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Is OSX innovated for speed or power?

AWallen90

AWallen90

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 15, 2009
365
49
Cheetah -> Puma -> Jaguar -> Panther -> Tiger -> Leopard -> Snow Leopard -> Lion

I was wondering to myself why Apple decided to use the fastest cat to name the first version of OSX. It seems that the OS has been getting more powerful rather than faster, the feline names seem to correspond.

Thoughts?
 
AWallen90 said:
Cheetah -> Puma -> Jaguar -> Panther -> Tiger -> Leopard -> Snow Leopard -> Lion

I was wondering to myself why Apple decided to use the fastest cat to name the first version of OSX. It seems that the OS has been getting more powerful rather than faster, the feline names seem to correspond.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Not at all. The first release of OS X was dog slow, and heavily criticised for it. I'm talking about unresponsiveness with basic things like resizing windows.

That's not to be too hard on Apple. When you consider the enormity of the task they faced in transforming the NeXTSTEP OS into a successor to the classic Mac OS, it's a wonder they got it out when they did.

With early successive releases Apple worked hard to optimise things. My memory was that the OS got quicker, and possibly even smaller. Nowadays it's hard to tell, because the hardware is a LOT faster than in the early days. Google it. There's bound to be someone benchmarking them on the same hardware.
 
miles01110 said:
I think you're putting in a little too much effort on this matter.
Click to expand...

Steve Jobs said they had the iPad basically ready to go back in '07 but decided to use the technology for a phone instead and wait till it was right to release the iPad. You don't think countless hours of thought are put into naming their OS?

I mention the iPad only as a reference on how much effort is put into marketing for Apple. Also I am currently pursuing my Master's in Business Administration with concentrations in Management and Marketing so I'm programmed to think about these things.
 
AWallen90 said:
Steve Jobs said they had the iPad basically ready to go back in '07 but decided to use the technology for a phone instead and wait till it was right to release the iPad. You don't think countless hours of thought are put into naming their OS?
Click to expand...

I'm trying to think of even the most remote link between sentence #1 and sentence #2. Still drawing a blank. For the record, "No," I don't think "countless hours" go into naming their OS.

Also I am currently pursuing my Master's in Business Administration with concentrations in Management and Marketing so I'm programmed to think about these things.
Click to expand...

Oh, wow!!! :eek::eek: I guess that means we should automatically agree with you!
 
miles01110 said:
Oh, wow!!! :eek::eek: I guess that means we should automatically agree with you!
Click to expand...

Part of marketing is getting the publics opinion. I'm saying this is what I'm currently studying, just wanted some other opinions. I welcome opinions not sarcastic rebukes.
 
AWallen90 said:
Part of marketing is getting the publics opinion. I'm saying this is what I'm currently studying, just wanted some other opinions. I welcome opinions not sarcastic rebukes.
Click to expand...

My original reply was not meant to be sarcastic. I really do think you are overthinking the situation. Marketing is certainly something Apple spends time and money on, but I don't know of any evidence scientifically suggesting that a "Lion" is stronger than a "Tiger."
 
Another piece of information that went into spurred my thoughts on their OS was using a beefed up PowerMac G4. While using a Macbook Pro with 8x the ram a processor twice the speed and dual cores I was noticing that simple tasks like launching safari took slightly longer on the MBP than on the PowerMac G4.

The Machines were:
MBP 2.53ghz 8GB - Snow Leopard
PowerMac 1.25ghz 1GB - Tiger
 
AWallen90 said:
Steve Jobs said they had the iPad basically ready to go back in '07 but decided to use the technology for a phone instead and wait till it was right to release the iPad. You don't think countless hours of thought are put into naming their OS?

I mention the iPad only as a reference on how much effort is put into marketing for Apple. Also I am currently pursuing my Master's in Business Administration with concentrations in Management and Marketing so I'm programmed to think about these things.
Click to expand...

Well given that Tigers are bigger and more powerful than lions, you are clearly reading far to much into the naming convention used.
 
miles01110 said:
My original reply was not meant to be sarcastic. I really do think you are overthinking the situation. Marketing is certainly something Apple spends time and money on, but I don't know of any evidence scientifically suggesting that a "Lion" is stronger than a "Tiger."
Click to expand...

I was basically combining two completely thoughts into one, my mind wonders too much. Let me pose this new question:

Is OSX getting faster or more powerful? Or both?
 
G4DP said:
Well given that Tigers are bigger and more powerful than lions, you are clearly reading far to much into the naming convention used.
Click to expand...

Wikipedia just taught me that a Siberian Tiger would destroy a Lion. Good call sir.
 
I don't t think they are slow. Snow Leopard runs fast even on older hardware.

What problems are you having with your mac to mention this?
 
I would say the mantra which Steve Jobs follows is not pursuit of speed or power, but pursuit of holistic. As in his sayings: "So we can set our own priorities and look at things in a more holistic way from the point of view of the customer." or "We just want to make great products."
 
shenfrey said:
I don't t think they are slow. Snow Leopard runs fast even on older hardware.

What problems are you having with your mac to mention this?
Click to expand...

I'm not having any problems I have just seen older macs performing faster. Mine is nothing to shake a stick at but it seems weird that if you wanted to do something basic like open word and create a document it would be exponentially faster on a new machine. I love all the new features but it seems speed has decreased on the basic apps.
 
AWallen90 said:
Cheetah -> Puma -> Jaguar -> Panther -> Tiger -> Leopard -> Snow Leopard -> Lion
Click to expand...
I think cat names were decided with marketing the OS. So yes, the first few iterations of OSX have fast cat names. That helped shake off the idea that apple's OS is slow. Perhaps Lion being the king of the animal kingdom is to help evoke OSX's superiority.

Of course that leads to the next question where can apple go once they selected the royal cat for 10.7?
 
kalsta said:
... The first release of OS X was dog slow, and heavily criticised for it. ...
Click to expand...
What is the source of your information? I'm betting that it is not personal experience. To the contrary, my experience with MacOS X 10.0 was almost universally positive. Owing to its Unix virtual memory system, I found that MacOS X 10.0 was faster than MacOS X 9.1 on the same hardware.

AWallen90 said:
.... You don't think countless hours of thought are put into naming their OS?

....
Click to expand...
The OS for the original iPhone was named "OS X." Apple must have spent billion$ over the better part of a decade to come up with the name.
 
MisterMe said:
What is the source of your information? I'm betting that it is not personal experience. To the contrary, my experience with MacOS X 10.0 was almost universally positive. Owing to its Unix virtual memory system, I found that MacOS X 10.0 was faster than MacOS X 9.1 on the same hardware.
Click to expand...

Wow. What hardware were you running on? I've used OS X from 10.0.1 (bundled as an optional install disc with my 600MHz G3) and can hand-on-heart say 10.0.x was an absolute dog. The UI was laggy, scrolling was absolutely abysmal and god forbid you should drag a window....

10.0.x used little (if any?) graphics hardware acceleration. The Quartz 2D drawing system was entirely software-based -- all window compositing (overlays, translucency, z-order/buffering) was unaccelerated. It wasn't until 10.4 that Quartz finally outperformed OS 9's QuickDraw APIs (this is mentioned on the Wikipedia page for OS X, but I remember it clearly!).

Scrolling through web pages back then (bless ya, iCab and Camino!) was an exercise in patience :)

[by the way - none of this stopped me using 10.0.x as my main OS. I was a recent Mac switcher and OS X was clearly the future. *gets misty-eyed at the memories of waiting for Classic to start up!*]
 
G4DP said:
Well given that Tigers are bigger and more powerful than lions, you are clearly reading far to much into the naming convention used.
Click to expand...

but Lions are fuzzy and adorabuhlllllllllllllll<3<3, so of course 10.7 > 10.4
 
MisterMe said:
What is the source of your information? I'm betting that it is not personal experience. To the contrary, my experience with MacOS X 10.0 was almost universally positive. Owing to its Unix virtual memory system, I found that MacOS X 10.0 was faster than MacOS X 9.1 on the same hardware.
Click to expand...

'Owing to its Unix virtual memory system…'? That's something you've read in a book. I thought you were claiming personal experience here? Like Displaced, I'd like to know what hardware you were running. It must have been a damn site faster than everyone else's.

As for me, I was a fairly early adopter of OS X — certainly given the fact that I switched my whole business over to it, something a lot of people were hesitant to do at the time. Having said that, it may have been up to 10.1 by the time I actually made the switch (which wasn't that long after 10.0). But I can tell you that it was in no way faster than OS 9. And my experiences of slow scrolling, window resizing, etc, matched the reviews I was reading.

Where it shone however was in stability. When the Classic Mac OS crashed, it really crashed. Mind you, I've had a bit of that kind of thing since 10.6.5 on my older MacBook Pro too. That's a memory of the Classic Mac OS I could do without!
 
AWallen90 said:
Cheetah -> Puma -> Jaguar -> Panther -> Tiger -> Leopard -> Snow Leopard -> Lion

I was wondering to myself why Apple decided to use the fastest cat to name the first version of OSX. It seems that the OS has been getting more powerful rather than faster, the feline names seem to correspond.
Click to expand...

BTW, I don't even remember Apple talking up the cat names until Jaguar… I clearly remember Steve up on stage saying 'Jag-wire' :) but I don't remember him ever saying 'Cheetah' or 'Puma'.

Okay, just checked and Wikipedia confirms this:

'Prior to its release, version 10.0 was code named "Cheetah" internally at Apple, and version 10.1 was code named internally as "Puma". After the immense buzz surrounding version 10.2, codenamed "Jaguar", Apple's product marketing began openly using the code names to promote the operating system.' (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Os_x)​

That's probably a useful piece of information regarding your hypothesis. Doesn't sound like Apple had this all worked out from day one.
 
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