Why Apple Really Needs to Do Something Special Now
After exactly half a decade and almost three XP service packs later, Microsoft finally gets around to releasing Windows Vista.
As an ex-Windows user—I say ex because I no longer use Windows at home—I can honestly say that a stupid amount of people will be looking forward to this Windows upgrade, and I can’t blame them. Why should Windows users have to put up with rubbish graphics, a sorry excuse for searching through your computer, constant driver finding, error messages, and not forgetting a silly amount of security holes?
While many are saying Vista is purely XP in disguise, there are a few notable upgrades to Windows that any PC owner is going to be grateful for.
The disgusting graphics of XP have been replaced with translucent windows, beautiful shadows, and smooth “Exposé” like movements.
They finally have a decent search engine built right into the system, allowing them to quickly find photos, music, movies, and documents without waiting for two hours.
They finally have a more secure (so we’re told) system that promises to crack down on spyware and viruses, although I dare say we’ll hear of a virus being released for Vista next week.
They finally got their own gadgets (widgets), inspired by Konfabulator, allowing them to check up on weather, news, stock information, and other interesting tidbits with the click of a button.
They finally have decent software pre-installed on their system that allows them to do decent things, such as browsing photos and sending them to Kodak for real prints—no more of those trashy programs that they have to uninstall as soon as they get their computer.
Oh yes, things are looking up in the world of a Windows user, and I’m happy for them, honestly. I’m actually pleased Microsoft has finally gotten their rear ends into gear and released Windows Vista and given their users something Apple has given us for many years—a real computer.
But that’s just the thing: Apple has given us a lot of this stuff for years. Widgets, pretty operating system, Spotlight, iLife, decent security—we’ve got it all, so why the big fuss about Vista? Well, it’s no fuss to anyone who has used a Mac, but a fuss to those who haven’t. Now Apple has a challenge on its hands.
Microsoft has finally caught up with the game and Windows can do pretty much everything a Mac can do, give or take a couple of things (sure, a Mac doesn’t have all the fancy Media centre stuff just yet, but that’s what Apple TV is for.
While Microsoft may not be releasing another Windows operating system for a good 20 or 30 years (excuse my sarcasm), Apple will most likely continue releasing upgrades every year, the next one being OS X Leopard. The challenge for Apple is to continue to innovate, continue to push forward and make Vista look out of date with each release of a new Mac OS. Sure, Spaces and Time Machine are pretty fancy things, but it’s not going to be enough to convince a Windows user that a Mac is better, especially as Vista is now out and about. At present it’s probably only going to be a mixture of small things that make a Mac better, but Steve Jobs and co. need to find a way to bring these now-content Windows Vista users over to the Mac platform.
How about those gamers?
An argument I keep hearing time and time again appears to be that Macs don’t run many games, which is stopping an awful lot of hardcore PC gamers from making the switch. There have been a lot of arguments in the past and Apple seems to have rubbished them all off, but the gaming one still stands. When you think of PC gaming, you think of Microsoft: why? With each new game that comes out, it seems that users need to upgrade their processors, their memory, and their graphics card in order to run the game at full capability—something that can be easily done with a PC but not on a Mac. Yet with the Microsoft Xbox 360, this isn’t necessary, because everything is built in and games are designed with that console’s power in mind. I seriously believe that if Apple were to release a computer with some decent horse power behind it, enough to run decent games, it would attract a large number of users to the OS X platform. Perhaps this is just one of the ways Steve Jobs could make the Mac more enticing to new Vista users?
We could always go back to the talk of an Apple games console being released, but this wouldn’t really increase OS X market share, unless Apple is just going to concentrate on the phone and music market now.
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The problem is that that world doesn’t exist. What Micheal Dell says in public and what really would happen are two very different things.
That’s your own speculation. If he says he’d do it, then I give him the benefit of the doubt for the purposes of this discussion.
Apple’s core business is consumer electronics, both software AND hardware. Not only could they compete, I wish they WOULD. Cross-pollination of innovative features benefits us all as consumers.
I am not advocating against anything.
Yes you are. You don’t think Apple SHOULD license OS, not just that they won’t. You think it’s a “bad idea” because they will lose so much money that they will eventually give up on the Mac altogether.
I just don’t see how a company as successful as Apple and with as loyal a fanbase as Apple could not succeed in a business model already proven by hundreds of other companies.
A software-only company isn’t exactly uncharted waters. And they wouldn’t even be that. They’d still have the iPod.
“Hello!! If you pay for an upograde of the license, after the upgrade you don’t get to keep using the old one, thats way its supposed to work.”
Er… So even though I’m licensed to upgrade my LEGITIMATE XP with a Legit Vista… Should I need to re-install, XP can’t won’t activate, thus VISTA won’t install. Get your FACTS straight.
“You can’t do that with OS X alone either. “
Create an image in Disk Utility… It works just fine. MS has taken the ability out PERIOD, even with 3rd part apps - Remember the APP runs ONTOP of the OS which leaves the OS in 100% FULL Control of what’s going on!
“Further to the Aqua on Linux discussion, another problem is that Linux is GPL. Were Apple to develop Aqua for Linux they would have to release the source code into the public domain. It is highly unlikley that they would be able to develop anything for Linux without some GPL dependency. “
Correct yet wrong. Remember OS X is built on Darwin, an opensource OS derived from openstep, derived from nextstop, derived from BSD… Aqua is proprietary and thus IS NOT SUBJECT to GPL.
“Heck, I run it on my iMac, hardware for which it is hardly intended and no problems. “
So that’s why you have no Windows issues… Your running it on decent hardware. Not poking, just makes sense when you’ve said in the past you don’t have issues. Actually all the hardware minus the firmware is 100% PC compatible.
“Aqua is proprietary and thus IS NOT SUBJECT to GPL.”
Very true, in its current form, but to redevelop it to run on Linux, they would need to use at last some Linux APIs which are subject to GPL.
“Should I need to re-install, XP can’t won’t activate”
Why do you need to activate? It doesn ‘t need to be activated in order upgrade. Maybe you should do some fact finding.
XP needs to activate in order to become LEGIT. Do some fact finding? How about I’ve ran into this problem allready! A 40min call to MS allowed us to install XP to upgrade. 3rd part software DID NOT function properly under Vista, so we needed to go back so they can finish up Month End.
Three fundamental flaws in my opinion.
1) The seemingly incorrect assumption 10.5 will be in essence an evolution of 10.4.
OK, it might be wishful thinking, but there are at least a few who are prepared to speculate 10.5 will embrace many of the bleeding-edge OS concepts proposed by Charles Simonyi.
Whether Steve has the balls to fully embrace a concept unlike anything that has ever been seen before, only time will tell, but there is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest ‘Illuminate’ even in it’s mildest form will be an entirely different user experience than ‘Aqua’ or even ‘Vista’. Fully implemented, well MS would never have the balls to adopt something so fundamentally different. Not only would it make Vista look out of date, it would render anything that presently exists redundant, including - dare I say it - 10.4.
2) Now contented Vista users.
If they’re contented using Vista, then encourage them to stay there. OS X and Linux will undoubtably be well beyond their intellectual capabilities.
I used to be a contented Win98 / XP user until last Christmas, but I draw the line at being asked if I want my a*se wiped every 5 minutes. If you want to be treated like a moron, then Vista is the OS for you, because from the moment you first boot up Vista automatically assumes every PC user has the intellect of a 3 year old. If you’re happy being treated like a moron then so be it, but some of us know we have an IQ that is a least double figures and expect to be treated as such.
3) Gamers.
Even the great man himself has often conceded ‘Windows’ would be a significantly more stable and secure OS if Microsoft didn’t have to pander to rogue game developers. The whole concept of the XBox is to get gamers off the ‘Windows’ platform, so why do we want them on the Mac.
If you want to plays games then buy a PC. The rest of us want a computer to do tasks that are actually benefical and constructive in our life. OK it sounds harsh, but some of us actually contribute to society.
The reason behind the VOIDING of the XP license (and activation code) is to keep many, many, many people from buying 40 copies of Vista upgrade to beat the price, install XP with it’s 30 days, then install Vista.
Once Vista is installed it contacts MS servers and VOIDS the XP license. HOWEVER if you need to re-install Vista at any point using the “Upgrade” disc, you need to install XP and activate it… Since XP won’t activate because Vista allready voided the code, you can’t “Upgrade-Install” your machine until you call MS and prove your not a theif and that your code is/was yours legitimately.
In principle this works as long as you don’t want to or never need to 1) Go back to XP because your acconting software didn’t work on Vista or 2) Ever need to re-load the OS from scratch because a new yet to be named virus attacked your system defeating Defender and because Norton/McAfee/Etc can’t monitor the kernal nor the system files…. Sh*t happened and now your left with the day wasting task of getting your system back to normal…
Why is this considered acceptible?
“2) Now contented Vista users.
If they’re contented using Vista, then encourage them to stay there. OS X and Linux will undoubtably be well beyond their intellectual capabilities.”
I have to confess, I don’t really understand what XP/Vista users are supposed to be. You comment indicates that OSX users are smarter then Windows users. However, from reading this site, one would assume that the people here are incapable of sitting down before a PC without causing it to spontaneously combust, meanwhile PC users go for months without ever having problems.
Windows is easy to understand, Mac Fanatics are impossible.
OS X and Linux will undoubtably be well beyond their intellectual capabilities. -BW
That’s the funniest I’ve heard all week. :D
...some of us know we have an IQ that is a least double figures and expect to be treated as such.
Make that triple. AM forum visitors and posters get automatic bump-up a hundred points!
If you want to plays games then buy a PC. The rest of us want a computer to do tasks that are actually benefical and constructive in our life. OK it sounds harsh, but some of us actually contribute to society. -BW
Amen…
meanwhile PC users go for months without ever having problems. -Simo
Now that is a testimonial from a Windows fandom with hardly no truth behind it.
I am a Mac faithful (yes, that’s shockingly true) yet I own two XP and 2003 Server workhorses in my consulting biz. They are not elegant. They are not beautiful. And I can tell you if those machines are left on for more than a week, they start collecting virtual dust (heap stack, paged memory, mem leakages) and you HAVE to HARD reboot the things to get back to “ideal” state.
Mac users appear superficially more intelligent beings for they made a superb choice of not getting involved and get awashed with myriad of wild viruses, worms, spies, and trojans that infest and manifest themselves under Windows. Vista, for all MS’s efforts, will not change that. The weakest link is still the end user and Vista’s kernel protection schemes are still privileged based.
Vista’s innards haven’t really changed that much from XP. The registry is still there for all the young ones to exploit. I can see kernel rootkits being spawned for Vista right now.
“I don’t really understand what XP/Vista users are supposed to be”
Users who still need their mummy to hold their hand.
‘Vista’ may indeed be the best version of ‘Windows’ ever released. Yes, it might even be better than ‘OS X’, but we will never know if we can’t get past the 5 million message boxes that constantly ask ‘do you really want to do this? - do you really want to do that? - would you like Bill Gates to come to your home and wipe your a*se for you? Windows ‘Vista’ equals Windows Nanny. Deliberately targeted at users who are incapable of and/or unwilling to taking responsibility for their own actions.
“Windows is easy to understand, Mac Fanatics are impossible”
‘Mac fanatic’ - far from it. Charles Simonyi fanatic - absolutely!
After 20 years of using MacOS, Unix, Win3.11, Win95, Win98, WinXP, OS X; why should I be content to continue to use something that was conceived in the 1970’s.
Forced to choose between the two, OS X 10.4 is probably the closet to Charles Simonyi’s visionary concept, but still nowhere near what even Bill Gates concedes is the future of the desktop. Whether Steve Jobs has the balls to adopt Simonyi’s concept in ‘Leopard’ and potentially risk alienating 50% of the current Mac user base - at least in the short term - remains to be seen. But then I also wonder how many of those potentially disgruntled Mac users also boldly claimed they would never use an Intel Mac.
I concede it is extremely wishful aspirations on my part, but if Apple’s recent statements are a cryptic clue as to what Apple is planning to unveil in ‘Leopard’, then the past 30 years really was only just the beginning - and photocopier sales in Redmond will skyrocket.
‘Mac fanatics’ might be impossible now, but if for once in my life my instincts are right, Mac fanatics may soon become absolutely intolerable.
“Vista’s innards haven’t really changed that much from XP. The registry is still there for all the young ones to exploit. I can see kernel rootkits being spawned for Vista right now.”
No, I totally disagree. I believe it takes something like 2 or 3 rather minor entries in the registry to totally disable Vista’s activation routine and not a great deal more to disable DRM. Much more simpler than XP.
But wait there’s more… As of beta 2 - not certain if MS have finally realized how stupid this is - Vista is deliberately designed to crash and automatically reboot upon any unauthorized attempt to access the kernel. Script kiddies heaven. Create nothing more than a simple well executed macro and you can completely destroy any Vista PC you want. An absolute godsend for power supply and hard disk manufacturers.
“Meanwhile PC users go for months without ever having problems.”
Yeah I would really like to meet one of these rather elusive people. Certainly I’ve never been so lucky in the 13 or so years I’ve been using ‘Windows’. Though I did prove once that XP is rock solid and secure as long as you don’t install anything on it, but that sort of defeats the purpose.
In fairness, I will concede XP SP2 has been reasonably stable from an OS perspective. Rarely have I ever had a total system crash since SP2 unless I’m running - yes you guessed it - MS OfficeXP SP3. And that in itself amounts to 4 or 5 times in a week.
In the end though it really isn’t about whether ‘Vista’ or ‘OS X’ is better, it’s about whether you are willing to accept being labeled as an ‘anti-social anarchist intent on destruction of the corporate world and therefore humanity as we know it’ which is exactly what Microsoft’s ‘Vista’ licensing and DRM systems assume you are.
So that’s why you have no Windows issues… Your running it on decent hardware. Not poking, just makes sense when you’ve said in the past you don’t have issues. Actually all the hardware minus the firmware is 100% PC compatible.
I also said I had an eMachine laptop and no issues.
But this begs the question: if faulty hardware is the problem, then why do Mac-tards insist on blaming Windows for all PC ills?
Three fundamental flaws in my opinion.
There are more than three fundamental flaws in your opinion.
You comment indicates that OSX users are smarter then Windows users. However, from reading this site, one would assume that the people here are incapable of sitting down before a PC without causing it to spontaneously combust, meanwhile PC users go for months without ever having problems.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Bravo!
Mac-tards seem to be the ones who are so confused by a right-mouse button that they greeted even the mere suggestion of including a multi-button mouse with howls of protest about how their users wouldn’t know what to do with it.
why do Mac-[censored for fun] insist on blaming Windows for all PC ills?
Because it is.