Why Microsoft Is Beating Apple At Its Own Game 418
ttom writes "OSWeekly.com looks at Microsoft's promotional strategy and concludes that Microsoft is beating Apple at its own game." From the article: "Apple is to blame for this, at least to some extent. They just had to go and release Boot Camp, didn't they? By the way, please don't take my sarcastic tone as an expression of my dissatisfaction for the product. I think it's great, and I really never expected to see something like Boot Camp come out of the Apple Camp. I know that users have bombarded them with requests for officially allowing Windows usage on a Mac, and the fact that they yielded to these requests is interesting because they've emphasized the OS X and Windows experiences as being completely separate for quite some time."
Summary headline is incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
The article's opening line & premise the rest of the article is based on is incorrect:
No. Boot camp made a small stir, but the vast majority of people out their still see Mac PCs as very different from WIndows PCs (and don't understand the dual boot process anyway). Macs are still getting far more ipod splashback publicity than they were five years ago.
A more interesting discussion would be "Why Dell Is Beating Apple At Its Own Game"? After all, two years ago I know I certainly wouldn't have expected to see:
1) Apple rushing to join an Electronics Industry Code of practice founded by Dell after sweatshop scandal rumours.
2) Apple scoring lowest on a "Green" survey - when Dell scored second highest.
Both those items are areas I expect Apple's marketing (if not reality) to shine, but instead it's Dell with all the glory.
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"Why is Apple beating Dell at its own game?"
Apple's Mac Pro is cheaper than an equivalent Dell. Dell has even admitted this, a spokesman sagely saying "it is what it is".
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Oh right, my apologies, I should have said "Apple scored abysmally on the same survey, for the same green criteria that Dell came second on".
"Why is Apple beating Dell at its own game?"
Apple is beating Dell at its own game - I never said they weren't, but in sacrificing quality (and marketing?) to build cheaper, more Dellish PCs, they've neglected their own game.
Apple's Mac Pro is cheaper than an equivalent Dell
Well, if you want t
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Dell is the #1 PC manufacturer, and they advertise pretty heavily. HP is #2, but fewer people think of HP when they think of buying a PC.
Also, Michael Dell and Steve Jobs have some history.
Re:Summary headline is incorrect. (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple's cheapest products are midrange in the market, and they shine at the high-end. Apple is competing with Lenovo, Toshiba, and Sony for customers with an eye toward total presentation & overall quality, and a bit more flexibility in the pocketbook.
There's this silly horse-race attitude in technology commentary, that any company that doesn't have the largest marketshare in their industry is doing something wrong. Typically in any industry gaining the majority means making certain sacrifices (for instance, Microsoft could never break backwards compatibility as often as Apple does -- their huge installed corporate base would balk) Hence there's a lot of money to be made in targeting niches where one size doesn't fit all.
Apple would have a very rough time becoming Dell and keeping the qualities that make their particular market so lucrative and loyal.
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I bask in the magnificence of your 45mph linux computer. I wish I was as cool as you.
Re:Summary headline is incorrect. (Score:4, Insightful)
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In the end, the Apple machine offers more choice: I can run Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux on it. On the other-brand PC or clone, I cannot run Mac OS X. Other options might or might not be available, but Apple machines usually offer good high-end options which other vendors don't always have.
Re:Summary headline is incorrect. (Score:5, Interesting)
What's wrong with Dell as the price comparison? It is the most common.
I just did a comparison with Asus. A nearly equivalent MacBook is a few hundred dollars cheaper, albeit without the graphics card. The Asus is lighter, but the MacBook is smaller, and a lot more nicely made. This isn't taking into account OS X, which is the main reason the MacBook is better.
One thing about Asus that I really despise is all of the different models. They have useless alphanumerical names, and take a long time to look through. Surely a "1.8 GHz AsusBook" would be more helpful than an "ASUS kajf0394jljfsdd09fadfkaj". Car makers (particularly foreign ones) do this too, and it is quite irritating.
But if I ever want a Lamborghini laptop, I'll buy an ASUS. Hooray for useless models.
The only real advantage that PCs have for hardware is being able to build your own desktop, and being able to buy really, really cheap (in price, performance, and quality) PCs. The low end ones also have more customization options (which their buyers won't use). These are pretty big advantages for some people, though.
Re:Summary headline is incorrect. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the reason is simple -- every Mac fan online has been bombarded for years by Windows fans using low-end Dell computers to "prove" that Apple's computers are overpriced. Like here [zdnet.com], and here [zdnet.com].
Obnoxious Windows zealots have been making such a comparison for years -- do you really expect Mac zealots to stay silent now that the opposite is true?
Yaz.
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Hmm, are you talking about : http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/29C5599A-FC D 8-4E30-9AD5-5497999ABA1B.html [roughlydrafted.com]
Greenpeace did not make me happy in this article. Did you note: ""....the methods used to collect information for their report were sloppy and incompetent."
Even so, note that 1 in 10 pc users keep their computers for more than five years, and 1 in 3 Mac users keep their computers for more than fifteen years. I gue
Greenpeace report on Apple was a scam (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Greenpeace cheers for HP and Dell, who generate far more e-waste than any other PC makers. They churn out disposable, cheap PCs with short life spans, often using far more toxic CRT displays to hit the low price target. HP was rated good on "Chemical Management," despite missing their goals last year. Meanwhile, Apple was rated "partially bad" for not having as many published goals, when in reality they had already banned use of those toxics, including Hexavalent Chromium and others.
If you like facts, here are more examples of how the Greenpeace report was misleading and incompetent. [roughlydrafted.com]
It's really too bad the Greenpeace report was thrown around without any criticism from the mainstream media or even from bloggers. Even Slashdot refused to cover it. Everyone is afraid to say anything about Greenpeace, but ignoring their misleading and irresponsible report on the grounds that it's politically incorrect to critique anything calling itself "Green," actually waters down the efforts of real environmentalists and those interested in forwarding the state of the art in clean and responsible business and manufacturing.
Incidentally, the Greenpeace report was written by a SVTC member. That's the group that targeted Apple last year in a campaign against the iPod, saying that people would throw their iPods away when the battery ran down. More about the Toxic Trash campaign on Apple [roughlydrafted.com].
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone who can use the phrase "Apple-hostile media" in the middle of a serious rant deserves a +5 funny!
You heard it there first. (Score:5, Funny)
Leading to fewer OS X apps? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Leading to fewer OS X apps? (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't even be surprised to see a wrapper that installs Windows apps on Macs to run without a full version of Windows installed... As a Mac professional, this prospect scares the crap out of me.
Ahem... [codeweavers.com]
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Yawn. Same arguments have been done to death on Linux for years, despite clear evidence to the contrary (see Second Life).
A few apps won't be ported because you can run them via Crossover Mac, but those apps wouldn't have been ported anyway. Life goes on. As a society we collectively have better things to do than port from one shitty C based API (Win32) to another shitty C based API (Carbon), simply to get glowing buttons. Sorry, but for the vast majority of specialist/single-use software in the world, d
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I don't know-- I think many Mac users won't quite be satisfied with running the crossover office windows version of their app. It'll be enough for them to get by and ditch Windows, but they won't quite like it. How many Mac users use OpenOffice, for example? How many people will be happy when there's a good, stable, up-to-date native OSX version?
So I think that this sort of thing will encourage switchers, and the increased user base will encourage native development. Hopefully.
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http://www.neooffice.org/ [neooffice.org]
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* Microsoft Outlook
* Microsoft Project
* Microsoft Visio
* Half-Life 2
* Quicken
Not a giant list of supported apps in the end (although many may work without "support"...). One would think the choices are about filling gaps with missing OS X apps that are popular or loved on the Windows platform, but its a funny lis
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And most of the Office versions that are supported are old. Outlook 2003 doesn't work, for example. Word 2003 seems to work okay, but as you indicated, there's a perfectly good Mac version of Word out there.
Re:Leading to fewer OS X apps? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Leading to fewer OS X apps? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I already have Windows, and all of my stuff already works with Windows, why should I go through the hassle of a different OS to use Windows Apps?
Maybe because Windows itself isn't working well for you? I have to say that, as the manager of an IT department, I'm tired of being over the barrel with Microsoft. It's restrictive and insecure, and I'm supposed to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade to Vista in order to get an OS which hopefully might possibly work, meanwhile locking myself further into a vendor which has caused me nothing but headaches? No thanks.
Now, I'm all in favor of people using whatever system works for them, and if Windows does the job for you, more power to you. In my mind, anything that lets me move to OSX, or better yet Linux, is a good thing.
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See, If there are two applications that do the same thing, but one runs under CrossOver/Parallels/BootCamp and the other is native,as a user I'll opt for the native version without any doubts.
The Mac is a niche market, it's very easy to loose your userbase if you do something stupid, like offering some lame emulated version of you app. Somebody else will be waiting to offer your users a better alternative.
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"Find it useful" - sure - but "love"!? Liar! :D
-b.
When Boot Camp is pre-installed (Score:2)
I'm confused (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd say OSWeekly knows who their biggest advertiser is and are pandering to them.
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Pssst! I have a secret for you... Macs are PCs! That's right; no matter how much their adverts try to create some artificial delineation between them Macs are simply PCs that happen to run a different OS.
Enlightenment is this way (Score:2)
Simon.
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Linux. BSD. Why run 'doze if you don't have to?
-b.
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Not true - the Mac Mini starts at $599. Add a cheap keyboard/mouse/monitor and you can get it for well under $1000. It doesn't compare to a tower for the same price, but it is a modern Mac, and it is under $1k.
I'd like to see you try,
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Less functionality? Are we talking about OS X (aka Apple Unix aka NeXTSTEP) here? You're comparing a system based on a solid UNIX core with easy-to-understand config files (notwithstanding Netinfo) to Windows - whose inner workings are much less transparent. Plus, with OS X you can get the best of both worlds - ported UNIX apps and programs from the "big names" like MS and Adobe.
On second thought, maybe you were talking about OS 9
12 year old emo followers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, you have to be slightly brain damaged to think that MS is better at whole-system integration than Apple.
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By whole-system integration, I meant from an end-user point of view. You can't go to microsoft.com and order a Microsoft PC that "just works". At least, not yet.
Apple will sell you the hardware, OS, software, and peripherals. Now that's a system.
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Take a survey of 100 Bootcamp\Virtualization Users (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'd say you are wrong here. The publishing industry in general has that sort of industry practice. If I buy a book and it has an error in it, I don't take it back to the publisher for them to fix it. In fact, they might (or might not) fix it in their next release. If I buy a newspaper and there is an error in it, they print a correction in a newer paper a few days later - they don't recall or warranty the
Not sure I understand (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not sure I understand (Score:4, Informative)
To me, that is Apple. Yes their computers aren't the cheapest, but in 3 years I had to replace my desktop Dell 3 times due to hardware problems. Yes Apple has had hardware problems too, but the quality of hardware IS high, and the Mini is a really nice bit of engineering, as is my Nano.
Basicly Apple does the same thing as most premium manufacturers. They charge more for a product that is better and sexier.
If you are confused with Apple's product lines you have never gone to Dell or HP for computers.
I call you troll:)
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Now as for vista's versions. Vista actually has fewer versions than XP. The simple fact is that many of XP's versions were rarely heard
The only people losing out... (Score:5, Interesting)
My next laptop purchase is going to be a Macbook early next year. The reason?
It can run Windows, that simple. There is software for windows that simply isn't available for OS X that I need. Conversely there is software on OS X that I need that I normally run under a VM with Linux. You could say Linux is a loser in this too.
But Microsoft having the beatdown on them? Nope, Apple see Windows as not going away anytime soon and frankly the majority of OS X users will use OS X the majority of the time. Apple are gaining pc users because of bootcamp.
I own a homebuilt pc and a Thinkpad, so i'm currently not a mac user and hadn't considered a Mac until the Macbook.
NB. I haven't read the article as it's not available.
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for Windows but not Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
We'd all own piles of dog crap too if some one was smart enough to make us all believe we need it.
-ps: the use of boot camp is cheating, btw, imo. As well, I think Multi-booting is just plain inconvenient. Too much time to take to traverse from OS to OS in time of need. I do it. Done it for years. Linux, Mac, and Windows in many forms on many machines. But it's too time consuimg. A person could be better off owning multiple machines running different platforms. Period. As well have tons less heartaches and oh-shit-this-didn't-work-smacks-to-the-forehead about how much time has been wasted setting it all up only to discover som ething trivial, yet major, like wireless driver failure.
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BootCamp is a bullet point.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Switching to Intel closed the price, performance and (with BootCamp or Paralells) the application compatability gaps; advantage Cupertino. Apple reported their best hardware sales quarters ever just recently, and I have read some speculation that they sold 50% more MacBooks than they expected this quarter (not sure how true that is but the delays in shipping make it plausible). My local Apple Store is literally jammed all day long, including week days and the wait at the Genius Bar is upwards of an hour most days. I seriously doubt all that bustle is for XP install on BootCamp???
The only category that might truly suffer from BootCamp existing is game development, porting is expensive and this is the kind of easy way out the big game publishers love.
On second thought I might install BootCamp with Leopard... if it will let me run Ubuntu?!
Slashdotted already (Score:2)
Doom! Doom! DOOM! (Score:2, Insightful)
Dual booting will never make a switch (Score:2, Interesting)
After having managed a number of labs (some multi-OS, some OS-specific), I can tell you both from the maintenance and user perspectives, dual-booting will never make anyone a "switcher." If anything it will just end-up being a frustration to those who are partial to one of the OSs involved. As for those who are not very computer savvy, they will end-up frustrating tech support and vice versa. Boot camp is not
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My mother found it fascinating that when they set up her new Mac, everything worked out o
dual boot is great for new users (Score:2, Insightful)
"More discussion than even before", huh? (Score:2)
2) Given the ability to do this has been around for all of, well, 8 months, you think maybe some of this discussion is because it's, you know, like a new thing?
Article missed the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe OSNews has missed the point.
Apple has always touted OSX as a superior experience to Windows, and is continuing to do so.
However, it is simply reality that many folks have Windows programs they need to run as well. Between Boot Camp and the various VM approaches Apple now has that option covered nicely.
Where does that leave Macs exactly? As:
- The worlds most versatile computers.
- Powered by a superior, more secure OS.
- Able to run legacy Windows applications as need be.
Windows continues to chug along on its own momentum, but I expect Mac sales to do VERY nicely. The vast majority of Mac user time will be spent in MacOS X, I predict. I also predict more and more native MacOS game ports over time, as the userbase swells.Apple laptops = yum (Score:3, Interesting)
-b.
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As far as the Thinkpads - here's a little secret: buy used. Many businesses seem to replace the things after a year, so you can find lightly-used examples with plenty of life left in them for significantly less than they'd cost new. (I paid $280 for a Thinkpad T23 - granted, this is was a 3 yr old computer at time of purchase, b
Aim: Sell more Mac hardware (Score:5, Insightful)
People will not worry about having to use a new operating system, they can fall back on Windows without having useless hardware. What would have been a no-sale is now a potential sale for Apple, lots of people are curious about Macs and Mac OS X, but were put off by the risk if they didn't like the software.
Other people can get two systems in one, ideal for laptop users. Others can keep on running that essential Windows app.
As Mac OS X marketshare increases, more and more of those essential Windows apps will get a Mac version, especially if their customers start demanding it - "I hate having to reboot into windows just to run your software", etc.
The road that Apple does not want to go is to support the Windows API out of the box. In this situation, there is less incentive to port to Mac OS X, if your Windows version will just run anyway. Some people think that Apple will support this however, that there will be a Windows.framework in an upcoming version of the OS.
Of course, I've had a Mac for just over a year, and I barely touch my Windows PC now.
Look at it this way (Score:2)
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The author is missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
The article meanders around without making much of a point, but this seems to be the gist of it:
He goes on to say:
Of course Microsoft is unconcerned, because they make money by selling Windows. They are not a PC OEM. Apple has a different business model. The company makes most of its money selling hardware. The well-integrated OS and hardware are what coax consumers to buy Macs. You can't have one without the other and still call it a Mac. As us old fogies remember, Apple tried letting other companies build Macs, and it was not exactly a rousing success for Apple. Sales of clones ate into Apple's market without building overall market share.
Boot Camp and the various virtualization technologies are giving Windows users the opportunity to buy Apple hardware and compare the Mac experience with the Windows experience on the same machine, with no special technical expertise required. So far the results have been overwhelmingly positive [apple.com] for Apple. There's a reason Apple was confident enough to bring a x86 processor into Macintosh hardware again (it's been done before [everymac.com]). Apple knows that if customers compare Windows to OS X head-to-head, OS X will gain users. If even a small percentage of new Mac purchasers make OS X the primary OS on their Mac, OS X will gain marketshare.
So far the strategy appears to be working. The low "green" rating for Apple is unfortunate, but it's not going to keep people from buying Macs. Dell, the company Jobs considers as Apple's biggest rival, isn't exactly kicking ass [msn.com], and Microsoft's troubles with Vista [nytimes.com] are well-known.
How is it that Microsoft is beating Apple at its own game?
I'll say this again (Score:3, Insightful)
For the average user you have a nice selection of well thought out applications and I system that requires less fighting to get things working. For the developer you have a Unix environment to feel at home in. On the down side is the lack of software like AutoCAD and issues working with Microsoft group ware.
Great shades of OS/2, Batman! (Score:5, Insightful)
I miss OS/2.
It's not a game, it's a meta-game. (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft is a master of meta-game. It starts products and initiatives it intends never to win, or to win and stagnate, all the time.
Boot camp is a perfect example of a meta-game move. There is no way that users running windows on Mac hardware is good for Apple. But being able to is valuable. Ideally, people decide that getting a Mac is less risky, because they can always boot Windows if they need to, or even switch back. The key question is how confident they are their operating system is superior to Windows. If the answer is "very", then it's on balance a good thing that dual booting is possible. If the answer is "on par", then it's a bad thing.
Waste of net space (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe because Macs now use Intel chips and Windows can actually be installed natively on them now? Maybe because Parallels knocks the socks off of MS Virtual PC for Macs in terms of speed, which is only possible with Intel. Of course there is going to be more talk about Windows being installed on Macs, considering it is now fast with virtualization and doesn't require emulation, and also considering it is now POSSIBLE to do so natively. Like, durrrr....
"some users have shrugged it off and moved on to the Microsoft side of things."
Of course some are. Unless the author presents statistics stating HOW MANY users have done so, the statement has no real meaning.
"Apple is to blame for this, at least to some extent. They just had to go and release Boot Camp, didn't they?"
I'm pretty sure Apple was kind of expecting talk about Windows running on a Mac to increase when they, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, enabled this to be done easily and practically. I somehow doubt Apple expected talk to decrease when they did this. Again, durrrrr.....
"and the fact that they yielded to these requests is interesting because they've emphasized the OS X and Windows experiences as being completely separate for quite some time."
They still are. It still requires a reboot to switch between them (excluding Parallels). Apple has recognized that some users want to switch to a Mac, but still require Windows for one or two applications. They have made it possible for most of these users to switch. (I think Parallels solution is more elegant personally). Apple also recognizes that very very few Apple purchasers are going to dump OS X and run Windows exclusively.
"Boy, for something that they speak so badly of and accuse of ripping them off, they sure are in a hurry to let you run it side by side with their offering. Why is this? Well, it's all in the numbers."
Because some people need to run one or two Windows applications, but prefer using a Mac for most things. A good example, there is absolutely NO Canadian Tax software for the Mac that I am aware of, but Parallels/Boot Camp make it possible for a Canadian such as myself to do their taxes on their Mac (such as my Mac Mini). Without access to Quicktax and similar pieces of software, I probably would have stuck with a PC. Boot Camp was actually an intelligent move in my opinion.
"Apple knows that those who are envious of the Mac hardware will be more inclined to purchase it if they can run Windows (their relied upon operating system of choice). The suits at Apple may try to innocently play this off like you can run Windows and OS X separately and without interference, but you know as well as I do that they're hoping Windows users will begin to spend a little time with OS X, become hooked, and then essentially ditch their former love. It almost sounds like a soap opera when you put it that way, huh?"
I somehow find it very difficult to believe that Windows users are envious of Mac hardware, which in most cases is over-priced compared to Dell, or even Alienware in the case of laptops. I have yet to meet a single Mac user, including a few Intel owners, who bought a Mac because of the hardware. They all bought it because of OS X. I also was in the Apple store the other day, and they had 3 iMacs, 2 running OS X and 1 running XP Pro. A couple people said "oh cool, they run Windows as well now", and then promptly moved onto the OS X computers to play around with them instead.
"I've enjoyed watching Microsoft's response to all of this, because there really hasn't been much of one."
What did you expect them to do, start reselling Mac computers for Apple? Of course they're going to be happy when more Mac users buy licenses for Windows, but there isn't really much they can respond to. Apple still isn't shipping Windows on Macs, and I asked a person at my local Apple store
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Has anyone watched this video? That guy's arms are a bit too bare for my liking.
I reckon he filmed that naked. It's like Reflectoporn all over again...
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The XOM (XP on Mac) solution created to win a contest hosted by onmac.net was ready in March, some guys at Microsoft reportedly had it working before that (old MSDN weblog entry - I'll see if I can dig it up) and Boot Camp surfaced in early April. Granted, XOM wasn't particularly smooth, but they weren't first.
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Re:Boot Camp (Score:5, Insightful)
That is one reason. I really don't believe it is the only reason. I don't think anyone except a few of the more extreme Mac Zealots are claiming that OS X is perfectly secure. If Apple achieves 50% market share, of course there will be a few attacks made for it. Even Apple admits that OS X isn't perfectly secure. What they are saying is that OS X is more secure than Windows. Just the fact that pretty much any user program on OS X can run on a heavily restricted user account, provided the restricted user has perms to run that software, says a lot right there. Some Windows software practically requires you to use high-privilege accounts just to run software, and Windows by itself doesn't warn users if something is trying to be installed silently.
I imagine Apple's licensing policy for HFS.
Now something like that has been brought to the Windows world. What is Microsoft's NTFS licensing policy like?
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I doubt that, since Linux supports HFS (and HFS+) just fine.
Re:Boot Camp (Score:5, Interesting)
If OS X was to be less of a target because of its marketshare, reasonable people would expect the picture to be the same as it was with the Classic Mac OS. That had a hundred or more viruses IIRC. Of course that's nothing compared to what Windows had at the same time, and you could probably put that down to marketshare, since the Classic Mac OS was not renowned for its security.
But OS X has not had a single virus in the wild AFAIK, nor do OS X users suffer from malware. It stands to reason that there must be other factors preventing the spread of malicious software on the OS X platform. Why can't people simply admit that Apple has released a pretty secure platform?
Microsoft on the other hand has released a Swiss cheese operating system that simply can't compete with OS X security wise, marketshare differences or not.
Now let's be fair. I actually (and perhaps naively) believe that Vista will fix a lot of the security problems the Windows platform has faced. It's not going to be perfect, but Windows users should be quite a bit better off than they were. When this happens, the same marketshare trolls will be trumpeting how superior Windows is to OS X security-wise. People can't have it both ways, no matter how much they try.
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Vista will fix the security problems at the expence of operator freedom. What's this I hear about Vista x64 being unable to run unsigned code? At all. And try to install a driver not from an approved vendor on Vista. Won't work, apparently, possibly also due to MS pandering to the ??AA's desires to have the analog hole for video, etc, closed.
This stupidity won't help Apple, thou
Re:Boot Camp (Score:5, Insightful)
When was the last time my Mac bitched at me about upgrading hardware invalidating my license for the OS, or required some stupid activation process so I could log in.
Never.
I upgraded my fathers computer to a new Core 2 system on the weekend and went through so much pain getting his system working; once I resolved the initial hardware issue and was able to actually boot an OS Windows XP decided to tell me it wasn't activated and prevented me from continuing until I activated it. I hadn't even had a chance to install the network drivers so I was forced to make a phone call to activate it.
Then it decided it wasn't a legitimate copy of Windows XP. Seems the date & time were wrong and therefor the copy of windows couldn't possibly be authentic.
Due to the hardware issues I had ran across trying to get the system setup I stripped it down to damn near nothing and installed things one at a time. At which point, an hour after I had got it up and running and passed the first authentication/illegal copy BS, I installed the rest of the memory and hooked up the other harddrive, and installed the soundcard. Then Windows decided it was upgraded too much and needed activation again. Atleast this time I had 3 days grace and could finish configuring the system. Unlike the first time where I wasn't even allowed to log in.
I tried the online activation at this point since I now had all the drivers installed and everything was working well. Online activation was refused as obviously the computer had been upgrade too much and I was in violation of the license; so then it required me to call the automated services again to get a new code.
At which point it refused to give me one as well and sent me to an actual live person.
The live person then asks me what changed, etc, and how many computers the os was installed on. The answer? 1. This is a retail Upgrade copy of Windows XP Pro. It is fully, and legally licensed; I would have had less hassle if the damn thing was a pirated copy!
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Don't want an AMD processor anyway, and as for the Haumpauge tuner? Don't need it, I can just plug the firewire cable onto my High-Def digital cable box and record that.
The net effect of my fathers computer upgrade was a new computer. I can tell you that moving from 1 Mac to another is far easier than the bullshit I went through yesterday.
As a user I think Macs kick-ass. As a developer I think they rock.
Really; I can't lose.
You need to wipe the froth off of your chin. (Score:2)
So who go to pay for your "victory" in your personal religious battle?
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Actually you misunderstood. The upgrade which was performed was equivalent to buying a new computer; and doing so with an Apple is easier. On a PC if it were truely a new computer we would have had to re-install all the applications. We were able to skip that step for the most part. On a Mac you can just link the new and the old computers together and have it move everything over. Even if the old mac is dead, but the harddrive is ok It's still easier to deal with. (In which case I'd throw the hd in an enc
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Not saying one is better, just seems funny to slam one system for being difficult to upgrade while praising a system where that isn't even an option.
Re:Boot Camp (Score:4, Interesting)
At the 3 software development companies I've worked at in the last year, all XP stations, crash frequently. This isn't specifically XP's fault, but the fault of the apps or specific needs of developers. If you leave it running at the login for months, I'm sure it's very stable...and useless.
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Uh, recently - the Thinkpad (my only XP box at the moment) has problems waking up from sleep mode when running XP. Not so when it runs Debian with ACPI enabled. So I use Debian 99% of the time. I also had a problem with a web site that attempted to install a virus via Explorer yesterday - fortunately, this was caught by Avast! as it happened, but it still required a reboot and full system scan to make sure all files were clean.
Haven't had that problem with a
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Not that that was ever much of anything but a flawed argument, based around, I imagine Apple's licensing policy for HFS"
PC's could not read mac floppies not only because of the file system difference
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My WinXP hasn't crashed on me neither. But right now I'm trying to find out why my computer with WinXP is telling me that I have "Limited or no connectivity" from my network. A network which worked flawlessly last night. Works with my MacBook Pro. Even using the same ethernet cable for my WinXP computer in the MacBook works. But still my WinXP tells me that my cable might be unplugged (I did remember to put it back in) or that my gateway/router is not configured right.
How fucked up can Windows XP be?!
HFS? Try ext2, ext3, XFS, ZFS, romfs, cramfs, NFS (Score:3, Interesting)
Same to Apple, really. You support FAT, but you don't support ext2? Or any of the other ones I've thrown up there in the subject line? Really, Linux is currently the most compatible OS on the market -- even
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You realise that this nag-screen exists because there are lots of people in the world who [a] never switch off their computer and [b] completely ignore any and all online updates that are downloaded, right? If you think Microsoft does this simply
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I have used Mac OS X 10.3 for two years now. I'm using M$Windows starting from 1996. I'm using Linux starting from 1999.
Of all OSs I have tried, Mac OS X even with limited customization capabilities is the most pleasant system to work with. It's not as functional as Linux. It doesn't have the load of 3rd party applications Windows has. But it has all what I ever wanted.
There is
Re:Boot Camp (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I find OS X to be inelegant and inconsistent. You have the Dock, where icons behave totally differently from any other icons anywhere else on the entire system, and where a whole bunch of totally different tasks -- launching applications, monitoring running tasks, etc. -- are all mixed together in one confusing zooming bouncing distracting usability nightmare. You have Finder windows
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BTW- the Dock doesn't have to be set to zoom or bounce. I think control-clicking the thing brings up an options menu that allows you to
Function depends on form (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, they did say 'in comparison' : ) There are some things which could be a lot better in OS X - including some of those you mentioned, though I'd disagree about dragging off the dock - those are links to files, not files themselves, and the user wouldn't want to drag them to the desktop. The same principle is used for toolbar icons and icons in the favourites list in the finder - it's not used only in the Dock.
Re separating the functions in the Do
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Like the crazy file selector dialogs that force you to laboriously click your way through the folder hierarchy, because Apple has decided you shouldn't want to save time by just typing the path in
Type a path? That takes forever! Hit the Finder in the dock and drag the folder you want into the file selector. Or drag the exact file you want. Most of the time I have the folder I'm working in open in the Finder anyway.
If you have frequently-visited folders, drop them into the
Quicktime Pro (Score:4, Informative)
The "stupid" thing about Quicktime is that you need the Pro version to view videos in full-screen. That feature is something that regular users need, not professionals.
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This is true, but the Dock isn't supposed to be consistent with the rest of the system, it's supposed to be unique and separate. I find the left/top side of the Dock to behave in a very reasonable way. The right/bottom side is a bit weirder.
and where a whole bunch of totally different tasks -- launching applications, monitoring running tasks, etc. -- are all mixed together
Launching and monitori
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