Hi Josh, Last year I found myself shopping for a new computer. I should point out that I'd been using a Titanium PowerBook for several years, and it was reaching the end of it's useful life. I did the price comparison. I really wanted a Mac, but after hemming and hawing over it for a while, I couldn't justify buying hardware that I really wasn't going to use. My primary needs were fairly simple:
- write Java software using the latest JDK (both desktop and server software) - surf the web - run most of the open source software that I use (Open Office, GIMP, Inkscape, Eclipse, etc). - I don't play games so graphics performance wasn't that big of a concern. I've been writing Java on Mac hardware for a number of years, and I've always felt like a red-headed step-child doing so. I've waited patiently, year-after-year for Apple to update the JDK. I've ignored the problems like limited JAI support (no native support) and other issues. Finally I just got tired of waiting. I have no ambition to be a Cocoa developer, I write Java because I want my software to run where ever I happen to be. But that has never really fit with Apple's strategy for extending its market share. They want developers to create compelling apps that run primarily on Mac OS X. Other platforms are largely irrelevant to them. A number of Mac users with newer hardware are using Parallels (or similar software) but that's never really made sense to me that I should waste additional CPU cycles running a VM for another OS. Part of the appeal of the Mac is the operating system, so why pay extra for the privilege of not being able to run the OS you want? I want to be able to run Mac OS X and the latest version of Java without having to wait for Apple to get around to supporting the VM. I guess I could run Soylatte, but then I'd always be wondering about the issues I run into -- "is this a Soylatte problem or is it a Java problem?" I finally decided to get an HP DV9700t laptop. The first thing I did was install Ubuntu (no point in getting 64-bit hardware and forcing it to run a 32-bit OS). I spent about an hour playing with Vista, but it just felt slower and couldn't address the 4GB of RAM I had. The main problem with the Apple hardware and OS is that it fails to hit the sweetspot for most Java developers. You either get the lower- end MacBooks or the higher-end MacBook Pro's, but there's nothing really in-between that has a lot of RAM and disk space. When you combine that with their historic lackluster support for Java -- it's just not a compelling platform for me. I'm hoping that that at some point, someone at Apple will do something to address this sweetspot, but I'm no longer holding my breath. Mark On Sep 4, 8:57 am, Joshua Marinacci <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > To a company the market share and revenue don't matter. It's profits > that matter. And if Apple can make the same profit on 5% that other > companies make on 15% of the market, then it seems like they would > want to. > > On Sep 4, 2008, at 1:34 AM, Vince O'Sullivan wrote: > > > > > On Sep 3, 3:49 pm, Joshua Marinacci <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> So I think we come back to "there's no reason why they couldn't", but > >> why haven't they? > > > Perhaps the PC manufacturers are content with their 95% market share > > and are too lazy to the final mile? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
