news.cnet.com— Microsoft's chief operating officer recounts a phone call he says he got from the Apple legal department, demanding the removal of the TV ads. Read this blog post by Steven Musil on Apple.
Jul 16, 2009View in Crawl 4
About Macbooks being solid and strongMy friend has a Macbook, he came over the other day, pulled out his Macbook and superglue. Why? Because he had to glue a CHUNK of laptop that had broken off because the stubs next to the moniter put too much pressure on the base. My Dell 6400 on the other hand, 2 years, just a little scratched
@jetsetter883"it was a case of the latter with the excuse of the former."Hardly. Microsoft's ads were widely criticized for being shallow and misleading. For example, the "big screen" laptops that the ads showcase had horrendous image quality and low resolution (for example, "Sheila's" 16-inch display with 1366 x 768 resolution). The one in the Lauren ad had been called out for being abysmal in reviews, with one consumer writing that it "has the worst screen I have ever seen in my life. It's the 1440x900 screen and the viewing angles are so poor that even when sitting directly eye level with the screen it is totally washed out. If I go a little bit off-axis the screen results in a negative image. I was using the default settings. Unfortunately I didn't read reviews before i purchased." The bargain system that Lauren chose had DDR2 (not DDR3) RAM, a battery life rated at 2.5 hours, an 8lb. weight, and something that is 2" thick when closed.That's not comparable to a Mac in any way and it's despicable to mislead naive consumers into believing it is.The ads pass the actors and actresses as consumers who were given money to spend on laptops and who made their own decisions. There was the infamous "Lauren" ad which purported to show her entering and exiting the Apple store, but she never even actually went in.The pricing aspect of it is minor compared to the fact that the ads were complete, scripted fabrications passed off as reality.
@TurnerJoy"Thats weird fmaxwell but I've read quite a few of the major review sites and enthusiast forums and that test never comes up and I don't see an explanation of what its tests and how (short read/writes, just cpu, cpu + memory etc), and they don't explain how their calculation is done."Until you provide an alternative, Geekbench is the gold-standard. That was the best cross-platform reference I could find. If you doubt it's veracity, then do your research and provide the information. If you want to use SPEC benchmarks, burn a disc, go into an Apple store, and run the benchmarks yourself. Or find results posted by others.I'm sick of your rock throwing. You've provided nothing. No benchmarks. No performance numbers. No links to technical articles. No links to reviews. No links to editorials. Nothing. How lazy and intellectually dishonest are you?"Thats why I wanted to see a Mac with bootcamp running the PC version to see if their was a score difference."If you had a bit better work ethic, you could have found the information you sought here:<a class="user" href="http://macwinuxit.com/2009/04/14/96/">http://macwinuxit.com/2009/04/14/96/</a>Short version: It scores somewhat higher on OS X because OS X Leopard is a faster OS than Windows Vista. BUT: The fastest desktop PC running Windows is a Mac Pro. So, perhaps we can now say, regardless of OS bias you perceive, the Mac Pro is the fastest, or at least one of the fastest, desktop computers available. "They really expect me to believe that a Intel Xeon W5580 @ 3.19 GHz (16 cores) (18765 score) is 2.5 times faster than Intel Core i7 920 16 cores @ 2670 MHz (7503 score)."Funny, but I could not find that listed on their web site. Page 456 of the results had two systems with 7503 scores, but nothing like what you described. But since I know nothing about that system other than clock speed and CPU, I could not predict how fast it would run."On top of what I already stated as common sense, I don't see the chipset used on Apple's site but I'm almost certain its an Intel chipset, and the Xeon used is basicly a rebranded/rebinned core 2 processor. Their is 0 chance that it is 3 times faster then Intels newest generation chips."Your ignorance is showing. The current generation of Xeon is based on the same Nehalem core as the Core i7 (Intel's latest generation chips). And there are two of them in the top of the line Mac Pro. Perhaps this information from the CNET review of the current Mac Pro will clear things up for you:"The raw processor power of the twin Xeons impresses, especially in any application that makes good use of multi-core processors. Running Cinebench to measure its performance with a single chip, the Mac Pro’s 2.26GHz Xeon still managed to match the performance of a Core i7 PC running at 3GHz. And when Cinebench moved on to test both processors that’s eight physical cores altogether (16 logical cores with Hyperthreading) the Mac Pro pulled way ahead of even the heavily overclocked 3.7GHz Wired2Fire Diablo, delivering 22,415 points in Cinebench. As we expected, running the Mac version of Cinebench under OSX produced similar results, making this the fastest Mac system we’ve ever seen.""At this point, their is no one besides other fanboys that haven't marked you as a troll or fanboy by now so I've already spent to much time on this."Unlike you, I have Macs as well as Windows and Unix machines. In fact, I have only two Mac systems (a Mac Pro and a MacBook notebook) while I have at least 8 systems running Windows and Linux variants (I'm not counting systems too old to be useful). And I've been a Mac user for about 1/50th the amount of time I've been using computers. "I find the ones that have to say "I'm an engineer" all the time are the ones with the least intelligence and worst work ethic."I say it to rub your nose in it. You are not an engineer. You are not intelligent enough to be an engineer. In all of this time, you still have not provided a single benchmark to support your claims. That speaks volumes about your work ethic."Also their are very few that both know a lot about M.E. and E.E. so stop acting like your an expert on both."You don't have to "know a lot" about mechanical engineering to evaluate the quality of construction of a computer. Since you seem so put-off by anyone explaining their expertise, I'll not go into great detail, but I know a good bit about mechanical engineering and have plenty of real-world experience designing and machining things.
"Microsoft knows they can't take on Apple with their software"Utter fiction."not to mention the software that Apple includes on new Mac's for Video & Photos "ilife == $80Live Essentials == $0.ilife < Live Essentials.Have you *used* any of this software? Movie maker is f**king terrific.
There wasn't a virus in iLife. There was a Trojan created by hackers who attached malware to stolen copies of ILife that they then offered up for people to pirate.So, um, like hey - where did you get your copy of iLife from, me matey - or did you just read the first sentence in an article and then stop?BTW, flaws were just disclosed in the latest 3 or 4 major versions of MS Office apps and they are real flaws, not something that was intentionally added by software pirating hackers. So, get patching! See ya.
No, I don't think that either generalization is right. It varies from campus to campus.Some colleges do have more Macs than PCs. Other colleges it is the other way around.Given the differences, these colleges would be a perfect environment for researchers to put the Mac vs. PC malware issue to bed for good.A relative of mine attended a school where a worm created a massive infection of the Windows PCs a week before classes started int eh fall. If that is how bad Windows PCs fair at colleges, I would like to read how Mac PCs fair at colleges.
"Aliens prefer Linux, I helped invent to Abacus so I know more than you, blah blah blah useless s**t..."Just as I suspected -- when challenged to support your unfounded claims, you resort to schoolyard-level childishness."See, I can make stuff up on the internet too."I was with you up to the "too" part. Unlike you, I have cited specifics, provided links, provided quotes from respected experts in the industry, and presented my qualifications. You, by contrast, have made vague, disparaging remarks about Apple, Macs, the hardware, the operating system, the applications, and the users. But when pressed to support those remarks, you throw a temper tantrum."P.S. Gamers can be Engineers too"Yes, as I am a gamer as well as an engineer. But you are not an engineer, as is evidenced by your illogical, unfocused, undisciplined mind and your rejection of reason. When qualified engineers claim that an operating system or hardware is inferior, they provide specific, concrete descriptions of exactly what they object to, not vague, unsubstantiated claims like you have made.Unless you have another outburst, I'll consider this closed. Your inability to address any specific questions and challenges makes continuing this discussion a waste of time.
@blankjobThanks. I agree that "I have cited specifics, provided links, provided quotes from respected experts in the industry, and presented my qualifications." I was careful to "provide specific, concrete descriptions of exactly what [I] object to" in Windows, including the registry, the lack of a comprehensive backup solution that rivals Time Machine, and the very weak support for virtual desktops. I'll never understand people who have almost no experience with a given OS or computer brand bad-mouthing it and the people who use it. It's one thing if you can provide clear, rational criticisms, but paradigmx has shown that he is incapable of doing that.
Oh how amazing people fell for this. Apple would not call them on the phone, get real. Thanks to Digg and all the other places that jumped on this story Microsoft received an invaluable amount of FREE press. This was brilliant on the part of Microsoft feeding this story which contained not a shred of proof. Not that proof and what not has anything to do with journalism anymore.
Well, mac users would argue that their macs are more efficient in the areas of media development, and are more secure(thus their works is more secure) against viruses/data loss.
paradigmxJul 17, 2009
About Macbooks being solid and strongMy friend has a Macbook, he came over the other day, pulled out his Macbook and superglue. Why? Because he had to glue a CHUNK of laptop that had broken off because the stubs next to the moniter put too much pressure on the base. My Dell 6400 on the other hand, 2 years, just a little scratched
Closed AccountJul 17, 2009
@jetsetter883"it was a case of the latter with the excuse of the former."Hardly. Microsoft's ads were widely criticized for being shallow and misleading. For example, the "big screen" laptops that the ads showcase had horrendous image quality and low resolution (for example, "Sheila's" 16-inch display with 1366 x 768 resolution). The one in the Lauren ad had been called out for being abysmal in reviews, with one consumer writing that it "has the worst screen I have ever seen in my life. It's the 1440x900 screen and the viewing angles are so poor that even when sitting directly eye level with the screen it is totally washed out. If I go a little bit off-axis the screen results in a negative image. I was using the default settings. Unfortunately I didn't read reviews before i purchased." The bargain system that Lauren chose had DDR2 (not DDR3) RAM, a battery life rated at 2.5 hours, an 8lb. weight, and something that is 2" thick when closed.That's not comparable to a Mac in any way and it's despicable to mislead naive consumers into believing it is.The ads pass the actors and actresses as consumers who were given money to spend on laptops and who made their own decisions. There was the infamous "Lauren" ad which purported to show her entering and exiting the Apple store, but she never even actually went in.The pricing aspect of it is minor compared to the fact that the ads were complete, scripted fabrications passed off as reality.
Closed AccountJul 18, 2009
@TurnerJoy"Thats weird fmaxwell but I've read quite a few of the major review sites and enthusiast forums and that test never comes up and I don't see an explanation of what its tests and how (short read/writes, just cpu, cpu + memory etc), and they don't explain how their calculation is done."Until you provide an alternative, Geekbench is the gold-standard. That was the best cross-platform reference I could find. If you doubt it's veracity, then do your research and provide the information. If you want to use SPEC benchmarks, burn a disc, go into an Apple store, and run the benchmarks yourself. Or find results posted by others.I'm sick of your rock throwing. You've provided nothing. No benchmarks. No performance numbers. No links to technical articles. No links to reviews. No links to editorials. Nothing. How lazy and intellectually dishonest are you?"Thats why I wanted to see a Mac with bootcamp running the PC version to see if their was a score difference."If you had a bit better work ethic, you could have found the information you sought here:<a class="user" href="http://macwinuxit.com/2009/04/14/96/">http://macwinuxit.com/2009/04/14/96/</a>Short version: It scores somewhat higher on OS X because OS X Leopard is a faster OS than Windows Vista. BUT: The fastest desktop PC running Windows is a Mac Pro. So, perhaps we can now say, regardless of OS bias you perceive, the Mac Pro is the fastest, or at least one of the fastest, desktop computers available. "They really expect me to believe that a Intel Xeon W5580 @ 3.19 GHz (16 cores) (18765 score) is 2.5 times faster than Intel Core i7 920 16 cores @ 2670 MHz (7503 score)."Funny, but I could not find that listed on their web site. Page 456 of the results had two systems with 7503 scores, but nothing like what you described. But since I know nothing about that system other than clock speed and CPU, I could not predict how fast it would run."On top of what I already stated as common sense, I don't see the chipset used on Apple's site but I'm almost certain its an Intel chipset, and the Xeon used is basicly a rebranded/rebinned core 2 processor. Their is 0 chance that it is 3 times faster then Intels newest generation chips."Your ignorance is showing. The current generation of Xeon is based on the same Nehalem core as the Core i7 (Intel's latest generation chips). And there are two of them in the top of the line Mac Pro. Perhaps this information from the CNET review of the current Mac Pro will clear things up for you:"The raw processor power of the twin Xeons impresses, especially in any application that makes good use of multi-core processors. Running Cinebench to measure its performance with a single chip, the Mac Pro’s 2.26GHz Xeon still managed to match the performance of a Core i7 PC running at 3GHz. And when Cinebench moved on to test both processors that’s eight physical cores altogether (16 logical cores with Hyperthreading) the Mac Pro pulled way ahead of even the heavily overclocked 3.7GHz Wired2Fire Diablo, delivering 22,415 points in Cinebench. As we expected, running the Mac version of Cinebench under OSX produced similar results, making this the fastest Mac system we’ve ever seen.""At this point, their is no one besides other fanboys that haven't marked you as a troll or fanboy by now so I've already spent to much time on this."Unlike you, I have Macs as well as Windows and Unix machines. In fact, I have only two Mac systems (a Mac Pro and a MacBook notebook) while I have at least 8 systems running Windows and Linux variants (I'm not counting systems too old to be useful). And I've been a Mac user for about 1/50th the amount of time I've been using computers. "I find the ones that have to say "I'm an engineer" all the time are the ones with the least intelligence and worst work ethic."I say it to rub your nose in it. You are not an engineer. You are not intelligent enough to be an engineer. In all of this time, you still have not provided a single benchmark to support your claims. That speaks volumes about your work ethic."Also their are very few that both know a lot about M.E. and E.E. so stop acting like your an expert on both."You don't have to "know a lot" about mechanical engineering to evaluate the quality of construction of a computer. Since you seem so put-off by anyone explaining their expertise, I'll not go into great detail, but I know a good bit about mechanical engineering and have plenty of real-world experience designing and machining things.
dig1xJul 21, 2009
"Microsoft knows they can't take on Apple with their software"Utter fiction."not to mention the software that Apple includes on new Mac's for Video & Photos "ilife == $80Live Essentials == $0.ilife < Live Essentials.Have you *used* any of this software? Movie maker is f**king terrific.
johnnysoftwareJul 21, 2009
There wasn't a virus in iLife. There was a Trojan created by hackers who attached malware to stolen copies of ILife that they then offered up for people to pirate.So, um, like hey - where did you get your copy of iLife from, me matey - or did you just read the first sentence in an article and then stop?BTW, flaws were just disclosed in the latest 3 or 4 major versions of MS Office apps and they are real flaws, not something that was intentionally added by software pirating hackers. So, get patching! See ya.
johnnysoftwareJul 21, 2009
No, I don't think that either generalization is right. It varies from campus to campus.Some colleges do have more Macs than PCs. Other colleges it is the other way around.Given the differences, these colleges would be a perfect environment for researchers to put the Mac vs. PC malware issue to bed for good.A relative of mine attended a school where a worm created a massive infection of the Windows PCs a week before classes started int eh fall. If that is how bad Windows PCs fair at colleges, I would like to read how Mac PCs fair at colleges.
Closed AccountJul 22, 2009
"Aliens prefer Linux, I helped invent to Abacus so I know more than you, blah blah blah useless s**t..."Just as I suspected -- when challenged to support your unfounded claims, you resort to schoolyard-level childishness."See, I can make stuff up on the internet too."I was with you up to the "too" part. Unlike you, I have cited specifics, provided links, provided quotes from respected experts in the industry, and presented my qualifications. You, by contrast, have made vague, disparaging remarks about Apple, Macs, the hardware, the operating system, the applications, and the users. But when pressed to support those remarks, you throw a temper tantrum."P.S. Gamers can be Engineers too"Yes, as I am a gamer as well as an engineer. But you are not an engineer, as is evidenced by your illogical, unfocused, undisciplined mind and your rejection of reason. When qualified engineers claim that an operating system or hardware is inferior, they provide specific, concrete descriptions of exactly what they object to, not vague, unsubstantiated claims like you have made.Unless you have another outburst, I'll consider this closed. Your inability to address any specific questions and challenges makes continuing this discussion a waste of time.
blankjobJul 22, 2009
give yourself a pat on the back there fmaxwell you described yourself perfectly
Closed AccountJul 22, 2009
@blankjobThanks. I agree that "I have cited specifics, provided links, provided quotes from respected experts in the industry, and presented my qualifications." I was careful to "provide specific, concrete descriptions of exactly what [I] object to" in Windows, including the registry, the lack of a comprehensive backup solution that rivals Time Machine, and the very weak support for virtual desktops. I'll never understand people who have almost no experience with a given OS or computer brand bad-mouthing it and the people who use it. It's one thing if you can provide clear, rational criticisms, but paradigmx has shown that he is incapable of doing that.
canadianpjJul 30, 2009
Oh how amazing people fell for this. Apple would not call them on the phone, get real. Thanks to Digg and all the other places that jumped on this story Microsoft received an invaluable amount of FREE press. This was brilliant on the part of Microsoft feeding this story which contained not a shred of proof. Not that proof and what not has anything to do with journalism anymore.
chris63084Aug 11, 2009
Well, mac users would argue that their macs are more efficient in the areas of media development, and are more secure(thus their works is more secure) against viruses/data loss.