds really muddied the waters (nice way of saying FUD ). Initially OpenGL was just a skin over DirectX, with the crappy performance that that implies. That actually makes some sense in a development timeline sense if Microsoft's priority was to get DirectX up. Which, lets face, it is. Microsoft has long given OpenGL half-hearted support. But architecturally Vista does support OpenGL on an even footing. Performance is really left up to the video card manufacturers

EDIT: Oh, and WMD EDIT:WDM (I crack my self up sometimes ) is a forward way of handing things. It does add a little fat but it also enables some really cool abilities. Such is the nature of advancement in computers. That's why we largely don't sit at the console any more.

[EFI]

Dwight F, on Aug 17 2007, 12:29 PM, said:

Holy mother of fugnuster! You do realize in that list you are mixing DOS Windows and NT Windows, two very different products?

They are still Windows aren't they?

[Dwight F]

EFI, on Aug 17 2007, 03:32 PM, said:

They are still Windows aren't they?

Corvette and Chevette are both cars built by General Motors with the same Chevrolet tag on them, right?  Very, very different products. The name "Windows" was [re]used because of brand recognition. In fact Microsoft went so far as to change the first release of NT to be version 3.1 to say "yeah, don't fear this, nothing new here" when it was effectively a total rewrite. Just like they used the "Visual" from Visual Basic in renaming of their [priorly dismal but then rewritten] C/C++ compiler to Microsoft Visual C++. Visual C++ shared precious little in common with VB, the similarity could be summed up as they both created programs using a GUI IDE. But Visual Basic had the air of a successful product and had this "Windows programming that semi-noobs can do" vibe to it. That's pure marketing gold that Microsoft sure as hell wasn't going to waste.

Plus placing any DOS one over a contemporary NT one?  Maybe, just maybe, you could make an arguement with NT prior to 4.0. But only from the angle of support from breadth of 3rd party for software that was built for them. But even then I switched to NT on my desktop when it was still "1.0", meaning the first widely available beta (I think it was beta, maybe late alpha). That pre-release was just that much more solid in so many ways than the contemporaries of WFW 3.11/Windows 3.1.

[Dwight F]

...Keep in mind that the perspective I'm viewing this from is largely a programmer/analyst, system integrator, network admin, and what I guess could be termed a "power user" of office applications. I've done a lot of different computer jobs over the years. So things that are more, I guess you could call 'home computer' related, tend to get slid down lower on my priority list than with a lot of people. Still with that, although some of the newer bits of UI and media ideas had a bit of a lead time in introduction to DOS, they nearly always didn't really work that well till they got to NT. Sometimes they just flat out overwhelmed the nearly 20-year-old underpinnings of DOS. That came to the forefront with ME but had been there since NT's introduction.

[pyrates]

EFI, on Aug 17 2007, 02:32 PM, said:

They are still Windows aren't they?

Do you lump OS 9 and OS X into the same bag?  Of course not.  Despite having a similar sounding name, they are not the same product.  OS X was completely rewritten using next OS as the basis.  I wouldn't compare the 2 together, so you can't exactly compare windows 98 with windows 2000.  Both have completely different code bases in it.  Windows 2000 may be able to run the same apps that Windows 98 can, but underneath they are completely different.

[EFI]

I was talking from an OS evolutionary standpoint, in which case, Windows 2000 does come after Windows 98...and OS X, does come after OS 9. Thus, speaking from that viewpoint, to answer Pyrates question...yes, I would lump them together.

[pyrates]

EFI, on Aug 21 2007, 09:19 PM, said:

I was talking from an OS evolutionary standpoint, in which case, Windows 2000 does come after Windows 98...and OS X, does come after OS 9. Thus, speaking from that viewpoint, to answer Pyrates question...yes, I would lump them together.

Well unlike you, I don't lump things together in order to serve one's own bias opinion.  I take facts as they are.  Unlike you, which lumps things together whenever it serves their purpose.

[Headrush69]

pyrates, on Aug 22 2007, 12:26 AM, said:

Well unlike you, I don't lump things together in order to serve one's own bias opinion.  I take facts as they are.  Unlike you, which lumps things together whenever it serves their purpose.

Doesn't invalidate his argument though. To consumers Windows 2000 was the next step in the Windows family regardless whether it was based on NT or not.

Your original argument was that by the 3rd iteration, MS got it right.
So remove Windows 2000 from the argument and you still have Win 95 -> Win 98 -> Win ME
(Even the most adamant MS fan can't argue that Me was a disaster like no other.)

[pyrates]

Headrush69, on Aug 21 2007, 09:56 PM, said:

Doesn't invalidate his argument though. To consumers Windows 2000 was the next step in the Windows family regardless whether it was based on NT or not.

Sure it does.  They were not based on the same code.  Anyone trying to have a valid debate would not make that mistake because it makes them look bad.

Headrush69, on Aug 21 2007, 09:56 PM, said:

Your original argument was that by the 3rd iteration, MS got it right.
So remove Windows 2000 from the argument and you still have Win 95 -> Win 98 -> Win ME
(Even the most adamant MS fan can't argue that Me was a disaster like no other.)

Duh, of course Windows ME was a disaster.  But my argument was that Microsoft got it right and were on track when they got to Windows XP.  I didn't make that chart up remember.  Now Windows Vista is here and it's even better IMO.  Mainly because I can run as a regular user with out problems.

[EFI]

pyrates, on Aug 22 2007, 12:26 AM, said:

Well unlike you, I don't lump things together in order to serve one's own bias opinion.  I take facts as they are.  Unlike you, which lumps things together whenever it serves their purpose.

I'm the one who lumps things whenever it serves my purpose? Yeah, ok, whatever you say buddy...

[Headrush69]

pyrates, on Aug 22 2007, 01:12 AM, said:

Sure it does.  They were not based on the same code.  Anyone trying to have a valid debate would not make that mistake because it makes them look bad.

Like I said exclude 2000 since it was based on a different codebase. Did you even read what I wrote?

pyrates, on Aug 22 2007, 01:12 AM, said:

Duh, of course Windows ME was a disaster.  But my argument was that Microsoft got it right and were on track when they got to Windows XP.  I didn't make that chart up remember.

May be your argument, but I was basing it on this:

pyrates said:

Remember this, Microsoft always gets it right by the 3rd version.