Start paying for OSX again.

[kaltsasa]

Re: Re: What a waste of time.

Originally posted by sturm375


Service pack don't just fix bugs. The origional release of Windows NT 4.0 had no support for plug and play(pray), nor did it have support for USB. As of NT 4.0 sp6 (I think) it has support for both. The origional release of Win2K didn't have support for firewire. SP2 (I think) added that.

Service packs add featurs, and fix bugs, and are free. They increase efficiency in the OS, just like Jaguar.

I agree, service packs often do fix bugs, but they are also known for adding new features and the like. I anticipate that the Release of service pack 1 for windows XP will incorporate some new "nifty"(nifty can also stand for ripped off) features.

 

[chmorley]

To reiterate...

Do it or don't. That's all.

Originally posted by sturm375
Windows 98 Second Edition (Win98SE) was a FREE upgrade (download). If you wanted a disk, and had purchased 98, you paid for shipping, and MS sent you and upgrade disk.

Service pack don't just fix bugs. The origional release of Windows NT 4.0 had no support for plug and play(pray), nor did it have support for USB. As of NT 4.0 sp6 (I think) it has support for both. The origional release of Win2K didn't have support for firewire. SP2 (I think) added that.

Service packs add featurs, and fix bugs, and are free. They increase efficiency in the OS, just like Jaguar.

We simply disagree on what 10.2 is comparable to. I agree that Service Packs add features that are needed to make an OS complete (bug fixes to most). In particular, QE does much more than this. This is new technology that has never been implemented before on any platform. Comparing this to plug and play (escpecially M$'s version of it) or firewire support is ludicrous.

Besides, if you don't think it's worth paying for, don't.

Originally posted by kaltsasa
$49 a pop is what we paid for 150 licences thats at the 100-249 educational voulume licencing agreement. That totals out to be $7350. Yes we knew that Jag was to be out some time in the fall, no real hard evidence when it would be out. School starts in August, Budgets are due far before then. We had to have this ordered and we have to have this software installed before school starts. Our Apple rep has not informed us of any Apple OS X Maintenance Program. You say this is all a fabricated story. Mabye you should learn a bit more about schools. First i work with koltz, check his email. koltz@rrsd.k12.wi.us, still want more proof call 608-994-3747 and ask for Alex Kaltsas (me). Money doesn't grow on trees for school districts, especially in a budget crunch as the educational system is seeing right now We'll gladly buy the Jag upgrade after we just bought all these 10.1 licences but they are just going to have to raise your taxes to pay for it.

I believe what you are saying, and I am sympathetic. Having worked at a few schools, I understand budgets well enough to know your "raise your taxes" comment is intended to generate concern from people here. Obviously, if you can't afford it, you go without. That may be the move you choose to make. If I had bought all those site licenses, I would be frustrated too. I might even wander over to a forum to complain about it. I would hope someone would then tell me to talk to someone who can do something about it. This is a waste of your time. Talk to someone at Apple and see if they can do something for you. If they can't, you have a choice to make.

Do it or don't. The rest is a waste of time.

Chris

 

[kaltsasa]

Re: To reiterate...

Originally posted by chmorley
Do it or don't. That's all.

Besides, if you don't think it's worth paying for, don't.

I believe what you are saying, and I am sympathetic. Having worked at a few schools, I understand budgets well enough to know your "raise your taxes" comment is intended to generate concern from people here. Obviously, if you can't afford it, you go without. That may be the move you choose to make. If I had bought all those site licenses, I would be frustrated too. I might even wander over to a forum to complain about it. I would hope someone would then tell me to talk to someone who can do something about it. This is a waste of your time. Talk to someone at Apple and see if they can do something for you. If they can't, you have a choice to make.


Chris

Following Apple's Normal Upgrade Convention a point release has never been a pay upgrade, from say 9.1-9.2, free, 8.1-8.5, Pay upgrade, but you still got an upgrade discount even on that, I think that enough people are going to either not buy mac OS 10.2, or forget the platform all together and switch to the dark side, being in contact with 2 other school districts in the past week, they both are in the same boat we are. Just bought 10.1 be cause we had to, and then this gets popped on us. We had to buy them now because we are perparing for the new year. When the software is installed it has to be legal at the time of installation, so we didn't have the option of waiting to see what might be released.

All districts are currently trying to negotiate with apple on this but it really is outragous and the 2 other districts and ours have been seriously contemplating switching to PC entirely. Right now I think that Apple is offering 10.2 Upgrades for $15, I for one really don't want to see this happen, I love the Mac, Many kids and teachers love the mac, but when it comes down to it, money and administration will make the final decision.

And to be perfectly honest with you OS X hasn't been a complete OS in my book until this 10.2 upgrade,one sees a spinning beach ball far too often on A Dual 800, the Imac 700's are a slight bit worse. Many applications will soon be requiring mac os 10.2 to be used. People who have paid full price on 10.1 should not have to pay full price for this upgrade, If they should pay at all. But I think that $59 would be a very resonable upgrade cost for people who bought 10.1 full out, $129 full cost for people who do not yet have mac os X, and if you bought a computer or os 10.1 in the past 6 months you should probely get mac os 10.2 upgrade free. I myself have always bought mac os up grades, 8, 8.5, 9.....plunking down the full price for all of those(i lost the upgrade stuff for 8 so i had to pay full price to 8.5) but I can't see paying 129 even personaly to put on an imac i bought such a short time ago.

The problem here isn't weither or not the 10.2 upgrade is worth 129, the problem is that For many it isn't feasable and apple will only lose market share in the long run if they do not change their pricing strategy on the 10.2 upgrade.

 

[sturm375]

Re: To reiterate...

Originally posted by chmorley
We simply disagree on what 10.2 is comparable to. I agree that Service Packs add features that are needed to make an OS complete (bug fixes to most). In particular, QE does much more than this. This is new technology that has never been implemented before on any platform. Comparing this to plug and play (escpecially M$'s version of it) or firewire support is ludicrous.

While other operating systems hope to introduce comparable technology in late 2004, Jaguar has it now. Quartz Extreme uses a supported* graphics card built into your Mac to relieve the main PowerPC chip of on screen calculations. This dramatically improves system performance, making Jaguar much more responsive.
Here’s how it works. Quartz uses the integrated OpenGL technology to convert each window into a texture, then sends it to the graphics card to render on screen. The graphics processor focuses on what it does best — graphics — freeing the Power PC chip to do more operations in the same amount of time. Everything is zippier.

To take your example of QE, this is a major part of what it does. This has been done on the M$ side for years. It's called 2D acceleration. It's been around since ATI was making Xpert'98 cards, and probably before.

The part that isn't available on other OS's, is saving stuff to PDF files. It also appears to do some Anti-aliesing to fonts, and vector graphic enhancements within the OS. This means it is taking full advantage of the Velocity-engine, and even more of the graphics card.

All of this was supposed to be in OS X, then OS 10.1, now we finally get it(we hope) after much beta testing.

The finder is looking more and more like windows file explorer


Looks like a service pack to me.


And if you still think I am wasting your time, don't read this, and definatly don't respond.

 

[voicegy]

upgrade path rumor

Apple will announce on Wednesday that they will extend the offer for a $19.95 upgrade to 10.2 for those customers who purchase retail boxes of 10.1.3 and OS X Server from July 17th until August 24.

Unknown at this point whether these upgrades will be available locally or via direct-from-Apple.


UNCONFIRMED RUMOR

 

[kaltsasa]

sturm375, not a waste of time and definiatly a legit argument. We can rave and rave about aqua(and I do) but its slugish compared to the windows UI. I've been to understand that thats been because of not taking advantage of the graphics chipsets. 10.2 is finally supposed to adress that, and we are expected to pay full price for something that should have been in the first release. I'm not saying that 10.1 or earlier sucked, i love them to death, but in my book they we'rnt fully operational operating systems.

 

[Gelfin]

Re: Re: To reiterate...

Originally posted by sturm375

To take your example of QE, this is a major part of what it does. This has been done on the M$ side for years. It's called 2D acceleration. It's been around since ATI was making Xpert'98 cards, and probably before.

You really, really don't know what you're talking about here. Aqua already supports traditional 2D acceleration of the sort you see in Windows. The Quartz PDF engine, with its more advanced composition features, simply demands more from your video card than Windows' GDI subsystem, which actually has very few capabilities that were not available as early as Windows 3.1.

OpenGL is a specification for 3D graphics, and with Quartz Extreme, Mac OS X will become the first widely released OS to use OpenGL (or any 3D API) for its primary graphics subsystem. On supported systems this will provide additional acceleration because it allows the video card to handle such things as composition of multiple layers of transparency.

It doesn't seem like it to you, because you don't understand what you're bitching about, but Quartz Extreme is a very big change.

 

[kaltsasa]

How bout getting the Graphics to run with CG, now wouldnt that rock!

 

[sturm375]

Re: Re: Re: To reiterate...

Originally posted by Gelfin


You really, really don't know what you're talking about here. Aqua already supports traditional 2D acceleration of the sort you see in Windows. The Quartz PDF engine, with its more advanced composition features, simply demands more from your video card than Windows' GDI subsystem, which actually has very few capabilities that were not available as early as Windows 3.1.

OpenGL is a specification for 3D graphics, and with Quartz Extreme, Mac OS X will become the first widely released OS to use OpenGL (or any 3D API) for its primary graphics subsystem. On supported systems this will provide additional acceleration because it allows the video card to handle such things as composition of multiple layers of transparency.

It doesn't seem like it to you, because you don't understand what you're bitching about, but Quartz Extreme is a very big change.

First: Read a little further in my post, I describe those PDF things you are griping about.

Second: It's still just fluff (Eye-Candy).

Third: Why do we need 3D for the OS?

We are now getting into my one of my personal grips about OS X, in all it's incarnations. Its too darn pretty. I come from a more utilitarian attitude of Computer Science. The OS should be strictly a medium between applications, and the computer hardware. When the OS takes up 2-3 GB, and uses more video processing power than is available in my TiPB 500MHz, its bloated, eyecandy. I don't like how "Pretty" M$ is going either. This is why I turn down all the setting I can to get the computer to do more of what I want.

Don't get me wrong, I really like OS X, it was a huge advancement for Apple. I can't stand any OS like Win9x, ME, Mac OS 7.x, 8.x, or 9.x anymore. I will not own a computer without the stability of OS X, WinNT, Win2K, WinXP, Linux. I won't go back.

You are bitching to me about this great advancement in the OS that Apple is doing, and I see it as a step backward. More and more Apple is choosing the same path as Windows. All the iApps built into the OS, is stupid. The only reason Apple is not under the same indictments as MS, is because of the technicality of having a small market share. I predict that it won't be long before we see another iApp web browser, incorporated into OS XI (11?).

Now I am rambling

 

[Foocha]

Whether or not the price for 10.2 is fair, it is consistant with previous Apple pricing, as Phil Shiller explained to Business Week:

"Q: People are asking why you're charging so much for Jaguar, the new OS X update.

A: We came out with OS X 10.0 in May, 2001, at $129. That's our usual price for paid upgrades. Last fall, we came out with 10.1 Normally, we would decide to charge $129, but because we wanted to help the adoption of OS X, we made it free to our customers. Now, with 10.2, it's $129 again, same as it always has been. I think a year and a half before charging for an upgrade is very reasonable. And we included 150 new features in Jaguar. That's a lot for your money.

Q: But people are conditioned to big Mac releases coming out every three years or so, no?

A: Actually, that's not true. If you follow the path over the last five years, there has been a major paid release approximately once a year, and a minor release that we didn't charge for on a half-year increment. "

Read the entire interview here:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bizwk/020724/tc200207244222_1.html

 

[chmorley]

Re: Re: To reiterate...

Originally posted by sturm375
To take your example of QE, this is a major part of what it does. This has been done on the M$ side for years. It's called 2D acceleration. It's been around since ATI was making Xpert'98 cards, and probably before.

<snip></snip>

All of this was supposed to be in OS X, then OS 10.1, now we finally get it(we hope) after much beta testing.

<snip></snip>

And if you still think I am wasting your time, don't read this, and definatly don't respond.

Whether you want it or not, QE does way more than anything on the dark side. It's new.

I haven't been beta-testing OS X. I have been working--quite comfortably, thank you.

I don't consider a debate about the existential value or effectiveness of "worry" a waste of time. I actually don't feel like I am wasting my time (by writing) at all. I think you are wasting yours (by worrying/bitching).

I don't say this to be mean or antagonistic. I simply enjoy thinking and debate. Worry is pointless--as is fretting about anything outside your control. Doing it is a waste of time. Letting go of worry is part of my existential pursuit as a human being. I still do it, but strive not to. Doing it (or not) is a choice. I'd rather spend my energy on something that actually affects the world.

And kaltsasa, would you feel better if they had called it OS X 10.5? Is it the number, or the features that matter?

I hold to my primary point, though: Buy it or don't. Complain (if you want) to someone who can do something about it.

Chris