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I run Win 7 in a bootcamp partition on a 5 year old MBP and am running 10.9 on the same machine. Here are my observations:

1. All Microsoft apps load in about half the time it takes similar apps on 10.9. It's not even close. I am running the latest versions of the entire MS suite on both systems. The hysterical thing is that I believe the fastest windows laptop machines available are Apple Macs running windows in a bootcamp partition. I've seen this on new MBP's at work. There is definitely some irony there...
And one other thing they have in common is a 'Screen of Death'...Windows of course has the Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD and now OSX 10.9 system lockups are the equivalent. Way to go, Apple....

2. With all that said, Win 7 is remarkably stable, I run Autocad plus several Windows-only apps like Visio, MS Project and it just flat out works well. It took MS 20 years to get there but they did it...and then they phoqued it up with Win 8, which is very stable and faster than 7 but the UI is all FU'd. 2 steps forward and 2 steps back.... (the Win 8 references are based on a winTel PC I use at work).

3. Boot up time on my MBP, windows 7, hands down faster to boot and by more than a few seconds.

4. Shutdown time is not as fast on Win 7. I tweaked the setting on 10.9 per some thread on this board so it shuts down VERY fast now.

So performance wise, Win 7 is a hands down performance winner all things being relatively equal on my MBP BUT from a UI perspective, well, I'm still a OSX kinda guy.

Open a 3rd party app on both of them. You can't compare opening MS apps on Windows and OS X. MS apps on Windows use frameworks that are already in memory when you boot into Windows. So when you launch them there's less to be copied to memory. It's not the case with OS X obviously. Open Adobe Photoshop on both of them for example and test that.
 
HFS+ is just HFS 2.0, and HFS came out in 1985. HFS+ was basically created to support larger volumes, and has gained features over time, but it's basically still HFS. That's why the area of the disk that label colors are written to is still the same as it was when System 6.0 came out.

By saying something was "created" means it didn't exist before and is therefor new. Just because it contains remnants of the past doesn't strip it of being new.

By your logic then a 2013 Lingenfelter Corvette is just essentially Corvette 2.0 as the original Vette was created in the mid 50's but the same basic concept still exists. The seats and drivetrain are still exactly located where they were before, yes they have add some improvements in engine design and handling for better performance and added some features for comfort as well but nothing has really changed from the basic concept, right? The engine is still in the front, transmission is in the center of the car and the seats are located on either side of the transmission and behind the engine so basically no real change from the original.
 
Wow, the app runs better on the OS made by the same devs? As Bond would say, shocking, positively shocking.

Did you read the whole thread?

1. It's not just MS apps, it's all kinds of similar apps.

2. Did you know that the whole Office Suite was written exclusively for Mac at one point?

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Open a 3rd party app on both of them. You can't compare opening MS apps on Windows and OS X. MS apps on Windows use frameworks that are already in memory when you boot into Windows. So when you launch them there's less to be copied to memory. It's not the case with OS X obviously. Open Adobe Photoshop on both of them for example and test that.

What about my comparison of Filezilla? 3 bounces + a little extra delay on my 2011 macbook pro, instantaneous on an ancient Windows XP machine running a Sempron 3400. Same for VLC. One more: Skype is around 6 bounces + some more delay. Near instantaneous on a PC.
 
What about my comparison of Filezilla? 3 bounces + a little extra delay on my 2011 macbook pro, instantaneous on an ancient Windows XP machine running a Sempron 3400. Same for VLC. One more: Skype is around 6 bounces + some more delay. Near instantaneous on a PC.

Like was stated earlier it is not fair to compare completely different machines. The drives are where the data is stored and just because they are both HDD's doesn't mean they perform the same. You seem to be assuming that the everything is pretty much the same across the board and that is just not the case. When I was using a HDD in my machine (2011 15 inch I7 2.4 quad core with 16 GB of 1600MHz RAM and a 750 GB 5400 RPM drive), my wife's computer (2011 13 inch I5 2.3 dual core with 8 GB of 1333 MHz Ram and a 250 GB 5400 RPM drive) always loaded apps faster than my monster comparatively. By the specs mine should have blown hers away when it came to loading apps, but it never did. That bugged me to no end, as they were running the same builds and had the same updates installed, but hers always won in the loading dept. It just goes to show that not always are specs the deciding factor, there is more to it (or the specs need to be even picked down further, as I think her drive had better caching than mine, can't remember as I solved the issue by going to an SSD. :) ).
 
Like was stated earlier it is not fair to compare completely different machines. The drives are where the data is stored and just because they are both HDD's doesn't mean they perform the same. You seem to be assuming that the everything is pretty much the same across the board and that is just not the case. When I was using a HDD in my machine (2011 15 inch I7 2.4 quad core with 16 GB of 1600MHz RAM and a 750 GB 5400 RPM drive), my wife's computer (2011 13 inch I5 2.3 dual core with 8 GB of 1333 MHz Ram and a 250 GB 5400 RPM drive) always loaded apps faster than my monster comparatively. By the specs mine should have blown hers away when it came to loading apps, but it never did. That bugged me to no end, as they were running the same builds and had the same updates installed, but hers always won in the loading dept. It just goes to show that not always are specs the deciding factor, there is more to it (or the specs need to be even picked down further, as I think her drive had better caching than mine, can't remember as I solved the issue by going to an SSD. :) ).

Of course you can't compare platforms perfectly, but at the end of the day, aren't we buying new computers because they are supposed to perform better?

Why does a 5 year old desktop, with a sempron 3400 (one of the slowest cpu's at that time), 1gb of ram, running windows xp, perform better than a mid-high level cpu today?

Responsiveness of an OS is one of my main requirements. I'm upgrading to an SSD this week on my 2011 MBP which should help, but the point is - I shouldn't have to when PC's of slower hardware can do what I want.
 
Of course you can't compare platforms perfectly, but at the end of the day, aren't we buying new computers because they are supposed to perform better?

Why does a 5 year old desktop, with a sempron 3400 (one of the slowest cpu's at that time), 1gb of ram, running windows xp, perform better than a mid-high level cpu today?

Responsiveness of an OS is one of my main requirements. I'm upgrading to an SSD this week on my 2011 MBP which should help, but the point is - I shouldn't have to when PC's of slower hardware can do what I want.
Your complaint is not responsiveness of the OS related though and App related. They are not the same thing. I can open Excel almost instantaneously, unless I want to open a certain document, and then excel loads as slow as molasses. Is this the apps fault or the OS? Since opening the app on a new document doesn't do this then the app must be the fault as the only difference is the preloading on the document as well. Like others are saying the coding of the app is the reason and not necessarily the problem of the OS. Does the OS boot quickly, if yes then it is more than likely the coding of the app and not the OS. What most don't realize is that since storage is no longer at a premium, coders have no incentive to make their code as efficient and light as they should, as that takes time and time equals money, since the storage is cheap it is cheaper to make it work but not care about efficiencies.

Do yourself a favor and save yourself some money and buy a PC, as it seems to fit your "needs" and "wants" better. People should buy what they like and need for their situations and not what they think is prettier or better because someone said it was. Spend you money on what needs you have to be met. If you had stayed with Windows, you wouldn't be spending your time ranting about OS X's shortcomings as you see them and actually enjoying your product, as I don't see you doing that from your posts. The world has choices and options just for this reason.
 
Sorry, calling BS on this entire thread.

You don't have an issue therefore nobody does? Awesome mentality. :rolleyes:

As for the thread, I haven't noticed OS X to be taking any longer than Windows to load apps. Office does load faster in Windows but iTunes loads faster in OS X so I guess it is all swings and roundabouts and dependant on a lot of factors including the app developer.
 
You don't have an issue therefore nobody does? Awesome mentality. :rolleyes:

As for the thread, I haven't noticed OS X to be taking any longer than Windows to load apps. Office does load faster in Windows but iTunes loads faster in OS X so I guess it is all swings and roundabouts and dependant on a lot of factors including the app developer.

I agree with what you are saying here, as debs really support their bread and butter OS.

As for the mentality, the same thing can be said for the other side of the fence, which is that since someone feels that they have an issue, they also feel that everyone is supposed to have and experience the same issue, and if they don't they just aren't savvy enough to realize it yet (as this seems to the be the prevailing ideal around here as well).
 
I've noticed this issue too, where OS X does some sort of caching that's fantastic until you reach some hard limit of your machine, and then performance it drops off a cliff.

If I have 1 or 2 apps open when I launch VirtualBox, it launches immediately. If I have a lot open, it takes a while, where it's still very quick on a PC.

My guess is that this relates to DLL hell - On a PC if you have 3 apps and each one uses the same 5 DLL's, you only need 5 DLL's in memory; on OS X I believe each app comes with its own DLLs so you need to load 15 of them. That's 3x as much, and consequently you lose 3x the resources. I'm no OS engineer though, so unless someone can confirm this, take it with a grain of sand.
 
I don't understand why people are treating me as hostile to Apple/OSX.

I've been using and loving my macbook since 2011. I have no intentions of returning to windows, but this one particular issue is quite noticeable to me.

As soon as I get some time I -will- post videos or other proof of launch times between operating systems.

Here's what I propose. If you have suggestions on how to improve the process please let me know.

1. Run the test using machines with similar specs and HDD's rather than SSD's to start. The idea is that it will be easier to see the launch time difference. I would later repeat the test with SSD's.

2. Do a cold reboot on both machines. This makes sure that the app isn't cached in ram, or even in the "inactive" or "wired" states for OSX. On PC, be sure nothing is in startup or the Run registry key that would help pre-loading of the apps. (MS office for example does this, as does adobe).

3. Launch apps and time/video them until they are ready to use. On a mac, it's not just # of bounces, but time until the app is actually usable and done loading. Same for the PC. (I suspect the PC might "feel" a bit faster because it doesn't show the bounces, if that makes sense).

4. Choose a variety of common apps that exist on both platforms, mixed between small and large.

Here's my starting suggested list of apps, please let me know if there are others you want to see, but I'd like to limit it to around 10 or so just to keep my sanity.

Small-Medium sized:

- VLC
- Teamviewer
- Gimp (not sure how X11 impacts the load time of this)
- Google Chrome
- Firefox (chose 2 browsers that aren't integrated into the OS)
- Skype

Big:

- MS Word (though we know these are slower on OSX already)
- MS Excel
- Inkscape (similar to adobe indesign but free)

Any other recommendations? Prefer apps that are free and aren't tied to one platform.

It would be great if people want to volunteer to run these apps after a cold boot and report back stopwatch times or at least "number of bounces". I could put a google doc together.
 
If it's any consolation I am a 20 year mac user and have recently gone to a PC at home and have the same experience as you, in win 8 it's blazing fast to start up and open apps. My old pos pc at work always opened apps faster than any of my macs.

Just to add, both are running the same SSD's.
 
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I don't understand why people are treating me as hostile to Apple/OSX.

I've been using and loving my macbook since 2011. I have no intentions of returning to windows, but this one particular issue is quite noticeable to me.

As soon as I get some time I -will- post videos or other proof of launch times between operating systems.

Here's what I propose. If you have suggestions on how to improve the process please let me know.

1. Run the test using machines with similar specs and HDD's rather than SSD's to start. The idea is that it will be easier to see the launch time difference. I would later repeat the test with SSD's.

2. Do a cold reboot on both machines. This makes sure that the app isn't cached in ram, or even in the "inactive" or "wired" states for OSX. On PC, be sure nothing is in startup or the Run registry key that would help pre-loading of the apps. (MS office for example does this, as does adobe).

3. Launch apps and time/video them until they are ready to use. On a mac, it's not just # of bounces, but time until the app is actually usable and done loading. Same for the PC. (I suspect the PC might "feel" a bit faster because it doesn't show the bounces, if that makes sense).

4. Choose a variety of common apps that exist on both platforms, mixed between small and large.

Here's my starting suggested list of apps, please let me know if there are others you want to see, but I'd like to limit it to around 10 or so just to keep my sanity.

Small-Medium sized:

- VLC
- Teamviewer
- Gimp (not sure how X11 impacts the load time of this)
- Google Chrome
- Firefox (chose 2 browsers that aren't integrated into the OS)
- Skype

Big:

- MS Word (though we know these are slower on OSX already)
- MS Excel
- Inkscape (similar to adobe indesign but free)

Any other recommendations? Prefer apps that are free and aren't tied to one platform.

It would be great if people want to volunteer to run these apps after a cold boot and report back stopwatch times or at least "number of bounces". I could put a google doc together.

Sublime Text isn't free, but they have a trial. I'm very interested how fast it is on Windows, as on Mac it's one of the fastest opening apps I've ever used and it's a "back of the box" feature for it.

I think all tests should be done on Mavericks and Windows 7 or 8. Also the tests for Windows I think have to be done with Boot Camp.
 
Filezilla[/b]? 3 bounces + a little extra delay on my 2011 macbook pro, instantaneous on an ancient Windows XP machine running a Sempron 3400. Same for VLC. One more: Skype is around 6 bounces + some more delay. Near instantaneous on a PC.

Filezilla - 1 bounce on my MBP, about 5 seconds on my 2011 Dell Latitude i5 2.5.

Anyone else have any comparisons for Filezilla? Would be nice to see some other comparisons.
 
Filezilla - 1 bounce on my MBP, about 5 seconds on my 2011 Dell Latitude i5 2.5.

Anyone else have any comparisons for Filezilla? Would be nice to see some other comparisons.

Are you comparing an HDD to SSD though? We need to compare apples to apples with drive type at least.
 
Are you comparing an HDD to SSD though? We need to compare apples to apples with drive type at least.

Drives all have to be similar as well, relatively the same size with the same cache and seek times, running on the same standards, and wit the same amount on them as well, as capacity remaining will change the drive responsiveness. Running a Sata drive against an older drive is not fair either. This is why it is bets to compare on the same machine with a dual boot setup, that way architecture doesn't come into play either (such as RAM, RAM speed, bus speed, and any number of other factors that change the way a system reacts (this is why builders choose their components specially for speed and reliability for a given price). Not even all SSDs react and behave the same way.
 
Are you comparing an HDD to SSD though? We need to compare apples to apples with drive type at least.

Like I said the tests need to be done on the same computer using Boot Camp to run Windows. Just having both tests on HDs or SSDs isn't enough.
 
HFS+ is just HFS 2.0, and HFS came out in 1985. HFS+ was basically created to support larger volumes, and has gained features over time, but it's basically still HFS. That's why the area of the disk that label colors are written to is still the same as it was when System 6.0 came out.

It's evolved a lot more than that. One of the biggest additions is the journaling feature added with the Server versions the included with client in 10.2. Using colour labels as an example can go towards NTFS as well. It stores its B-tree in the same place as it did when it was created as well.
 
In my experience I am up and running aps on my Mac whilst the Windows machine is still pounding the hard drive during boot up.
 
By saying something was "created" means it didn't exist before and is therefor new. Just because it contains remnants of the past doesn't strip it of being new.

By your logic then a 2013 Lingenfelter Corvette is just essentially Corvette 2.0 as the original Vette was created in the mid 50's but the same basic concept still exists. The seats and drivetrain are still exactly located where they were before, yes they have add some improvements in engine design and handling for better performance and added some features for comfort as well but nothing has really changed from the basic concept, right? The engine is still in the front, transmission is in the center of the car and the seats are located on either side of the transmission and behind the engine so basically no real change from the original.

Hmm, no I think a more apt metaphor for what I said would be the 80s-90s Mustang which got some engine upgrades, maybe new brakes and electronics, a facelift now and then, but was all built on the same chassis. It was essentially still the same design as the 1979 model, and HFS+ was essentially HFS with a supercharger.

I'm not a filesystem expert though, so I don't want to get in the weeds here.
 
Are you comparing an HDD to SSD though? We need to compare apples to apples with drive type at least.

Ah...nope, so i'm out, my rMBP and iMac both have SSD and I've never considered putting an SSD in my Windows machines as I don't care much for them in the first place, and only use them for work where I have to lol. But I'll keep following this as I find it interesting.
 
I know why. So we can see how the dock icon animates! Cool, isn't it? It's a Mac ;)

It may also be an illusion that makes it noticeable because of this whole bouncy animation; the Windows loading apps animate much less — I think only Windows 7 added a hint on the taskbar that a program is launching, on Windows XP and before you just have to wait.
 
I am new to this forum, but not new to PC's, have been using them now for close to 20 years, converted to Apple about 6 years ago, although I still run one Windows Laptop.
:confused: Don't really get this thread, so what if apps open a few seconds slower....
I know for certain on my late 2012 Mac Mini with OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSD and 16G RAM, it is lightning fast, start up from power down is 6-8s, opening most apps is a couple of seconds or so, can't ask for more than that, I have yet, personally, to see any Windows based PC as fast as my Mac Mini.
 
I am new to this forum, but not new to PC's, have been using them now for close to 20 years, converted to Apple about 6 years ago, although I still run one Windows Laptop.
:confused: Don't really get this thread, so what if apps open a few seconds slower....
I know for certain on my late 2012 Mac Mini with OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSD and 16G RAM, it is lightning fast, start up from power down is 6-8s, opening most apps is a couple of seconds or so, can't ask for more than that, I have yet, personally, to see any Windows based PC as fast as my Mac Mini.

Boot times in Windows 8 are actually faster than OSX on identical hardware: (both are great, though).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl7MCWFof-U

I don't care about boot time as much as app launch time, though.
 
I am new to this forum, but not new to PC's, have been using them now for close to 20 years, converted to Apple about 6 years ago, although I still run one Windows Laptop.
:confused: Don't really get this thread, so what if apps open a few seconds slower....
I know for certain on my late 2012 Mac Mini with OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSD and 16G RAM, it is lightning fast, start up from power down is 6-8s, opening most apps is a couple of seconds or so, can't ask for more than that, I have yet, personally, to see any Windows based PC as fast as my Mac Mini.

It's a discussion.
 
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