Apple's Missed Opportunity With Leopard Delay

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article on OSWeekly.com, Apple missed a big opportunity by not releasing Leopard soon. They could've taken advantage of Vista's losing streak and one upped Microsoft, the author suggests. 'It's not uncommon for Windows users and technology consumers in general to say that Microsoft missed out on making the most of Vista both before and after its launch. Longtime fans of Windows have changed their tone due to Vista's inadequacies, and regular users are in many cases stuck with trying to figure out why they still can't get certain things to work within the operating system. Granted, it's not a completely horrific OS, but is that even a compliment worth accepting?'"

Re:Hardly...

[alfredo]

Apple's market share is over 8% now. Those customers are coming from somewhere.

With Parallels you can run Linux on the Mac, and if you don't want to do that but still want Nix software, you can do it. I'm using GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, Xephem, and other titles I was used to in the Nix world. I've even ran Gnome on top of OSX.

Will Leopard run on my PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I only have to ditch my PC and get a MAC when my XP/2003 is working just fine. I doubt it.

The problem with Vista is it offers no compelling features for Windows users. XP/2003 run reliably and offer the widest range of applications. The ONLY thing MS has with Vista is exclusive DX10 games. And there are no compelling upgrade reasons even for most gamers.

There are three kinds of people....

[RatPh!nk]

1. The people who have been waiting for Vista with baited breath, and would never switch to OS X. Who may not be 100% happy with Vista but will say it will get better with time and is still better in some ways than XP.
2. The people who are on the fence. Long time window users who are upset with Vista. Who will simply switch to XP who you really couldn't get to switch to OS X if you paid them. I am guessing business users make up a large group of these people.
3. The third and final group is a hodgepodge. People who just use the OS that comes with the computer, and are getting more and more fed up with Vista. In this case, the time would actually help Apple. Those people who are at wits end [abxzone.com] with Vista, demanding XP [blorge.com]. Would potentially love nothing more than to jump ship completely. Given people's general uncomfortableness with technology in general. Jumping ships to a new platform is not without great hesitation, regardless of their angst at MS. I think this is why we see market share of Linux increasing, albeit slowly.

What do you think? I know it is an oversimplification.

Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs

[c_forq]

Google "Darwin ports".

RTFA

[Compulawyer]

The article actually makes the opposite conclusion than the title of this post on /.

Quoth the article:

"With all things considered, did Apple make a serious mistake by delaying Leopard's release until October? I don't think so." (emphasis added)

Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs

[sarathmenon]

Also fink. Its got apt-get and dpkg as its standard binary format, so its time the GP switched to a mac :)

Lappie power systems are the weak link, period.

[MsGeek]

To be fair, Apple has been snakebit a number of times by lappie power supply/battery issues. Let's see, there was the PowerBook 5300 a la flambe incident, the PB G3 power supply that tended to have sparking issues, the full-of-lose "UFO" PB/iBook power supply that tends to die after a while thanks to power cord shorting issues, the expanding LiPoly batteries in the later iBooks, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, and now the Mag Safe adapter issue.

However, they are not alone. How many lappies were recalled over Sony LiIon/LiPoly cell issues? How many other lappie manufacturers have recalled their power supplies? How about that ThinkPad 600-series charging circuit that kills batteries?

I fully expect to have an in-warranty replacement of the MagSafe power supply. This is the reason why nobody should buy an Apple lappie without AppleCare. I would give the same advice to anyone who buys anyone's lappie. Go for the extended warranty, go for the manufacturer's extended warranty if it is offered but the store's extended warranty if the manufacturer doesn't offer one. This is one time when it's smart to do so.

Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs

[Khuffie]

One thing I hate about OS X (which makes me not use it on my MacBook) is how useless the Dock is compaired to a taskbar. With a taskbar, I can at a glance see which programs are open as well as which WINDOWS in said programs are open, if there are any windows that need my attention (ie, an IM window that tells me WHICH contact has IM'd me) without having to fiddle around with Expose or the like. I've looked for a taskbar application for OS X, but can't find a decent one. A couple of other minor annoyances: - I wish Finder would remember that I prefer the column view. - I think this is how *nix systems do it, but I prefer how Windows organizes folders at the top followed by files, as opposed to OS X where both folders and files are organized alphabetically together. It makes it easier to organize things and find things visually.

Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs

[bXTr]

Google "Darwin ports^W^WMacPorts". FTFY.

Re:Apple annoys people

[gnasher719]

The hardware is flaky but pretty, and very expensive.

Not in my experience, except for the "pretty".

The CEO and company seem neurotic.

Not in my experience. I have never heard that Steve Jobs has been throwing any chairs around, or threatened to cut off someone's air supply, or similar.

Most of the users are self-indulgent, arty, smug, pretentious types.

In my experience (and I know quite a few of them) that is utter bullshit.

The average person wants nothing to do with this.

Don't take your average pimpled PC sales person or IT man with a hate for end users as "average person".

The real question is, if Apple got all of these people to start running a desktop UNIX, what can Linux do to follow that lead?

The usual answer is: Don't follow the lead. Change the rules. No idea how Linux should go about this vs. Apple, but then there are ten times more Windows users, and they are ten times more unhappy with their OS than Mac users, so maybe Linux should concentrate on beating Windows.

Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs

[shvytejimas]

How long is it going to take for OSX to get multiple desktops?

probably until leopard. http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spaces.html [apple.com]

Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs

[Rob_Warwick]

How long is it going to take for Windows or OSX to get multiple desktops?

About a week. Apple is calling it 'Spaces' in Leopard.

They did (at least S. Jobs did).

[EMB Numbers]

NeXTstep 1.0 was released in 1989. Max OS X is a descendant of NeXTstep and is still missing a few features that NeXTstep had in 1989. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEXTSTEP [wikipedia.org]

Arguably, the only features Mac OS X has added prior to 10.5 have been dubious compatibility with ancient Mac applications and lots of eye candy. OK. To be fair, Apple has evolved OS X to be more than NeXTstep (particularly for programmers) and to use the current hardware that is at least 64x faster than the old NeXT hardware. Sadly NeXTstep was dormant and even regressed substantially in Apple's hands from 1997 to 2005. Think what we would have now if Apple hadn't wasted those years.

Just for fun, name a feature in OS X that didn't have an adequate or superior alternative in NeXTstep ? I'll start: Spotlight vs. Digital Librarian

Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs

[Yetihehe]

Yes, it is a design decision. But in XP you CAN have it BOTH ways. Default way is grouping (like in OSX) but I can easily switch it (which I do in every my installation of xp)

Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs

[Seanasy]

They changed the name to MacPorts [macports.org].

Re:Hardly...

[VGPowerlord]

Consider that Microsoft had to convince people over several versions of windows to use it over DOS applications.

To be honest, for several versions, Windows had little to offer over DOS.

When Windows 95 came out and started offering things that DOS didn't (pre-emptive multitasking, unified APIs for hardware, etc...) things finally started picking up.

Re:Hardly...

[Almahtar]

I doubt my experience is that uncommon: I've met one "clueless consumer" type that liked Vista. Every other person I've talked to either said

I heard Vista was crap, can I get my computer with XP instead?

or

Vista is junk - my new computer runs slower than my old one with XP on it

or

Vista is hard to use - I can't find any of the stuff I know how to do on XP

Until Dell started offering machines with XP on them, friends and family members of mine that always bought from Gateway or Dell or whoever would ask me (as their "geek advisor") where they could buy a computer without Vista.

I'm not looking for this kind of feedback nor soliciting it. They bring it up on their own.

Re:Hardly...

[nxtw]

Windows 95 did not offer preemptive multitasking originally AFAIK

It did. However, it did not feature protected memory (and neither did Windows 98).

Only when DirectX 4 (original 95 version being 3) came about with the other enhancements did preemptive multitasking become a true Windows reality.

DirectX has nothing to do with it. The first version of Windows NT, Windows NT 3.1, had both preemptive multitasking and protected memory.

When I compared 95 vs 98 side by side on identical machines, 98 ran multiple programs better, whereas on the 95 machine they ran horribly when loaded concurrently, so YMMV.

An interesting anecdote, but not relevant to whether either operating system has protected memory (nope!) or preemptive multitasking (yep!).

I wouldn't personally call Win95 the start of Microsoft's preemptive multitasking, nor 98. NT 3.51 was the REAL start of that, IMHO.

Preemptive multitasking isn't a matter of opinion. Windows NT 3.1 was the first Windows NT version and it had preemptive multitasking. Windows 95 a few years later was the first "classic" Windows version with preemptive multitasking.

Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs

[Achromatic1978]

how XP piles them all into one icon that ZOMFG! requres... you... to... click... it!

An option quickly turned off in Taskbar Properties, like Finder is configured through its preferences. One of the first things I do on a new Windows install.

Re:Hardly...

[drsmithy]

Microsoft has made it that way and OEMs aren't really pushing for anything different since each new iteration of Windows usually requires new hardware.

Rubbish. People typically "upgrade" to a new version by buying a new machine, but this is a very different thing to it _requiring_ a new machine. Each new version of Windows is generally baseline usable on what would have been a mid-range to high-end PC 5-6 years earlier.

Memory - Disk

[olafva]

We bought 3 Mac Minis, 2 with 512MB and 1 with 256MB which was very slow
compared to the others. After buying an inexpensive memory upgrade from
http://www.macsales.com/ [macsales.com]
I installed it per their online video, and presto,
Mac OSX has sufficient memory to run fast..

Anyone out there with MacMinis with 512MB should upgrade
ASAP as you don't have sufficient memory for OSX to be effective,

We also bought a faster, larger disk for the (former 256MB) MacMini,
and easily installed it per online video for another speed boost,
although not as dramatic as the memory upgrade. It helps
to haver more than one Mac Mini to compare. Some who don't,
just may not realize why their Mac Mini seems so slow....The answer
may be insufficient memory. BTW some thinks it violates Apple's
warranty to upgrade memory, disk etc, on your own. NOT TRUE.
They even info on their own site how to make such upgrades.
However, you're still responsible if you do something dumb like
dropping it or hitting it wirth a hammer.