Responses to new GUI in 9a410

[nickg331]

im getting sick of everyone complaining about the new GUI, so here goes:

 

i think everyone is forgetting the purpose of the developer builds. they are simply to allow developers to begin transitioning their programs to the new OS. they are NOT meant to serve as a preview for what is to come. it seems pretty obvious to me that the GUI of 9a410 is NOT what will appear in the final build. however, creating a universal theme for the system makes it INCREDIBLY EASY for apple to change the entire look at once (ie, when they put out the first external beta at WWDC). it was previously noted that leopard contains a new frameworks folder called themes, which contains an item called aqua. seems to me all they need to do is modify this file and suddenly every application looks different. steve j is NOT trying to tell users what is to come in the leopard GUI, merely setting apple up to completely overhaul the GUI right before leopard is released.

 

im guessing steve jobs still has more than a few tricks up his sleeve. i personally kind of like the gray GUI, but i can GUARANTEE that it will not be the final product. apple is building up for something big, adding to the anticipation by extending the release time frame (enough to make it annoyingly close, but not so much that customers lose faith... *cough* vista *cough*). at this point, anything less than extraordinary would be a let down, but im putting my bets on apple coming through and delivering. everything apples done this year has indicated that they expect to impress us, like the curious message displayed on their website at the new year ("the first 30 years were just the beginning. welcome to 2007"), or like the little GUI changes that pop up here and there just seem to be hinting at something big to come.

 

so, i repeat: this is NOT the final GUI. apple is famous for company secrecy, did anyone really think they'd give away the details of the upcoming GUI 6 months before release?

 

october will be a good month...

[lookmark]

I agree 100%.

 

Apple has something much more interesting up their sleeve that they've been cooking for the past 2+ years, and we'll see it (finally!) in June at WWDC.

[Soündless]

i actually like the new gui. but this build seems less stable then 9a241 and it runs slow as F*** off my usb

[alloutmacstoday]

i thought you said it was good

[Adrian Fogge]

The build is very good compared to the last build that we had.

 

Most of the issues from the previous build have been resolved, however there have been a couple new issues that have popped up that seem to effect apps that contain significant anti-piracy systems, like Photoshop, InDesign and the like.

 

Some games even have issues where they can not validate their product keys because libcrypto is not working in this build.

 

Aside from that single issue, it is a very good build. I expect to see that one issue resolved in a matter of days because I can not see Apple having developers work on a system that does not have access to core libraries that are essencial to protecting their applications.

 

I mean, I am not about to strip out licensing checks from pre-existing code revisions just to make sure that the main app runs on the new OS.

 

If Apple comes out and says no longer use libcrypto for validation, use "x" instead, then by all means, I will do the rewrite necissry to make the stuff run under Leopard. But right now it looks like it is just a bug and I have no information that says otherwise.

[nato64]

I like the GUI, it's a step forward. I'll choose Mac OS X over vista any day, but you ahve to admit that Microsoft has made leaps and bounds in terms of "eye candy". Vista is a lot easier to look at than the Fisher Price theme that XP had. I still like Tiger more, but I'd prefer to have Mac OS X to be years ahead of Vista. Apple needs to refine this new theme and make it shaper. I have full faith that what Leopard will look like when it's released will blow us away.

[emig647]

Chalk another vote for someone who LOVES the new gui. I gotta say apple did a good job getting everything on the same ui finally. I think it makes os x finally a grace to look at. No horizontal lines, no clunky brushed metal w/ drop shadows. I love it. I hope they keep it like this.

[mikebat]

If Apple comes out and says no longer use libcrypto for validation, use "x" instead, then by all means, I will do the rewrite necissry to make the stuff run under Leopard. But right now it looks like it is just a bug and I have no information that says otherwise.

 

Does this relate?

 

OpenSSL 0.9.6 (which includes libcrypto and libssl) will be included in Leopard as PPC only, not universal. OpenSSL 0.9.7 will still ship in Leopard as a universal library. If you only require SSL consider the Secure Transport framework as an alternative. If you only require cryptographic hash functions consider CommonCrypto

[Soündless]

i thought you said it was good

seems to be running better after i restarted it a few times

[SuitCase]

The new gui is hideous, ugly, and uninspiring. Even if it's something you like, it's certainly not particularly attractive, and it effectively doesn't fix the functional problems of the differences between "brushed metal" windows and standard aqua ones (draggability, etc.)

 

The rumours promised an Aero-killer.. looks like we haven't got it, just more of the (kinda okay but ageing) same.

 

For those who hold out on a new look with this as a decoy before the "real new UI".. I think the introduction of this grey look finally confirmed that if we get any further visual change it's going to be minor and evolutionary like this - most likely we'll just see a different texture on the menu bar, a new default background image and some button colours tidied up. Six months isn't really a very long time for Apple, and if you look at past releases, such as Tiger, there was almost zero change between the WWDC build and the final, which were spaced many months apart. It's also pretty believable that apple want to do this, as it matches the aesthetic of iTunes 7 and iLife '06 rather well.

 

Apple are complacent and lazy. Their UI continues to spiral out of control into an inconsistent mess reminiscent of Windows and Linux, and they're not even making things very pretty to compensate. Here's hoping 10.6 returns to the kind of rigid, innovative, aesthetically-pleasing, HIG-updating methodology of developing new UI of the 10.0->10.3 era (without the blemish of brushed metal, of course.)

[emig647]

Personally suitcase, I'm glad apple isn't going for an aero-killer. I don't want something very graphical taxing my system just to browse files. I have enough programs that demand my gpu and cpu and memory as it is, without finder hogging it. I'm very excited apple didn't take the big change to a graphical approach. I think the only time we'll see something new is if Apple does a whole new type of gui, ie dropping the whole folder file idea.

 

This is refreshing to me that we will still have a fast robust system. Apple can't please everyone... it's impossible. But I'm sure they can make most people happy... by keeping their computers upgradable to leopard and by keeping computers fast in leopard.

 

Currently M$ is facing a huge lawsuit because they pre-labled computers as vista compatible before vista shipped. A lot of these computers that shipped as vista compatible can't even run vista! Vista is basically XP with a really bloated gui. It taxes even some of the best computers out there. Apple can't afford to shoot themselves in the foot by making a really graphical gui that only a select few macs can run. Picture how many macs actually ship with a half way decent graphics card. All the macs shipped in the last year come default with a 7300gt and a x1600 or an intel gpu. Not very nice if you ask me. Not a lot to work with.

 

This will keep the finder useful, fast, compatible, and easy on the eyes. The goal here is to make the computer easy to work with... not just a joy to look at.

[SuitCase]

Why shouldn't something be graphically taxing? If Apple can do something really cool and it happens to use up a bit more CPU and GPU power than the last UI, I see nothing wrong with that - that was the whole philosophy of OS X from the beginning with Quartz using the bloaty method of compositing all the windows and later Quartz Extreme turning them all into textures for the GPU to process - things people complained about at first, but love today. Holding back and not changing things for the sake of a few people with really old computers? That's what gets you the kind of dramatic fast-paced GUI innovation you see on the Windows side of things. (Oh wait, there's been none of that.)

 

But I think they already did the whole "let's make use of our faster computers" thing with Spaces, for instance. What Apple needs to do besides make something aesthetically pretty (which requires more design know-how than technical know-how, now that the compositing thing has long been overcome) is figure out a way of bringing back consistency and intelligence to the way the GUI works. Reworking Aqua to have a consistent, modern, attractive look doesn't mean there'll be core image ripples going on constantly to bring your computer down - it means they need to fix their code, graphics and design ideas to better suit the OS X interface that continues to sprawl into a mess of confusingly dissimilar widgets and window decorations and arrangements across each application.

 

Fwiw, Vista isn't that much of a bloated gui, though, and it doesn't "tax some of the best computers out there". Use it before you make fun of it - it runs wonderfully on my first gen Intel iMac, which, as a year-old laptop-on-a-stand, is hardly one of the best computers out there.

[mr.manatane]

Personally suitcase, I'm glad apple isn't going for an aero-killer. I don't want something very graphical taxing my system just to browse files. I have enough programs that demand my gpu and cpu and memory as it is, without finder hogging it.

Ok tell me what software is eating your GPU while you are browsing your files ...

 

 

This is refreshing to me that we will still have a fast robust system. Apple can't please everyone... it's impossible. But I'm sure they can make most people happy... by keeping their computers upgradable to leopard and by keeping computers fast in leopard.

Well they won't make happy a lot of people regarding how is appreciated this new skin. After that I think it's the minimum to be able to upgrade to Leopard when you bought a mac.

Man, you are BIND to their hardware.

 

Currently M$ is facing a huge lawsuit because they pre-labled computers as vista compatible before vista shipped. A lot of these computers that shipped as vista compatible can't even run vista! Vista is basically XP with a really bloated gui. It taxes even some of the best computers out there. Apple can't afford to shoot themselves in the foot by making a really graphical gui that only a select few macs can run.

 

Picture how many macs actually ship with a half way decent graphics card. All the macs shipped in the last year come default with a 7300gt and a x1600 or an intel gpu. Not very nice if you ask me. Not a lot to work with.

 

This will keep the finder useful, fast, compatible, and easy on the eyes. The goal here is to make the computer easy to work with... not just a joy to look at.

 

That's why Apple use llvm for the opengl.

 

LLVM is currently used when hardware support is disabled or when the current hardware does not support a feature requested by the user app.

This happens most often on low-end graphics chips (e.g. integrated graphics), but can happen even with the high-end graphics when advanced capabilities are used.

http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev...ust/006492.html

[Adrian Fogge]

As surprising as it may sound to some people, rendering a GUI does not take an ultra high-end graphics cards by todays standards.

 

Take Linux's Beryl project, window deformations, transparencies, 3D Effects and the like running on an Nvidia Geforce2 8MB.

 

Fine, your computer does not ship with a graphics card made in the past 6 months... Big deal.

 

Whenever I hear people complaining that some component blows because it is not the absolutely highest end component on the market today, it just pisses me off because I realize that these are people who will never be satisfied with anything.

 

Think about it this way, Microsoft's main responsibility as the main OS Vendor is to invigorate the computing market to purchase upgrades. Compare the performance of XP RTM to XP SP2 some time with PCmark or your personal favorite benchmarking tool if you don't believe me.

 

As surprising as it may sound, it is possible to write somewhat efficient code that does what you need with minimal overhead. For the most part, Apple has always done that. They have STILL done that with Leopard, since it can still run on decade old computers with no real issues.

 

~Adrian

[Paranoid Marvin]

I have a feeling the secret features will be unveiled at WWDC, and then in the final beta, before shipping in October.

The new UI is definately a placeholder, but it shows there will be a unified UI, methinks

[emig647]

Why shouldn't something be graphically taxing? If Apple can do something really cool and it happens to use up a bit more CPU and GPU power than the last UI, I see nothing wrong with that - that was the whole philosophy of OS X from the beginning with Quartz using the bloaty method of compositing all the windows and later Quartz Extreme turning them all into textures for the GPU to process - things people complained about at first, but love today. Holding back and not changing things for the sake of a few people with really old computers? That's what gets you the kind of dramatic fast-paced GUI innovation you see on the Windows side of things. (Oh wait, there's been none of that.)

 

It's ok for something to be graphically taxing to a point. But not something that hinders performance. Up through 10.3 os x had poor redrawing issues. It almost made some apps unusable including the finder in some cases. If you resized a window it would jump, some computers worse than others. From what i'm gathering from this crowd is you guys expect something spectacular. I'd say a good majority of people who use macs use them for some sort of work. I really don't want a gui getting in the way if rendering times, distractions, etc. That doesn't mean apple can't be creative and think of new things, just don't get crazy with it. There are people that use mac minis, mac books, ibooks, etc with weak graphics cards. Apple is great at innovating, but they can't pull another graphical innovation and have it tax machines like 10.0->10.3 did.

 

But I think they already did the whole "let's make use of our faster computers" thing with Spaces, for instance. What Apple needs to do besides make something aesthetically pretty (which requires more design know-how than technical know-how, now that the compositing thing has long been overcome) is figure out a way of bringing back consistency and intelligence to the way the GUI works. Reworking Aqua to have a consistent, modern, attractive look doesn't mean there'll be core image ripples going on constantly to bring your computer down - it means they need to fix their code, graphics and design ideas to better suit the OS X interface that continues to sprawl into a mess of confusingly dissimilar widgets and window decorations and arrangements across each application.

 

Spaces is great. I think apple did a fantastic job with it. They seem to have got every feature... I won't bore you with what i'm satisfied with on it cause I"m sure you already know. Aqua is attractive to me. This current theme is very attractive to me. Very clean, modern, and robust. Why ruin that? What more can you want? My biggest complaint isn't the theme, it's the finder navigation. If you want a new theme what is the problem with using a 3rd party them or creating your own? You really need to specify exactly what you're looking for, because when I think of what you're talking about I think of really advanced 3d objects with layers and transparencies, etc.

 

Fwiw, Vista isn't that much of a bloated gui, though, and it doesn't "tax some of the best computers out there". Use it before you make fun of it - it runs wonderfully on my first gen Intel iMac, which, as a year-old laptop-on-a-stand, is hardly one of the best computers out there.

 

A) I have used vista quite enough to know how much slower it is than xp. your iMac has an x1600 in it! A lot of computers that were sold in the last year didn't even come close to having a x1600 in it. C) If you track fps in vista compared to xp in games, you will notice a huge difference. 10-30 fps is average, some games not even playable on some systems. You're telling me that isn't taxing some of the best hardware out there? That is a HUGE tax. When vista is only off by a few fps then come talk to me about it not taxing systems. Go to google and type "fps games in vista" and watch the horde of stories come up.

 

Ok tell me what software is eating your GPU while you are browsing your files ...

None YET, but I don't want it to either. If apple goes crazy with a GUI like aero, count me out. I think aero is the biggest distraction on vista. I love the way things are currently. I am 100% satisfied with leopard. It is going to make my life a dream to work in every day. Doesn't that count for something? But again it doesn't mean I'm not open to suggestions. Some of the things people were suggesting were crazy, like making quickview or quicklook (forgot what it's called) the whole theme of the whole OS. That would be way too much contrast to work with on a daily basis. For people working on computers 12-16 hours a day, we need something mellow on the eyes. Again, I'm open to suggestions... but for me the way it is now... it's fantastic.

[SuitCase]

It's ok for something to be graphically taxing to a point. But not something that hinders performance. Up through 10.3 os x had poor redrawing issues. It almost made some apps unusable including the finder in some cases. If you resized a window it would jump, some computers worse than others. From what i'm gathering from this crowd is you guys expect something spectacular. I'd say a good majority of people who use macs use them for some sort of work. I really don't want a gui getting in the way if rendering times, distractions, etc. That doesn't mean apple can't be creative and think of new things, just don't get crazy with it. There are people that use mac minis, mac books, ibooks, etc with weak graphics cards. Apple is great at innovating, but they can't pull another graphical innovation and have it tax machines like 10.0->10.3 did.

Fair point. I don't think Apple needs to do anything that ambitious, but aren't we getting Quartz 2D Extreme soon, which speeds up the UI even more. Some of that excess power should go towards more useful features like, I dunno, more aggressive caching of prerendering of window content, high resolution UI (res independence) and perhaps more innovative features I can't dream up while typing a forum post (but the sort of innovative features Apple's had the past 5 years to come up with.) I totally accept that it'd be uncool if 10.5 was an extremely taxing upgrade that slowed down in the same way OS X was much slower than OS 9, but on the other hand I reject the idea that Apple should be going for speed at all costs (even if it means stagnant and boring UI updates.)

 

Spaces is great. I think apple did a fantastic job with it. They seem to have got every feature... I won't bore you with what i'm satisfied with on it cause I"m sure you already know. Aqua is attractive to me. This current theme is very attractive to me. Very clean, modern, and robust. Why ruin that?

I think Aqua was nicer in 10.3, and for one reason - consistency. The one place to start with Aqua (from an aesthetic point of view, though usability comes into it) is to fix the fact we have standard aqua, unified, brushed metal, grey metal, iTunes metal, Garageband wood, pro grey, slightly older pro grey, shaded widgets, bright blue aqua widgets, Mail 2.0 toolbars, standard toolbars, recessed toolbars and simply settle on something clean, clear and consistent.

 

Even if you like Aqua, it's no longer a big drawcard for OS X. People used to say "wow Aqua looks cool" when they used XP, now Vista has put more swooshy blurry crazy stuff in their OS and made it (if a bit garishly) as visually impressive as Aqua. Why can't Apple come along and unveil a new, gorgeous, consistent revision to Aqua that puts Vista's weird inconsistencies and usability issues to shame? Why are we stuck with the dumb idea of putting this bleak old dark grey scheme on some (but not all!) windows with little more to it than that? I guess the computer will still be usable, but that's not what we should expect of Apple - I want them to push the envelope, come up with new ideas, fix the problems with their old ideas, and do it all in a way that looks perfect, clean and beautiful. They're not doing that anymore, they're being lazy and complacent.. which is exactly what they can't be now that Vista is here and a lot of their once unique features are now common to all Windows users.

 

If you want a new theme what is the problem with using a 3rd party them or creating your own? You really need to specify exactly what you're looking for, because when I think of what you're talking about I think of really advanced 3d objects with layers and transparencies, etc.

Eye candy is only part of the issue, really. I want to see usability changes too. I think Apple have far more forward thinking GUI engineers than my brain could ever hope to compete with, but how about Apple fix the lame behaviour of the green and yellow buttons to be more useful (minimise-in-place or hide? an animated, more intelligent zoom for all apps?) introduce their awesome shadowy higlighting for Find operations as seen in Safari 3, or a system of distinguishing windows to remove the one advantage of having the weird mess of crazy window designs we have in 10.4 (color-coded tabs?), or a free-flowing window system where drag operations allow you to more smoothly navigate between windows with mouse drags, or a highly visual gesture based system to manage windows, or that concept of "stacks" and some manner of window grouping functionality, or..

 

You get the point. Those are just some ideas I myself came up with on the spot, but surely you can agree with me that there are probably a lot of exciting things Apple _could_ do to enhance the interface both aesthetically and functionally, right?

 

A) I have used vista quite enough to know how much slower it is than xp. your iMac has an x1600 in it! A lot of computers that were sold in the last year didn't even come close to having a x1600 in it. C) If you track fps in vista compared to xp in games, you will notice a huge difference. 10-30 fps is average, some games not even playable on some systems. You're telling me that isn't taxing some of the best hardware out there? That is a HUGE tax. When vista is only off by a few fps then come talk to me about it not taxing systems. Go to google and type "fps games in vista" and watch the horde of stories come up.

You just said the X1600 wasn't very nice! But aside from that, it's a {censored} mobility radeon and pretty much all new PCs you can buy with Vista have better graphics cards than that, and will similarly have no problems. Also, I did install Vista on a Thinkpad with a (gasp) 600mhz Pentium III and found it to be about as fast\slow as XP was on the same machine. Not really a test of Aero, sure, but it sure fights the "VISTA IS IMMENSELY BLOATED AND SLOW! OMG!" stereotype that is blasted around the web even now it's out and people can actually try it.

 

As for game FPS problems, yeah, that's an issue, but I am quite sure that's due to driver issues. I believe Nvidia's Vista drivers in particular currently suck hard and are not nearly as fast as their XP equivalents, which leads to the decreased game performance. It's not a bad reflection on Vista or Aero (though it should also be noted that Aero will drain some resources kinda like how Quartz Extreme drains some from games running in OS X, which is just something you have to deal with if you want a compositing windowing engine.)

[mr.manatane]

I agree, it would be sad to say "wow Vista looks cool" after Leopard will be out.

[Lactobacillus P]

Can someone point us to some current screenshots, there are tons of speculative and fake ones around the web.

 

I will definitely want to get Leopard for my leopard fähig-real mac systems.

[mr.manatane]

Hehe good news for Leopard, Apple is developping a dynamic desktop

 

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/04...r_mac_os_x.html

[EFI]

But aside from that, it's a {censored} mobility radeon and pretty much all new PCs you can buy with Vista have better graphics cards than that, and will similarly have no problems.

 

You made some good points, but totally blew your self on this one. I have to seriosuly disagree on that point. Most Vista PC's come with integrated graphics like the Intel GMA900 or 950, and a few desktops come with either a Radeon X1300, or a GeForce 7300...both of which are not as powerful as an X1600. You cannot call a mobility Radeon {censored}, becuase it can pretty much play most games out today at maxed out settings and on full resolution as well (providing you keep the AA low, and thats the only catch). I know this, becasue I've played many games on my Macbook Pro like Quake 4, Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars, Halff Life 2 EP1, F.E.A.R, and Rainbow Six: Vegas which proves this. Now that being said, its not the greatest I agree, as there are still aleague of cards above it...but saying that its a pretty much {censored} is just a totally incorrect statement. Same goes with the GeForce 7600, which although is a midrange card, can still play most games at maxed out settings.

 

I'm going to pick on Dell for an example, All their Inspiron laptops, which are the major selling laptop family for Dell, doesnt come with any graphics card at all for almost every model, unless you speciafically configure it...in which case your price goes above the one that Dell recommends by default....Pretty much all of them come with an integrated Intel GMA950 on all models by default unless you specially configure it, and even then...the max you can go is to a Radeon X1300, or a GeForce 7300GS, both of which are nowhere near as powerful as a Radeon X1600. The X1300, and GeForce 7300GS, although better than integrated graphics, are still not enough to fully power Vista's Aero Glass, and when you have apps like Photoshop and Firefox open at the same time...if will be guaranteed to lag. Only when you get into the XPS line...do you start to get GPU's onboard your laptop that are equivalent to the X1600 or more...and believe it or not, a similarily configured Dell XPS (becuase it is not possible to configure the Inspiron similarily becuase of its low end hardware) is more expensive. The Macbook Pro is cheaper to a Dell XPS, but you cant exactly do a similar config because the XPS comes minimum with a GeForce 7900GS, which is faster than the X1600...but then the Macbook Pro comes with an iSight camera onboard, motion sensors, a backlit keyboard, and ambient light sensors, looks beautiful, and is only 1" thin. The final Price when including all the necessary photo, video, and music production softwares (You have to include somewhat of an iLife equivalent btw )

 

15" Dell XPS M1710: $3,858

 

15" Apple Macbook Pro: $2499

 

 

And I know for a fact that having a slightly faster video card cannot justify a $1,359 price increase. The 7900GS is still considered a midrange card (albeit top of the line midrange). Its the GT, and GTX that are considered high end.

 

 

HP is also in the same ballgame. Most of their laptops also have the Intel integrated GMA900/950 graphics chip, and therfore cannot handle Vista in all its glory, when it comes to productivity.

 

The majority of the brands (I've only given 1 major example, but you get the point), sell their PC's with almost nothing, thats why they are so cheap to purchase. If you were to add a video card in every single Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, HP laptops...and even desktops...I guarantee that the prices would increase significantly for even the most cheapest model. So again, like I said, your statement is totally incorrect.

[SuitCase]

You made some good points, but totally blew your self on this one. I have to seriosuly disagree on that point. Most Vista PC's come with integrated graphics like the Intel GMA900 or 950, and a few desktops come with either a Radeon X1300, or a GeForce 7300...both of which are not as powerful as an X1600.

Well, I meant desktop PCs, not necessarily laptops. Using Dell as a benchmark, their sub-$700 PCs all come with Home Basic (no Aero included), which is not the segment I was talking about. "Most Vista PCs" sold might be in this scrapheap of lame budget computers, but don't you think it's a bit unfair to get mad at Microsoft for not having advanced graphics features available (or running at a usable pace) on PCs that cost half the price of an equivalent Mac?

 

Looking at, oh, crappy old HP (sorry, Dell's site for XPSes was frustrating me), a $1170 desktop Pavillion D4790Y (default config with a 17" monitor added) comes with a 256mb Geforce 7500LE, which is just dandy for Vista and nicer than the iMac's X1600 Mobility. A DV2000T laptop Pavillion does indeed come with a GMA950 (won't run Aero), can be upgraded for $35 to a Geforce Go 7200, which a google search indicates will run Aero decently (and this laptop is $700! The ones $1000+ all have non-integrated GPUs by default that will also do Aero fine.)

 

My point here is that unless you scrape the bottom of the barrel, it's not hard to find or expensive to buy a Vista PC that runs Aero sufficiently. Certainly, when you look at laptops $1000 and up and desktops $1300 and up,

 

The only thing that sorta throws me is that the GMA950 isn't supported for Aero, but it's a little unusual - it chugs on Expose for me, plus it's (relative to the industry) the worst GPU Apple have shipped in years. I think that even though Apple got it working with Quartz, my point still stands: Vista and Aero are not huge bloated messes that require high end GPUs to work. It works well on midrange PCs cheaper than those Apple sell, and very well on mid-upper range PCs that parallel Apple's pricing.

 

You cannot call a mobility Radeon {censored}, becuase it can pretty much play most games out today at maxed out settings and on full resolution as well (providing you keep the AA low, and thats the only catch). I know this, becasue I've played many games on my Macbook Pro like Quake 4, Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars, Halff Life 2 EP1, F.E.A.R, and Rainbow Six: Vegas which proves this. Now that being said, its not the greatest I agree, as there are still aleague of cards above it...but saying that its a pretty much {censored} is just a totally incorrect statement. Same goes with the GeForce 7600, which although is a midrange card, can still play most games at maxed out settings.

Huh, well, it's okay, but it's not really able to run games at full settings in full resolution. I just beat Half Life Ep. 1 and Tiberium Wars on my iMac, and have played F.E.A.R., and found them to run pretty well but certainly not with details set to full. Try Age of Empires 3 on your MBP if you want to see where this X1600 Mobility kinda stops short. This is kinda irrelevant, though.

 

I'd also contest that the MacBook Pro isn't really that great value compared to a whole heap of laptops with similar specs, but again that isn't really my point.

 

The majority of the brands (I've only given 1 major example, but you get the point), sell their PC's with almost nothing, thats why they are so cheap to purchase. If you were to add a video card in every single Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, HP laptops...and even desktops...I guarantee that the prices would increase significantly for even the most cheapest model.

Not really. Usually it's only like $100 to bring it up to a proper GPU, and most of these desktops\laptops are well below Apple's prices.

 

Again, is it really fair to compare Dell, who sells a whole heap of cheap PCs with slower parts and no proper graphics by default, to Apple who doesn't usually give you the option of crappy specs by having the baseline a few hundred bucks higher, and then say "Oh, Vista must not be as efficient as OS X?" It's not really a valid comparison. It's not even false advertising when you consider most of the PCs that don't have the specs come with Home Basic - only the $1000+ laptops and $900+ desktops tend to give you that, along with the proper hardware to run Home Premium at at least the pace of an equivalent Mac.

[EFI]

@ SuitCase - I'm not going to quote everything you said, because thats going to take a long time, but just to point some things out, I have to disagree again. First of all, a GeForce 7500LE is much slower than a Mobility Radeon X1600....even though the Radeon is a laptop card, and the 7500Le is a desktop card. Moreover, the 7500LE uses shared memory with your system, and from my experiencce, as well as reported cases on the internet...this will significantly cause Vista to increase its memory usage, which is a no no. Furthermore, the 7500LE is an OEM card, and is avaliable only on HP systems...that too only select ones...so you cant just configure on any model as you wish. A quick specification comparison shows that the 7500LE is equivalent in speed to a GeForce 7300. A more equivalent comparison to the X1600, which you failed to mention...would be the GeForce 7600GT, and this I guarantee, will cost you more than a $100 upgrade.

 

You also bring in the aspect of a GeForce Go 7200. Are you honestly comparing this with a Radeon X1600? Just to let you know...any card that has support for shader model 2.0 will be able to render the Aero graphics in Vista. The cards that are capable of this go as far back as the GeForce FX 5200 and the Radeon 9600, which were several generations ago. Every other card after that, be it entry level or insanely high end cartds, support shader model 2.0, and thus will be able to do Aero. So three generations later (in otherwords today), obviously websites are going to mention that video cards will be able to handle Aero. The real question at hand is how WELL will they handle it...not whether they can handle it or not. I guarantee that a GeForce Go 7200 will not be able to handle Aero in full speed. Dont get me wrong...Im not saying it wont do Aero...what I am saying is that It wont do it as fast as say a GeForce 7900GT will for example. So even though you are getting a sub 1000$ laptop....that laptop will still not be able to render Aero fast as a laptop say thats priced at $2000...which will probably likely include a midrange graphics card onboard.

 

Also, you cant say that the GMA950 is the worst graphics solution Apple has shipped in years . Why? because all integrated graphics suck...and the 950 is no exception.

 

Again, is it really fair to compare Dell, who sells a whole heap of cheap PCs with slower parts and no proper graphics by default, to Apple who doesn't usually give you the option of crappy specs by having the baseline a few hundred bucks higher, and then say "Oh, Vista must not be as efficient as OS X?" It's not really a valid comparison.

 

Ok, let me put it this way then...even if you get a comparable Pc laptop to a Macbook Pro for example...both of them having an X1600, and the same C2D processor, the type of rendering that Aero glass requires (which uses shader model 2.0), is much more of a GPU hog than Quartz Extreme is. Quartz extreme only requires 16Mb of video ram to render the effects....wheras Vista's Aero requires 128Mb to render Aero glass smoothely. Which would you say is more efficient ? This is why I said that Vista is not as efficient as OS X is....and requires a much more hefty hardware to run on than OS X does. OS X can run perfectly fine and fast on an ancient G3......can Vista be run on a Pentium 3 computer without slowing down? I dont think so.

 

 

As for the games....I never did like Age of Empires 3. I dont think that game is fully optimized. I know it may sound as if I'm blindly defending the 1600...but serisously...if I can play Tiberium Wars, and F.E.A.R on excellent settings...then its not the card thats at fault...its the game IMO.

 

I'd also contest that the MacBook Pro isn't really that great value compared to a whole heap of laptops with similar specs, but again that isn't really my point

 

If you read my above post...you will see that the Dell is more expensive when it is configured equivalenty to the Macbook Pro. Moreover, how many laptops do you know that when configured equally...will come with an good resolution onboard camera (with an excellent application to support it), an ambient light sensor, a fully backlit keyboard, motion sensors, firewire 800 slot, and all in all being only 1" thin. I know for a fact that Dell cannot accomplish that.