Re: Re: John123 Returns...
Originally posted by Mirage_
Nice, where did you the statistics on where apple is spending its R&D money? Oh thats right you've just got your *opinion* which is based on absolutely no data at all. So here is my opinion which is based on absolutely no data at all. There are separate teams working on OS X, and your 'iApps'. They don't rotate the OS and app guys on and off each month. The fact is, I'm sure both teams are working quite hard to optimize their respective products. Now, about not buying a PowerBook if it can't run OS 9. This is a dumb comment for several reasons. And here is why. Right now, we've got the babies and their OS 9 safety blanket. You're scared of UNIX and use some OS 10.0 beta speed b.s. in an effort to defend yourself. Productivity? How productive are you when your whole system crashes and you lose a bunch of work because of one program? Heres *my* hardware: Dual 1ghz G4 768mb DDR, Radeon 9000 Pro. On my machine, OS X owns OS 9 in every way. I haven't booted into OS 9 in well over a year. And I haven't missed it once. While you say OS 9 is a rock solid platform, I remember an OS that would lock up when any application crashed. This is not rock solid. Any one programmers bad code can bring your system to its knees. In OS X, this isn't a problem. Next, I truly believe Apples Developer Tools have brought many many new developers to the platform. Cocoa is simple to learn, and there are TONS of freeware / shareware apps out there from people who are just messing around to learn cocoa. In addition, a move to an ALL OS X platform forces developers who are clining to OS 9 to make the move to OS X. And makes it easier on developers who may have to keep up two copies of their source. I'd say the official death of OS 9 will be when the software stops getting posted for the platform on sites like macupdate and versiontracker.
Hey newbie -- while you were putzing around over a year ago, I was engaging people on this forum, so don't start getting uppity with me.
First of all, your comment on R&D, while sardonic in tone, didn't have any bearing on what I said. I simply said, and I quote: "It's time for Apple to step it up and devote some of that R&D money currently designated for iApps to OS optimization." Nowhere in that comment did I quantify the proportion of R&D spent on the iApps, nor did I even make a comparison between the R&D investment on the iApps relative to OS optimization. Next time, before you try to flame, it might help you to actually R-E-A-D a person's post first.
On to the substance: I'm not using a beta of OS X. I've used the Public Beta, 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2. I even tried using 10.2 exclusively for a few weeks. And, in the end, I found myself back in OS 9. Keep in mind that I'm a user who has used everything from System 6 (yes, 6) up to the present.
As for productivity, my machines never really crashed that much. I also learned a nice little technique that's helpful on any OS. It's called saving your work. Try it some time.
In the end, while I dislike OS X's GUI (it looks too much like Windows XP for my tastes...I use Windows 2000 at work because I find it more functional), I could put up with it if it weren't so much slower. But it *is* slower, and I have found that to be particularly the case where multitasking is concerned. Rendering images in Photoshop, blending them into LiveMotion, having the Microsoft apps running in the backround...I found working between several apps to be unbearably slow in OS X. I found, by contrast, that switching between them was much faster (as was my work within them) in OS 9.
If ya'll want to defend OS X, that's fine. If you want to use it, even better...if that's the future, then the sooner you get acclamated to it, the better. But there are those of us who won't accept it in its present form. Given Apple's promise to make Macs in 2003 and beyond OS X-only bootable, that means that users such as myself will *not* buy new hardware. Some might even switch to the dark side; I admit to considering this myself.
Some of you are going to say "good riddance." That would be myopic. The success of any company depends on its market, and in the case of the computer industry, that turns into market SHARE. If a company alienates a substantial portion of its hardcore user base, its net profits decline, the willingness of software makers to produce new and affordable software declines, and so on. Therefore, to encourage OS 9 users to switch is in Apple's best interests. This is a fact that is not lost on Apple, of course...the development of iTunes is ostensibly intended to "switch" (hence the advertisement genre name) PC users to the Mac platform, but it is also intended to guide OS 9 users to OS X as well. While these applications clearly appeal to many OS 9 users, there are those like me who demand that speed come along with it. Apple clearly heard these cries, resulting in dramatic speed improvements in OS X 10.2 -- but it's still not on par with OS 9.
Obviously, no company can ever transition its entire user base from one platform to another. But I'd wager that there are still a substantial number of us unwilling to make the jump for the reasons I've stated. At the very least, it is the prevailing sentiment among my friends and family -- one of whom I introduced to the Mac platform, selling it to him on the basis of OS X only to have him, like me, eventually realize the fruits of using OS 9. There's a lesson in there....
