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Panther vs. Longhorn?
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Bengt77
macrumors 68000
Re: More W2K goodies
Not entirely true. Sometimes, open files can't be renamed. Disk images, for example, can't be renamed when they're mounted. Most of the times it does work like a charm, though. And the open folder stuff is a no-brainer. Windows is really stupid, sometimes.
Yeah, I agree, but that's only one side of the story. Usability is the other. And in that area, OS X can't be beaten. Well, not by XP anyway. Maybe by OS 9, but I doubt it.
Not entirely true. Sometimes, open files can't be renamed. Disk images, for example, can't be renamed when they're mounted. Most of the times it does work like a charm, though. And the open folder stuff is a no-brainer. Windows is really stupid, sometimes.
Yeah, I agree, but that's only one side of the story. Usability is the other. And in that area, OS X can't be beaten. Well, not by XP anyway. Maybe by OS 9, but I doubt it.
Like someone said, you can do the same stuff on both XP and OS X, but OS X has more character. It's more fun 😀
Working with the Finder is much nicer that working with Explorer, even when I have much more experience with Explorer.
Also, I feel that OS X has much better multitasking than XP. I was installing a game last night and tried to copy some files at the same time. My whole system slowed down to a crawl. I never had that on my Mac. (installing a game I mean 😀 , oh wait! I meant slowing down to a crawl while copying 😉 ).
Working with the Finder is much nicer that working with Explorer, even when I have much more experience with Explorer.
Also, I feel that OS X has much better multitasking than XP. I was installing a game last night and tried to copy some files at the same time. My whole system slowed down to a crawl. I never had that on my Mac. (installing a game I mean 😀 , oh wait! I meant slowing down to a crawl while copying 😉 ).
hvfsl
macrumors 68000
I don't really care, I still like Mac OS X better than XP, I actually prefer to use Mac OS 9 over XP. I think Windows 98-2000 is easier to use than XP, XP just seems to have lots of features thrown in without any thought to how they work with each other.
The only thing I have problems with Macs is their speed, but hopefully this will be sorted in June.
The only thing I have problems with Macs is their speed, but hopefully this will be sorted in June.
Just the raw speed then, because for actually doing something with your comp the Mac is fast enough. Comparing my 800MHz TFT iMac to my P4 2.53GHz PC running XP.
Only times I wish for more speed is when starting iPhoto and adding effects in iMovie.
I don't think it's a case of disagreeing with the points in the article, just the way it was put.
The title "Why Panther May Tear up Longhorn", the first line "Who will emerge as the king of the desktop OS jungle: Apple's Panther or Microsoft's Longhorn?" and the question at the end "If you put a Longhorn in a Panther's cage, which beast will triumph?" all imply that you are comparing the two OSes as a like-for-like comparison.
However, the rest of the article doesn't fit in with any of this as you don't actually compare them at all, but just list rumoured features, none of which* are guaranteed to appear in the final products.
See, if you had included that paragraph in the article it would have been much clearer. 🙂
* I don't know about the Longhorn ones, haven't been following development that closely
This bad article is spreading so fast it is putting the Fizzer worm to shame. It's infected over half a dozen websites already!
robotrenegade
macrumors 6502a
MorganX
macrumors 6502a
Re: More W2K goodies
Click on an MP3 or other file in Finder. Even if the file isn't playing in preview try to delete it or move it. Cough, hack. Microsoft fixed this in XP some time ago.
The comparisons between Longhorn and Panther are mainly because of the UI. I have yet to see OS X doing anything close to what the Longhorn demos are doing. And I have no doubt MS will make the thing somewhat usable, i.e. more than eye candy.
Panther is actually catching up to Windows XP in many areas, not just the ones mentioned in the article. Will I be able to plug in a digital camera and have it mount and be able to drag files or movies off it with no third-party software in Panther? Will I have access to all relevant finder menu from inside a folder with a right-click? Will the dock not slow down when the CPU on a 1GHz 1GB iMac is moderately busy? Will Safari be solid? Will Finder windows auto clean/arrange? Will there be a centralized install/uninstall? On and on.
I like OS X and Mac. Enough to switch. But I don't think Apple needs anyone encouraging them to think they are finished and can rest on their laurels. Time to actually finish! Because if they don't Microsoft will finish it for them.
I think the focus on the UI is a red herring. Stardock's Object desktop predates both OS X and XP. Microsoft has been working on this stuff since "Cairo" but the hardware base wasn't ready. MS would love for Apple to focus their limited resources on trying to pump up Aqua on a hardware platform that right now can't support it in a meaningful way in lieu of finishing Safari down to the finest detail and bolstering the UI functionality. I believe this is focused directly at SJ. They're going after the stylized design, and the UI. But there's nothing you can do about that. None of it is new, but SJ likes to get credit for being first and may sidetrack the whole company to keep bragging rights.
Apple needs to stay focused and just ignore MS for now, since they can't really stop them. Finish Safari, Optimize OS X and bolster the functionality. Get the entire line to 970s. Get iTunes over to Windows (and find out how the hell you're just now advertising for a Windows software engineer. SJ should fire himself for that one.)
Everyone at Apple should re-read tortoise and the hare. No one remembers who got out of the blocks first, only who won the race.
disclaimer: just my opinion.
Click on an MP3 or other file in Finder. Even if the file isn't playing in preview try to delete it or move it. Cough, hack. Microsoft fixed this in XP some time ago.
The comparisons between Longhorn and Panther are mainly because of the UI. I have yet to see OS X doing anything close to what the Longhorn demos are doing. And I have no doubt MS will make the thing somewhat usable, i.e. more than eye candy.
Panther is actually catching up to Windows XP in many areas, not just the ones mentioned in the article. Will I be able to plug in a digital camera and have it mount and be able to drag files or movies off it with no third-party software in Panther? Will I have access to all relevant finder menu from inside a folder with a right-click? Will the dock not slow down when the CPU on a 1GHz 1GB iMac is moderately busy? Will Safari be solid? Will Finder windows auto clean/arrange? Will there be a centralized install/uninstall? On and on.
I like OS X and Mac. Enough to switch. But I don't think Apple needs anyone encouraging them to think they are finished and can rest on their laurels. Time to actually finish! Because if they don't Microsoft will finish it for them.
I think the focus on the UI is a red herring. Stardock's Object desktop predates both OS X and XP. Microsoft has been working on this stuff since "Cairo" but the hardware base wasn't ready. MS would love for Apple to focus their limited resources on trying to pump up Aqua on a hardware platform that right now can't support it in a meaningful way in lieu of finishing Safari down to the finest detail and bolstering the UI functionality. I believe this is focused directly at SJ. They're going after the stylized design, and the UI. But there's nothing you can do about that. None of it is new, but SJ likes to get credit for being first and may sidetrack the whole company to keep bragging rights.
Apple needs to stay focused and just ignore MS for now, since they can't really stop them. Finish Safari, Optimize OS X and bolster the functionality. Get the entire line to 970s. Get iTunes over to Windows (and find out how the hell you're just now advertising for a Windows software engineer. SJ should fire himself for that one.)
Everyone at Apple should re-read tortoise and the hare. No one remembers who got out of the blocks first, only who won the race.
disclaimer: just my opinion.
Does anyone else find this funny?
Longhorn=Bull? Kind of Cattle? Following the Herd? Big dumb, stupid beast, with plenty of brawn, but not much above eating and getting fatter, dumber. So, are they parodying themselves at Microsoft, or are they slamming their user base calling them cattle?
Panther=Stealthy, independent, more towards the top of the food chain. Must hunt for food, not just bend over for it (ha ha).
Pretty funny, huh?
😛
Longhorn=Bull? Kind of Cattle? Following the Herd? Big dumb, stupid beast, with plenty of brawn, but not much above eating and getting fatter, dumber. So, are they parodying themselves at Microsoft, or are they slamming their user base calling them cattle?
Panther=Stealthy, independent, more towards the top of the food chain. Must hunt for food, not just bend over for it (ha ha).
Pretty funny, huh?
😛
mangoduck
macrumors regular
why do we need this? most programs are uninstalled by trashing, and the only piecemeal files that may be left are prefs and misc app support. this may cause more problems in the end, because application support files that are used by other apps could potentially be deleted. no "dll hell" for the mac, thankyou.
i've always loathed the "add/remove programs" control panel (why is it there and not in some utilities folder?) because it's not exactly fast, and it launches a specific program's uninstaller half the time anyway. i don't think it's necessary.
Re: Does anyone else find this funny?
On the other hand, the world's big cats are being killed off and will likely all be gone in the not too distant future.
On the other hand, the world's big cats are being killed off and will likely all be gone in the not too distant future.
Ok, since my last post was a little of a troll let me explain why I have this opinion.
The article is irrelevant because we don't know enough about Longhorn to really have a handle on its features. The Longhorn part of the article is just too much speculation.
Certainly the discussion on comparing Panther to XP is relevant. But that part was short and very superficial.
What parts of the GUI responsiveness are meaningful? On some XP machines it takes me 30 seconds to delete a single file sometimes. What is the OS doing? On OS X is the GUI responsiveness restricted to the Finder or the GUI in general (ie. all applications)?
OS X already has built in encryption. Certainly GUI tools for it would make it easier but it's already possible to make an encrypted sparse disk image. I don't see the need for transparent use of compression. Disks are cheap. And the fastest way to make Explorer crash in XP is to muck around inside a zip file that has 500 or so items. Try doing control-A, click and drag to a regular folder and half the time Explorer will either crash or just simply stop midway through (but not give any indication that it didn't copy all the files). But, again, is Stuffit not good enough for everyone?
This is where the article should have been focused, but it was just glossed over in favor of rampant speculation on a product not due for two years from a company with a history of vaporware and changing its mind.
The article is irrelevant because we don't know enough about Longhorn to really have a handle on its features. The Longhorn part of the article is just too much speculation.
Certainly the discussion on comparing Panther to XP is relevant. But that part was short and very superficial.
What parts of the GUI responsiveness are meaningful? On some XP machines it takes me 30 seconds to delete a single file sometimes. What is the OS doing? On OS X is the GUI responsiveness restricted to the Finder or the GUI in general (ie. all applications)?
OS X already has built in encryption. Certainly GUI tools for it would make it easier but it's already possible to make an encrypted sparse disk image. I don't see the need for transparent use of compression. Disks are cheap. And the fastest way to make Explorer crash in XP is to muck around inside a zip file that has 500 or so items. Try doing control-A, click and drag to a regular folder and half the time Explorer will either crash or just simply stop midway through (but not give any indication that it didn't copy all the files). But, again, is Stuffit not good enough for everyone?
This is where the article should have been focused, but it was just glossed over in favor of rampant speculation on a product not due for two years from a company with a history of vaporware and changing its mind.
Re: Re: More W2K goodies
Sorry, what's this meant to do? Maybe I'm not doing what you're saying. I select the file, even start it playing in column mode, and move it to the trash... ? Just not clear what you mean..
I was going to go through this point by point, but that's getting off the thread a little. Just those last few points in particular sound like old windows hangovers. The Finder re-arranging stuff (more than it does already 😉) so I can't get it where I left it? Centralised install/uninstall? Blech 😛
Sorry, what's this meant to do? Maybe I'm not doing what you're saying. I select the file, even start it playing in column mode, and move it to the trash... ? Just not clear what you mean..
I was going to go through this point by point, but that's getting off the thread a little. Just those last few points in particular sound like old windows hangovers. The Finder re-arranging stuff (more than it does already 😉) so I can't get it where I left it? Centralised install/uninstall? Blech 😛
ac2102
macrumors member
It seems to me that there is an unusually long time between Longhorn and XP. Why is it that Apple manages to churn out top quality OS's annually while Microsoft seems happy to sit on its laurels?
Could it be that it is still the unfortunate situation that the Windows user base dominates and that the majority of those users will need more than an OS to change their computing way of life? Microsoft rightly has confidence, but it should watch its back! (Cue pun on panther chasing longhorn blah blah....)
Just a thought
Could it be that it is still the unfortunate situation that the Windows user base dominates and that the majority of those users will need more than an OS to change their computing way of life? Microsoft rightly has confidence, but it should watch its back! (Cue pun on panther chasing longhorn blah blah....)
Just a thought
Re: Re: More W2K goodies
Huh? I have a USB reader that reads the chip that comes out of my digicam (disk-like thingy, forgot name) and it works exactly like that.
Huh? I have a USB reader that reads the chip that comes out of my digicam (disk-like thingy, forgot name) and it works exactly like that.
Re: Windows annoyances...
A smidge off topic, but that same feature has lead to a hilarious situation on our Campus (I work at a university). All of the systems in our 2 largest public computer labs are Dells with Office XP loaded on them. An exceedingly bored lab monitor harnessed the power of the auto-correct to create quite a bit of mayhem for a few days until they figured out it wasn't a virus.
The student went into the auto-correct feature and inserted many common words such as "the", "and", and "it" amongst many others, and had those mapped, in some cases, to common mispellings ("the" changed to "teh") and in other cases to more *interesting* combos (like "it" changed to "b*tch" but without the star!).
This caused an older student to have a nervous breakdown in the library when she became convinced that the people in the lab were "screwing with her" and "reading her mind". Sure, mental instability probably had a part to play, but thanks for MS making it so easy to crush a little lady's mind to dust.
🙂
Dharvabinky
A smidge off topic, but that same feature has lead to a hilarious situation on our Campus (I work at a university). All of the systems in our 2 largest public computer labs are Dells with Office XP loaded on them. An exceedingly bored lab monitor harnessed the power of the auto-correct to create quite a bit of mayhem for a few days until they figured out it wasn't a virus.
The student went into the auto-correct feature and inserted many common words such as "the", "and", and "it" amongst many others, and had those mapped, in some cases, to common mispellings ("the" changed to "teh") and in other cases to more *interesting* combos (like "it" changed to "b*tch" but without the star!).
This caused an older student to have a nervous breakdown in the library when she became convinced that the people in the lab were "screwing with her" and "reading her mind". Sure, mental instability probably had a part to play, but thanks for MS making it so easy to crush a little lady's mind to dust.
🙂
Dharvabinky
MorganX
macrumors 6502a
Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies
You don't need a reader in XP. It mounts the camera. You can use the Pictures Wizard (i.e. iPhoto) or access your images/movies directly from the mounted camera in My Computer. You can get your photos on either platform but it is more usable saves a lot of time and effort on XP. Kind of like iTunes. I can manage, burn, and play music on XP, but it sure is a lot more functional and elegant on the Mac.
I don't want to get any more off-topic. I just wanted to make the point that there are many usability features OS X can use and that Apple should keep moving forward and not be sidetracked by the Longhorn buzz. There's a lot to like in XP and my preference would be for all of those things to find their way into OS X. What's good for the goose ....
I'm actually happy to hear the rumor Panther is foregoing Piles for now. Means Apple may be focusing on filling in missing functionality and optimizing rather than throwing on another "me-first" feature for bragging rights.
You don't need a reader in XP. It mounts the camera. You can use the Pictures Wizard (i.e. iPhoto) or access your images/movies directly from the mounted camera in My Computer. You can get your photos on either platform but it is more usable saves a lot of time and effort on XP. Kind of like iTunes. I can manage, burn, and play music on XP, but it sure is a lot more functional and elegant on the Mac.
I don't want to get any more off-topic. I just wanted to make the point that there are many usability features OS X can use and that Apple should keep moving forward and not be sidetracked by the Longhorn buzz. There's a lot to like in XP and my preference would be for all of those things to find their way into OS X. What's good for the goose ....
I'm actually happy to hear the rumor Panther is foregoing Piles for now. Means Apple may be focusing on filling in missing functionality and optimizing rather than throwing on another "me-first" feature for bragging rights.
>>What parts of the GUI responsiveness are meaningful? On some XP machines it takes me 30 seconds to delete a single file sometimes. What is the OS doing? On OS X is the GUI responsiveness restricted to the Finder or the GUI in general (ie. all applications)?
DGFan,
Again, I think I need to explicate the source of the priorities we listed, since we apparently didn't make this clear enough in the original piece: These are areas (Apple insiders tell us) that the company itself has deemed "meaningful" when it comes to launching its next salvo at Windows.
Based on some of the responses I've seen, I'm afraid we weren't clear enough in asserting that these are Apple priorities for Panther -- not our own wish list.
(This column was our first attempt at collaboration by two fairly strong personalities, so maybe we need to perfect our process to achieve optimal clarity. Thanks to all for the input) 🙂
>>This is where the article should have been focused, but it was just glossed over in favor of rampant speculation on a product not due for two years from a company with a history of vaporware and changing its mind.
Perhaps, but what we were trying to achieve is a snapshot of where the companies will end up if they follow through on their current competitive efforts. Mary Jo's Microsoft sources are impeccable, IMHO, and they all point to a laundry list of features aimed at taking on Panther -- but not until 2005, when Mac OS X 10.3 will already be ancient history.
That'll be the case whether or not individual features drop off the Longhorn roadmap in the interim, yes?
I stand behind the currency of the information on both OSes, and I think that the conclusions will hold true despite any likely feature drift.
Matthew Rothenberg
Managing editor
Ziff Davis Internet
DGFan,
Again, I think I need to explicate the source of the priorities we listed, since we apparently didn't make this clear enough in the original piece: These are areas (Apple insiders tell us) that the company itself has deemed "meaningful" when it comes to launching its next salvo at Windows.
Based on some of the responses I've seen, I'm afraid we weren't clear enough in asserting that these are Apple priorities for Panther -- not our own wish list.
(This column was our first attempt at collaboration by two fairly strong personalities, so maybe we need to perfect our process to achieve optimal clarity. Thanks to all for the input) 🙂
>>This is where the article should have been focused, but it was just glossed over in favor of rampant speculation on a product not due for two years from a company with a history of vaporware and changing its mind.
Perhaps, but what we were trying to achieve is a snapshot of where the companies will end up if they follow through on their current competitive efforts. Mary Jo's Microsoft sources are impeccable, IMHO, and they all point to a laundry list of features aimed at taking on Panther -- but not until 2005, when Mac OS X 10.3 will already be ancient history.
That'll be the case whether or not individual features drop off the Longhorn roadmap in the interim, yes?
I stand behind the currency of the information on both OSes, and I think that the conclusions will hold true despite any likely feature drift.
Matthew Rothenberg
Managing editor
Ziff Davis Internet