This is the final part in a series of two.
Yesterday, I focused on the un-selling points of the new MacBook Pro line as announced during the WWDC keynote. Today, my focus is going to be on Snow Leopard, Apple’s rather depressing tendency to bash Microsoft, and the rather nasty turn-off this all happens to be. Granted, most of Apple’s recent ad campaigns have comprised of “let’s make things up about Windows!” in order to try and gain market share. Microsoft is only avoiding suing Apple because of the potential for the world’s worst Streisand effect, which is depressing given the libelous nature of the ads themselves.
Having said this, it’s no surprise to see this mentality persist throughout this year’s WWDC keynote, so I’ll pick up from yesterday and explain just why Snow Leopard in and of itself is nothing more than hypocrisy.
I won’t even bother to discuss the Mac v. PC non-Ad that opened the WWDC keynote. Instead, I’ll start with
“Even more complexity is present in Windows 7 – the same old tech as Vista. Just another version of Vista.” -Bertrand Serlet, 10:19 AM
So he slams 7 as another version of Vista and follows it (within the same minute) with:
“We come from such a different place. We love Leopard, we’re so proud of it; so we decided to build upon Leopard. We want to build a better Leopard, hence Snow Leopard” -Bertrand Serlet, 10:19 AM
Holy crap, that’s a new time record for admitting to being completely hypocritical! But wait, there’s more!
“Adding Exchange support to Snow Leopard. We’ve got chills. Chills we tell you!” –Bertrant Serlet, 10:20 AM
If the audience in that room had any idea as to who makes Exchange, I’m sure we would have seen many bricks in their chairs.
Bertrand later admits to the three major changes coming to Snow Leopard: refinements to the operating system, a few new technologies here and there, and Exchange support. What are these refinements of which he spoke? Nothing much; just a few under-the-hood changes to Finder and an installation process which is 45% faster and takes up 6GB less space! It sounds remarkable on face value until you realize that they dropped support for PowerPC.
PowerPC is a platform which Apple stopped using only three years ago, and Snow Leopard has already slapped it down to the pits of hell. If Microsoft had discontinued support for an older hardware just like that, there would’ve been a massive uproar, but apparently Apple users will follow along. Add the fact that Windows 7, which can run on hardware Vista couldn’t run, also installs faster than Snow Leopard and Windows Vista as well as the fact that Leopard is less stable than Windows Vista (let’s see how many times you run into that Rainbow Swirly of I-Want-To-Pull-My-Hair-Out compared to a Blue Screen of Death), and we’ll see which platform is the better platform to build off of. Bertrant talks about how bad a platform Windows Vista is, and yet, Leopard is sadly worse.
Let’s get to these so-called “new technologies.” Which new technologies did they add? How about Aero Peek?
“Next up, the Dock: We’ve had a feature that we use to deal with clutter, called Expose, and now we’ve built it into the dock.”
Like the way Aero Peek is built into the amazingly more usable Windows 7 taskbar? It’s funny because their particular implementation is the most minor thing, and yet it somehow warrants inclusion within a keynote. Aero Peek is more functional than Expose and a bigger boost to productivity than Expose all because it allows for full window previews, thus boosting productivity in the office, and yet the best Apple can come up with is just adding Expose to the dock. They have three buttons dedicated to it on the keyboard, which lends one to the idea that the only reason they even attached Expose to the dock was because Microsoft successfully created a more usable taskbar than their dock.
Of course, that’s not all. Apple finally started trying to truly join the x64 club, and this is what we have:
“So first, 64-bit. The obvious reason is to take advantage of a lot of memory. When you run in 64-bit, the memory limit is… 16 billion GB. It’s unlimited.”
First of all, it’s actually over 17 billion, but I won’t pick nits. The point is that Windows has been doing this since the days of XP, and that Vista and 7 have basically mastered the art of 64 bit. Apple has been so late to the game that Adobe actually stuck with Microsoft for a 64 bit implementation of Creative Suite 4. The Windows world has almost completely finished adapting to the 64bit world, and Apple is only just now beginning to arrive.
“All the major system apps run in 64-bit mode in Snow Leopard.”
Wow, it’s not even a complete transition! They only ported the major apps over to 64bit; the minor processes and non-system-essential applications are still stuck in the last decade.
Sure, Snow Leopard isn’t a complete disaster. There is one technology which Apple did well to include, and that’s Grand Central Dispatch. The thing about GCD is that it will allow for programmers to easily create their own multithreaded applications without actually having to worry about the threads, which is a wonderful addition to the OS and is a tool I hope developers use to their advantage to create better applications.
Then there’s OpenCL, which stands for Open Computing Language. It’s essentially a framework that can run code along any processing-capable path, such as CPUs and GPUs. Kudos to Apple for making it open, but it’s not even Apple’s technology anymore. While Apple still holds trademark rights (which they’ll no doubt abuse), the Khronos Group is now the managing force behind OpenCL, so anyone can include it if they fit the bill.
However, that’s basically it in terms of any new technology. In the end, Snow Leopard is a partially-64bit OS comprised of Safari 4 (standalone included), Quicktime 10 (standalone included), Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL, Exchange 2007 support, tweaks to Expose and Stacks, performance fixes to the Finder, and an update to the Common Unix Printing System, all while dropping support for Macintoshes more than three years old.
Apple is charging 29 dollars for this? Keeping in mind that the only new technologies are Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL, 64bit readiness, and Exchange 2007, it’s time to start picking this price apart for what it is: a rip-off.
Vista Service Pack 1 brought the finalized Server 2008 kernel to Windows Vista. That’s an enterprise-quality near-bulletproof kernel added to consumer versions of Windows for free! In addition to boosting performance just about everywhere (not just in Explorer), Vista SP1 also introduced support for an entirely new filesystem, exFAT. Following this was Service Pack 2, which brought a new version of Windows Search, support for Bluetooth 2.1, native support for burning Blu-ray discs (something Apple still doesn’t support even reading), a new framework for wifi connection management, support for VIA’s new 64bit CPUs, as well as a new power management framework which actually puts an emphasis on saving power both for desktops and laptops as opposed to just being efficient with how it’s all used.
Together, these service packs introduced more performance boosts and features to an already fast and powerful operating system for free. Apple is not only introducing less new features, what they’re introducing is either behind the curve or won’t directly impact productivity, and Apple is still charging 29 dollars for previous Leopard users. Worse yet, if you happen to be one of the holdouts still using Tiger because you figured out that Leopard is an unstable sack of crap for an operating system, you’re out of luck; Apple’s going to flip the bird and charge you “full price,” whatever exorbitant amount that is for a gimped service pack to an operating system which you already didn’t like.
Let’s not forget that Apple dropped support for the ZFS filesystem, which was one of the features many Apple users were looking forward to the most.
As usual, share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.
Update: Sam chimed in via WLM with the following:
Sam says:
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I just wrote this long comment to explain why Snow Leopard is worth $29.
Just as I was thinking Safari is naturally going to crash now, it disappeared.
Nice.
Update 2: I thought about it a bit longer and decided that not only is Apple issuing a gimped service pack, they’re also doing nothing to embrace the future. Tablets are one of the handiest business and graphics design tools in existence, and yet while Apple could easily have dominated the game, they didn’t bother. Now, Windows 7 is more touch-ready than ever, allowing for a far more favorable user experience on capable computers (such as on the HP TouchSmart and the Dell Latitude XT).
Not only has Snow Leopard seemed to not have any purpose, Apple itself seems to have gotten a bit distracted and lost any desire to improve usability, whereas Microsoft made usability one of their major goals with 7.
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While I agree with you on the libelous and hyprocritical nature of the keynote, I can’t say I agree with your argument that Snow leopard is a rip off. Exchange support itself is going to run you into the hundreds of dollars, on windows or OSX currently, for either Outlook or Entourage. $29 for exchange support is a steal, but then only if you happen to work in a company that uses exchange and macs.
Makes you wonder why the EU doesn’t go knocking on Apple’s door for adding all of these features
I wrote a long-ass reply and then Safari crashed.
In short: I agree, with a couple exceptions:
Adobe apps aren’t 64-bit on OS X because they are using legacy Carbon APIs that they used to provide a cheap port over from the Classic Mac OS years ago. These, of course, don’t get shiny-new-stuff treatment. That’s Adobe’s fault for never updating their app like they should have.
Dock Exposé isn’t even in the WWDC Snow Leopard build so I’m convinced this is a rip-off of what is in 7 and they only recently added this feature to the list.
Also, Snow Leopard is remarkably faster than Leopard, much faster than, say, the difference between Vista RTM and SP2. Safari benchmarks considerably faster than Chrome on Snow Leopard, while it benchmarks about the same when running on Leopard. In addition, Grand Central is being used across the OS’ built in apps which are providing the supposedly 90% speedups in apps like Mail. Along with Exchange support (which costs way more than $29 on Windows) and other things mentioned above, Snow Leopard is worth the $29 for me.
Yeah Snow Leopard does feel and look more like a Service Pack/Update then a new OS variant. It’s changes are few and somewhat minor and similar to ones preformed in Windows’ Service Packs, but Apple is branding it a the next OS with a new name. Oh well…they are Apple and always get away with it. Forever seen as the good guys.
It was the cheap and false knocks on Windows 7 that showed Apple’s low blow tactics and lack of knowledge of their competitor’s OS. They know Windows 7 is good and a big jump forward in the right direction, and this is a problem and fear for them. Windows 7’s security is good, UI is good, reliability is good, price of PCs with it will be good…not much bad can be said other than the, “i hate you just because you are you.” rhetoric. Only advantage Apple has is support, but that is not against the OS, but Apple says it is, so it must be…. The nice thing with a PC is that I can choose and easily find a company that provides great hardware, style, and support like Apple does.
Choice is in!
I see both sides to this. Apple really needs to quit pulling cheap shots on Microsoft, making it appear that their CLIENT OS can’t do anything. I specify client because obviously their server OS is good enough to run Exchange Server, which seems to be Apple’s biggest new thing since sliced bread, though in reality, hardly anyone will take advantage of it. Sure Windows 7 is “the same old tech” but it’s much more refined, yet at the same time, a selling point because of its backwards-compatability.
Here’s a really good question about Exchange support: Is it accessible by developers? If it isn’t then that is a real shame, considering they made a huge point of it at their “Worldwide DEVELOPERS Conference”.
But Snow Leopard isn’t totally crap, and heck, it probably is worth $29 (as Sam explained). Is it worth $129 (the “usual” upgrade price)? No. But $29 is really quite reasonable for this sort of upgrade. And as Sam also said, if developers (like Adobe) don’t upgrade their apps, that’s not Apple’s fault. Apple has the tools available. If you don’t use it, it’s your own damn fault.
P.S. This message successfully posted crash- and hourglass-free on Firefox on good ol’ Windows XP.
Adobe upgraded their apps to x64 on Windows just fine, so I don’t find the no-upgrade excuse to be a good one.
Quite honestly, and I say this as a former Mac user, Apple’s product quality (both software and hardware) has gone from respectable amongst professionals to absolute bull**** and lies. It’s more of a cash grab with wool drawn over everyones eyes than anything else.
Just what things in the ads has Apple been making up? You should include studies that back up your assertions (that way I can counter them with studies that I find, kind of like the way I can show you studies to either prove or disprove global warming).
On the subject of ads, if Windows Vista is so great why does the current Microsoft campaign focus on computers made by other companies rather than talk about Vista. If Apple is truely making things up then Microsoft should make ads that disprove the Apple assertions rather than comparing the price of an Audi to the price of a Ford?
I can assure you that all Apple devs know that Microsoft makes Exchange, it happens to be the dominant enterprise software in use. The addition of Exchange to Mac OS X means that more users can switch to Mac and therefore Apple devs have a larger possible market.
Really, you think that the spinning beach ball is the same as the BSoD??? the beach ball just means “the active app is too busy to pay attention to you at this moment, please try back in a few minutes or move on to working in a different app for a while, even if this app crashes other apps will be safe in their own little bubbles.” The BSoD means “screw you, restart the machine now and lose everything you have done in all apps since your last save, oh, and you will also most likely have to sit in time out while I scan the disk since you aren’t going to shut me down properly.” The Windows BSoD is more like a kernel panic in OS X (as a side note I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen a kernel panic and have always been doing something really stupid at the time).
Adobe hasn’t upgraded the Mac versions of their apps because they haven’t been forced to, to move to 64-bit will take lots of code that they are too lazy to write (and too cheap, as are all companies).
I have never owned a Windows machine, and I never will. I got my first Mac in 1992 when I graduated High School (we had an Apple IIc at my parents house then). I never had any real problems figuring out how to do stuff on it, when I looked for a menu option it was where I thought it should be, etc. I am also a developer for the Mac and iPhone platforms (1 Mac app and 2 iPhone apps). I have had to use Windows machines from time to time other places. First off every machine that runs Windows (with the exception of the one HP machine that is strikingly similar to the iMac) looks horrible to me. Second the Windows OS (every version I have ever seen) looks like crap. Third and most importantly, every time I touch a windows machine to do anything more than load a website I want to throw things across the room within ten minutes, if I am looking for a menu option I have to think of the last place I would put it and start there.
Yes, I am an Apple fan boy, I hate Windows and hope that I never have to touch it ever again. I also realize that Apple isn’t better than Microsoft (surprised?), they are both companies that are trying to make money. The Apple way of thinking and my way of thinking are worlds closer than my way and Microsoft’s, so Apple is the right company for me. When people ask me if they should switch to Mac I tell them it depends on how they think.
To those of you that like Windows, that’s awesome. Keep using it, just don’t let Apple or Microsoft drag you down into the mud (they are both spinning things to make the other one look bad, kind of like kids do in school when they pick on other kids). Also please keep big business using Windows so the hackers don’t start looking at Macs, thanks.
P.S. This message successfully posted crash and beach ball free on Safari on Mac OS X Leopard (yeah, that “unstable” OS).
P.P.S I know I am rambling, I don’t care.
Plenty of fair points in that, but I think you overreached on a few :
– can I point out Windows 2000 for Alpha?
– and yet most people are still running 32-bit Windows on their desktops. With no 64-bit support. Apple are definitely lagging, but just because Microsoft have shipped, doesn’t mean there’s an installed base. There are no separate 64-bit versions of Leopard or Snow Leopard, the 64-bit support is built-in.
how about comparing like-with-like? How many times do Leopard users get the Multilingual Screen of Death compared to how many times Vista users get the Blue Screen of Death?
Really? They dropped it from Snow Leopard Server, I don’t remember them ever promising support for the desktop, and I certainly don’t know of any Apple users who were particularly looking forwards to it. It’s not as if it could have replaced HFS+ just yet anyway.
As Sam Johnson said, that’s due to Adobe (understandbly) not being willing to port their code to Cocoa. It’s nothing to do with Apple being late to the game.
I’m another one who thinks the $29 price is fine, especially as an amateur developer.
edited to add blockquotes. ~Bryant
With regards to the Mac v. PC ads, every single ad saying that Vista crashes or is unstable (very false compared to how many times it happens in Leopard) is disingenuous, as well as those which claim Mac is virus free (also false), and the ones which slam UAC (OS X is based on UNIX and, in turn, has sudo). They’re bad because they play upon common myths, not truths. Can I back this up with legitimate, unsponsored studies? No, sadly, but if you can back your end with said studies, I’ll be willing to reconsider my position.
As for Windows 2000 for Alpha, it wasn’t a major platform, which was why it was discontinued. PowerPC was Apple’s only platform, which is why discontinuing support for it after three years is so bad.
Yes, I know a Kernel Panic is on par with a Blue Screen of Death, and I also know that both happen just as rarely on their respective platforms (I haven’t seen a Blue Screen on Vista in three years, I haven’t seen a Blue Screen on 7 at all, and I saw three kernel panics on the same MacBook running 7 over the past 4 weeks), but I’m comparing usability impairments. Given that Windows is much less likely to crap out when one app begins to dominate use of the computer, the rainbow swirlie is a perfectly fair target, especially once Finder is plagued with it, thus forcing you to forcibly kill it in exchange for the risk of data corruption (yes, this issue is still present in Snow Leopard)
Most people may be running 32 bit Windows, but so what? Most people now also have 64 bit capable machines, which means that with the upcoming releases of Windows, it won’t matter much.
Saying Adobe was too lazy to change their code is a bad excuse. With something as complex as Creative Suite 4, porting CS4 to Cocoa would likely have taken less effort than making it x64-ready on Windows.
Finally, ZFS was in Apple’s promotional materials for Snow Leopard (not just Snow Leopard Server) until after WWDC. Upon the passing of WWDC, all mention of ZFS was removed.
I won’t argue with the subjective points brought up because, frankly, they’re subjective for a reason: everyone has their own opinion regarding how an OS looks and feels.
Minor point, but people don’t slam UAC for its existance – they slam it for its intrusive implementation. Microsoft tried to improve the foundations for the future with Vista, unfortunately the resulting OS was seen as much slower and more memory hungry than XP, and this is largely what resulted in the bad press (and it’s no surprise, it /was/ larger and slower than XP – XP originally came out in 2001, after all).
“Legitimate, unsponsored studies” – like the “Apple Tax” one Microsoft sponsored recently? They’re not above similar tactics.
“As for Windows 2000 for Alpha, it wasn’t a major platform, which was why it was discontinued. PowerPC was Apple’s only platform, which is why discontinuing support for it after three years is so bad.”
You didn’t mention anything about it not being a major platform. You simply said :
“If Microsoft had discontinued support for an older hardware just like that, there would’ve been a massive uproar, but apparently Apple users will follow along.”
and I pointed out that Microsoft /did/ discontinue support for an older platform, and I’ll add this was even whilst having developed the operating system to a beta stage, and within a nine months of it’s eventual release.
It’s also worth noting it’s now four years since the transition was announced (June 2005), and news of the transition was carried by most major news outlets – it was a big technology story. Most people who bought a Mac after this point would have been aware it was coming. And even after all that, there’s nothing that makes their PowerPC machines suddenly useless, the software they run today they’ll still be running tomorrow. Features like OpenCL and GrandCentral are pointless for the almost all the PowerPC machines out there – their GPUs wouldn’t be supported anyway (OpenCL) and very few will be multiprocessor (GrandCentral).
“Saying Adobe was too lazy to change their code is a bad excuse. With something as complex as Creative Suite 4, porting CS4 to Cocoa would likely have taken less effort than making it x64-ready on Windows.”
By that definition, they were too lazy. However, I honestly don’t think porting it from Carbon to Cocoa would have been a small job, and I don’t think it could have been done in the time between Leopard coming out and CS4 coming out (roughly a year)
“Most people may be running 32 bit Windows, but so what? Most people now also have 64 bit capable machines, which means that with the upcoming releases of Windows, it won’t matter much.”
It matters because most users will still continue to use the 32-bit version of Windows (unless Microsoft do a push for OEMs to install 64-bit Windows when Windows 7 launches), and thus it’s largely irrelevant that they are running on 64-bit hardware. These users will not be able to run 64-bit apps without buying a new version of Windows (even allowing for the fact they could run a 64-bit OS virtualised on a 32-bit OS with the right CPU, they’d still need a new version of Windows).
Would you care to point to promotional materials for ZFS in “desktop” Snow Leopard? I really can’t remember mention of it being in that, although I remember lots of fuss generated by the press when Apple indicated interest in ZFS by adding it to the projects at MacOSForge.
@Adrian: Users of 32-bit Windows Vista do not need to purchase another copy of Windows to take advantage of 64-bit. Call your OEM and request a 64-bit, or order one from Microsoft for next to nothing. If you purchased Windows Vista Ultimate, you already have both.
I’m sorry, but most of this is utter crap. The point is that Vista started with a horrible OS (Vista) and have simply tweaked it a bit to make it less horrible (Windows 7) Apple is simply building on their much better OS
@Liam
You know, you could’ve put more effort into your argument. As it stands, you’re epitomizing the typical troll the rest of the world has come to hate
If Microsoft continues to not allow 32-bit to 64-bit in-place upgrades, the systems will remain on 32-bit (average Joe never wants to reformat). Leopard -> Snow Leopard upgrades to 64-bit just fine, which I’m sure will result in a larger percentage of people running OS X will end up on a fully 64-bit OS than will end up with a 64-bit OS on Windows.
Windows has never had a clean start like OS X was (the change to the NT kernel doesn’t count because the software APIs didn’t really change). CS4 is essentially running with OS 9 UI code with a Carbon wrapper to make it work.
I think we will see the majority of users on 64-bit Windows with Windows 7. We’re quickly headed towards that because of the RAM ceiling in the 32-bit world. (Most PCs today ship with at least 3GB of RAM). I would think we’ll see more 64-bit than 32-bit copies sold at launch (to OEMs – retail is a whole different ballgame).
Definitely, I’m seeing many OEMs shipping PCs with 64-bit editions of Vista. I wouldn’t be surprised if all Windows 7 PCs are shipped with a 64-bit installation.
Couple of notes:
Adobe and the ‘carbon’ excuse. This is not Adobe’s shortfall, as Apple promised them and every other developer in the world that they would move carbon to 64bit as well and create a clear and easy path to 64bit for Carbon. 1) Apple either couldn’t pull it off. 2) Applie lied… Either way they screwed over a lot of developers that BELIEVED WHAT APPLE TOLD THEM and it screwed the developers.
64bit – not so fast… If anyone pay attention to the Vista and XP 64bit world, they know that devices need 64bit drivers as the OS is a full 64bit kernel and requires the drivers to be 64bit. Sadly Mac users would make of Vista x64 for requiring new 64bit drivers, not ‘getting’ that when OS X moves to 64bit they will be forced to deal with the same issues.
Well that day has arrived, and although it is going to be easier on Macs, as Apple controls most of the hardware and can produce the 64bit drivers themselves, there are a lot of 3rd party devices that will flat out fail and need a new 64bit driver for Snow Leopard to work. (And if the 3rd Party hardware MFT doesn’t make this driver, hardware will become bricks.)
This is already a big topic of issue in the Snow Leopard betas, as a lot of people are even trying to find ways to develop their own 64bit drivers for a lot of devices that have no native 64bit Snow Leopard drivers.
So Apple, good luck with your ‘real’ 64bit transition, as your users already think solved this problem, and will be shocked and POed…
Ah, 64-bit Mac OS. “For reals this time!!1!” I can’t be the only person sick and tired of listening to Apple bang on about 64-bit and the fail to deliver the goods. Tiger back in 2005? “It’ll be 64-bit on our awesome, best-CPU-ever G5s! You’ll get all this RAM!” And RAM was all we got. Listening to people try to spin 64-bit INT support as all that you need to be 64-bit was pretty painful. So, fast forward two years to Leopard. “It’s going to be 64-bit on our awesome, best-CPU-ever Core2s!” And we actually got some real, honest to god 64-bit support! Nothing beyond some kernel and API stuff, but at least you could clobber a 64-bit compile together if you wanted to; provided you used Cocoa, since Apple reneged on their promise to migrate Carbon. So, here we are in 2009, and once again Apple is telling us about the 64-bit second coming (or is that third? fourth?). “It’ll be 64-bit end to end! All the major applications will be 64-bit!” Wow Apple, it’s about damn time. Four years ago you promised 64-bit, and now you’re finally getting there. Hopefully when 10.7 gets announced we won’t be hearing about the “new, awesome 64-bitness!” anymore.
Kernel Panics only happen when something Really Bad happens. Usually hardware related (either the hardware itself of the kernel driver for it). They do not happen when some userland process manages to get a kernel mode subsystem to go AWOL. If Finder manages to get the disk subsystem to go on a wild goose chase from which it can never return, you will simply get a spinning beachball. Forever. Sure, I can march the cursor all over the screen, but nothing responds to it. I just wish that, in these cases, OS X would have the decency to just outright crash if it can’t recover gracefully.
And by your metric, OS X isn’t a clean start either. OS X is based upon NEXTStep (Cocoa and Objective-C are both from it), which is a BSD derivative created in the early 90s. And BSD started life in the 70s as an extension of Sixth Edition Unix, eventually becoming it’s own full Unix work-alike OS in the 80s. While it may have been new for Apple and their non-protected memory, cooperative multitasking OS, it was most definitely not a new OS. An OS does not need to be new to be good (although OS X wasn’t really any good until 10.1 and 10.2).
I do agree that much of what holds back current Windows versions is the lowest common denominator style of the win32 APIs. But that isn’t something that requires a whole new OS to be fixed (especially since NT was engineered from the beginning to allow multiple subsystem APIs to be used). If .net ever graduates to a first-class citizen with it’s own subsystem, things could change for the better quite fast. Sadly, much like Apple and Cocoa, Microsoft is dragging their feet about moving their own software to .net.
And what percentage of NT installs were actually on Alpha hardware? Very, very few. Escpecially since the platform showed every sign of being dropped completely when Windows 2000 was in beta. Compaq showed no interest in it after buying it; in fact, come 2001, Compaq officially announced exactly what everybody had guessed: they were pulling the plug on the Alpha, canceling the new CPU design, and phasing out all support in favor of Itanium. Given that the market for Alpha machines was going down the same road as the non-Apple PowerPC machines did, Microsoft was looking at spending time and money to support a dead, very niche customer.
This is not the case with Apple and their PowerPC line. Being their only support architecture for over a decade, removing support for it only three years after moving to Intel seems just a bit Too Soon. There might even be a few people with valid warranties on their G5s right now.
Announced in June of 2005, but didn’t materialize in shipping hardware until August of 2006. That’s more than a year lag time, and plenty of time for someone to purchase a soon-to-be obsolete G5 out of necessity (older G5 dies out of warranty, old G4 just can’t cut it for the current project, etc). In fact, the dual core G5s didn’t come out until August of 2005. I still have one of these at my desk at work.
And, no, it won’t suddenly stop working because Snow Leopard won’t support it. It will, however, become less of a useful tool with the loss of support. It already has lost some value due to other software vendors abandoning support of PowerPC in their latest versions. And due to the lovely vendor lock-in effects, many programs refuse to allow older versions to open newer files. Take Adobe’s After Effects. CS4 yanked PowerPC support completely, but you can’t take a CS4 project into CS3 (even if you don’t use any new CS4 features). So, project interoperability goes down unless you can force everyone to just keep using CS3. You can do this within a single company, but if you deal with others outside, you lose that kind of control.
There is nothing stopping modern GPUs from working in dual core PowerMac G5s except Apple’s lack of support. They would need to have correct firmware loaded to be usable and Apple would have to include PowerPC drivers for them. But that would mean extra work for Apple, and given how poor the graphics card market has always been for their platform, it just doesn’t seem like it has ever been a priority of theirs.
And Apple has been shipping a dual CPU PowerMac as far back as 2002, and even had a quad core G5 at the tail end in 2005. Of all the PowerPC Macs that are still in use by people who care to upgrade their OS (ie, not including the “it’s not broke, don’t touch it” types who are still sporting a G4 iMac with Panther on it in their study), I’d wager most are of the PowerMac variety. Most PowerBook holdouts have probably jumped onto the MacBook due to the fact that the Core2 makes the mobile G4 look like a joke. And given the price points of the G5 Mac Mini and the G3-G5 iMacs, if they haven’t simply died from hardware failures, it’s far easier to justify the replacement of a $1000 machine you bought 3-5 years ago than to justify the replacement of a $2500+ machine you bought 3-5 years ago. There’s bound to be some libraries of schools still running a bank of G4 iMacs, but they probably also haven’t even budgeted an OS upgrade to Leopard either.
added blockquotes. ~Bryant
Windows Vista wasn’t, and isn’t, a horrible operating system. The lack of proper support from Microsoft’s partners in regards to hardware and software compatibility, along with drivers, is what made Windows Vista look bad. With Windows Vista SP1, the kernel was updated to equal that of Windows Server 2008 and is rock-solid, and Service Pack 2 builds on that foundation even more.
Windows 7 is classified as a major release, and it has a lot of brand new features which will increase productivity and make using the computer more enjoyable.
… and besides, what the hell do you call Mac OS X Snow Leopard? It’s a refinement of Mac OS X Leopard. And don’t tell me Mac OS X Leopard is better than Windows Vista or Windows 7, because I haven’t seen Windows Vista throw a STOP error in almost 3 years unless it was because of a bad, unsigned third party kernel-mode driver in 32-bit. 64-bit has been rock solid from the get-go. Mac OS X Leopard on a Unibody MacBook Pro on the other hand litters the system.log file with rogue error messages regarding Apple’s kernel extensions, beachballs whenever an application like Safari feels like taking a lunch break, doesn’t always resume from sleep properly, and kernel panics if the sun doesn’t shine.
Whole heartedly agree.
The main similarity I see between Windows 7 and OS X Snow Leopard is that both operating systems focus on refining their predecessor, and on speed. Windows 7 is no major upgrade either, but both are for various reasons still major operating system releases and nothing near “service packs”. If OS X was similar to a service pack, it sure wouldn’t leave its work with a whopping 6 GB less disk space consumption by the OS, and pretty insane speed increases. On an OS that didn’t have major speed issues to begin with, so you can’t blame it for the same level of hardware requirements as Vista on release. Snow Leopard will jump from the hardware requirement of 512 MB to 1 GB, while Windows 7 is working on lowering the de facto hardware requirement of Vista of 2 GB to 1 GB. At least if you aren’t a masochist. That’s a difference as well. Windows 7 is born much more out of necessity than Snow Leopard.
@Jug
You might want to read it once more. That 6 gig cut is because Apple dropped PPC support, and Vista SP1 offered similar speed increases to RTM that Snow Leopard gave to Leopard (speaking from experience on both platforms, here).
The 6 GB cut is not from the PPC cut, most of the code is platform-independent.
Sam Johnson, I have to wonder what you’re smoking. Most of the code is NOT platform-independent, not close. A small fraction of it is Java or LLVM, but the vast majority of source in Mac OS is C or Objective-C compiled to… guess what!… native code. If you can tell me how to make that code platform-independent without running it in an emulator or a VM, I can hook you up with a six-figure job.
My experiences with Windows Vista has been so much better than any time I’ve spent in OS-X Leopard and Tiger combined. So say Vista is “horrible” operating system shows that people just like to make things up, when they’ve probably not logged enough hours with current service packs and update’s to see how far Windows Vista has come from the RTM. Most people thought OS-X 10.0 though 10.2 very frustraitingly unuseable. At least Vista RTM was useable on modern hardware. It was only when OS-X got to 10.3 and 10.4 that that it was useable and very compelling reason to switch off of Windows XP. However, if you look at Windows Vista’s security performance and number of vulnerabiltiies, Windows Vista has completely outperformed OS-X Leopard and Tiger in security. With over 800 vulnerabilities in 2008, Apple has some security work to do. Especially when it comes to Safari and Quicktime. However, saying that OS-X is perfect is so much of a lie that its laughable.
Windows 7 goes far beyond Vista. A complete overhaul and upgrade of the UI. Overhauled muticore, kernel, and networking improvements across the board. New implementation for SSD’s. Those are just the beginnning. The improvements to Windows 7 do more to the Windows platform than SnowLeopard does. If they could fix Vista to be Windows 7, Microsoft would have. Just as they completely overhauled XP’s security in free service packs with XP SP 2 and 3. If you want what I find is an appropriate analogy, Windows 7 is approximately like OS-X 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5 rolled up with new and more relevant technology upgrades in one upgrade with one price. Except for the last 5 versions of OS-X, you’ve paid 129,99 price point 5 times. So thats a grand total of $649.95 plus tax for what we’re going to get for much less. Now you’re paying an additional $29 in upgrades that have been apart of Windows for years. That my friends is the root of the Apple tax.
Windows users get at least 2 possibly 3 service packs for free, while OS-X users will have to pay for the service pack in 10.7. Unlike SnowLeopard, XP 64, Vista 64, and 7 64 are 100 percent fully 64 bit operating systems. Apple still hasn’t become 100%. As of Windows 7, I’ve fully transitioned to 64 bit OS. I’m pretty sure that the Windows 7 generation will most likely be the last of the 32 bit era.
If you claim that Snow Leopard is merely a “service pack”, then I propose that windows 7 is merely a service pack for vista, and must be free.
The only features Microsoft has added to Windows 7 are “under that hood” changes that you explain of, and they will probably charge full price for it. Honestly, all these new GUI improvements in Windows 7 are mere copies of their OSX counterparts. They finally, (after years of OSX already having them) adding GUI features that would make work much easier. If anyone is getting ripped off, it is Windows users for having to pay more than $100 for a service pack known as windows 7.
Next thing, Snow Leopard will still have 32-bit APIs that will allow users to run older applications. What does a 64 bit version of 7 say? It says “Screw 32 bit apps”, and gives you no options for compatability. At least Snow Leopard will allow users to use 32 bit and 64 bit applications in live time, without comprimising for compatability.
For your information 6 Gigs is a HUGE difference. If you are seriously not impressed, it is probably because you already live with a bloated 40 gigabyte version of windows vista ultimate. Of course, to you, 6 gigs would make little difference, but in a world where OSX is only 10 gigs in size, 6 gigs is more than half of the original size of the OS.
As for 64 vit versions of Adobe’s creative suite, do not try to feed false information. If Adobe wanted to, they could of built a 64 bit version of their program. Why didn’t they do it? It was because apple dropped support for carbon, and has since been focusing on cocoa. Adobe dropped their 64 bit version of their in-dev carbon suite because apple discouraged the older technology.
Leopard is already a 64 bit operating system with 32 bit components, much like windows 7 is a 64 bit operating system with 32 bit components.
Also, you bash on expose, which has been around since 2003 FYI. In fact, I can place Expose right into my dock on 10.5, but I don’t need to because I have a keyboard shortcut already that is more efficient than throwing my mouse over to the edge of the screen. Expose is nothing new. Microsoft ripped off the concept first in 2006 with flip 3d (which is horrible BTW), and now they do this. Hah, originality at it’s best.
It is sad that apple removed ZFS support, but it is incredibly easy to add ZFS support in existing systems with 3rd party add-ons. Windows doesn’t even have ZFS support, so quit your complaining.
In conclusion, your complaints are what every other Windows Fanboy has used. You claim that Snow Leopard is a “service pack”, a gimick that 7fanbois have used. Well I present this to you, Windows 7 is only a service pack and should be free. Oh, thats right, microsoft is going to charge $200 for their ultimate version. You guys got canned by redmond.
@Yelonde@gmail.com (I don’t know why you used your email as your name, but that’s your call. I guess it’s a Mac thing to open email addresses to boatloads of spam)
1. Your first argument proposes nothing, especially since Microsoft threw money at user experience research, which is something Apple has never done. That’s why the superbar is better than the dock, and I’m not the only one who agrees. The original coiners of the term “Jesus Phone” agree with me as well.
2. Windows 7 has WOW64 and has had WOW64 since XP, which was the first x64 OS ever released.
3. 6GB is a huge difference, but you clearly didn’t read my post (and posts by others who looked at Snow Leopard). All PPC emulation code was removed, and yes, that does total 6GB. In other words, that drop in space was just because Apple killed backwards compatibility with a platform which still has computers less than 3.5 years old.
4. I checked with my contacts at Adobe before approving your comment just to see how informed your claim might’ve been. As it turns out, you did indeed miss the big picture and instead argued the same cocoa v. carbon point.
Adobe poured their resources into 64bit on Windows because they knew that Windows was worth their investment. Windows was already on boxes with large amounts of ram, and ram management in Vista was already better than ram management in Leopard (Superfetch meant Photoshop could be loaded in a heartbeat, and Vista x64 offers a completely native 64bit environment, thus allowing for CS4 to be run via x64 without any emulation in any part whatsoever). As for cocoa v. carbon, we get back to ROI. It’s not a matter of laziness, it’s a matter of how much money would be made from porting the whole suite to a new codebase for a smaller subset of users. Porting to cocoa for less users v. coding for native x64 usage for more users… the choice is obvious from a business perspective.
5. Leopard is a 64bit OS with 32bit components running natively. It’s an incomplete transition, which is why Apple touted 64bit so heavily at the keynote. 7 and Vista x64 are 64bit at heart with the ability to run 32bit code via WOW64, and because there are no 32bit components or drivers running natively, it allows for more stability.
6. Aero Peek is nothing like Expose. Expose gives scaled-down previews, while Peek gives full window previews. From a functionality perspective, Aero Peek wins, and I’m not the only one who agrees.
7. Desperate argument, as I wasn’t comparing it to Windows. If we’re going to look at disk functionality, let’s take a look at Dynamic Disks in Windows and you can tell me which one is more useful in a business environment (even though Dynamic Disks aren’t a file system).
8. In conclusion, your entire post failed. Let’s explain why:
- You used personal insults to try and belittle the reader into following your opinion.
- You were completely uninformed with regards to how both Windows and Mac OS work. Vista retains 32bit compatibility and then some, while Snow Leopard only recently reached that same bar (Leopard was a 64/32bit mash, as was Tiger). You also didn’t understand the source of the 6GB free-up in space, the fundamental differences in the gui elements between the two operating systems, and (as usual) pulled up the argument that Microsoft copied Apple when in fact it was the other way around (forcing Expose onto the dock as was done with Aero Peek. Such a mundane thing to copy, too).
- You were highly uninformed with regards to the nature of the Adobe/Apple Cocoa/Carbon conflict (which I explained above).
- You contradicted yourself. You said Windows went with the “Screw 32bit apps” approach but then followed up with “much like windows 7 is a 64 bit operating system with 32 bit components.”
- You repeatedly stressed unverifiable and unsubstantiated points (such as Microsoft copying Apple) without proof in order to drive it through the reader’s head.
- You used off-topic arguments to drive attention away from a particular failing (see your note about ZFS)
- You didn’t cite any points at all. I at least cited two with links from reputed Apple-leaning blogs.
In short, you pulled a Fox News on the readers, and your argument that Windows 7 is also a service pack totally failed due to the flawed nature of everything you wrote, so my reply was necessary to counteract your work.
Thankfully, people know where to reach you. I suppose you did yourself a favor making your email public.
I don’t know about API’s, Cocoa, Kernels and all this developer stuff, all I know is when I am actually using my computer, I want it to be nice and simple and be able to play games while still being stable. I’ve owned some Dell before and didn’t like it whatsoever. It was running XP which I thought was a good operating system, but it would usually crash even if I just played something like Starcraft (don’t ask me what the graphics card because for the life of me, I can’t remember). Then I got a MacBook Pro for college (pre-unibody) and man do I love it. Yea it’s kinda a bitch t play games, but that’s nothing a little upgrade in memory and VMWare/Bootcamp can’t fix. Don’t get me wrong, I love XP, but my main gripe was ease of use and being able to find stuff. When I used XP it usually took awhile to find something I was searching for in Explorer, but Finder is always faster, and that’s a must when I’m looking for some paper I might have written for reference or something else.
I haven’t used Vista that much yet cuz I didn’t wanna buy it (honestly, I’m a college student, I can’t afford it between paying for phone bill, gas, etc.) but I would like to. I would just want someone to explain to me why some people think it’s a memory hog and others to explain to me that it’s not (if it really isn’t). I will definitely buy it later on (when I’ve saved) if someone can convince me, not that it’s better than OSX (please don’t, I already really like OSX and just wanna be able to run Vista, as well. I’m sure they probably both kick ass), but that it’s a good OS worth getting. I’ve heard mixed reviews, but mainly I’ve heard bad things. Or would someone suggest skipping it and going straight to Windows 7?
[...] Upgrade is Expensive: So is the upgrade to Leopard. Users are already being charged for a service pack, and users who bought their computers with Tiger without moving to Leopard will be charged even [...]