> From: Craig Ringer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Fri, 2005-06-10 at 00:39 +0800, Martin Hill wrote: >> What are the two main reasons PC people state over and over why the Mac >> isn't a good option? In my experience, they boil down to: >> >> 1. Not enough software for the Mac >> 2. Macs are too slow > > Really? The top two I've had mentioned: > > 1. "Macs are too expensive",
Indeed, that's what I put down as my 3rd point and with the advent of the Mac Mini and the potential for cheaper intel components (some more expensive, some cheaper), this also is being better addressed by Apple. >or "Mac prices would be OK but MacOS is waaayy too expensive." I don't get that one much. Are all your friends linux users? ;-) > 2. "I can't run [blah program I need] on MacOS"; or "To run [blah] on > MacOS I'd have to emulate Windows, so why bother." Yes, that is encompassed in the first point. > I happen to feel the first one rather strongly myself. I don't mind > paying for Mac hardware, but paying regularly for MacOS galls me. Well it depends if you'd prefer to not get a new OS with lots of nice new features every year and a bit or would rather wait 5 years for such new capabilities and then pay more. Personally I prefer the former. Because of Apple's 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 naming scheme and Microsoft's glacial pace bringing out Longhorn, too many PC users get confused thinking Apple's new OS releases are equivalent to service packs on the PC. > There's no "OEM escape" like with Windows, Do you mean Windows being bundled with a new computer? >> 1. Large software choices - Macs running Windows software at around native >> speeds [...] > > Be careful with this. So far there is no solid evidence it'll be > possible to run any given Windows software package without running or > emulating Windows as well. Yes, you probably get near-native speed > depending on the app, but you'd still need VMWare or similar and a > Windows license, or need to dual-boot. We don't even know absolutely for > certain that you'll be able to dual-boot, either. > > It's possible that better options like a cleaned up and ported WINE will > emerge, but it's not safe to assume that. For now, speaking with a clear > "might" or "may" in there is probably wise. Come on now - you would surely have to agree that it *will* get significantly better than the current slow emulation on PPC situation?!! There can be no doubt that this picture is set for a quantum improvement and considering some Windows apps have been reported to run *faster* under WINE than XP I think we should be fairly confident. >> 2. Macs running processors with the same number of GHz as the competition at >> last.(2) > > If Apple go for Pentium M, then I'm afraid that will only be the case if > the P4 never makes it above 3.6GHz . Pentium M is clocked slower than > the P4, but does much more work - kinda like a PowerPC CPU, or an AMD > Athlon XP. > > This whole issue matters less now that Intel uses "model numbers" not > GHz ratings, and now that AMD has been helping get the GHz message out > too lately. Even Intel is behind the marketing push about clock speed > not being important now. For sure - however the point remains that even the Pentium M is still advertised by just about every ad I see with GHz ratings displayed and which are still higher than the equivalent G4 or G5 on the Mac. In the absence of other ways to compare competitive systems, people still dig up numbers and/or processor type. But you are right, this issue isn't as problematic as it used to be. The important point is that Mac CPU speeds are set for significant and regular speed improvements in the future on par with the rest of the industry. >> (2) It'll be interesting to see if there is a significant performance >> overhead which results in OS X running slower than Windows on the same GHz >> Pentium chip. With all the Quartz eye-candy this is a possibility, but of >> course Longhorn with it's own eye candy will be out sometime along in that >> timescale so it may end up being a wash. We'll just have to wait and see. > > Given that people complain about Linux GUIs being slow, I wouldn't be > surprised if MacOS took the same flak. MacOS GUIs tend to be smoothly > updated, but IMO somewhat slow and more importantly sometimes VERY > unresponsive to user input. Safari and iTunes come to mind regarding the > last point. > > <rant>Of course, it probably wouldn't take Apple all that much work to > fix that responsiveness problem, at least for their bundled apps. The > GUI as a whole is fantastically responsive, it's just the UI within > applications that's a problem. All it takes is for a button to go down > then up again when clicked or the app to show some other response while > it's working away, even if the actual requested action doesn't happen > instantly. There's nothing worse than hitting stop in Safari, wondering > if it's actually going to do it, and hitting stop again when you begin > to think it won't - only to find that it then stops the page, changes > the stop button to reload, treats the second click as reload, and begins > loading the page from the start again. *FOAM*.</rant> I'm with you on that one Craig. That's one pet peeve of mine as well. (but the Dell on my desk is another matter entirely *blech*) Thanks to our resident devil's advocate for keeping the dialogue going ;-) Ciao -Mart -------------------------------------- Martin Hill mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] homepages: http://mart.ozmac.com Mb: 0417-967-969 hm: (08)9314-5242
