If i had the change to run any OS on the best hardware supported for that OS, it would be Mac OS X on Woodcrest... so yes it is the best OS to date
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Is OSX the greatest OS ever?
- Thread starter jesusphreak
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Best OS ever is a bold statement... but I'll go as far as saying OS X is the best desktop UNIX like OS currently available.
x86 said:
I'm guessing that site is a load of bunk.
Here are the scores for VIDEO EDITING:
MAC OS X - (1) - Not natively supported, but freeware/open source solutions are available
WINDOWS XP - (7/8) - Good/Very Good support
I'm not buying that score.
Their argument seems to be that as iMovie is part of iLife its not part of OS X. I guess they're right, but it doesn't make much difference to users because all owners of relatively new Macs will have at least some version of iMovie that came with their machine, and lets face it, any version of iMovie is better than Windows Movie Maker.Pancake said:
OS X does come very close to my ideal OS.
But really, it is difficult to say it is the best OS ever, when so many others were so excellent for their time.
As for iMovie: I understand their logic, but I think when all is said and done, they should have used iMovie in their rating, since you can't (legally) get a mac without it being at one point bought from Apple, and thus would include iMovie.
But really, it is difficult to say it is the best OS ever, when so many others were so excellent for their time.
As for iMovie: I understand their logic, but I think when all is said and done, they should have used iMovie in their rating, since you can't (legally) get a mac without it being at one point bought from Apple, and thus would include iMovie.
epochblue said:
I've been a Mac lover for the last 20 years, and still am - I really like OS X and beleive it's the best in many ways and it's very "advanced" in many ways. But, I think it is lacking in many ways too. Such as asthetics, the GUI, smooth feature integration, etc. Sometimes I feel Apple is way too simpleistic, denying us very useful features, options, etc, in their effort to be "simple" or user friendly.
Apple could learn a lot from the Windows GUI if they wanted to. I'm not at all saying Windows is great, but certain features and GUI elements of Windows really are nice. Such as the ability to right click on just about anything and expect a popup with many cool features depending on what you clicked on. Apple made a "two-button" mouse, I bought one, and I absolutely hate the feel of it. I love my mouse at work, that really has TWO SEPERATE BUTTONS/SWITCHES.
OS X is far from the greatest OS ever. Although I love Mac OS X and think it is the best currently shipping OS, BeOS was the greatest. Although now it does seem horribly outdated, in it's time it had a lot of advanced features, some of which are still only found in BeOS. If you ever get a chance to sit down with an old Mac or BeBox and can give BeOS a spin, you'll be impressed when comparing it to Mac OS 8.
dr_lha said:
and
I don't consider bug fixes and supporting newer hardware to be valid points in looking at what makes (or breaks) an OS... in the case of Windows 2000, it was the Windows 98 of the Windows NT line. This was where Microsoft first started using IE as part of the OS for NT... this was one of the first steps towards making Windows worse for the sake of locking out competition.dynamicv said:
For all it's issues, Windows NT 4.0 was still an OS for the end user rather than an OS to push a Microsoft business strategy.
Plus, Microsoft doesn't really understand how to make their own products better. They continue to pile features upon features on their software... most of which almost no one uses, and many of which are later used to violate peoples systems from outside.
And it isn't like Microsoft doesn't know this... back in 2000 Microsoft had expected incredible sales figures from Office 2000. When those figures didn't materialize Microsoft started looking to see why. At first they thought maybe a competitor had gone unnoticed, but what they found was that people didn't feel any need to upgrade from Office 97. Their original solution was to stop selling software and have everyone subscribe or lease their software (which people didn't like). Later they decided that changing formats was the best way to force people to upgrade.
This is how Microsoft does business. The reason they have a bad OS isn't because it didn't have potential... it was because making use of that potential was very far down on their priority list.
Yes, and I am a bit Old Skool.yellow said:
RacerX said:
True, but they are the biggest kid on the block, aren't they? Their strategy works, I wouldn't expect them to ever change.
I really think operating systems should focus more on useful features and performance, and less on glittery stuff. Apple is pretty bad for this. But if each release of their OS didn't make your 2 year old machine run like sludge, you wouldn't buy a new machine from them, would you? There's Apple's strategy. Either one leaves a bad taste in the consumers mouth.
(Yeah, I know that 10.4 will run on 4 year old machines, but it doesn't run very well from my experience..)
Operating system internals are getting __really__ complex, even for operating systems. Complexity tends to grow exponentially in software development. I must be getting old, cause I pine for the days of Redhat 5.2, MacOS 8.6, Windows NT 4.. those were good operating systems.
RacerX said:
Exactly, and the last Microsoft OS that gave user the choice of getting rid of IE. I remember how annoying it was to have it pre-installed, but for a little bit of work it could be removed completely. That (NT4SP3) was the best Microsoft OS release ever -- the most stable and best performing Windows.
RacerX said:
This sums up perfectly why people hate Microsoft as this is not how companies should do business. If they have nothing new to offer for the old customers and have no new customers to buy the old product, then they should not be expecting any sales. Common sense. Making people buy the same product many times is just so wrong that I actually hate myself feeling the need of a new Excel version as soon as the new Office for Mac comes out. I would be fine with the old version, really, but it's not being updated any more and therefore there's no way I'm going to get the finnish language pack for the v.X version. So sad. I'm actually going to have to give money to Microsoft not because they offer some new core functionality but because I need a secondary feature that should be offered as a maintenance release.
RacerX said:Yes, and I am a bit Old Skool.
Yes you are, and so am I
cait-sith said:
I think OS should not focus on features. But yes, performance should be on top of the priority list; however, there's no way to say what is a "useful" feature, because no feature is useful or unuseful for everyone.
I think that operating systems should have _LESS_ features than they currently offer -- Apple is doing the right thing in separating the iLife applications suite from the OS as they certainly do not belong to the scope of an operating system. Utilities folder maybe, but nothing more should be included.
Apple surely wants to sell the Apple experience, and there's no way anybody can deny them doing that. They could very well continue distributing free software that will be pre-installed in every Apple computer even though their OS installer disc would not install any applications. I mean, think about it, that would rock! I'd want OSX installer to only install the cleanest operating system possible. Let me install the applications of my choice later. Sometimes I want to install everything and sometimes I only want to make a workstation install without extra clutter. Apple's is better than Microsoft's in this regards, but even Apple OS installer installs some extra stuff that I would not want to install.
Anyway, it has become harder to say which features should be included in an operating system. Clearly the definition of an operating system has changed a lot since the 80's. But I still think that for example a mail application is NOT a feature of an OS, and neither are calendar application (if it's not showing timed batch jobs) or an address book. Or an internet browser. Or anything that deals with photo files (if it's not the generic file broweser).
Yep, old skool.