Panther vs. Longhorn?

[sturm375]

[Disclaimer]
I own 2 Self-build Win-AMD Desktops, and 1 TiPB 500 MHz RevA. I believe both Windows and OS X have merrits. And if I had time to learn, I'd put Linux on all three boxes.[/Disclaimer]

1) When OS X can run well on 90%+ of the PC hardware on the market, then you can have bragging rights. Windows does it best, followed closely by Linux, and a distant 3rd place is OS X. Until then, Apple has it relatively easy. They specify the hardware first, then fit the OS to the hardware.

2) I waited until OS 10.1 was announced to buy my $3500 TiPB. At the time it was top of the line. Less than a year later, OS 10.2 was announced. A major revision in 10.2 is Quartz Extreme. My $3500 investment, won't run Quartz Extreme. I guarentee you this doesn't happen in the Windows world. At this point, I give it a 70/30 chance that I will be able to even load the next major update.

Even given this, I wouldn't trade my TiPB for any notebook in the Windows World.


As for the DRM (Digital Rights Management) included in the next Windows version, it will most likely drive me to Linux. I am in the minority of Windows users though. Most are mindless lemmings that will accept whatever Mr. Bill tells them.

 

[Fender2112]

Originally posted by yumpin yiminy
... and for those who didn't catch it, As The Apple Turns (appleturns.com) has a link to this:
ftp://ftp.extremetech.com/pub/extremetech/news/winhec/WaveWindows.MOV
one of the possible effects in Longhorn.
As Appleturns points out, it is kind of pointless looking, isn't it? Like shaking a transparency/acetate to hear the noise it makes. Serves no discernable good GUI purpose...

I checked out some of the other videos in that folder and I have to ask about those spinning effects. If you're south of the equator , will they spin in the opposite direction?

 

[AmigaMac]

Profiles that travel with them???

"XP's ability to create profiles that travel with them among machines"

The Mac OS already had this feature... unless I was dreaming this up, Jobs showed a demo (4 years ago) where 500 Macs were be logged into a Mac server and your profile would roam around with you no matter where you were, on Mac #1 or Mac #500... this was different from the Windows' concept in that it never downloaded your profile to the desktop and it kept it in sync no matter what. This is something Windows NT was very unreliable at doing, which made me hate NT even more back in the day. My profile would take about 10 minutes to download (upon login) and then it was a mystery if it was exactly how I had it on another computer down the hall. I have one word for you, ARGH!!!

 

[silvergunuk]

Lets compare XP to Jaguar or panther

I think it's pretty unfair to compare Longhorn to a 2 year old Operating System. From what i've heard the new finder in Panther will be Cocoa and should perform alot faster with multiple processors..thats where the mac OS will really come to shine. As it is now the windows platform isnt too good with multiple processors and is still terribly unreliable. The only difference i've noticed in Longhorn compared to xp is that it doesnt look as rough as a bears arse...as much and a new dock which takes up too much space on the desktop. Also the screen shots i've seen of it, it's still having a bad anti aliasing problem..something osx had cracked back in 2000. As for the 3d features of longhorn. With quartz running through openGL I think it's very likely apple has been researching 3d features in its own os and probably held it back till newer and faster processors come out. We may see these features at the WWDC next month or Lion next year. Overall I think we should lay off the comparisons till 2005 when both of the platforms latests OS's are out.

 

[prewwii]

Hot Air

Originally posted by groovebuster
OMG... 2 years are a long time in OS business. It's almost funny that they compare Panther to Longhorn already. Let's see what Apple has up it's sleeves in two years and then compare... journalists can be so ignorant, espeaicially when they are on the payroll of M$!

It would have been much more interesting to see a real feature comparison between XP and Panther, but I guess that would have been not very flattering for XP...

You're right. Comparing XP to Panther would only be half as much hot air. Panther being the hot air right now. At least when comparing Panther to Longhorn its hot air with hot air.

 

[jMc]

Re: Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by MorganX
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 need a reader or any special drivers for my ds-cam (Sony P51). The memory stick appears on the desktop over USB just like any other removable drive.

It must just depend on which camera/memory format you're using.

jx

 

[AppleMatt]

One thing that XP does better than OS X is disc recording, if you record just one file to a CD on X, it finalises the CD and thats it.

Microsoft got Roxio to help them and XP can create multi-session CD's from within the OS.

I hope panther solves this.

AppleMatt

 

[DharvaBinky]

Originally posted by sturm375

2) I waited until OS 10.1 was announced to buy my $3500 TiPB. At the time it was top of the line. Less than a year later, OS 10.2 was announced. A major revision in 10.2 is Quartz Extreme. My $3500 investment, won't run Quartz Extreme. I guarentee you this doesn't happen in the Windows world. At this point, I give it a 70/30 chance that I will be able to even load the next major update.

Your inability to run quartz extreme has nothing to do with Apple trying to obsolete their own hardware or lack of resources or planning on their part. QE aggressively uses a system's 3D accellerator to offload grahpics processing. When you dropped $3500 on your tibook, it had a nice GPU for the time, and enough VRAM to pull its weight (16Mb). Even a year later, though, the bar had been significantly raised in terms of GPU power and VRAM availability. Jagwire was designed to take advantage of that.

*WHEN* Windows2005 comes out and it supports DirectX offloading... Most windows users will not be able to take advantage of it. It will, with no doubt, have these things called minimum system requirements... and it'll probably be similar to QE... along the lines of "DirectX 8 compatible graphics card w/ 32Mb VRAM". sooo... only a Gforce 3 or later or a Radeon 9000 or later will do here.

Quit crying and help the economy by selling your dinosaur and buy a new 17". You know you wanna anyway...



Dharvabinky

 

[prewwii]

Speed!!

Originally posted by hvfsl
........

The only thing I have problems with Macs is their speed, but hopefully this will be sorted in June.

Mac's don't have a problem with speed, the calendar you're using to time them is too fast.

 

[avkills]

flogged!

Originally posted by MorganX
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 there be a centralized install/uninstall? On and on.

For one thing, OS X already recognizes cameras when you plug them in w/o third party software. It's called ImageCapture and so far it has worked with every camera I've tried.

install/uninstall is pointless in OS X since all the information about the app is stored in one file except user preferences. Preferences are stored under the "/Users/username/library/preferences". OS X apps do not spread DLLs and other garbage all over the system drive like Windows does, which is why Windows requires the uninstall junk. In OS X you just delete the app...done!

-mark

 

[DGFan]

Thanks for the response.

Originally posted by mrothenberg
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.

I can agree on the Finder. That thing just kills me its so slow. And from watching a PBS show years ago called Triumph of the Nerds I remember Jobs' obsession with startup time on the original Mac (paraphrasing: "If we can cut 10 seconds off the startup time and 10 million people use our computer that's 100 million seconds every day we saved!"). So that all makes sense

Originally posted by mrothenberg
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.

I guess my problem with this is twofold:

1) I really haven't seen a comprehensive list of features that will be in Panther. This is despite spending all day at Mac rumors news sites. I imagine this is due to the fact that if they spill the beans too soon Microsoft will get a head start on its copying effort.

2) Microsoft has talked about technology that will be in Longhorn but not much in the way of features. Yes, sometimes features are just put there for 3rd party developers to use. But as of yet I have seen no indication on what features will make it into Longhorn (which, considering it won't be out for 2 years, is as it should be).

So I guess the only thing I could draw from your article (and agree with) is the conclusiuon regarding Longhorn trying to include some Panther and Jaguar technology (only much, much later).

I hope once WWDC comes along and Microsoft starts releasing more information on likely features in Longhorn (which probably won't happen until after Panther hits the streets) we can have a more meaningful discussion on feature comparisons.

Jeff
Disk Golf FAN

 

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by DGFan
I hope once WWDC comes along and Microsoft starts releasing more information on likely features in Longhorn (which probably won't happen until after Panther hits the streets) we can have a more meaningful discussion on feature comparisons.

And petition which of those we want in 10.4

AppleMatt

 

[jayscheuerle]

Re: flogged!

Originally posted by avkills
For one thing, OS X already recognizes cameras when you plug them in w/o third party software. It's called ImageCapture and so far it has worked with every camera I've tried.

You must be trying the better cameras Mark, because I need a special 3rd party driver to get my tiny, retro Aiptek to get recognized and my friend's Sony (with the disk drive built in) wont work via usb either.

There ARE drivers to all these cameras that you find working, but they've been pre-installed with the system software. Apple's been working hard to incorporate drivers for cameras AND printers into the OS. You'd probably get back a couple hundred megs of disk space if you removed the drivers that you don't need!

- j

 

[Bengt77]

Session burning is right there in Disk Copy!

Originally posted by AppleMatt
One thing that XP does better than OS X is disc recording, if you record just one file to a CD on X, it finalises the CD and thats it.

Go to DiskCopy, choose to make a Disk Image to burn. Under the burn options, check the box that says something like "Allow other sessions" - I don't remember what it says, but it's possible to do session burnng in Jaguar!

 

[Fukui]

Re: possible miss

Originally posted by herocero
take as long as you want MS. i'm still not going back.

Same here.

 

[hayesk]

I don't think the article was all that bad.

As per hardware performance:

I will always use a Mac as long as it's more fun and make ME faster. I couldn't care less how fast the computer is.

 

[hayesk]

Re: Profiles that travel with them???

Originally posted by AmigaMac
"XP's ability to create profiles that travel with them among machines"

The Mac OS already had this feature... unless I was dreaming this up, Jobs showed a demo (4 years ago) where 500 Macs were be logged into a Mac server and your profile would roam around with you no matter where you were, on Mac #1 or Mac #500... this was different from the Windows' concept in that it never downloaded your profile to the desktop and it kept it in sync no matter what. This is something Windows NT was very unreliable at doing, which made me hate NT even more back in the day. My profile would take about 10 minutes to download (upon login) and then it was a mystery if it was exactly how I had it on another computer down the hall. I have one word for you, ARGH!!!

You're thinking of NetBoot - yes it's still there. The entire boot image is stored on MacOS X server and the Mac boots from that.

MacOS X also has NetInfo where only your home directory gets stored on a server (and can be replicated around the network).

The only thing WinXP has that is desirable in MacOS X is switch users. Rumors are it (actually it and a little more) are coming in Panther.

 

[areyouwishing]

I think OS X is a fun os, its a more enjoyable experience. I think I am more productive in a windows environment because its easier to concentrate on work, the GUI is a lot less distracting..i could play with the dock for hours and never get bored.

My ideal setup is OS X at home, and Windows 2000 for work.

All in all, they both have their strengths, but as time goes on, both will encroach upon each others territory. I.E. seemless Quark on windows, and OS X offering Maya and X11 tools.

 

[blueBomber]

Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by volfreak
One of my Windows faves is:

1. Open a Windows Explorer window
2. Pop open a folder within a folder
3. Click the folder so the contents are displayed in the right-hand pane
4. Try and delete the parent folder (right-click and choose delete).

You can't do it because the "file system" believes the folder is in use because you are viewing its contents. The only way to delete it is to move so its contents aren't displayed in the right-hand pane.

One of my OSX comparisons is:
1. Open a file (say on the desktop for easy access)
2. Access the file icon on the desktop and change the filename.
3. Works like a charm.

So, in OSX, you can rename an open file, change a file or folder name or anything along those lines. No problem. Windows... Cough, hack, no can do.

One of many little niceties that make OS X so better.

THIS HAS BOTHERED ME FOR YEARS!!!!! Sorry about the all caps, but I feel your pain on this one.

 

[PretendPCuser]

Re: Re: Does anyone else find this funny?

Too true. Hopefully not in either case...but maybe Apple could lobby the US Government for bailout money, making the gov't the conservationists?

Anyway, i'd rather be a big cat, than big cattle.

Originally posted by ktlx
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.

 

[PaisanoMan]

Originally posted by hayesk

I will always use a Mac as long as it's more fun and make ME faster. I couldn't care less how fast the computer is.

A good argument, but in some cases, the speed difference has a tangible effect on productivity.

My shiny new PowerBook runs Photoshop and Illustrator many, many times slower than even my crappy old 6400/200 (granted, it ran OS 8.5 with older versions of the apps). It's not unusable, but I am virtually unproductive because the computer is so unresponsive. (On the other hand, I didn't buy my PowerBook for graphics work, but for $2K you'd think I could tweak some vectors without getting up to stretch.)

 

[AppleMatt]

Re: Session burning is right there in Disk Copy!

Originally posted by Bengt77
Go to DiskCopy, choose to make a Disk Image to burn. Under the burn options, check the box that says something like "Allow other sessions" - I don't remember what it says, but it's possible to do session burnng in Jaguar!

Scrummy I didn't know that, I asked before and people just said "no you can't"

Thanks!

AppleMatt

 

[MisterMe]

Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by MorganX
....

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.

....

Just to be very clear, if you plug a USB camera into a MacOS X computer, it will automount on the Desktop. The camera appears just like any other volume. You can manipulate pictures on the camera as though they are on any other removeable medium. That is, you can move pictures from the camera to any other volume. You can move pictures from any other volume to the camera. No third party software is required. You don't even need ImageCapture or iPhoto.

Can you do this with all USB cameras? Of course not. Why not? Not all camera manufacturers use the complete specification of USB.

 

[jettredmont]

Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by MorganX
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.

I don't know what version of OS X you are using, but this works as expected (apple-delete moves the selected file to the trash; right-click and select "Move to Trash" likewise moves it to the trash ...) in Jagur 10.2.6.

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.

You don't see OSX windows gyrating like a belly dancer on speed when you bring them to the top or move them a notch over because:

(1) That iws just plain annoying
(2) It serves no usability purpose whatsoever.

You don't see OS X windows spinning around like your room after an all-night party because:

(1) Mac users tend to not enjoy getting motion sickness while trying to write a note in TextEdit
(2) Selecting text that is moving like that would drive me personally insane
(3) It serves no usability purpose whatsoever.

You are quite correct; OS X does nothing like what Windows does in their canned films (there is some question that these are even real screenshots). Why? Because Windows is doing stupid, useless, and frankly ugly things in their demos. That does not mean OS X is incapable of doing these things (see first-thing-to-turn-off-on-a-new-Mac Genie Effect), it means OS X is a bit too well designed to do these things on an ongoing basis.

IMHO, the Windows "demo" movies are somewhat unnerving (I do have to continue supporting Windows development ... I don't want my Windows machines to go on a permanent acid trip in 2005!)

As for "cool" ... hell, i've seen "cooler" useless eye candy come out of the Euro-Demo scene in the early 1990's ...

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by sturm375
2) I waited until OS 10.1 was announced to buy my $3500 TiPB. At the time it was top of the line. Less than a year later, OS 10.2 was announced. A major revision in 10.2 is Quartz Extreme. My $3500 investment, won't run Quartz Extreme. I guarentee you this doesn't happen in the Windows world. At this point, I give it a 70/30 chance that I will be able to even load the next major update.

That won't happen in the Windows world?!? What are you on? Windows XP came out and three of the five notebooks I had been looking at for purchase three months before would not support it (loading would invalidate the warranty). The one I did purchase eventually supported it (although many "special" buttons on the machine don't work under XP) four months later. The Epson scanner on my desktop (bought nine months before XP, the preceding Christmas) wasn't supported by Windows XP at all for over eight months!

Not exactly equivalent cases, but "forever backwards compatibility" is not exactly a by-word in the Windows world either! In fact, I do believe that you'll find older Mac hardware that still runs (although of course not necessarily supporting all the advanced features of) the latest Jaguar than you will find running Windows XP SP1 (no matter how much you turn off in XP, it still drags on my 800MHz P3 ... 450MHz machines are the minimum even supported).