Light years ahead? (or a Critical Approach to Mac)

[liberalist]

Hi everyone,

My last post about the Mac vs. Linux debate was perhaps hinging on the negative... This lead me to take a more critical stance towards Mac and its posix-compliant OS X. Last June 8th (2009) there was the WWDC keynote, which is a conference where (chiefly) new products are announced. Its tag line was "One year later, light years ahead". To me, this sounds arrogant, and it is does not ring true. The new OS (10.6), Snow Leopard, is coming in September and is touted to be a technical masterpiece.

[img width=400 height=300]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3196/3591148391_96e9a3b4af.jpg[/img]

However, doesn't KDE4/Kubuntu already have these technological advancements (for a considerable amount of time).

Speed: Grand Central (multi-threading), Open CL (using the graphics card to accelerate application's performance) and 64-bit seem to be marketing buzzwords. Linux takes the high road and does not require a multi-core processor to run, but balances the load of the applications between the cores if there is one. 64-bit? Linux has that for ages. Then of course Open CL, which is thought by many Mac enthusiasts to be marvellous, but only works on Apple computers bought within the last half year.

Enter KDE 4. Due to Qt4, we have a solid foundation to build memory-efficient applications. To me, KDE 4 seems quite fast, although I have read reports saying the opposite. Plus, the ext4 file system is arguably better than the aged HFS+ from Apple (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1278).

Furthermore, Apple wants to gain foothold in corporations. This simply is not feasible, because they are so unpredictable. They have changed processor architectures twice (68k to PowerPC to Intel) and they release a new (paid-for) OS point update roughly every 18 months. There is no telling when the old version becomes obsolete.

I could go on with my story, but I would like to hear other people's opinion about Mac and its supposed technical superiority.

[dibl]

Re: Light years ahead? (or a Critical Approach to Mac)

but only works on Apple computers bought within the last half year.

This the key concept, and the key difference. Apple software only works on a defined set of hardware that Apple chooses to support (or write drivers for) -- the Mac user will buy from the short list of approved hardware. Gnu/Linux attempts, albeit with less than universal success, to run on any hardware, giving the user lots more choices.

[sithlord48]

Re: Light years ahead? (or a Critical Approach to Mac)

i used macs for years in school. in my first C++ class we used mac os 6. for years our computers ran what apple now calls there "classic" os, then one day we got a machine w/ OS X it was a huge leap from os 9 (*really only in a visual appel).when i left that school our fastest machine was a g4 duel processor rig for the art kids. remember macs used to be good for something at a hardware level.the PPC arctecture is good at video and audio thats why some game systems run PPC chips. my g3 @ its whole 400mhz glory will play video from a dvd perfectly full screen or not w/ an old ati riva 128(8mb) v.card.. and gimp runs very nice for the computers age.. that was there hardware then.

now a mac is a pretty pc. with an x86 or x86_64 intel based chip....apples os X i have never really liked all to much (other then its gui cause it looks nice) there is something about os X that to me seams to reward stupid users and keep users in the dark about there system (security through obscubority?). i find it to be some what annoying to use and way to dependant on the mouse. (but then again that is what avg. joe computer user wants) and every claim apple makes is always about how much better they are, they always have arrogant sayings like that. i think that about half of apples sales come from people who either see it and go oh that looks nice, and/or under the assumption that mac os X is a perfect os that could never get any sort of virus, ever. the other group are people who are just apple fan boys and girls. (even been to an apple store?)

as for there innovations such as 64-bit and having a multi-theading capable os, i for one say its about time! us linux users have had both for sometime. and geeze even the windows crowd has had those grand acheivements for a few years....

so really what is so great about apple's mac os X>? its very simple, really good marketing and after all don't all the "cool" kids have fancy apple machines.. and don't you too want to be cool.......