Jump to content

I am losing my faith


38 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

I used to love them. I used to love their OS.

 

I know it's the only one to use.

 

But I really, really, really, really want to break away from it. I though about going to Vista. Though about it for about 10 minutes until I went to Microsoft's website and realised if they couldn't even make a website easy to navigate how the hell could they make an OS easy to use. So I didn't even bother to install it on my PC (I don't have a mac pro at all guys, I'm hacked up to the nines like most others here - don't know how people got that idea?).

 

Now Linux - GIMP, Cinelera, OPenOFfice - can they cut the chese? Not really.

 

In this day an age of Proprietary software, anyone who wants to communicate with other computer users and swap files has to have access (at least) to the software others are using. You don't have this with Linux unless you dual boot. Though I am not sure about virtualization solutions...

 

Mac Pro Audio - can the inbuilt audio slots record 4, 6 or even 8 simultaneous separate tracks through Pro Tools... NO. So maybe a PCI slot would be nice for a cheap M-Audio card. Who cares if it is old, it is everywhere. One slot (2 would be more like it) should be standard at least.

 

Apple hardware is substandard. Not in the way that it is old and out dated. Substandard in the way that consumers DO NOT GET WHAT THEY PAY FOR. Plain and simple. The iMac might be a good buy for someone that does not use it professionally. And maybe the little macbook is nice, but $5000 for a professional computer? Come on. That is a huge chunk of my earnings.

 

That$ why I hacked it for $1500. As Gilma said, thank you so much to all involved in making that possible. Apple not included.

 

Thanks for prolonging my rant. A rant it is no doubt, but a rant that has some merit!!! Apple need some of THEIR OWN users saying "LOOK THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH MR HARDWARE COMPANY!!", instead of them all lining up for the next bumming session, and all the other 95% of computer users pretending they don't exist (no offence meant to all the people that like to take it from apple :P get over them they are bastards)...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK. Even though I have to get up in 3 hours, your post is so ridiculous I have to stay up and respond to it. I'm not going to quote your original post to save space, but I'll try to respond to things in order.

 

First of all, you can drop the "I used to love Apple, but then I suddenly realized I really hate everything about them" act. I don't buy it for a second. Maybe you have used Macs since you were 7, but from your post it's clear to me that you never really cared for them much. Apple never claimed the Mac Pro was the fastest computer ever. The only time they've ever said they had the fastest was when the G5 came out, and they ran an ad saying it was the fastest personal computer. They took it off the air because in England people complained and wanted proof, but even after they proved it was the fastest, they decided not to put it back on TV. They never made any claims like that with the Intel Macs, because it wouldn't make sense. For the most part they're components you can buy for any PC.

 

Now for your pricing. What bodily orifice did you pull these from? First of all the Mac Pro costs $2500, not $3000 for the standard config (and can be configured for $2200). Modest upgrades get it to $6,000? Here are the modest upgrades I configured:

 

2x2.66GHz Dual Core Xeons to 2x3.0GHz Quad Core Xeons 2.25 times better

1GB RAM to 4GB RAM 4 times better

250GB to 500GB HD 2 times better

7300GT to X1900XT 3 times better

23" Display at 1920x1200

 

Total price? $5,973. That's a pretty big "modest" upgrade there. You're getting more than twice the computer there, plus a very nice monitor for what you call modest. Now your laughable claim about the audio card. $8,000? Can you provide a link to one? The Delta 66 is $239. Why limit yourself to the Delta 66 when M-Audio has many compatible options (that are better)? The FireWire 1814 has 18-in/14-out, which is more than the Delta 66's 6/6, and it works fine with ProTools.

 

Having no PCI isn't a very big deal. Most things are either already built-in, or use USB, FireWire, or PCIe. PCI is slow by today's standards at only 132MB/sec max throughput (over the entire bus, not per slot). Did you complain when Apple stopped shipping computers with NuBus, or when Asus tech support told you they didn't have any Core 2 Duo boards with ISA slots on them? They have to drop old technologies to move forward. Yes, a couple people are going to run into problems because of it, but most won't.

 

Where is this proprietary hardware you're talking about? DVD player? Do you think discs have region codes for the heck of it? "The commercial DVD player specification dictates that a player must only play discs that contain its region code." In other words, it's out of Apple's hands. Don't blame them for trying not to get sued. It's the same with the 802.11n. BTW it wasn't $15, it was originally $4.99, then lowered to $1.99. The reason for that is the Sarnames Oxley Act. They couldn't advertise the computers as coming with 802.11n because the standard wasn't complete when they started shipping. When the standard was finalized, in order to comply with the law, the updates to existing computers had to be on the accounting records (the act was brought about by the Enron mess, afterall), so they had to charge a small fee. Your iPod complaint is again not Apple's fault. I'm assuming you mean in other countries because you can certainly put your music on it in whatever country you purchased the music. Record companies are ridiculously strict with music rights. In order to get them to sign on to the iTunes music store, Apple had to agree with certain concessions. None of those have anything to do with proprietary hardware, even if they didn't have those reasons behind them. Proprietary hardware would mean you'd have to use Apple RAM, Apple hard drives, etc, and you don't.

 

Everyone has their own preference for operating system, but I don't understand how you can have a PC and go through all the trouble of getting OS X to run on it instead of one of the many choices of OS actually meant for the computer you have, then claim that the OS sucks. Obviously something made you want to run it instead of XP, Vista, Solaris, Ubuntu, SuSE, RedHat, or one of the other 3921 OSs you had to chose from. They stole Unix? Unix was developed by AT&T, but since at the time they had a monopoly on telephone services, they weren't allowed to sell other services or products, so they gave away the source code. BSD (developed at UC Berkeley) came from that, and was also freely available. Darwin (which is only the core of OS X, not the whole OS) is only itself part BSD. It's also part Mach (which Apple got when they bought Next), and part original Apple code. Then on top of that is Quartz, which is entirely Apple's, then Aqua, again entirely Apple's. Saying that it's not a modern OS just because Unix has been around over 30 years is silly. That's like saying the new Cray isn't modern because the transistor has been around for 60 years. Just because the roots go back a long time, it doesn't mean there haven't been significant developments. When you buy a car, do you rule out any car manufacturers that have been around more than 10 years because they're too old? I personally look for something with a long history of quality.

 

Apple hardware substandard? Consumers don't get what they pay for? I'm not going to do yet another price comparison since I've probably done it about 10 times on this board already with people saying Macs are overpriced. Apple's prices are competitive for the Mac Pro, Mac Book, Mac Book Pro, and arguably for the iMac. The iMac is a bit harder to compare directly to other PCs since it is an all in one design, uses half laptop and half desktop components, etc. It's due for an update soon anyway, and I'm sure will get some nice improvements. If you spec out a comparable Mac Pro at Dell, HP, AlienWare, NewEgg, or anywhere that might actually sell comparable components (and I mean comparable, not an Intel 945GZ board with E6320 on it and DDR2 800 RAM), then the Mac Pro often actually comes out cheaper.

 

Now you're thanking "all involved...Apple not included?" Do you realize that getting OS X to run on PC hardware is a very small portion of the work compared to what Apple has put into it? I'm not trying to belittle what people like JaS have done, as I know it's a lot of work, but giving them all of the credit and Apple none isn't fair.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I promised, I'd visit occasionally, and this one was too juicy to miss.

 

I am much in agreement with the original poster.

This won't be a very long post, as I believe I can prove my points with little.

 

Hardware

The difference in price becomes a lot more apparent when you have to pay in Euro.

Let me see.

Mac mini. I am using Apple Ireland for convenience:

 

Specifications

 

* 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo

* 1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x512MB

* 160GB Serial ATA drive

* Mac OS X (Irish)

 

Eur 1,099.02

 

For crying out loud, Eur 1,099.02 for a toy like that?

Now go to Ebay.it, search for intel core 2 quad extreme and see what you can get for EUR 979,00!!!

Because posting a link would expire, I am posting a link to the shop, hoping that I don't break any rules:

http://stores.ebay.it/Kristian-World-Trading (I am in no way correlated to them)

 

 

Next, Mac Pro, Eur 2,539.00.

This is much better value for money, but I could easily prove that I can build a PC for less than that with some of the following specs:

 

1)intel core 2 quad extreme

2)8GB premium RAM

3)1TB quality Hard Drives

4)A high end GeForce

5)Some great case like the Lian Li PC-V1200A Plus II

6)Of course 2 SuperDrives (€32 each!)

Much more...

 

And now OS X.

After blinding myself for over a year, I woke up abruptly.

OS X is a dumbed down, inflexible OS good only for my granny.

Do I need to say why? So much has already been said, including in this forum, just google for OS X annoyances or something similar.

But in case somebody suspects I don't know what I am talking about, here are a few examples:

1)No applications menu?

2)You can't start more than one instance of the same application?

3)So many files don't have a default application to open them, or have the wrong one (including text files)?

4)No "create new text file" as an option when you right click on the desktop? (For some funny reason you can create a new folder, though).

5)In order to show hidden files and folders you need the command line or a separate application?

I know, some of these issues can be solved, but why shouldn't you get such obvious features by default?

 

In the last few days I have been back in Linux (mainly), using KDE. I feel free, free again!

If you don't know the feeling it is time that you try a good distro+KDE (I suggest openSUSE).

Flame me, or not, I won't reply.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is much better value for money, but I could easily prove that I can build a PC for less than that with some of the following specs:

 

1)intel core 2 quad extreme

2)8GB premium RAM

3)1TB quality Hard Drives

4)A high end GeForce

5)Of course 2 SuperDrives (€32 each!)

Much more...

How many times do I have to say this?

 

Core 2 Quad is not two Xeons. Even at NewEgg two 5150s are $500 more than one Core 2 Extreme

DDR2 is not FBDIMM. At Crucial.com, 8GB of FBDIMMs costs $600 more than 8GB of DDR2 (NewEgg doesn't seem to sell 2GB FBDIMMs to compare)

 

I know car analogies are over-used, but it's like saying that if two cars have the same top speed and the same number of seats, they're equivalent cars.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

to ramm:just one little fault in your post (which is for the rest completly true)apple indeed claimed that they had the fastest PERSONAL computer: when the G5 was released, they claimed that!

And now OS X.After blinding myself for over a year, I woke up abruptly. OS X is a dumbed down, inflexible OS good only for my granny.Do I need to say why? So much has already been said, including in this forum, just google for OS X annoyances or something similar.But in case somebody suspects I don't know what I am talking about, here are a few examples:1)No applications menu?2)You can't start more than one instance of the same application?3)So many files don't have a default application to open them, or have the wrong one (including text files)?4)No "create new text file" as an option when you right click on the desktop? (For some funny reason you can create a new folder, though).5)In order to show hidden files and folders you need the command line or a separate application?I know, some of these issues can be solved, but why shouldn't you get such obvious features by default?In the last few days I have been back in Linux (mainly), using KDE. I feel free, free again!If you don't know the feeling it is time that you try a good distro+KDE (I suggest openSUSE).Flame me, or not, I won't reply.
the things you name are just things that are usual for the windows user (like create a new text file, for what the hell should that be an option in you right click menu? and why the hell should we must have an applications menu? i have a dock and a application folder, that's enough. and if so many files don't have a default application to open them, well simply assign one to it! (just like in windows))you try to find windows functions in mac os x, but of course not every function of windows is in mac os x (otherwise, mac os x would be a very {censored} os (like a clone of windows :P)).
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't see what the big deal, I've had Osx, xp, vista, win 3.1, win95 , win98......etc..... But the point is, Apple is always going to charge extra for there hardware. I have a Hack box with 10.4.9 an IMac 24'' ( Intel ) and a MBP, With many other windows base computers. I like them all, if you can't deal with Apple, then don't buy them!!! With that being said though, I can't understand why you could have a Mac or even run a hack box, just to say you hate them. Apple will not change, it's been that way for years, and will stay that way for year to come.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How many times do I have to say this?

 

Core 2 Quad is not two Xeons. Even at NewEgg two 5150s are $500 more than one Core 2 Extreme

DDR2 is not FBDIMM. At Crucial.com, 8GB of FBDIMMs costs $600 more than 8GB of DDR2 (NewEgg doesn't seem to sell 2GB FBDIMMs to compare)

 

I know car analogies are over-used, but it's like saying that if two cars have the same top speed and the same number of seats, they're equivalent cars.

 

With an insignificant difference. My configuration would probably cost less than €2500, while here is what a Mac Pro with similar specs would cost (Apple Ireland, again)

 

Specifications

 

* Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon

* 8GB (4 x 2GB)

* ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)

* 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s

* 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s

* Two 16x SuperDrives

* Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse - British

* Mac OS X (English)

 

* Five USB ports

* Two FireWire 400 ports

* Two FireWire 800 ports

 

 

Eur 5,396.02

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's now surprise that other's out their are pissed that Apple hardware is meeting their expectations. Now if they charges less for it, maybe people would be happy.

 

OS X is an inflexible OS. More inflexible than windows and that is saying something big! Everything is inflexible about Apple that is their problem. They are too inflexible to change. It's funny because change is what built them up with the iMac, etc. They are deffinitely stuck in this iPOd rut now, relying on that to make everything okay for them. Well someone will make a better piece of music playing technology and then they will have nothing except a bunch of Mac Pros no body can afford to use.

 

sarahbau, your post was too long. I am a mac nut. I used to be anyway. Why would I call the top "Losing My Faith" I have converted countless others too. Just now I finally realised what all my LInux users were talking about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OS X is an inflexible OS. More inflexible than windows and that is saying something big!

Ummm.... How do you figure that?

 

OS X is so flexible, if you wanted to, you could ditch everything but the darwin underpinnings and install KDE or Gnome onto it, You can customize almost every aspect of the OS yourself, and the backward compatability (even in leopard) is just an example of how flexible it is.

 

BTW this thread is pretty lame, either use a mac and be happy about, or dont. Apple isnt gonna design a mac specifically for your needs and price range (although a mid-range tower would be nice, Apple uses the iMac to sell in that area). Its a niche market.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So if you install KDE or Gnome can you still use Final Cut or Photoshop?

 

BTW this thread is pretty lame, either use a mac and be happy about, or dont.

 

2 Options. Now that is pretty lame. I am going to use a Mac and be unhappy about it!! Well I will be a little happy. Happy that I have Final Cut and CS3 and that I am not using XP, but unhappy that I have OS X Tiger.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...