A decade ago, Apple was a niche company with niche products whose demise in the face of the Wintel axis was routinely predicted. The company’s computer products were overpriced and uninspiring, especially to directors of corporate IT departments who depended upon mind-numbing complexity to protect their livelihoods. Capable desktop publishing platforms for those who got into that sort of thing. Artists, you know. But the Beta/VHS wars had replayed themselves, and most people had come to the conclusion – some reluctantly – that real work was done on a Windows machine. And games of course. There were so many more games ported to Microsoft’s OS than to the Mac.
Last week the NYT broke news that a decade ago – how much has changed everywhere in this most turbulent decade? – would have been unthinkable:
Wall Street has called the end of an era and the beginning of the next one: The most important technology product no longer sits on your desk but rather fits in your hand.
The moment came Wednesday when Apple, the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft, the computer software giant, to become the world’s most valuable technology company.
This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history for Apple, which had been given up for dead only a decade earlier, and its co-founder and visionary chief executive, Steven P. Jobs. The rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds an important cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.
There are many combined and intermingled threads that led to this. It would be too easy, for example, to draw a straight line from the iPod – a revolutionary adaptation from a human systems interface perspective to the evolutionary design of digital music players – to an iTunes store that made purchasing digital media easy, to laptops and desktops that went from quirky symbols of anti-corporate individualism to devices that were at once ubiquitous yet hip.
Too, computers today are much more than gaming devices or spreadsheet calculators, they are an access portal to the entire world, parts of which have dark and sinister byways. “Security through obscurity,” Wintel mavens croaked, but to those forced to purchase annual subscriptions to anti-virus solutions that were always just a step behind pimpled teenagers in their parents’ basements and hard eyed hackers in Belarus and Beijing, obscurity sounded like a pretty good deal if security came along with.
High end users of Wintel machines and software developers continued to protest that Apple kept too vigorous a stranglehold on innovation by insisting that they adapt to the company’s tightly integrated hardware and software architecture rather than open it up . But the vast majority of us only want to use our machines out of the box, and no one much cares for a Blue Screen of Death: College kids could cobble together an Intel or AMD processor with a hard drive pre-installed with Windows and add peripherals, video cards and drivers and sell them to friends at a fraction of the cost of a high end Mac desktop only to have the whole, trembling house of cards come crashing down with the next software update. And Apple’s machines themselves, from the old Mac I to the iPad have always had a design focus that centered on the user experience and delightful aesthetics – something beyond the control of Microsoft, which became predominantly an OS and application vendor, fitful and reactive responses like the ill-fated Zune aside.
Nor is Apple resting on its laurels:
A tip we’ve received — which has been confirmed by a source very close to Apple — details the outlook for the next version of the Apple TV, and it’s a doozy. According to our sources, this project has been in the works long before Google announced its TV solution, and it ties much more closely into Apple’s mobile offerings. The new architecture of the device will be based directly on the iPhone 4, meaning it will get the same internals, down to that A4 CPU and a limited amount of flash storage — 16GB to be exact — though it will be capable of full 1080p HD (!). The device is said to be quite small with a scarce amount of ports (only the power socket and video out), and has been described to some as “an iPhone without a screen.” Are you ready for the real shocker? According to our sources, the price-point for the device will be $99. One more time — a hundred bucks.
This is really a very new twist on a a very old story: Innovate or die.
Throughout the late 90′s Apple was forced to reinvent itself, changing architectures and adapting itself to the realities of the Windows dominated world. You’d have searched in vain for a Windows machine that could open or even acknowledge a Macintosh document, but the Mac platform was quite happy to provide translators going the other way. The move towards a native, UNIX based architecture was made in favor of stability but it was technically risky because the company had to leave doorway open – at least for a while – to legacy, PowerPC based systems or else risk aggravating their loyal fan base, perhaps terminally. But that final move was critical: In my field I work closely with network engineers and PhD software developers. Increasingly I see them coming to work with MacBook Pro laptops under their arms, even as the cube drones enviously build PowerPoint slides on their clunky Windows boxes. The Intel architecture combined with Boot Camp ensured that no PC game enthusiast would ever have to be without the latest first-person shoot ‘em up.
Finally, while everyone else was talking about convergence, the iPhone became an instant hit, if not quite a category killer. When the iPod arrived on scene there were other digital music devices on the market before Apple seized it by the throat, so too were there other mobile devices which combined telephony with web access and maybe a calculator. The key is not necessarily to be first to market, but early and revolutionary with an embedded evolutionary upgrade path already in mind.
If you’re a distant second place in a two-vendor market, you can either gracefully slide into the pages of history or else continue to reinvent yourself. For what it’s worth, I predict that Apple’s success will continue for as long as it remains psychologically the underdog, lean, agile, innovative and tolerant of tightly controlled risk in the pursuit of user-oriented delight. It’s star will wane when it becomes bloated, sedate, inward facing and complacent, characteristics which are a death knell in the marketplace.
This is a useful and object lesson for nations as well, as they compete in the marketplace of ideas.
Geegaws, gizmos and gadgets, I’m doing quite well without any of their products thank you very much.
enabled by the wireless bandwidth and mobile TV licensed (and chips) from that little tech company just down the street to the west you Lex.
fwiw, FLO TV is carrying all the World Cup games.
And I have had a Mac on my desk since the MacPlus, in 1985. I went from 8-bit CPM to Mac and never considered a Microsoft OS product.
Of course, I still believe that phones are God’s gift to long-distance vocal communication and cannot understand texting (and carpel syndrome thumbs).
Apple has a skill that has eluded others. They successfully migrated their products from their outdated code base to a new very different structure. Then they migrated the hardware. During all this, I’m sure they learned to migrate the important parts to their consumer devices. Developing the capability to adapt, overcome, and absorb new technologies quickly is of far more value in a company than their current product line.
Microsoft, in my perception, is increasingly fighting their old monster of a code base in hopes of keeping it in some kind of control. Their migrations have been incremental rather than transformative. Question: does anyone believe that in, say 2 years, Microsoft could put a Windows body on a Unix or other more modern engine and not have it spin out before the first turn?
I love their Win 7 ads where some nobody brags about coming up with an idea, like it should be simpler, and saying Win 7 was their idea. Of course, anyone who has used an Apple knows where they got their idea they sent to Microsoft.
For Windoze to go to Unix would involve a step back. Unix is an operating system in itself, as is Unix. The original versions of windows was a shell on DOS and worked OK, but it had all the limits that DOS had.
Putting up a shell on Unix, using Windows as a front end would be workable, but such a thing is anathema to Microsoft these days. Unless there is someone in the company that rises to a point where they have the authority to order such a thing, it won’t happen.
Except that OS X came from a seven-year development cycle from Jobs’ NeXTstep platform.
The first fully 32-bit platform from MS was the NT kernel, which was developed by a healthy number of VAX vets. But we shouldn’t disturb the narrative…
My primary concern about Apple (of which I’m a shareholder) is depth of leadership. Very often, the presence of a brilliant, forceful, and highly-involved leader at the top of an organization will inhibit the development and retention of subordinate leaders, because they are not given enough scope for their own decision-making…the exception being if the man or woman at the top is highly conscious of this danger and takes meaningful steps to counteract it.
What happens to Apple when Steve is no longer there to have the visions and lead the way?
You don’t see it very much from outside, and that mostly because of the press’s fascination with Steve Jobs, but the bench in place to replace him is likely going to surprise people.
He’s very clearly imprinting his vision on his replacements, it goes very deep into Apple’s internal structure.
I’ve been out of Apple for a long time, but still know some of the people there, and don’t expect to see it collapse like, say, Sun did when external conditions changed.
“It’s star will wane when it becomes bloated, sedate, inward facing and complacent, characteristics which are a death knell in the marketplace.”
You mean like Microsoft?
I’ve used Microsoft since their original 4K BASIC, and I still use GWBasic for a number of throw away programs because it’s so easy to use. I have a system of three programs I se at work, written in GWBasic, that extracts data from an Autocad boundary inverse, does a map check for mathematical closure on that data, then rotates the bearings to true from state plane, and then does a map check on that data (my work has to go through BLM Cadastral and they deal only in true bearing and the BIA Agency does its work in state plane, go figure). I need to re-write it in some version of C so I can keep it, but it’s so easy to do it in Basic.
While Microsoft seems to be ready to get taken down a notch, it will be awhile before their clunkiness kills them. While I was not impressed by Gates when I met him in Atlanta back in the 80s, he was at least a good marketer. Lately, however, even well before he left, the company was spinning out of control.
For myself, I don’t look at Macs with envy. They are better than they used to be, by far, in fact. But the software I need as a civil Engineer and Surveyor is not available in the Mac world, and is unlikely to be for a long time to come.
GWBASIC is a lovely creation. My biggest gripe is the break in several data types between version 2.x and 3.x. I still have some old Compaq demos which abort because of an unknown data type. Feh.
I would say the main cause of the “spinning out of control” is that they captured 97% of the mass market, and don’t know where to go from there. At least Apple has a goal.
It seems the best MS can do is develop more ways to screw more money out of end users.
IMO, the “spinning out of control” comes from the fact that so much of Microsoft is a very young, very undisciplined culture, whose lack of discipline is fueled by Gates’ influence over the years. Gates never reined them in, believing that to do so would quash creativity. Unfortunately, a couple of the side effects were 1. Production of garbage products that forever needed cleaning up. 2. “We are invincible!”-think James Bond Goldeneye to get that one. Brash. Indifferent to the needs of others. Self-centered. It’s quite the culture on the campus…with some exceptions, but not many.
Here are 4 links elucidating the early history of MS-DOS that are worth looking at:
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall
http://www.cadigital.com/kildall.htm
Those articles are basically the way I remember things at the beginning. One mistake some of the articles make is claiming Microsoft licensed QDOS, when it actually bought it.
Frankly, Gates and company did rip Kildall off, badly. But, then Gates has never been one to have any compunction about stealing from someone if he could make a buck in doing so. That’s what made Microsoft. when CP/M was top dog, Gates and company were pretty much a non-entity, other than BASIC. Gates badly wanted out of Kildall’s shadow and was willing to lie cheat and steal to do it.
The term “vaporware” was coined because of Microsoft’s, and a few others, tendency to announce something long before it was available. Microsoft promised the Complex data type for their CP/M based FORTRAN, and never delivered. Their MSDOS version had it, but the CP/M version never did.
In the end, Microsoft has been a marketing company and their software isn’t much to write home about. I had Wordperfect for many years, and it outstrips Word by a lot (but then so did Wordstar in the CP/M world).
I’ve met Gates and was not impressed. I just missed Gary Kildall and Bill Godbout (while his company was still Godbout Electronics) and regret missing them. Those two made the original computer revolution. Gates was merely a parasite.
Ok, how did MS “rip off” Digital Research when QDOS (AKA 86-DOS) was written by an independent programmer?
Anyone around here remember how expensive the CP/M-86 option was when you bought an IBM-PC? Just about as expensive as buying the USCD p-system for the PC.
I’ve used (back in the day) Wordstar, and any modern version of Word is superior. On the other hand, there do seem to be a healthy number of WordPerfect fans out there…
My favorite text editor back then was Qedit, and I rather enjoyed a modest word processor called WordVision. It worked quite well on the original PC and early variants, but the code was locked into hardware specs, so it tended to go librarian-poo on faster machines (usually 386 and faster). For what it’s worth, if you want a text editor (as opposed to a word processor) I strongly recommend TextPad. If memory serves you can even add hot-keys to external compilers, so you can (say) edit Java source, then jump to an external compiler. My version of TextPad recognizes html, c, and java source, as well as other code sources.
My first microcomputer was an Epson QX-10, with many features which blew the original IBM-PC out of the water. Alas, the Epson Valdocs system was based on an experimental Forth platform. Oddly enough, the QX-10 keyboard demonstrates a strong resemblance to the classic IBM Model M 102-key keyboard, still used today.
…Synapses finally connecting… Don’t recall if the FORTRAN 80 I used had a COMPLEX data type, or not; it’s been a long time. I do recall writing a Advanced Dungeons & Dragons character generator program in FORTRAN back then. Yes, I am that much of a geek.
My husband converted to 100% Apple about 3 years ago. He was convinced when on the lecture circuit he realized that all the top docs were using Macs for their lectures. The software was superior. He converted his entire lecture series to Mac and went from there. Between his iPods, iPhones, lap tops and desk tops, he’s fully integrated, happy, and will never go back.
I’m not impressed with the iPad. Getting past the name, where it truly sounds like some high tech monthly product for women, I’ve found a few glitches in it that I find to be show stoppers. My kids love it, but I can live without it.
Thanks, Bou-
My wife had been considering getting me one as a graduation present; I told her it sounded like Tampax was trying to appear more user friendly. I can’t wait til they integrate a 4G phone into those things and we get to see some bozo holding a ginormous flat screen up to his/her ear.
It’s a new product, it would be massively surprising if it didn’t have at least some rough edges.
A year or 18 months from now, it’s likely to be very different, rough-edgewise.
A clunky OS (Vista) and growing security issues drove us to Macs two years ago, and we haven’t looked back. Recently put my iPad to the acid test of replacing my laptop on the road during an international trip. Passed it with flying colors including 3G access in multiple European countries and an unbelievable battery life that made the overseas legs, well, endurable (iPad’s great but it can’t fix leg room in steerage class on the cattle car flights…).
w/r, SJS
Great. An iPhone that doesn’t allow you to place calls. Mark me down as unimpressed… {/snerk}
Yes, Vista sucked rocks. MS-DOS 4.x also sucked rocks, but MS-DOS 5.0 was was one of the very few useful x.0 MS releases, as was Win95. One confesses that WinMe was in the future at that point.
If an electronic “to do” aid gets you off, go nuts.
It’s all marketing, my friends. The people who thought the original Honda Civic was a great idea weren’t great fans of big Ford trucks, and vice versa. Not everyone needs an SUV, nor does everyone need a Toyota Prius.0
90% of the crap relating to modern MS vulnerabilities relate to “social engineering” scams such as generic emails asking the recipient to send their vitals to the sender. An operating system can’t defend a system against the naivety/ignorance of the user. Reliable modern browsers (eg Firefox, Safari, Opera) have healthy defenses against the other 9%.
DON’T download ANYTHING from a source that isn’t absolutely TRUSTWORTHY. Too many casual users are quite willing to download & install anything a page asks them to. But, hey, don’t listen to me. I’m paranoid. {/snerk}
“Great. An iPhone that doesn’t allow you to place calls.”
Tell that to Skype. Oh, wait…
At least, if they didn’t have to deal with AT&T.
my problem with apple is the control that Jobs et al have over what apps can be placed on their products. you can only get them through the app store. I won’t use itunes due to the uber-control they have over the software. A MP3 works just as well
I hear that DOJ is considering investigating Apple under antitrust laws.
“growing security issues drove us to Macs two years ago”
there exists a myth that Macs are more secure. sorry they aren’t, it’s that the hackers don’t want to waste time developing a virus etc that infects only <10% of the market place
http://news.techworld.com/security/1798/mac-os-x-security-myth-exposed/
http://sbs.seandaniel.com/2009/10/top-mac-os-os-x-security-myths.html
http://gcn.com/blogs/tech-blog/2009/01/apple-security.aspx
The thing about the app store is this; if the software is anywhere between not working to menace it doesn’t get onto the machine. That means your native OS is always bug free.
I have friends that have ‘droid’ based phones and they are already complaining of freezes and force quits. What the app store is weed out the bozos and delivers a machine a that works and can be counted on.
I’ve owned macs since the first iMac in 2001 (?). I just upgraded to a Mini and we have a laptop. In that time period Ive run Zero anti virus software and I have no spam bots or trojan horses or anything else. However, my company issued winders machine thats locked down like Fort Knox? Its been back to the shop 3 times in 3 years. I curse Bill’s name at least 4 times a week. I love having to reboot every time I undock so I can use my sprint broadband card. I don’t ever have to reboot my mac.
I can already tell my day will come. I’ve too many friends who continually tout the pros of the Mac system, and even at seminary (as elsewhere) there are legions of Mac users all toting their impossibly thin & tiny laptops everywhere. My professors swear by them.
For me, the sticking point has been price – it’s hard to pony up $1200 for a new Mac when a decent desktop PC can be had for $400-$600, depending on specs. Not to mention the fact that the military provides free virus protection – either Norton or McAfee – for as long as you need it.
But I know I’ll cave eventually; just suck it up and shell out the bucks and switch over all the files and hopefully still be able to play all the pointy-shooty games that have been on hold for the last four years.
*sigh*
I just wish they were, you know, cheaper.
One point, The Mac isn’t expensive if you compare specs. If you put the same specs in a PC it will cost the same.
Ah… yes, it is expensive if you compare the specs… always has been.
Example:
MacBook Pro 15 inch 2.3Ghz – $1799
2.4Ghz Core i5, 4GB RAM, 320GB 5400rpm Hard Drive, Hybrid Intel/NVIDIA 330M graphics card with 256MB dedicated RAM(Very interesting feature BTW)
Sony E Series Laptop – $849
2.4Ghz Core i5, 4GB RAM, 320GB 5400rpm Hard Drive, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 512MB dedicated RAM
This is a REALLY close Apples to well… Apples comparison.
The main gray area is the video card, the Apple has a better GPU, but I’m guessing it’s the low power/under clocked version. It also has half the memory then the ATI card, so I would bet that the ATI card is going to score ALOT closer to the Apple version of the NVIDIA card then listed in the reviews above. That said the Hybrid card with the Intel chip is said to increase battery life significantly. If the graphics card is really an issue, I know I can find another main stream company (Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus) with the same card, or better and still com in well under $1799.
The other area that makes a difference (Aside from the OS) is the preinstalled/included software. Generally Apple has MUCH more useful software out of the box.
Lastly, before anyone starts pointing to reliability as a differentiator, please take a look at this study. The graphic links to the source data.
This isn’t a bash at Apple BTW, I support both platforms in my professional life, but to try to say that an Apple product costs the same just isn’t true.
I’ve always felt the comparison at this point is like comparing a line of cars like Lotus to Ford, Chevy, Toyota or Audi.
The real question is not expense, but value… and as I explain to anyone at work that is thinking about buying an Apple, I can’t answer that for you, but if your thinking of buying an Apple, go to the Apple store and try one out. They’re VERY helpful at the Apple stores both during the purchase and after you’ve bought… sadly you won’t that kind of attention from any other computer company.
Cheers!
Somehow the reliablity study link got stripped.
You can find it here: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/17/laptop-reliability-survey-asus-and-toshiba-win-hp-fails/
The short version is that Sony beats Apple by a bit, almost with in the margin of error I think.
$849 is cheap. OK, make that dirt cheap.
Gotta admit, the price are getting better for the low-end Mac systems. The high-end -meh- not so much.
MacGyver bought my MacBook (2GHz Intel Core Duo, 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM) for $300 used. Needed a new screen – add $100 and she was good to go. I’ve since added a new battery ($80) and a larger HD (250GB…we have a file server at home for the bigger stuff…$75). She runs like a champ and I don’t plan to upgrade/trade her in any time soon.
Hmm. I use PC, and my parents whom I visit on leave use Mac. Don’t understand the Mac affinity, between using them both I’m PC all the way.
Also, by popular demand (or at least a consensus in a previous thread), I have now officially changed my screen name. Thanks to all for their support!
Ever mindful of Christ’s words, ” And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven (Mat 23:9),” and being a good Protestant, I hope you don’t mind if I refuse to use the Spanish form of a Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox title.
Congrats on your ordination.
PadreH
Good on ya!
Best/ Gramps.
Bastiche; you stole my line! Heh. Still, agreed, it’s good on him!
I want to get work done, I don’t want to be the equivalent of a ham radio operator, they who spend an amazing amount of time and money just to talk about the size of their antennae.
And speaking of size, Kate commented the other day when I was comparing my iPad with a guy’s netbook, that she didn’t she’d ever see the day when two guys would brag about who’s was smaller.
I began my association with Apple in the ][+ days. To find out how to use it, I joined the local Apple Club, about 100 members strong that met weekly (Sat) in the Amphib School classrooms @ Little Creek. Several people had had Apples for about 2 years by then. As I learned and studied the history of Apple, it was the genius (and still is now) of the people in charge paying attention to the user needs, and then cobbling together technology that others didn't think were economically effective. Saw one of the club members in the JLOTS office at Little Creek with a Lisa on his desk...pretty cool stuff in the early 80s.
Apple ][s populated schools and began the nation on a path to a computer based citizenry. The big mistake, as I saw it, was not making the low cost Mac and peddling that to the schools before the Intel based systems could make a beach head. When the kids use ][s and Mom and Dad use Macs....too expensive to outfit a household. There the edge was lost, the first time.
So....the Graphical User Interface developed at the Xerox PARC became the basis for all that has sprung forth from Apple, as Xerox dismissed it as too expensive to develop and market to the masses.
Anyhow, I was working on a Mac SE with HyperCard to make an interface to manage shipboard administrative, and some one out at NPS made one to handle supply issues quite successfully, but the ADM at the Pentagon in 1987 said “NO MACS!” So, I went to the “Dark Side” and developed in dBase III/IV and Borland Paradox to do the job.
Apple continues to use the power of the brain to engage the masses, MS…well, they copy well, sort of like the Chinese buying a single Boeing 707 to reverse engineer……
Now Apple is the new bully on the block and Steve Jobs is the new evil dictator. The pendulum swings gloriously back and forth.
I greatly prefer the customisation options of PC when I build my computers. I learned awhile ago to just adopt to the inevitable hiccups and press forward to the result. I must say I have always been happy in the end.
The pendulum has never swung (swang?) to Apple. Stock price/market value aside.
Non-Apple PC have what, 90% of the market? Take out the education market and Apples share would be probably only 4%.
Most people just want a computer to work (personal or business) and do not care about what brand/type it is.
And, thank Microsoft for being the Prime Mover in making software relatively compatible regardless of the hardware.
Seems to me as though most who use an Apple product drink a special Kool-Aid, and make a pact to proselytize the brand.
When I was a member of the Tennessee Tech Microcomputer Association I remember someone bringing a Mac to one of the early fall semester meetings we would put on for the lower forms of life commonly called freshmen. We set it by an Altair system with a sign over the Altair “The Computer for the best of us.” The Mac attracted some attention, but the CP/M systems we had attracted by far the most attention. The person who brought the Mac had the money to buy software which would be useful in an academic engineering environment, and had everything available at the time, which was next to nothing. On the CP/M systems we had BASIC, FORTRAN, PL1, COBOL (a curiosity in our circles) as well as the obligatory assemblers and debuggers, as well as Wordstar.
The software selection has improved enormously in the Mac world, but only because of the advent of Intel based Macs.b For an Engineer/ Surveyor macs are still pretty much useless and likely to remain so for a long time.
Additionally, for my Theological work there is a lot of stuff that is available in the Windows environment, that I like a lot, and is not for the Mac world. You can get a Windows emulator, but some things may or may not run. I like Bibleworks a lot, but it’s a Windows package, and they will give you a refund if you can’t get it to work in your windows emulator on Mac.
Personally, I see no reason to run an emulator when everything I need is available in the native format in Windows, and the hardware is a fraction of the cost. Apple has always been overpriced and that is still the weakness that keeps it from overtaking Windows.
QM-
Have you looked at the Logos 4 software? You can run it on both Mac & Windows OS.
Been using Macs since my Mac 512 in 1985. Sucker logged 8 traps in the back of our trusty War Hoovers in the WayBack (the ImagerWriter I came aboard in a cruisebox). As a family we have owned the Mac512, Performa 600, PowerMac 7100 (x2), PowerMac 8100, PowerMac G3/266, PowerMac G3 (Blue), PowerMac G4, original iBook, PowerBook G4 (17″), iMac G4, iMac G5, and four Intel iMacs ranging from the original 20″ to a iMac 27″ Quad-Core I5. Oh and Dash One, our Lance Corporal in Hawaii is using a MacBook Pro (17″).
We never shut off the broadband connection or the iMacs, which are running with no extra protective software.
Mac viruses since 1985: Zero. ( I suspect that some Office files have carried some of the Office macroviruses, however).
I do use Boot Camp (running Windows 2000 XP) on my iMac. I only use it when I’m playing Falcon and I’ve gotten about a dozen and half viruses/Trojan Horses, etc. And that’s running protective software. I have the Parallels software, but rarely use it. BTW, Quartermaster, Boot Camp is not an emulator, it is a Windows PC. In fact, IIRC, the fastest way to run Windows on a laptop is to load it on a MacBook Pro.
A couple of years ago I bought a Dell tower to practice IT skills on in anticipation of getting ASE+ certified. After a month it would no longer accept USB input. After restoring Windows, then wiping the drive and reinstalling Windows yet again, checking the drive with another PC (it was OK), installing new RAM it still doesn’t work. Did all the things the various support sites said to do. Nada. I have even had a number of IT guys have a go at it. No joy. But it was about half what a low-end iMac costs.
They’ve been good to us. Still can’t justify an iPad though.
I long ago rejected the Mac world because of the cost and lack of Engineering software.
Boot Camp has been described to me as an emulator. From what I’ve been able to gather, there are low level routines that have to be re-mapped to allow Windoze to operate on a Mac. If that is indeed the case, then it is an emulator. OTH, if it completely displaces the OS, and low level routines (and Mac, as do Windoze machines, has a bunch), then you would be correct.
There are many people that don’t ask a lot of a computer (I ain’t one of them) and a Mac will do quite nicely for them. If all I did was play games, write text, send email, write the occasional program, and did no Engineering Design, the Mac would be a nice machine. I don’t fall into that category, and no one in my direct acquaintance does either.
The only trouble I’ve had with a Windoze machine was just before I left Ohio. I was cleaning bookmarks and checked out thelink to Pat Buchanan’s website, only to have a bandwidth thief redirect me to a porn site after half of pat’s splash page loaded. After that I had a virus that nothing could find. I stripped the machine and after I got to NC bought an IDE interface kit for it so i could access it through a USB port. When I did a virus then, i found something. It appeared that as long as it was a boot drive I wouldn’t find anything. Since then I use Avast! and keep Malwarebytes updated, but nothing has gotten me except when my grandson did something he shouldn’t have. he’s been banned from the innertubes since then.
Frankly, Mac users have been lucky. Mostly they have security through obscurity. There are a few Mac viruses out there, but there are relatively few systems out there, so it doesn’t make a big splash. Fame comes from screwing up the Windows world, so that’s where the goof balls go for their perverse fun.
Don’t get the idea I’m down on you because you use Mac. Given what you do, if works for you, then whatever floats your boat. It’s just the Mac World doesn’t meet my needs.
One of the nicer things I found working at SURFPAC in the late late ’90′s was their decision to accept that if they needed a computer literate force they needed to start paying for it and giving the sailors time to actually learn the ‘basics’ of the applications, excel, word, database applications, etc., and even started branching out into the operating systems.
A much healthier way of doing business.
My HTML skills failed me in this comment, please delete the obviously FUBARed comment.
Thanks
“We never shut off the broadband connection or the iMacs, which are running with no extra protective software.”
Um, yeah. Who spends time writing pirate code for a platform that covers 7% of the market?
“Mac viruses since 1985: Zero.” (see above)
“I only use [Boot Camp] when I’m playing Falcon and I’ve gotten about a dozen and half viruses/Trojan Horses, etc.”
Great. That’s about a dozen and a half viruses I haven’t gotten since I started using Windows 95 back in … 1995. So that’s … fifteen years I haven’t been infected. Am I installing Windows the wrong way? {/snerk}
QM: it is my understanding that Boot Camp is just that; a boot loader that allows you to fire up a version of Windows instead of OS X. I might add here that “Windoze” is a highly offensive term. That’s fanboi trash talk where I come from.
Weird thing is, I agree with your main point: Wintel systems can be quite useful, just as Apple systems can. It depends on your preferences & requirements.
As for your page hijacker, I’ve heard of such things. Apparently the trick is to NOT CLICK ON ANYTHING. AT ALL. Use Control-Alt-Delete to kill that browser window, or your entire browser thread. DO NOT CLICK ON ANYTHING IN THAT WINDOW. Apparently some crackers have glommed onto the idea that one may disable the various controls while opening a new browser window, and most folks still assume clicking on an “OK” button will get them out of trouble. So, it is this a browser security issue, or an OS security issue?
Agreed, Macs are very nice, if you can afford them. Note: with a generic Wintel system, if any single component fails, you can replace it. But if an Apple component fails, you’re screwed. Basically all modern Apple systems are fancy laptops. Highly integrated, but also highly integrated. If my monitor dies tomorrow, I can go to Best Buy, Staples, etc., and get something similar, no sweat. Same thing for DVD drive, memory, keyboard, etc. If an Apple iMac display dies, the whole system is hosed until an Apple(tm) display is ordered to replace the Apple(tm) display on hand, and you can’t use anything but an Apple(tm) display to replace it. Razors & blades my friends, razors & blades.
That’s way I still have -despite the fact that I think it’s big, ugly, and noisy- a full tower desktop system. It’s very generic.
Look at cars. There are those who would be glad to buy a new-original VW Beetle (those things lasted forever) {a real Beetle, not a fake Golf} , or a Civic (my first choice), or a Ford Festiva (AKA Kia Pride), while others would prefer a Mustang, or an SUV, or a Ford F-350 truck. Wide variety of needs & preferences; wide variety of choices. One size (or company) does not fit all.
Yak….you’re wrong. In 1987, my Mac SE, and those of several of us who combined our time on GEnie to share in the downloading tasks weekly, go the “Scores” virus. One of the companions in our early ventures in gathering software (I had an excel sheet to balance the load each week for “fairness”), called me and had me pull up ResEdit and look for a particular string in one of the systems files….sure enough…I had it. It was an easy fix, tho, and it was gone shortly there after, with some editing to the correct specs.
Anyhow, thankfully, the viruse guys went to the blossoming market of PC/MS-DOS, so as to make more impact with the same coding effort. The bad part was the gaming software did the same thing. I was leaning to fly the F-16 @ home with Falcon 1.0…on a MacSE, and slightly later, the II/IIcx. I’m sure I couldn’t compete with Lex, but I figured some things about popping up, rolling to see the target and pickling MK80s at towers and Durandals at runways, as well as how to get away from the MiGs/SAMs.
Oops…Casey….to much multitasking here…
Started with an Apple II in 1983. Carried a Mac SE (2 floppy disk drives!) with a “the future is now” whopping 40 MB external hard drive on my back to a couple of my ships, back in the day. Had an Imagewriter II for all the paperwork.
I liked the ease of use, and I had the money.
Once I got out and into chemistry, I found out that chemists used Chemdraw a lot, only available then on Macs.
Used Windows PCs at a federal agency. My contribution to the Mac / PC slagging contest was to compare Macs to Sigourney Weaver, and PCs to Phyllis Diller. Both women.
Still have 6 of my 11 purchased Macs around the house. But it’s not like I’m a total Mac enthusiast.
That dichotomy seems so last century. Whatever suits your needs. It’s a tool, not a life.
Exactimundo. It’s a tool.
Ever notice that some Mac owners sound like Prius owners? (Not our faithful host of course!)
I spend a lot of time in SiVal offices and labs. What do I see? 80% of the platforms are Dell Lat 600 & 800 Series machines for laptops, and Optiplex systems for box systems. Most of the remainder are comprised of Sun Unix machines and one or two Macs for those that are considered to be PowerPoint Rangers or a bit on the snobbish side.
My tool needs to run Solid Works, and (get this) some old command line Finite Element Analysis code first written in Fortran back the 70s. Thus far I’ve seen but one compat ability problem that will be fixed to allow running on the 64X Win7 machine.
WinBoxes are not pretty. I never have seen anyone refer to them in terms such as “Tech Lust, and in Drudge, what about the current headline: “iPad mania as thousands line up for UK launch… ”
Sounds a bit like Dutch tulips.
No, you just diss Wintel systems in a drive-by, passive/aggressive manner.
OK, here’s the bottomline…if SWMBO isn’t complaining, then everyone (including the onsite IT help, namely me)is happy. Since shifting her over to a Macbook pro, I haven’t received a single call or been met at the door with the time-honored “my computer’s running slow/not at all” complaint.
That’s a metric that works for me.
w/r, SJS
Most likely the most effective metric ever adopted by MAN…:)
At least since the Garden
Chances are at the time you were doing this very few PCs were engineered well enough, maybe an AST or Digital box. Try that with ANY modern machine.
Same is in my household, Firefox before and now Chrome with OpenDNS do wonders for security. Although truth be told, IE 7 took care of ALOT of the security issues in WinXP, and IE8 even more so. MOST of the security issues that are more then theoretical are with other vendor’s software, Adobe Acrobat and Flash to name the main culprits.
Maybe its not fair to ask this, but what else did you do with your WinXP partition besides play Falcon? These things don’t happen in a vacuum.
Lol… that’s funny… you’re just poking fun right?
Believe it or not, I LOVE this discussion both Apple and Microsoft have some really GREAT products… and some stinkers too. You really want to have fun, throw Google into the mix and the possibilities are endless. Move the discussion into Smart Phones and add in Research in Motion (Blackberries) and HP’s recent purchase of Palm… just mind boggling.
I had a ][c and an Imagewriter II (and 5.25″ floppies) in a cruise box for 9 vertreps, and several baot transfers on a cruise in 85-86. Used AppleWorks to keep my database for equipment casualty and parts/repair status along the way. Dropped off the dump for the watch officer’s notebook 2x daily…in hopes that the answers would be readily available and I could sleep sometime…sorta worked…unless the Commodore asked the question, then they had to get me up to come to the Flag Bridge to answer and then go back below to get back to sleep….but that’s a long sea story.
Played with rBase 5000 then – it was…SQL based before SQL had a name. I think that was on a PC (Z-248), as those were making their way into the fleet, and not just in the hands of Supply Officers anymore.
I recently became the very proud and happy owner of my very first Apple product – an I Touch for Christmas. And yeah, I think I’m in love. But what surprised me most of all, I think, is that I, who’s always insisted that I only want my cell phone to be a phone and nothing else – well, now I can really appreciate how nice it would be to have everything in one device.
But my actual computer, that I actually work on, is a PC. And although a close friend has been touting Macs to me for years, unless and until the prices come down significantly, I really can’t see it being anything else. I also have to wonder … am I only the only person on the fact of the earth who’s never really had any troubles with Vista? Been using it for over 2 years now and I really have no complaints.
” … am I only the only person on the fact of the earth who’s never really had any troubles with Vista?”
Yes. Yes you are. I’m a PC over Mac fan, but Vista is the worst OS ever and it’s designers and the program managers behind it should be dragged out and summarily shot without trial.
After inducing a massive amount of pain before release. I’d include Gates in that (both Bill and the guy masquerading as SecDef these days).
I’m not sure of the “why?” of Vista as compared to XP.
Am rapidly becomming an Apple fan as I sit here in the Patra Bali Resort and enjoy Lex and comments on an iPod which weighs ounces instead of having to carry a laptop. It also fits in your pocket so no room safe is necessary.
“….sitting in the Patra Bali Resort…”
You BASTARD! And you had the unmitigated gall to say you were jealous of my little sailing trip?
(Sad but true observation, BOSS, someone once told me who is our age and did the Bali thing with his wife also not too many years ago: “It’s like everything else, Corvettes, women, fine wine, etc. By the time you can afford it you’re too old to really enjoy it. I should have hit Bali as a 24 yr-old single guy!” LOL, so true, so true…OTOH, “better late than never,” so there’s that.. )
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with Apple.
* Expensive.
* User-friendly because all choice is eliminated.
* Stupid menu bar at the top. (But you can always buy a crappy little app to turn it off! See below).
* Every little bit of functionality, which is either builtin on Windoze or available as freeware, you have to pay for.
* “It just works” iff you stay firmly within the Apple ecosystem. Must be extra careful when buying peripherals.
* Apple does not innovate. It’s great at execution, though.
* The “UNIX heritage” is BSD crap. Sun rewrote its SunOS into Solaris 20 freaking years ago specifically to get rid of this “heritage”. The spinning beachball of death is somewhat ameliorated by multiple cores, but it’s still there.
* Apple font rendering is just goddamn awful. http://www.atpm.com/12.01/paradigm.shtml They really should have stayed friends with Adobe.
* The Orwellian advertising. During the PPC-Intel transition, waxing lyrical about the new Intel CPUs on the MacBook page, whilst touting the superiority of PowerPC (Altivec specifically) on the PowerMac page (which had not yet transitioned). The MAC fanbois forgot about the inherent superiority of PPC overnight.
* Apple fanbois. Read the forums eg. macrumors.com . When it comes to blind devotion, Hitler has nothing Steve Jobs.
P.S.
I’m typing this in a Mac. I’m about to get an iPad for my mother.
“* Every little bit of functionality, which is either builtin on Windoze or available as freeware, you have to pay for.”
Somebody delete all the bundled applications, not to mention Unix tools, that shipped on your Mac?
“* The “UNIX heritage” is BSD crap. Sun rewrote its SunOS into Solaris 20 freaking years ago specifically to get rid of this “heritage”.”
Having spent 20+ years in engineering at Sun, I think you got your information just a bit scrambled. BSD and SvR4 are both valid Unix branches, and Sun went from the former to the latter. Other Unix vendors did not; horses for courses, thingie.
What this has to do with Apple’s decision to go with BSD eludes me; nevertheless, the governing body that says what’s Unix and what isn’t very clearly puts Mac OS X in the Unixsphere, and probably the largest commercial Unix distribution at this time.
Apple chose BSD only because of its license. The Unix tools that come with OS X are command-line only and years out of date (you can install GNU tools through MacPorts, of course). How do they help with basic functionality like being able to hide the menu bar? (There’s an app you can buy that does that, though.) What about the molasses mouse acceleration? (There’s another app you can buy that fixes it!)
Ever notice the human tendency to say “Whatever I use/do/think is right. Therefore you who use/do/think differently must be, if not actually evil, wrong.” Stupid religious wars…
That was an evil and stupid comment
…which elicited an evil and stupid laugh on my part.
Pogue, so true. For all the froth on Mac/ PC, it’s not a real religious war with burning heretics in our wake.
I like Lex’s larger point, that by focusing on what makes customers go “Wow, neat!” Apple has become a success. Apple has not always been a winner, with 15 years of stock prices going sideways, failed product intros (remember LISA?), and So? valid criticisms above. The Apple track record shows serious faltering while Jobs did other things. Can a new leader keep whatever edge Apple has? Look at Microsoft after Gates left. There’s a lot of talent in Microsoft, but innovators creating new industries and markets? Please. Innovation is hard to keep up over a period of time. Hmmm, this could morph into a discussion on the US and adherence to Constitutional wisdom..