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96 Comments
- Arkonnan, on 10/12/2007, -8/+29Ahh, so it's purely an elitism thing then.
- MrFlibble1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22I am now the owner of a 17" iMac. I ended up with it because I told my mother to buy an iMac to replace her aging PC. I told her to get a 20" iMac, but she wanted to be cheap.
My "Tech Support Calls" just went away, apart from getting the email settings setup (I have my own domain, and she uses email through it).
When visiting home, I showed her how her 17" iMac was superior to her DVD/TV combo, and easier to figure out, and it worked as a stereo for her too. Hell, it came with a remote!
Next thing I knew, she ran out and bought the 20" iMac and gave it to me. So, I now own a 17" iMac. I had thought about getting one, but I was in no need of a new system at this point.
However, I have worked with Unix, Linux and yes, Mac's in a server environment. I got this iMac home and I love it. Just for giggles, I installed XP with boot camp to see how it runs HL2, and it runs well. However, when it comes to just getting things done the mac is great. Gaming? Well, its not XP, but for just general use it rocks. Hell, it is a real Unix under the hood for geeks, and for non-geeks, it is unbelievably easy to use. In fact, it is *TOO* easy to use, I keep trying too hard to do stuff that is right in front of my face.
But that is great for my Mom, hell, it is great for everyone I know that considers "gaming" to be solitaire or minesweeper.
The thing is, apart from gaming, if you just want to get stuff done, it is fantastic. When I installed XP, it just felt wrong. How so? I got used to sitting down in front of the Mac, and just having my stuff work. XP decides to steal the focus of my mouse, and put context windows up in front of my face to notify me that MSN is starting, or whatever. On the mac, stuff just bounces up and down at the bottom of the screen if it wants your attention, but it does not make a sound.
Hell, when you mistype your password on a protected login, it does not play a loud "BONK!" noise to scold you for being a dumb-ass, but just "shakes its head" to indicate that your password is wrong.
As the guys at Penny Arcade said, it is like "Playing on Easy Mode", The damn thing just works, and works really well. It is a collection of little things that make it great, and for people like me, the back end Unix tools are awesome. Hell, last night I was fighting wit h one of my older Linux machines to get Nessus 3.03 installed and running, I decided to try the iMac. It installed and ran in seconds. It was quite impressive. I brought it into work to perform the internal security audit, and nessus ran just like I am used to on a Linux box. And Kismac ran well too for auditing the wireless network (but to be honest, Kismac is a bit buggy at this point).
So do I like it? Yes, I love it. I will need a laptop for work, and it is going to be a powerbook, because there are windows only apps I require for work, but there are Unix apps I need for work too, and all the Unix apps just work.
Switch to a mac? I originally thought they were just for people like my Mom. I was wrong.
(a little more detail for those who care: http://www.walford.ca/2006/09/05/moving-to-the-dark-side-os-x.html ) - SpacedCowboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19@whiteguysamurai
Don't think so. I've been using computers for the last 25 years. I've used 4-bits, 8-bits, 16-bits, 32-bits and 64-bits. I've used computers with no OS, ones with built-in OS/BASIC, Atari's, Amiga's, Win-95,Win-98,Win-NT,Win-XP, VMS, Ultrix, OSF-1, HPUX, AIX, Irix, Linux (since it came on 1 floppy and wasn't even self-hosting "boot disk *and* root-disk" ? Hah)!
OSX is the best damn unix workstation I've ever used.
The combination of people having actually put *thought* into how things ought to work so that it does indeed "just work", all the little things that make life easier, the fact that all the commercial s/w I want is there, and (as a fallback) it can run my FPGA synthesis s/w (under Linux, in Parallels) makes it just-about ideal.
I'm not a fanboy - before OSX I thought Macs sucked, frankly, but the beast today is different from that of yesteryear, and I *am* a fan. I'm the database tech-lead on a piece of s/w used by tens of thousands of people. I'm about as hardcore techie as you can imagine, and I rate an OSX box as the best machine to use.
"intimidated by windows" ? Nope. Not even close. I design CPU's for fun (this is the literal truth - see FPGA comment above). I've written my own OS, my own compiler front and back-end, and this is just spare-time stuff where I'm an amateur. I'm actually quite good at what I do professionally, and I do it on OSX.
This turned into me blowing my own trumpet a bit more than I would usually - sorry about that. I just wanted to point out that on the spectrum of Mac owners, there are two extremes, and it appeals to the very-techie end as much as the non-techie end. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Simply put, when a story like this isn't news, the mainsteam will be ready for Macs.
- Boondoggle, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22because it isn't about buying the product you like, it is about buying the product the person you wish you were would like.
- WiseWeasel, on 10/12/2007, -7/+22Why Macs aren't ready for corporate use: Apple doesn't cater to that market. They like to change things up for the heck of it, and aren't big on support for legacy apps and backwards compatibility. Microsoft already caters to that market quite well, to the detriment of their consumer offerings. I use both OSs extensively, and I have no delusions about the MacOS taking over the corporate market, or even putting a dent in it. Linux will be a much more likely candidate for that...
- goat77, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18"Apples are ready for mainstream"
The consumers decide that, not analysts. - Quix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16@MrFlibble1:
Welcome to your new computing life! I dumped my home PC for good a few months ago (unfortunately I still have to use one at work).
But shhhh, don't praise your new Mac too much. Enraged haters will brand you as a "fanboy" and a "sheep," among other, best-not-said things. Better to keep things on the down low. We don't want to get too "mainstream." Let them worry about all the malware and viruses on their Windows boxes. :) - Coestar, on 10/12/2007, -11/+24You can say Macs are ready for the mainstream all day long (and I believe they have been for awhile) -- getting people to switch is another story. Additionally, there aren't any reasons given in this article as to what advantages switching to a Mac (on any teir) would provide.
Otherwise, it was a very interesting read. - UNL1M1T3D, on 10/12/2007, -9/+19I disagree. I work at Staples (not glamourous, but it pays the bills) and over the last three to four months I have seen more and more people coming in, either using them and needing help or inquiring about them.
- daldredge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Apple is still a single source supplier and some corps have rules against using such suppliers because it gives the supplier too much room to raise prices in the future.
- rickcarson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8There are a couple of benefits discussed in the article:
Higher productivity. As a contract programmer that works with a variety of different organisations I have two concrete examples of how this comes into play, and one less tangible.
(1) When the Windows users have control of their desktops, it takes at least $15,000 more programmer hours to set up and configure a brand new PC for use by a Java programmer than it does for a brand new Mac. Your mileage may vary, but the Mac comes able to use a bunch of other languages (C, C++ (thank you GCC), Ruby, Python etc.) right out of the box. Example: Macs come with the latest (non beta) version of Java (1.5 or as the marketting types like to call it 5.0) pre-installed. MySQL is dead easy to download and install on a Mac.
(2) When the Windows users don't have control of their desktops (because of legitimate business/admin concerns about spyware and viruses), then you end up effectively with an incredibly expensive dumb terminal - which obviously lowers productivity due to the extra hassles of running things like VMS, and moving files around between virtual machines, and copying and pasting between them. We all hated the 'Network Computer' back in the 90s - but that is what I am seeing IT admins turning windows into.
(3) The less tangible benefits are various productivity enhancements that come from having a higher common standard. On Windows I don't really bother with shortcut keys other than cut and paste and save, since everybody and their dog has a different mapping. On the Mac I gradually started using them and it impresses me how uniform they are between apps (not perfectly uniform, but pretty good).
In the business context you don't care about crap like iPhoto (though the marketing department might get into that sort of thing). But no matter how much 'lick-able' and 'scrolls like butter' they slap on Ubuntu it still doesn't do Java and MP3s out of the box. And as a programmer, those are two things are show-stoppers.
As for games, I don't see much call for that sort of thing at work. It is easy enough to get a bunch of people together and go down to one of those internet/gaming places and have a frag session there if you want.
Second benefit: Easier Administration. I'm not an Admin (so I'll leave this for people better qualified to discuss), but in the article they make it sound dead easy to admin a bunch of Macs.
@rompom7
(1) Read the bloody article you *****. It is about using Mac in the Enterprise/busines space. Show me the corporation you last worked for that on day one after being shown where the fire escapes and loos were taken back to your desk where they had a bunch of components you had to assemble into a PC for you to work on... and I will point and laugh.
(2) You actually raise a good point that I don't think they addressed in the article. For most businesses it seems like the real killer app is not Excel or MS Office, but Outlook (plus Exchange?). That whole integrated email + meetings solution thing. I think this is the real secret strangle-hold that Microsoft has on the enterprise space. Presumably this is because the people who make the purchasing decisions spend all day in meetings and answering emails. - Daniel591992, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12"Battlefield 2142"
how can your pc play it when it's not even out?? ;) - Crackshot, on 10/12/2007, -13/+20Speaking from the standpoint of many Mac users I'm not so sure I want Mac to go mainstream,
It's kind of like your favorite indy film becomming cool to everyone all of a sudden, it just loses some of its luster - MrFlibble1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I disagree.
I have worked with Linux/Unix etc. in a server environment for quite some time, and where the Mac beats linux (and windows) is in the GUI. Aqua is how X11 *SHOULD* function. Sure, Gnome and KDE, and all the other window managers you can possibly think of can do great stuff, but the advantage of the mac is that the back end is open (Darwin) and a true Unix, so all your Linux tools work on the Mac.
But the key is the GUI. The GUI is consistent across all versions of the same OS (IE Tiger, Jaguar etc.) The GUI "war" for Linux, harms Linux adoption.
As I work with Linux in a server environment, I think Linux is the cats ass. But as someone who works with it a great deal, I don't find it as ready for the desktop as Mac OS X.
The GUI is where the Mac wins. I like Aqua, hell the "alt-tab" function in Aqua is awesome, and so are the widgets (Much better than the Linux Widgets I used to use).
And Open Office runs just fine on it, but then again, so does Microsoft Office.
And since it is a true Unix under the hood, attacks may require privilidge escalation to damage the machine, thus, spyware and viruses are signifigantly harder to create for a Unix style system.
The consistency of the GUI experience is what makes the Mac good, and it has all the command line tools that Linux does. In fact, the Launcher is superior to xinetd! Linux should copy it! - scelestus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9@ zdiggler:
That's a retarded argument. I have an old 350mhz G3 that is running Mac OS X Tiger and it runs perfect! That machine is damn near 8 years old. Go ahead and install XP on a 350mhz Pentium and let me know how it runs. - Klisk, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12MAC is ALREADY mainstream, to be honest with ya'... The ipod did it. People started buying Apple laptops after that. It's not only ready, it's THERE.
- Harbinger67, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Macs remove the pesky "thought" aspect from computer usage. Thus, it is more than ready for the mainstream.
- Arkonnan, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12> They can, you have to use bootcamp and Windows to do it.
Doesn't that completely defeat the point of buying a Mac in the first place?
What does it say about the Mac experience if you need Windows to complete it? - krouskop, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Macs have been "ready for the mainstream" for a long long long long long time. Like, since 1984.
And as for server-readiness, absolutely. It's BSD under the hood. Want a Mac w/o a GUI - go ahead. There are command line tools for everything you can do in the graphical environment. - t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Burke - yeah, you can actually disable the windowserver very easily. Commenting out two lines in /etc/rc will make it commandline-only.
Not that it actually takes up much power. - MrFlibble1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7So?
You are a computer junkie. Most computer users are not. I have four PC's in the room I am currently in, and a WRT54G running DD-WRT. That should qualify me as a geek I suppose.
But I have a Mac as well, and I really like it. I prefer the GUI to the Linux GUI's (Yes, I HAVE tried, them, I work with Linux on a daily basis)
And you can run XP or Linux on their hardware, and when Jaguar comes out, it will work on the same Mac.
However, my mother was, until recently, using Windows 95 on a Pentium 200 MMX. Think about that hardware and that OS. I could have put Linux on her machine, but what would the point be? It is not powerful enough to do much anymore, stuff just goes obselete. Most people are not geeks like us, most people want their computer to surf the web, send and recieve email, chat, and do webcam stuff. Add to that photographs, and minor web publishing, and you have what a large majority of computer user want. That is, the non geeks.
So maybe a Mac is not for you. Ok, fair enough. But to disparage the Mac because you can't build one from newegg is a specious argument at best. Most people don't know what is inside their computer and they don't care.
Its like people who trick out their cars. Most people don't care about a Vtech engine, rims, stickers and a totally pointless tail fin on their car. They just want a car that works. Only the enthusiasts trick out their cars. Regular people dont. The same applies to computers.
They just want their computer to work, and the Mac covers this better, IMO than any OS/Hardware combo out there. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@everybody
The other half of Crackshot's point is that something going mainstream changes that thing for the people who liked it fine before. The mainstream happens to have a habit of grabbing your favorite gourmet restaurant and turning it into a McDonalds.
MacIntosh has it's quality simply because it doesn't try to be the corner hooker in a bid to win EVERY customer. In fact, nearly every operating system except one has that quality for the same reason. - snuf42, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Well the beta is out. I've played it.
- titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12They can, you have to use bootcamp and Windows to do it.
- zdiggler, on 10/12/2007, -11/+16let me see, I can't built a Mac with part from NewEgg.com. Don't any any choices of which graphic card I like. Only thing good about Mac are OS is based on BSD. Other then that everything else is just visual crap with bliking stanby lights.
One problem with Apple and Mac that suck is this. When OS 11 or what ever come out you will have to upgrade the hardware too. Where Linux could run on old X86 machines and even Windows XP will run on a P2 500mzh with 128mb of memory. - Zuhaib, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11Sorry but i say no...
And the main reason is there hardware support.
What?! Yeah every apple fanboi is going to yell, but, in truth it is there warranty.
In this day of age, everyone is talking about Dell's poor support, calling India and etc and as a users of a lot of Dell systems i feel the pains also. Well it was till i got a friend a Macbook. The first day it started to shows signs of the random shutdown issue, so i thought, well its time this baby is sent back to apple for some work. So i call them up when i get home from work (which i live in the Bay Area, home of Apple and like everyone here i have a one hour commute home from work) and call AppleCare. I get this voice message, they are close. HuH? Well, it seems Apple does not provide 24/7 support, something you get on the lowest of Dell's and HP's!
I am sorry, but, for normal joe out there who cant troubleshoot problems and not as savvy as the current Apple User base, this would be a deal killer. If its 9PM and your typing an paper for English Class and your macs starts to acts all "weird" (which is the level of troubleshooting most users do, call an issue "weird"), and they cant get hold of ANYONE, even some poor sap in India who i bet 9/10 will find the answer on there internal troubleshooting list, they will just be pissed. And having to wait till the next day, and, find time to call apple support then wont help if the paper was due the next day.
Right now the savvy users base of Apple means a lot of problems are caught by forums, or the user himself/herself and its find. Crazy things like the RDS and things like that you cant really repair and do need to be sent back. And the rumors i hear about turn around is another scary thing, but i will wait to test that first hand, as people also talk about Dells bad return time but i have been lucky in that regard.
And dont even talk about business. I dont know about apple Mac pro, but if one of those babies decide to choke at 1am, and its in a small business where most of the "System Admin" just so happens to be the VP, VP of Marketing, and trash guy, it again will kill them.
I think there hardware is great, and i love there software (I remember the first day i used OS X at high school.. As a Unix Person i feel in love), but, right now they need to provide the support for the mainstream before they can go mainstream - Xeth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The Linux kernel is a piece of crap hack job anyway.
* Gets ready to be buried *
Seriously, BSD really is far superior to Linux. - burke, on 10/12/2007, -9/+13"Macs in the mainstream"
Sounds good to me.
"even on a server rack?"
Sorry, no.
Well, maybe... can you disable all the GUI crap that servers should never have?
(sorry, I'm not just trying to get near the top of the page, I actually forgot I hit the reply link) - maninblac1, on 10/12/2007, -9/+13"Neither you nor any of Apple’s competitors could turn off-the-shelf components into a machine of comparable quality and functionality in the same price range as a Mac."
I disagree, not only can you build it for a comparable price, but retail parts have better warranties than their OEM counterparts and are often of higher quality. The only thing you can't build like a Mac, is the case, and how the parts fit in it.
"When Vista ships, Apple will be delivering all of its new Macs with OS X Leopard (see “Leopard Leaps IN,” page 22). And if you’re hung up on Vista, the third-party Parallels Desktop will run it at blistering speed as a guest OS under OS X. There will be no vice versa in Vista’s favor. "
Uh, VMware with a BSD base, runs OSX just fine, runs for windows....hmm i don't think you can argue that point. But what's worse is that Vista will ship before Leopard, unless Apple has a trick up it's sleeve.
I think Apple hardware is ready for the big time, OSX "server" is simply not viable for a business solution, not yet. Unix and Linux will dominate the server market, and windows servers will provide domain control and Exchange servers. This is how it is because this is how business operates. - snuf42, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6What I find interesting is that if you read Yager's columns, the man is a HUGE fan of AMD in the server space. He loves Opteron and wrote a column strongly slamming the Core 2 architecture saying that it will lose steam in the 4 way and greater CPU market (it likely will due to bus contention). Yet he turns around and tells us that we will all be running Macs as servers and Linux is doomed to be only used in the embedded market.
I work in a mixed Mac/Linux/PC business and I would love to put Macs in the server space - but they are simply lacking in both hardware choice and interoperability with enterprise class products. Not too mention that vendors like EMC, HP and the like's idea of Mac integration is having them mount SMB shares. Wheee.
I really don't believe that Apple is serious at this time about being anything but a niche player in the high end market. Take a look at XSAN's feature set versus other SAN vendors. You want things like snapshotting, off site mirroring, iSCSI support, disaster recovery - it isn't there. XSAN is like a big, fast arrary for use with Final Cut Pro, exactly what Apple's niche market needs, but not what Apple needs to compete on the high end business market. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Most of the comments on here are from people who don't own xserves and are scared to run them, quite natural. Most of the comments are pretty silly actually. Someone yelled about 24/7 tech support, but if you're a network engineer you better know macs inside and out before you put it on your enterprise network, silly. Hardware issues, not being able to switch it out with something you buy from newegg.com, silly. If you don't get more than you want from apple.com's store, maybe you need a specialized machine? I mean, you're kinda blowing it out of proportion. Making the machine out to be some kind of "supreme machine". Buy what is necessary to run your business effectively and efficiently.
And that's the main point the author was trying to make, can Apple run certain parts of your business more effectively and efficiently. Instead of slamming Apple and being scared of it, the author is implying to investigate it because it may help you. And I know I.T. peeps need the help! :) - Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5As a Mac user I can't see any problem with Mac's going mainstream, and when people complain about that it pisses me off. The same people would complain if Apple was losing marketshare. This attitude is ridiculous, and it only gives Mac users a bad name. I consider myself a pretty normal guy, and have no problem being able to iChat with all of my friends.
- Bootes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6They'll be able to play UT2k7 who needs Battlefield? ;)
- MacParrot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4When you manage to make a decent living playing CC: Tiberium War and Battlefield 2142, then we'll talk
- ChrisHB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Microsoft is not a single source supplier?
- ramsinks.com, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"Macs are ready for the mainstream"
Um, where have you been for the last 8 years? - artman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Well, I for one I will hit the pillow realizing InfoWorld got it right for once.
/bookmarking this one
//for idiotic PC/Mac flame wars
///it'll save me typing - pjack91, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Looking at the fact that Firefox isn't used by most users of Windows, I don't think enought people will ever switch to give them the majority.
- goat77, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yeah, look on mininova and you'll see OSX hacked to run on AMD systems. If people will go that far, think of the money you could make. It's practically FREE money...
- addicted68098, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I know alot of people who would be willing to pay for the software.
- MrFlibble1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2True, I have used mac's in a server environment, and from a cost perspective, the Linux machines beat them. I was impressed with Darwin in a server environment though, that was my first exposure to OS X, Heh, I never even saw the GUI on the macs until a year after I left that job! Everything was SSH.
I don't know if I would say they are not ready for a server environment, I think the competition is fierce, and that really is what would keep them out. But otherwise, I think they could win server space as they are quality machines IMO.
And some of the things they are doing with the back end are impressive, launchd being one of them. That, and many geeks are starting to lean towards macs, and given the bash shell, and Unix back end, it is easier to move from Linux to a Mac than Dos to Bash... - BrainInAJar, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6They'd never use Linux as the core of OSX, the license is too viral. GPL would force them to open up a whole lot of things that they don't want to, and it'd force 3rd party vendors to open things they don't want to either
BSD or Solaris, sure (Schwartz actually offered help to get OSX running on Solaris)... Linux, never - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I thought Macs were mainstream.
It's all they use in my school district. - PhillyMJS, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@SpacedCowboy:
"If the intel xserve isn't out, then http://tinyurl.com/flnoa is an odd page to have on their website."
Did you actually read that page? It has a button that says "Notify me when available" which leads to a contact form.
The Intel based Xserve was announced at WWDC, but IIRC it does not ship until sometime in October.
~Philly - durandal2005, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Apple isn't anti-gaming, game studios are anti-Apple. Apple doesn't have any control over what platform the games are written for.
- WiseWeasel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1OS X Server's only real corporate role is managing OS X clients.
- whosmatt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2of course this will all be moot once Apple and Sun merge.
It's too simple, Sun gets the slick marketing machine they need, and Apple gets the enterprise cred it needs. - pixelminer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As long as Apple is anti-gaming the Mac will never be mainstream.
Someone should make a parody of those stupid Mac ads where the PC guy is having all sort of fun dressing up for gaming adventures while the "too cool for school" Mac guy is stuck in a design office doing page layout on a community newspaper.
The ads are LAME and so is this story. - EnsErmac, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5The reason that MacOS X works as well as it does, is the controlling of all the hardware. Linux and Windows have to support god knows what amount of hardware. 9 times out of 10 you plug something in on a mac and it just works.
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