Mac's really that great?

BlueMak

Apple is not going to open up their OS. Then they would have to prove two things that I seriously doubt they have the capacity to. The first is to support the millions? of different hardware configurations out there. The second is they will be even more open to attacks from "hackers" etc.
They are not stupid to risk everything. It's better to have the myth than to show the reality.
IMO of course.
It's all fun to blame MS for every bug Windows have, but I seriously doubt Apple could release a better or even as good operating system as Windows having to support all that different hardware and users.
It's like being the first in the field of turn based 2D strategy games in the time frame of 1870-1875 and then try to release a 3D strategy game covering the whole C.E.

Malus

Uh, how much hardware do you really think they need to provide additional support for? Most things work out of the box, such as mice, keyboards, scanners, printers, etc. Large vendors like Nvidia and AMD/ATI already provide support for their products. Loads of functionality in the OS is derived from open source software such as FreeBSD. The task is not at all insurmountable for Apple. If a bunch of open source operating systems can do it, a company like Apple can do it just as easily.

It does not matter though, since Apple is not really in the software business. They make all of their money off of hardware sales, so it would be counter-productive to release their software for use on any old PC. I highly doubt that enough people would purchase their software to offset the profits lost from not being the sole OS X computer manufacturer out there.

I'm not sure what you are getting at with your diatribe about hackers. Yes, it is not as widely used as Windows and therefore is not normally the target of exploits. However, you are making the assumption its full of (remote) security vulnerabilities waiting to be exploited, but offer no insight as to why you feel that way. Without having access to all of the source code (the base operating system, known as Darwin, is open source and can easily be audited by those willing) or intrinsic knowledge about their coding standards and development practices, it is pretty hard to make a guess as to how secure their operating system is.

BlueMak

I take my chances.

About hardware, I wasn't talking about mice and keyboards....but internal components.

Customgamer1

I agree with you, and well Mac will have to expand every time they release a new computer.

In 10+ years they are going to have a lot of models of computers that they are going to have to work with. And its true being by yourself helps, but soon they will have a lot of different motherboards, hard drives, video cards, sound cards, and just about all the other parts they will have to account for. Of course it will not matter to much since only the newest computers really provide any benefit with the new OS since the older ones will just lag behind.

Is vista really that bad? No not at all. Its a OS for new computers not the older ones. Just like why would you want to put the brand new OSX on a 5+ year old computer when you will hardly see any advantages since it will just slow it down.

Malus

Uh, what internal components would that be? Most motherboard chipsets and CPUs are easily supported and most likely work out of the box already. Most NICs are pretty similar and are easy to support (and worst case, they could utilize an NDIS wrapper). Anything esoteric tends to have support from the manufacturer.

Like I said before, tons of open source operating systems support tons of hardware. It is not a difficult task; most hardware is pretty similar save a few quirks. You have not provided a solid, technical reason why Apple cannot support various bits and pieces of hardware.

The only reason that I can think of for Apple not to support more hardware is that it will not do anything to improve their marketshare or their profits.

BlueMak

What are you talking about? Most motherboard chipsets are easily supported by what? MacOS or Windows? Either case you are wrong lol (I hope you get the joke)

A solid technical reason why Apple cannot support various hardware, well, because they don't.

Time will tell, but I bet Mousey's computer that Apple will not release their OS for at least another half a decade.

Customgamer1

Well you figure they will once they reach the highest market share possible.

With them being so tight and not allowing anyone else they only can get so big. I bet yeah lets say in 5 years if they let others work with it they could get big and then put some serious pressure on Microsoft.

dj_stick

you'd be surprised the amount of platforms that the OSX86 team have managed to get OSX to work on, even AMD chipsets, and the eee pc - OSX 10.4.5 had native support for my atheros wireless card - and the only component that wouldn't work was onboard sound - but iirc there's a third party effort to fix that, oh and I was using a third party driver for my 6600

if people can modify OSX to run on a generic PC, Apple could easily suppot a wide a range of hardware as Windows, however they choose not to

BlueMak

It was never my intention to imply that the MacOS is just not good enough (basic architecture and all) to be used like that. But I don't see Apple being able to afford (money, time, personel, and prestige mainly) to let the OS be installed with official support on other systems (custom build). It's just easier to bitch about how much Windows sucks and BSOD, than try to become as big and broad. Anyway, I am just repeating myself and there is no need for that.

Malus

I was talking about OS X, but I guess it goes for Windows too. For most people, their hardware is supported out of the box without having to install anything special. I think only a minority of computer users bother to update their chipset drivers.

BlueMak

Wait, so you are saying that OS X natively supports all or most of the motherboards that Windows supports?
Or are you saying that OS X supports all the hardware that OS X was built for, ie Apple computers?
Either way, eh?

Mousey

I'd like to see a mac with a striker extreme 2 in it

Falstaff

Macs are great, they are not gaming machines nor tweaking and geeking machines, they are terrible useful and popular, nuff said. My son and daughter both love their Mac Books, the only reason I dont have one yet is I still have so much PC crap lying about I still use for the most part. Given a choice? a 22 inch IMAC would be sitting here on my desk instead of the old Dell, but the old Inspiron still has life left in her and I wont give her up. 4 years is a actually 70 in Dell years.

PangingJr

fobis,

Could you suggest a few friendly forums?
i want my kid to check things out and he may be needing some hand-holding answers.

Lowfat

macrumors.com is one i frequent

technonerd

I'm like playing games on my computer and love to build computers. Macs doesn't let me build and Macs is like fastfood to me, so no thanks.

PangingJr

Thanks, Lowfat.
i will check it out. i hope the forum is active enough, so i can have my kid sit over there and do some reading first.

Customgamer1

Since I have no life I starting researching how much money Mac must be making on each computer sold.
(more so school is out and I have time on my hands lol)
Not sure on the correct dollar amount, but DAMN they must be making a lot.

The choice is a desktop computer. I could buy a PC or a 24" mac.

Seems like a good choice until I see the prices...
Well to keep it fair I did build my PC for around the same as the Mac lol, but I just wanted to see what ultimate computer I could build that would smack that Imac upside the head crying it had more speed

PC:

24" monitor = $370
Newegg.com - ViewSonic Optiquest Series Q241wb Black 24" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor 400 cd/m2 800:1 Built in Speakers - LCD Monitors

Core 2 duo 3.16 cpu =$279
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - CPUs / Processors

Asus Motherboard = $370
Newegg.com - ASUS P5E3 PREMIUM/WIFI-AP @n LGA 775 DDR3 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

2gigs OCZ platinum DDR3 ram = $300
Newegg.com - OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

Seagate hard drive 500gig = $115
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3500320NS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

BFG Geforce 8800 GTX 768mb = $380
Newegg.com - BFG Tech BFGR88768GTXOCE GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Lite On 20x dvd burner $40
Newegg.com - LITE-ON Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner with LightScribe - CD / DVD Burners

850 watt Antec power supply = $160
Newegg.com - Antec TPQ-850 850W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, CUL, FCC, TUV, CE, C-tick, CCC, CB - Power Supplies

Case = $230
Newegg.com - LIAN LI PC-V1000APlus II Silver Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases

Total cost = $2245!!!!!!!!!

The Mac:
3.06 core 2 duo intel
2gigs of ram
500 gig hard drive
24" screen
Geforce 8800 512mb of ram

TOTAL COST = $2,200

Well let me choose lol. I did not included a OS on my build and I should have so you can add $100 so it will be around $145 more, but that is close enough I did not spend enough trying to match it $ for $.

Just goes to show that you can buy some SUPER high quality PC parts and a nice monitor and great case for the price of a Mac.

Sure the Mac is all in one box, but that just makes it impossible to upgrade.

This is another reason why I can't believe anyone could afford or want to buy a mac just for the soso OS...

I don't even want to point out how more of a ripoff the tower mac is.


Just something I noticed lol.

See the cool thing is that with the right marketing and looks you will ALWAYS have someone that buys any product you are willing to sell!

I am trying to keep myself from being a fanboy since I also like Linux and don't hate Mac, but just can't understand the pricing and whats really sad is they get people to buy it and of course you love your mac after wards because if you didn't you would be pissed at how much money you just wasted. You are kind of forced to love it lol. At least you can run Vista/xp on it.

You also can run OSX on a PC!

kris23

they are known as hackintoshs....

i always wanted to make one but never really cared anymore... wonder if anyone built a bootable disk yet for PC

Customgamer1

Well there is a group that deals with booting a Mac on a PC. With some computer know how it really does not look that hard.

One day I am sure apple will allow anyone to install it, but they are not even close to big enough yet staff wise to keep up with all the different combo's of systems out there. They would not want to look like Windows now would they....


Main Page - OSx86

Forums to lots of help etc! Check it out of if you want to do it. I would recommend anyone that wants a mac to build a pc and load OSX on it since I am sure you will get your moneys worth then!

dj_stick

as i posted earlier in this thread, i had a pretty stable "hackintosh" before i got my mac pro - pretty cool imo

EDIT:

back on to the Photoshop and carbon/cocoa issue

I read somewhere the other day that carbon was the API for OS9 and earlier, and was only ported to OS X after developer complaints - so i guess Adobe really has no one else to blame for not porting their code to the more modern Cocoa API

Syndicate2083

Just to add a rebuttle to the request for some information regarding Apple insecurities compared to Windows:

Windows vs. Apple Mac OS X vs. Red Hat Linux - Patch development time for operating systems in Symantec's vision - Softpedia

not to mention that, there are other reports if you care to look, but i really hate the fact that if you have physical access to the new mac OSX its a VERY simple process to create a new admin account and do whatever you want with the OS.

This was added as a work around for easily corruptable 'encrypted' drives and user file areas. That screams idiocy to me, going back to the days of win98 when you could just delete the password file and login to admin with no password heh.

I think Macs are useful for things, and woefully behind the times in other aspects. Each company has a genius about it. Mac took a more closed minded approach whereas MS saw the opportunities that being open and befriending everyone had. Each is successful at what they aim to do.

I personally prefer Windows. I hate Mac fanboys, and I really really hate anyone who claims their mac is more secure 'it's got unix in the back end!' Well it would help if Apple didnt use insanely outdated BSD source for most of it's apps. (do some quick googles, its pretty scarey)

**edit** that's not to say I hate Mac or all mac users. I just think the reality of allot of what is Mac is lost in the shuffle with their campaign and outright derision of everything PC and windows. /shrug

-Tim

dj_stick