Apple Releases - Doing Less, Faster, Is Better? 173
"I can't remember how long Microsoft took to release W2K service pack 1, but I know there is still no service pack 2. Even Linux kernel (stable) releases are not commonly in the 2-3 week range. So is Apple doing the right thing to get SOMETHING out there? Or are they disenfranchising their user base by coming out with too little too fast?"
An embellishment to the above: as long as there are tools to tailor the upgrades of a system to the user's specific desires, who cares how often providers update their own packages? Such an updater would check the upstream package catalog and apply multiple criterion on each updated package which would determine if that update is applied. I would suggest that the two basic criterion one would apply for updates would be severity and duration. Couple this with forced inclusion and exclusion lists and an administrator would be able to configure the system to apply only those packages that they need upgraded at the appropriate time, and quite possibly without the need of administrator intervention (depending, of course, on how much the administrator trusts the upstream).
With such a system in place, who cares how often Apple, Red Hat, Debian, Microsoft or <insert vendor here> updates their software packages? You'll have what you need, as often as you need it.
How difficult would it be to adapt the existing updating systems to serve this purpose? Is someone close to putting this into place, now?
What? (Score:1)
OSX And The Update Rigamarole (Score:1)
Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:1)
So? So what if microsoft ships their own software instead of some other guy's freeware. The point is, nobody's making money off of it. The whole criticism of MS is that they're shoving existing commercial products out of the marketplace by funding free apps with money they earn selling Windows (which still turns huge profits). I don't know if it's good or bad. But the difference with linux is very, very small. Are you going to complain to linus and red hat because his kernel and their distro are shoving commercial unix makers out of the market? It's a fact of life. Nobody's forcing people to keep using the bundled tools, and microsoft is about the only OS maker out there who don't bundle that many tools with their OS currently. Which we critisize, so it's a bit hypocritical when you say it's wrong that they start bundling stuff.
Too me the big difference is that I look at Windows with it's 400 meg install and then look at a 400 meg RedHat install, and compare the functionality. With most Linux distro's I get a majority of the tools I need for my daily use. I get a gui, development tools, word proccessing, internet, and multimedia players. From their I may have to do updates if I want more recent versions and a few extra apps, but most stuff is there. With Windows I still would have to install Office, Ms Dev Studio, WinAmp, and all of the little tools that I may want.
You only need gcc in linux if you intend to compile your own software, and very few regular users actually do that with the recent distro's. I personally don't even do that on my debian servers, because I prefer to stick with the debian package collection. The only thing you really need gcc for is the kernel, which in windows is distributed in binary instead of source form (especially all the binary drivers). I ran Windows for years (in fact, I still run it on my desktop) and I never needed MS dev studio to add functionality to the system. I only needed it when I wanted to fool around writing my own apps (and ofcourse I didn't use it then, but turned to the vastly superior Delphi).
A 400 meg windows install does give you a lot of functionality, but it's not that obvious. You have word processing (wordpad), you have internet (explorer, ftp, telnet), you have a multimedia player, you even have SMB file- and printersharing. It's all bundled. You don't need winamp, unless mediaplayer doesn't satisfy you. The only EXTRA stuff you need to install in Windows are mostly things that don't come preinstalled with linux either (office, high-end games, icq,
I'm not a microsoft fan. In fact, I hate their guts and I hope they rot in hell. But I still try to remain a bit impartial. Windows is not THAT much more bloated than linux AS A DESKTOP. Espescially when you compare it to a linux running KDE or GNOME. Windows doesn't come in lightweight versions though, whereas linux does. So linux is much more suited as a server OS, no matter what MS claims.
Oh, one more thing: Debian rules
Oh come on (Score:2)
I wonder who started this, but everyone likes to complain about it. Windows and Linux do not burn cd's as part of the OS, it's called an "application" program. Any real person who actually cares about this knows it's a new version of Toast that's needed, not "a new OS". Yeah, Toast 5 (never made by Apple, made by Adaptec, now Roxio) doesn't work native in OSX yet, so you have to boot in the System9 portion of OSX. Big Fucking Deal.
But, it's far too much fun for people to keep harping on this non-point, isn't it? Why do the editors keep letting troll comments into the stories themselves?
Re:In many situations, it's never too often! (Score:1)
Funny Strange or Funny Ha-Ha (Score:2)
Yep I can't burn CDs on my OS X, yet.
However...how many things has Microsoft not fixed with Windows 95/98/Me/NT4 in the past 6 years that are still bitting installed systems in the ass?
Things like...Microsoft IIS hole gives System-level access.
It's been out for almost 6 years...and it's not fixed?
MS OS releases have been so fun of features that get fully killed before they ship in the past it's not funny. Apple was upfront enough to annouce that they could either have CD burning in OS X or they could have Disk Burner and iTunes burn to non-Apple CD-Rs and RWs. How much support does MS offer to old OSes? Not a hell of a lot.
Where is SP7 for NT4? Oh wait, there isn't one. Where is USB support for NT4? Oh wait, there isn't going to be any.
And the list goes on and on.
Shakey? (Score:2)
In fact I have two iMacs (333 and a 400) that are used 8-12 hours a day and only have been rebooted for the updates.
The updates are nice though. I wouldn't call them too often or too infrequent.
Re:Funny Strange or Funny Ha-Ha (Score:2)
I thought the 10.0.2 patch fixed the wu-ftp bug. So it was about three weeks.
Re:Nobody is forcing you to upgrade (Score:1)
I guess what some would rather have is a montly "bugfixes" patch monthly rather than a "bugfix" patch weekly.
Almost the open source way (Score:1)
Re:Microsoft update release schedules (Score:2)
However you have valid criticism in that you have to check man different locations to find those updates.
There is the standard windowsupdate web site.
Then there is the hotfix check tool for IIS.
Then there is officeupdate web site.
Oh, and the occasional security hotfix which isn't specific for IIS.
Yes, it'd be very nice if every patch was on windows udpate all in one place.
Of course then the anti-Microsoft crowd would complain because Microsoft would be integrating new "Auto-Update" functionality and stifling competition with Apple.
Nothing Broken? (Score:1)
Re:does it update itself or do you get them? (Score:2)
You can choose manually, and never get updates if you like. Or automatically, with sub choices of daily, weekly, and monthly. No three month choice though. You could try that with cron, but I think the updater might get pissy if it fires up with no GUI user around (when it finds an update it requires an admin password to install it).
I'll note that I have mine set to daily and have never seen it do an update by itself. It may only check on login (I tend to log in and stay that way, it's my laptop after all!). I'm pretty sure it had a whole 72 hours between 10.0.3's release and when I ran the updater manually.
They seem to bundle a bunch of fixes together, and they have really vague descriptions. 10.0.3 only fixes "making sure you see all files in the Finder in really really big directories", but people have said it has sound fixes and SCSI stuff. It was less then 5M to download.
The first one was pretty big, and included bug fixes, and "new" features like ssh and sshd (which were in the Public Beta, but Uncle Sam didn't get paperwork in time to go on the CD). It also had a lot of printer issues (like support for a lot of modern low cost ink jets). It may have been as large as 14M, it took a while to load over the 144Kbit DSL. 10.0.2 was smaller, and had some fixes plus partial CD-writer support.
Apple may not be that bad, but they aren't releasing the tiny little fine grained patches you seem to want.
Re:Faster is better, but... (Score:2)
It doesn't beep after every word, it beeps when you have corrected or ignored (but not "Find Next"ed over) all the words. It is useful because if you are fixing up a slashdot post (the spell checker is available from all Coco text editing widgets, including the web browser I use) with somebody else's misspelled text, you want to leave those words alone. The beep reminds you that you have gotten a full pass even if there is still underlined misspelled words left.
(at least I want to leave the quoted text uncorrected -- I don't like to muck with someone else's words, plus it may make me look subtly smarter by having the only correctly spelled half of the argument....)
Re:This is the right thing to do... (Score:2)
Other people's canned "actions" (aka macros). There is a pretty good one for reducing the Canon EOS-D30 high ISO noise that needs PhotoShop six (or at least it claims it does - I don't have PS6)
That's why I actually kind of like the software subscription model, pay for support, bug fixes, and continuous updates. No big push to add cool sounding features to get people to upgrade, or making it look different, or make it have a non backwards compatible file format. No big push to get the product out on time, even if that means more bugs.
I'm not thrilled with the idea of the software no longer working if you fail to make a payment though.
Faster is better, but... (Score:3)
I have. My sound seems a little flaky, like the spell checker doesn't beep when it has corrected the last word. Other people have reported worse. However there are few of them, so I'm guessing it is mostly good.
I think Apple really needs an "undo update".
However I'm use to the fast small release cycle, and I like it.
Coulpa basic points (Score:2)
Thus Apple is recognizing that the folks running MacOS X right now aren't the the usual it-came-in-it crowd. These folks have gone out and paid US$120 for Mac OS X and installed it before any "business case" could be made.
In reponse Apple is serving these early-adopters by releasing everything as it is developed. These folks want the very-latest & greatest, paid for it, and Apple will give them what they want; at least until the rest of their market begins to catch up.
What's been put out so far? Really nothing more then re-incorporating some material from the beta releases that weren't cleared in time for the Golden Master. A few bug-fixes, a minor update or two bringing things like MacOS X iTunes up to par with it's MacOS 9 cousin.
The important thing to realize is that these are 10.0n patches, minor minor things. For Wintel folks they'd be the little items that appear on the Windows Update pages or hidden in MS's tech bulletins. For *nix folks they're the little stuff that gets updated every week.
All of these are available to MacOS folks using the built-in Software Update service. Indeed different sets of updates are available to both the MacOS X & MacOS X folks at about comparable frequency.
The update service can be set to run on various simple schedules (days of week & time) as either prompted or unprompted installs. Of course it can also be run manually whenever the user wants to or not set and not used.
Presumably in July when Apple holds it's big rollout of installed MacOS X the frequency of updates will begin to slow. At that time most folks are hoping Apple's work on an updated packaging system will be ready to implement and as part of it a more sophisticated update service will be used.
As part of a next-gen update service some sort of major/minor change hierarchy is expected to be implemented as well as opening the updates to non-Apple packages (currently these have been mostly second-tiered to Apple's free-to-Mac's iDisk service.)
All of this will likely appear as part of the rumored MacOS 10.5 for the installed release. This will also coincide with a predicted across-the-board hardware refresh and at that time Apple will presumably begin their big MacOS X advertising push (notably quiet so far.)
So, back to the original question - is Apple releasing too many minor patches too often? Probably not considering who the MacOS X user base is right now and what they're likely looking for. Come July this will all begin to change and presumably then so will Apple's update-system.
Re:Faster is better, but... (Score:4)
seriously, I don't considering the spell checker not beeping as something bring "broken".
a couple of reasons? (Score:3)
I was wondering about that, too. I quite like it, though i'd prefer to have a lot more information about what is being updated.
I think there are two main reasons for this. Firstly, nobody is really denying that as release versions go, this is very betaish. i think apple must be quietly rather glad that the big names haven't arrived yet and only the dedicated are actually using the new system. A lot of what we're downloading is stuff that didn't get finished in time, like iTunes.
The rest of what's in those packages is mostly updates to open source projects - whatever ftpd we're using, and so on. OSX is a patchwork of different systems, and i think we're benefitting from the find-it-and-fix it approach of the oss ingredients while the apple systems go on in their stately way.
My only gripe is that they're still releasing monolithic updates in the old apple tradition. If you look at a page like the cobalt raq updates list [cobalt.com], there are dozens - they're at least as frequent as the apple ones - but smaller, and they all include a list of their ingredients and the circumstances under which you might need to use them. Then every so often they release a big one that bundles them all together and make a big fuss about it.
Which strikes me as a very good system: tiny updates for the paranoid edge, and big friendly packages for the gui crowd. As it stands, the apple system makes it hard to know whether or not you should be concerned about a problem that you've read about, for example.
On the other hand, 10.0.0.1 included a bang-up-to-date installation of ssh and sshd, without making any fuss at all, and installed it at the push of a delicately tinted button. i remember it being a little more complicated than that on my redhat box...
Re:Windows 97? (Score:1)
Quick Update Cycles - Good for Nerds, not 4 common (Score:2)
Now, if Mac OS X was mainstream - Apple's default operating system, then I would feel the update cycle is too quick. Joe Average User doesn't like constant updates, even if he isn't forced to install them. This tends to cause version confusion, a tech support nightmare. (Windows 97, anyone?)
There are a million little things that need to be smoothed out in OS X - I don't expect Apple to do it in a series of quarterly updates. Microsoft operates on a large Service Packs that change an unwieldly number of items. Of course, we've all hear horror stories about the service pack that brought down the server.
Personally, I'm waiting for Mac OS X 2 - or is that Mac OS XI?
Re:Apache Downgrades (Score:1)
I think the way to fix is to come up with a standard version identifier structure for Darwin modules, and, by extension, *BSD and Unix executables in general. This would also help tools like the BSD package system that really have nothing to rely on but the date or name of the file or some entry in the package system to figure out if it's up to date.
Apple Updates (Score:1)
2. Because of the way X handles its packages/frameworks, its very hard to break a program, id assume, since old calls of the same name are not overwritten, if a program makes a call to a specific version of that call, it will always be there. I think thats the gist of it, you can read more Here, at ars-technica [arstechnica.com]
And Mr.Adams... So long, and thanks for all the fish, you will be missed...
It's your thing, do wut chawanna do (Score:1)
I must say I like coming home in the evening and finding that a new update has been put out there, every few weeks or so. No matter how small. They have all been cleanly and painlessly installed. So I would just as soon have them now than later.
Alot of security updates (Score:1)
Cheers,
Tomas
===========
Same issue, different view (Score:2)
System wide CD-burning service which works just like file-copying is great.
But is it really necessary? 3rd party S/W companies will do it. And please try reading this article ( from Slashdot ).
Same issue, different view-Rivals Upset At Windows XP Features [yahoo.com]
Isn't it interesting? Same things are considered differently by Windows and Mac communities.
Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:2)
If Windows didn't ship with a web browser, how easy would it be for the average user to find and download another browser?
While it would no doubt be difficult it is also somewhat irrelevant.
When installing the MacOS (at least the last several versions through 9.x, I haven't tried X yet) you get a choice of Netscape or IE, although IE is the default these days. Something to do with MS investing in Apple.
And the user can choose to remove either or both Netscape or IE.
I expect the situation is similar for Linux, a true choice of browsers.
With Windows you also get a choice of browsers, but you must have IE installed.
Not what I would call a true choice.
Steve M
Open Source - Major Fixes (Score:1)
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
We're still in BETA! Bugfixes are welcome! (Score:2)
Since it's a beta, I want bugfixes fast and furious. As others have identified, the updates are totally under the users' control. Personally, I run home everyday and fire up the Update control panel to see if anything's new
My only gripe is that I wish Apple would document the updates better. The list of changes/fixes/known issues is too sparse to be useful. The more we know, the more we can help the developers!
Opinion from a MacOS X user (Score:5)
does it update itself or do you get them? (Score:2)
I think that they are probably focusing on the issue of fixing one bug at a time and doing it right rather than trying to fix all the bugs at once and then doing it half assed like M$ would. I don't use OS X but would you rather have to download one huge patch every 6 months to a year (4-15Meg) or would you rather have 6 to 12 patches that were maybe smaller (1 - 2Megs). So how big are the patches? Are they small ones here and there that fix things without braking something else or are they like M$ where they fix lots of things add new features and then add more bugs at the same time?
Sorry I am not a big fan of M$ as they keep making there software 'easier' to use they make it more bloated and 'all in one' and then stuff it at you. Why is it that when you install Windows now a days you get IE and cannot get ride of it?
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Re:does it update itself or do you get them? (Score:2)
Personally I think that a monthly bug release cycle is the best way to go. And if they add a new feature that should have been in the inital release then that is also good too. Hey Mozilla is doing monthly releases as well.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Better this way than it used to be (Score:3)
Some of you might not be as ancient to remember this, but years ago Apple took over 6 months to patch the ping-of-death problem that would instantly take out Mac boxes on the internet. So, better the current way than the way they used to handle it.
Cheers,
Reasons for Quick Releases (Score:1)
Updates on YOUR schedule (Score:5)
Updates can be configured to happen on whatever schedule the user chooses... daily, weekly, monthly, manually, whenever.
Most of the present day OSX users are power-users, though, so they're either doing it manually when they find out about updates, or they've got it set to check for updates daily.
software updates. painless. (Score:5)
be a bit too much. I don't know much about OS X, but if the upgrades system can be configured to the users taste, and said configuration done in a user-friendly way, then maybe monthly updates might not be a bad thing
the software updates in OS X (and in 9.x as well) are done automatically by the system, tho the default configuration is to check the software updates servers periodically in the background, then ask the user which updates that are available he wants to download and install
the process is amazingly apple-like: painless and transparent, at most requiring a reboot (with system-level component updates. things like itunes are finished when the download uncompresses)
it's also user configurable to go ahead and get every update as it appears, or none at all - requiring the user to click a button to manually check for updates.
this is the kind of thing that a lot of systems are aiming for, including, among others, Red Hat's update agent, which i think falls farthest from the mark. not to criticize RH, but it's the only other example i have on my desk at the moment with which to compare. i know the W2k update agent works well anecdotally, but its little balloon popups are really annoying...
my point? did i have one?
Apple are doing it right (Score:1)
At least Apple has the guts to admit their software isn't perfect and are doing something positive about it. Many other companies should learn from this.
--
Matt
This isn't new... (Score:1)
So, let's compare Apple's 2-3 week thing to say Debian Woody, or the BSD-current trees, or even a *stable* RedHat?
How about Gnome's updater thingy? Or Sun's patch distribution schedule of every two weeks?
What I'm saing is, this isn't new. The mantra of the Open Source/Linux/Slashdot community has always been "update often" so why is Apple ridiculed for it?
You certainy don't HAVE to update, no one is forcing you to. You just run the updater and if you like what you see, you click the checkbox and then click 'update'.
And since OS X is as shakey as it is... you'll always want to click 'update'.
Re:For system maintenance, less is more (Score:2)
Yeah, and in the meantime your server is wide open to attackers. Most compromises of Windows systems occur because of the patch every few months mentality.
The fact is that good security requires the holes be plugged as soon as they are discovered.
Re:Oh come on (Score:2)
Sounds nice, except it isn't a released product.
Try 15MB (Score:1)
I just downloaded/installed 10.0.3 today. It was 15MB, + 1.1MB for Epson drivers, plus the iTunes update (5-6MB?). 10.0.2 was ~14MB... I remember because my DSL had just crapped out and I had to drive to work to install it as my dial-up account craps out after 5MB of simultaneous download (I feel sorry for people still on dial-up heh).
Just thought I'd point that out, as 1-2MB and 14-15MB is a pretty big difference.
I do have to say though, it's really worth doing the updates. I don't care if they come out with new ones every day... my system does run a little better after each patch. Kudos to the OSX team.
As for the Updater, the default is for it to check Apple's ftp for updates once a week. You can change that to daily, every couple weeks, monthly, never. I do it manually. Nobody is forced to do any updates, so there is no such thing as 'too many updates'.
--SONET
Sound problems (Score:1)
Another gripe I have is that I can't adjust the display brightness with the keyboard buttons until I open the Display Prefs. And I can't spin my hard disk down to conserve battery power like I could in 9.1. I guess they still have a long way to go with power management in OSX.
Ohh well, the fact that I can drop into a cozy shell environment whenever I want makes up for it.
--SONET
Hmmmm.... Doesn't seem to work (Score:2)
Bummer.
Re:Updates (Score:1)
The original Mac OS was tweaked continiously for 17 years.
Yes, every time you installed an extension you were tweaking the OS. Cute little system.
Re:Updates on YOUR schedule (Score:1)
> Is that an oxymoron or what?
Nope. It just means that you don't know
anything about Mac users. That's ok.
You'd be surprised how many Mac users
are power users.
Updates are easy. Really. (Score:1)
Apple's updates make the system faster (Score:1)
updates, Apple's updates make the OS
run better and faster. This is a
good thing.
Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:1)
---
When Mac users and Unix collide (Score:1)
With Mac OS X, the updates have come more frequently because they're released more on a Unix schedule - a few components get updated, the kernel gets a few small fixes, and the update is made available for those who have been joshing for the small fixes in the update. Performance and stability is enhanced in each release, but it isn't the dramatic change Mac users have been used to.
Thus, the MacOS power users, the ones that check the news sites at least once a day for the latest and greatest, are having trouble adapting to the new model. They're expecting significant, noticeable improvements with each release. They haven't noticed that while the updates to OS 9 have come less frequently and been larger, the updates to components of OS 9 have been about as frequent as those to OS X - it's just that instead of getting an OS 9 point release to update TCP/IP, the system profiler, and game sprockets, those updates have been separate entries in the list of available updates. OS X's point releases have affected the same parts of the system, but have been wrapped into a single package. Since the same users who complain about the frequency of OS X's updates are the same ones who check the software update control panel and download every update, they just need to adjust to the new model to see that all Apple's done is bundle the updates they'd already been releasing frequently and bundled them with smaller fixes they usually wouldn't get until the next massive OS upgrade.
For my part, when I saw the frequent updates to OS X, I thought it was great - I'd already been a Linux user, so small, frequent updates are nothing new to me. But they are new to most people who have used Mac OS or Windows exclusively. The whines will stop with time, when they adjust to the "new" model.
For system maintenance, less is more (Score:1)
In speaking of operating systems, for system maintenance, my opinion is that less is more. I prefer a schedule where only major updates are done once every few months. This allows for admins or users to do a re-installation and only need to worry about installing one central package (a Service Pack, for instance) instead of a group of smaller patches. It simplifies and streamlines the setup.
I think the way Microsoft releases updates and Service Packs through Windows Update is a good system. The major packages, as I've spoken, are released every several months. One big installation takes care of everything - updates to Internet Explorer, security patches, etc. In between those times, critical updates are made available as well, but then incorporated into the larger package update at a later point in time. If I need a smaller update, it's available, but eventually I can get it in a bigger, easier-to-install package. This seems to me to be a good solution.
Re:You don't need every update (Score:1)
Update 10.0.1 -> 10.0.3 = 15MB Download
Update 10.0.2 -> 10.0.3 = something like 1.9MB
I don't remember the exact figures, but Software Update knew the difference and downloaded the appropriate files.
Re:In many situations, it's never too often! (Score:1)
I had been asking myself the same question! :)
On the other hand, I suspect that the OSX interface is a heck of a lot friendlier than apt... albeit much less powerful (with respect to installing new software and removing software).
Important info on Mac OS X updates (Score:3)
The retail version, Mac OS X 10.0, was released on March 24. The 10.0.1 update followed about 1-2 weeks later. This was mainly bug fixes and minor performance enhancements. This update was anticipated. On May 1, 10.0.2 was posted. This brought CD burning in Tunes, a fix for a possible ftp daemon exploit, and some updates to the mail client. Again, not an unexpected update. Apple had announced this would be coming.
I suspect the point at which people were a bit suprised is when 10.0.3 showed up a few days ago. It had only been about a week since the last update. This was probably an unscheduled update. The main (and perhaps, only) purpose of this update was to fix a bug where HFS+ volumes would not list the entire contents of directories in certain situations with many (>300) files.
Here's some details that I think were missed:
o The 10.0.3 update incorporates everything in 10.0.2
o The updates are optional
o You can configure your machine to check for updates automatically or manually
o Apple eventually posts the updates as self-contained archives
It's not surprising that the Mac people would be surprised and perhaps distraught at the idea of frequent updates. It was not unusual for updates of Mac OS 8/9 (aka "Classic Mac OS") to break applications/extensions or cause them to behave erratically. This was largely due to the architecture. However, I don't think some poeple realize how drastically different the architecture is in Mac Os X.
Previously, Apple would let bugs (even some relatively serious ones) go unfixed in Mac OS 8/9 until the next scheduled update. This was probably due to the fact that the operating system was a mountain of procedural spagetti code dating back to 1984. Not only did this make things hard to fix, but putting out one fire might cause another to flare up.
Now that Apple is working with a reasonable software foundation, they can move updates out the door much more swiftly, and with less fear that they're going to tumble the house of cards. I think this is a good thing, especially when update addresses a filesystem bug. But the Mac community is not exactly known for embracing change with open arms...
- Scott
--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu [wildtofu.com]
Microsoft update release schedules (Score:4)
Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:2)
They don't have to force you. They just tweak the system to avoid giving you a choice. If a rival Office suite came in tomorrow with an install program that made *.doc files open with their suite, for your convenience, the next service pack of windows would come in with a new method for opening *.doc files that overrides any previous mime type, file extension, registry class, etc, etc, etc, just to fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Sure, you aren't being forced. Sheep like you aren't forced, they are led.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:Oh come on (Score:1)
Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:1)
Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:1)
Certainly they should be free to write/buy whatever software they want to, but I think that including it in the OS can be bad for users in the long run. It definitly is something that we have to look at carefully before we decide it's either a good thing or a bad thing.
Microsoft has a very powerful position as the defacto standard in home operating systems, and as such I think should have to play by different rules than others should have to.
Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:1)
How is Apple any different? Media Player => Quicktime + iTunes. Windows Movie Maker => Quicktime + iMovie. I'm sure there are other examples but I try not to get any Apple on me these days. Heck, even Sherlock replaces several Shareware and Commercial products which used to be around on MacOS.
Not defending Apple for doing it either
Right, now microsoft only sells major release number updates, and gives us the point releases for free via the web and/or service packs. Even from NT 3.51, though, the commercial-intent packages have given you point releases for free, in the form of NT service packs. Windows 9x really should have been much cheaper ($50?) since the "framework" it provides to you is really seriously limited. Then, paying for major revisions wouldn't have felt so ridiculous.
Microsofts update system is much better now, and NT's service pack and hotfix system has always been fairly good. My biggest complaint was with Windows 95 and to a lesser extent 98. How many revisions of 95 did Microsoft put out, I think it was 4 maybe 5. Out of those only the first edition could be purchased in stores, the rest had to be obtained through OEM's who were willing to illegally sell the cds without a new hard drive or motherboard, or with a new system. This mean no upgrade version, you paid the full $120 upgrade price for essentially bugfixes ontop of the OS you bought originally. To add insult to injury MS clearly posted on their website that only some of the bugfixes were available without the new version. 98 was a reasonable version to sell as a new version, although even then the $99 upgrade price was a bit steep for what didn't seem all that different. They really did a good job with the $50 upgrade with ME, even if I don't particularly like the new product.
As for NT and 2000, MS always seems to have done a much better job on it, look at the major releases. 3.5, 4.0, and 5.0 (2000) have all been pretty major changes to the OS and well worthy of the upgrade prices.
Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:3)
We* use distributions that come with literally thousands of programs. We complain when Microsoft adds a couple to their new OS/Distro.
Except that when Microsoft adds a couple new one it's plan is to eliminate competition from the other companies who have been traditionally been selling their products. If MS ships a version that does most everything about as well as the competition bundled with the OS, must people won't look to someone else to write a slightly better version. The distros are shipping others software, usually not righting their own. The software being shipped is also free in most cases, so noone is losing out here.
We call Windows bloated at 400MB, but when someone points out that distro X takes 7 CD's, we defend that distro
The 7 cds doesnt necesarrily reflect the installed size. Debian's package archive is about 4 gigs, yet it can happily be installed and used on a 1 gig hard drive, and the default install takes 50 megs. Redhat seems to take about 600 megs in it's default install, but it can be adjusted down to maybe 300 megs. Too me the big difference is that I look at Windows with it's 400 meg install and then look at a 400 meg RedHat install, and compare the functionality. With most Linux distro's I get a majority of the tools I need for my daily use. I get a gui, development tools, word proccessing, internet, and multimedia players. From their I may have to do updates if I want more recent versions and a few extra apps, but most stuff is there. With Windows I still would have to install Office, Ms Dev Studio, WinAmp, and all of the little tools that I may want.
We're happy to use software that updates several times a month, some update daily. When Apple releases two patches in one month, we say their forcing people to update against their will or something.
Agreed on this one, as long as the patches are free I say update them on a reular basis. I only have problems with the way Microsoft used to do updates, sell a new version of Windows. I for one usually update my debian systems every other day or so.
Re:Non-proprietary formats? (Score:1)
In addition, Vorbis has a *neat* feature that if you have a 256k OGG file (OGG ~= MP3), then you can stream a 128k file just by chopping each packet in half. This is "realtime downprocessing", and you *can't* do that with MP3's. To stream a 256k MP3 at 128k, you'd have to do something like: mpg123 blah.mp3 -o [stdout] | lame [stdin] -br128 | shoutcast
Don't be so quick to dismiss OGG just yet.
--Robert
Windows 97? (Score:1)
People say "**** anyone?" and I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. What the hell is Windows97?
Re:Windows 97? (Score:1)
Or my favorite, a woman who was using a Mac with Office 98 installed. All the Macs were currently being used. She didn't want to open her document on a Win98 machine with Office 2000, because she typed the paper in "Microsoft", and the OS on the Win98 computers looked nothing like the Macs, so it couldn't really be "Microsoft!"
There *IS* an undo Update... (Score:2)
I haven't actually tried this with an update, as nothing's broken on mine, but if you go to:
on your OS X drive, you'll see receipts for the updates, which under OS X Server at least, you could doubleclick to uninstall the updates.
Re:Coulpa basic points (Score:2)
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Ben Stanfield, Executive Editor
MacSlash [macslash.com]
Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:1)
What the fodge? Who moderated the parent of this? It's a -1, Troll dammit! Still, I allow myself to be trolled and continue typing ...
Actually, I believe that IE allows you to look at NS all you want - in fact, it lets you look at just about everything out there on the web, since *that* is what it was designed for.
I assume by 'that' you are referring to the majority of the web. You are correct that the web was designed for IE. IE's standards (coff, coff) are botched. I use Mozilla and as a content producer am extremely happy with its support of standard standards. A lot of websites display poorly in standards compliant user agents because they were designed around the flawed algorithms in IE.
It complies with mail standards just fine,
Which mail standards?
AND I can check Hotmail without having to use the web interface. Oh no, it's the tool of Satan!
You use Hotmail???
Well, no, actually, their addons don't limit anyone's choice.
You are a naive silly little boy. Go back to kindy. Have you ever talked to someone using a piece of trash? Do they want to change? No, because their piece of trash works just fine for them.
If I was to say to someone ... don't use MSThat, use This ... they would say: But why? MSThat already does what I want to do, and it is installed already!
MS has abused its position of being the desktop of choice for clones (such as yourself) and you get people who are too lazy to install a technically superior product because they already have something 'good enough'.
Go back under that rock again. If you missed the DOJ vs MS then you ... well ... just go back under that rock already!
Unless you feel that if you've already got MSN Messenger then it'd be an unholy act for you to install AIM as well.
Apple. Orange.
Totally different systems.
because it actually IS convenient to have all sorts of goodies already installed on the machine
Convenient for who? The consumer to have to take the extra step of removing WMP? It is convenient for the supplier to boast and say ... Well hey, 4101998 people installed our product
Bottom line is you don't know what you're talking about. Go home to Mummy and ask her to put that rock back on your head where it belongs and where it has been for the last five years.
-1, Troll (Score:1)
I forgot to mention, if MS says it, people will do it.
When the installer says you should have IE, OE, Msgr [crysm.net], WMP, YATLA, ETC, etc they will install it and will never hear about any competitors. Will anyone who has WMP go searching for a media player? No, because they already have one that does the job (to some degree of success).
Want to try this out? Want to see how automated Windows users are?
Here's how ...
Stand near someone using a computer. When a dialog comes up and they dismiss it ask them what the dialog said.
I'll bet they just slammed space or enter as soon as it appeared and chose the default option and won't have a clue what was asked.
early adopters release (Score:3)
The thing to keep in mind is that OS X 10.0.x is still an "early adopters'" release, and early adopters have been screaming for these updates. I'm sure the 10.1 release in July will be more stable with respect to updates (as far as stability - with respect to SYSTEM stability, 10.0.x is solid so far.
What concerns me - no pkg management (Score:1)
Very Strange (Score:1)
Re:Mac OS X updates - the right way to do it (Score:2)
it should be noted that 10.0.3 was only 15MB if you didn't install 10.0.1 and/or 10.0.2. software update seems to detect what you've installed, and if you haven't upgrade your last "n" patches, it rolls them all up into one. i had installed 10.0.2, so 10.0.3 was less than a 500kb update for me.
this is great of course: if you want to upgrade your box every few days with every little update you can. alternatively if you only want to upgrade every six months you can do that also as all of the previous patches that you missed will be rolled into one big update for you.
additionally these updates also include security fixes (ie ftpd was upgraded in 10.0.3) which is necessary for any serious unix-like system.
in the end the way Apple is doing their updates is exactly as it should be. it's elegant, it doesn't force you to do it if you don't want to and it keeps your software up-to-date with the latest security patches. the only potential issues i can find right now are that there's no clean way to uninstall a patch if there's a problem, and they don't provide a lot of information with each patch. i'm not sure about the technical issues regarding the former, but with any luck the latter will be improved upon soon with enough feedback (that Apple actually seems to be reading!!)
anyhow this story is very troll-like, but i've seen it a lot around the 'net: there's a lot of people out there who have never tried MacOS X and jump to conclusions all the time. it's like they're going out of their way to find every reason not to like it. oh well, their loss.
- j
Re:Updates on YOUR schedule (Score:4)
it also seems that updates roll in earlier changes you may have missed. for instance if if you didn't install 10.0.2, 10.0.3 was 15Mb. if you did install 10.0.2 then 10.0.3 was only 500Kb.
the updates aren't extremely fine-grained (ie. all "system software" always comes in one update and there's no way to pick-and-choose the bits) but some things are separated, like the updated Epson Printer Drivers, so you can opt to not installs those parts if you don't need them. all updates are optional as well, and nothing is done 100% automatically without the user at the very least ok-ing the components to be installed.
it's not perfect yet, but all in all i'd say that it's a great system they've got going. as for the frequency of the updates i don't see this "frustration" talked about in the article. in fact the vast majority of Mac users i've talked to love the frequent updates.
really though it sounds like these people bitching about the system are those who have never actually tried it themselves!
- j
Sounds like you're spoiled (Score:3)
You've been spoiled by the "oh, one more thing" that Steve Jobs does. Perhaps you miss the old days when a system update meant you could spend the weekend after an update was released to hunt for Easter eggs, play with new features, give speech recognition another try, etc.
Apple used to be big into monolithic updates because users expected it. The dot-oh release had some huge features -- 7.0 brought new multitasking management, new system folder structure, and plenty of user interface improvements. 8.0 brought the new Platinum look, PowerPC native almost everything and additional features. 9.0 brought multiple users, speech recognition improvements, and true Carbon support.
Then we waited for the inevitable dot-one release where users were absolved for all the sins from the dot-oh release. Eventually a dot-five release would roll around bring a few more feature, followed by a dot-six release meaning Mac users should get ready for the next dot-oh release in six months.
Minor releases came for new Macs to support new hardware, but any way you looked at it, the updates came once every 6-8 months.
Today's world is different. Apple is pushing periodic updates bringing incremental updates more often, with a large dot-one release planned for June.
In my opinion, that's the way to do it. If Apple knows of something that can be fixed, then they should do it as soon as it's been quality-tested, and not wait for a big monolithic release. This is particular true for security holes (Mac OS !0.1.3 brought an improved ftpd), but it's also nice for system performance and minor bugs. I'm glad to see Apple taking this approach.
I've used Mac OS X exclusively since its release, except to play the occasional DVD on plane or backup my system. It's not as far a long as Mac OS 9 with some things, but for others it's way beyond it. Each week brings an update from Apple or another carbon-compliant application, which means that I can strip the System Folder in the Classic environment for even more performance gains and stability for those apps still left in the Classic Environment. I'm glad that I didn't have to wait until June for the system to become really usable.
1.6 MB for 10.0.3 (Score:1)
Apple has learned from the Open Source community.. (Score:1)
After all, now that they are BSD, the 31337 g4y20r script kiddeez are gonna be huntin' and targettin' all the boxen OS X they can portscan.
BTW, now that the Apple OS is BSD, and M$ has already announced an active OS X/Carbonlib/Cocoa Office porting effort, anybody else glom on to the fact that:
since Darwin ~= OS X ~= BSD ~= *BSD,
we'll be able to say that Office runs on *BSD?
Re:In many situations, it's never too often! (Score:1)
This has been my primary frustration with Apple's OS X updates. It's not easy finding out what the update actually does, i.e. what bugs it fixes, features it adds, etc. The best I've been able to find are extremely brief explanations with little or no informative detail. Even those involved a bit of digging to locate.
My suggestion to Apple would be to add a button to the Software Update app which would bring up a detailed description of the update. Something like this would be great for people who want to know what's happening with their machines. I'm not so much afraid that they're going to screw up something important as I am simply interested in what these updates are addressing.
Better than Ximian... (Score:2)
I like Apple's method of providing regular, touching-in, fix-a-few-things updates. They're small, they work, they're quick, and they let me know there are still humans on the other side of the installer.
TomatoMan
Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:2)
Well, yeah, I think that's the plan. Who's complaining, really? Take Outlook Express for example. As a mail client, it does everything I want it to. Maybe I'm just not that demanding, but if I was that demanding, I'd do something similar to what I'm about to talk about.
As a news client, OE was "good enough" to get me by, but since since "good enough" doesn't quite satisfy my needs, I moved onto Agent. Perhaps my needs will outgrow Agent one day and I'll be poking around for a new one.
If MS gives people the tools to get the job done, and get it done to the users' satisfaction, then the user will stick with that piece of software until such time as they're forced by the deficiencies of their current software package to look for a better alternative. The point is, this is not a bad thing! It's a bad thing if you're trying to hawk your mail client which is OE's equal, in which case the people will be a) happy with OE and therefore will never hear of you or b) looking for something better, in which case they'll skip over your OE clone. It is a good thing, however, when you consider that this will spur alternative mail client developers to aspire to something truly great so people who have outgrown what MS has handed them will have a clear alternative!
At least you're not claiming that IE is an evil product designed to filter out any competitors software that you might come across on the web, as another post in this thread seems to claim. :)
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Re:I'm sick of these double standards (Score:3)
Actually, I believe that IE allows you to look at NS all you want - in fact, it lets you look at just about everything out there on the web, since *that* is what it was designed for.
Outlook Express, an email client, designed to prevent users from looking at many other third party, and standards compliant, email packages
You're starting to sound a a bit off... OE, an email client. That's it. No conspiracies. It complies with mail standards just fine, AND I can check Hotmail without having to use the web interface. Oh no, it's the tool of Satan!
MSN Messenger, an IM client designed to prevent users from using AOL IM, Windows Media Player, a streaming media player, designed to prevent users from looking at RealPlayer, or worse, non-proprietry formats such as MP3, and many others
Good god man, you're so far off your rocker you're beyond help by any modern psychiatric treatments and drugs. MSN Msgr, WMP, a IM client (and that's all, again, no conspiracy) and a Media Player that blows away anything else that's available (or, at least, it blows away the competition you suggested (Real... blech)).
The specific intent of Microsoft's 'add-ons' is to avoid choice
Well, no, actually, their addons don't limit anyone's choice. Unless you feel that if you've already got MSN Messenger then it'd be an unholy act for you to install AIM as well.
By forcing the users to install this software, it becomes inefficient and potentially destructive to the stability of the system, to install third party competitors
Nobody's forcing anything. The software simply comes as part of the OS. Nobody goes out, buys the OS, installs it, only to have the MS Gestapo knocking on their door five minutes later, carrying Uzi's and WMP/IE/MSNM CD's, demanding that the software they bring be put on the machine. If some brave soul decides to take the plunge and sully their machine with RealPlayer or ICQ or some other monstrosity that you advocate as the preferable alternative to the default MS programs for those tasks, these alternatives work just fine and dandy alongside the MS software.
h as Real and AOL, or because they encourage use of commodity protocols
Oh, bravo! Real and AOL, the pioneers of all things good in this MS-dominated world. Great example.
In short, there's no comparison. Microsoft is forcing you to install software you don't necessarily want, in order to cripple the competition.
Again, they're not forcing anything. They are including it for a) their market share (duh) and b) because it actually IS convenient to have all sorts of goodies already installed on the machine without having to hunt around and download'em once you get the machine.
Anyways, yeah, I know, I got trolled, but I'm sure there's some impressionable people out there who might take what you say seriously, and possibly even buy into some of it. It's not very healthy t spread your mentality around like some sort of disease.
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Re:Win2000 Service Pack (Score:2)
Non-proprietary formats? (Score:4)
non-proprietry formats such as MP3
MP3 is NOT non-proprietary; it's patented [mp3licensing.com]. The token non-proprietary free audio standard isn't MP3; it's Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com].
Re:Update policy (Score:2)
Update policy (Score:3)
It seems easy enough to do this by hand. Whenever I have spare time, I check to see if there are new updates. If there are, then I read the release notes to see if they do anything I care about. If they do, then I install the update.
I wouldn't use automatic updates in any circumstance, even if I had some super-smart filter.
Yeah, gotta love IRIX for that (Score:2)
(*especially* after installing some of the goodies from http://freeware.sgi.com/index-by-alpha.html)
It's the OS that I deal with most of the time (heh, especially when my load average this morning is 0.00 0.00 0.00), so I'm quite greatful of this... I'm the sorta person that would rather have a damn near perfect OS than wizbang hardware.
Not perfect, but still useful. (Score:2)
The reason this can be annoying is that the updates sometimes replace custom builds/newer versions. For example, 10.0.1 installed SSH 2.3, overwriting 2.5.1 which I had installed earlier. I'd much rather see "System 10.0.3 Update", "SSH 2.9", "ColorSync", as individual packages, rather than one single "10.0.3 Update".
An ignore update option would be useful as well. I kept seeing IE and MS Lookout updates included in my Updates list under 9, even though I had trashed both of them some time earlier. I guess they were included as they are now part of the system software, although I had never seen any netscape updates (which is also included with the OS)
I'm sick of these double standards (Score:5)
We call Windows bloated at 400MB, but when someone points out that distro X takes 7 CD's, we defend that distro
We're happy to use software that updates several times a month, some update daily. When Apple releases two patches in one month, we say their forcing people to update against their will or something.
*Yes, I know this doesn't apply to every single reader.
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Re:In many situations, it's never too often! (Score:2)
Re:In the future... (Score:2)
Re:This is the right thing to do... (Score:2)
Hmmmm... why upgrade at all then? I really have trouble coming up with a task that requires Photoshop 6 over 5.5 - if the artists are used to 5.5, and you don't want to spend the cash to teach them 6, why did you fork over the $200/license to get 6? The only reason I can imagine is pressure from the artists themselves (reading reviews and then requesting the upgrade saying it would make their job easier or something).
As far as monolithic upgrades go, the companies need them in order to make their business model work. No one would buy a product just incrementally better than the original. This is why Microsoft releases few updates to their OS outside of stabalizing it. For Microsoft, this is especially true in their 9x/ME line of OS's because the entry cost is so cheap (well, relative to NT anyway). The monolithic update scheme is not specific to non-OS vendors. The reason that Apple, Sun, Linux vendors, etc can afford to present incremental upgrades is that they have none software-license-driven business models (hardware, hardware/services, and services respectively). Adobe and Microsoft don't have an alternate means of profiting off of Photoshop/Windows, so they must have either monolithic upgrades or a high cost. Microsoft uses one method for its 9x line, and another for NT. Adobe uses both
This is the right thing to do... (Score:5)
Personally, I'd rather have a bunch of close together updates then the monolithic updates that non-OS vendors force these days. For example the last releases of Photoshop and Illustrator had a disastrous effect on my business. The artists couldn't deal with the sweeping changes made by Adobe.
Finally, I imagine that it's easier for engineering and QA get their jobs done by shipping micro updates. Especially since there are so many different parts of this OS.
No such thing... (Score:3)
"Release early, release often." -- Linus Torvalds
Re:Microsoft update release schedules (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:4)
Nobody is forcing you to upgrade (Score:3)
I'd rather have lots of updates than not enough (as long as they don't break things!)
How many people complain that RedHat doesn't release update RPMs fast enough (though you can now grab them from RawHide [redhat.com]) and they don't show up in RedCarpet [ximian.com] in a timely manner?
So configure your client to update on a schedule you want and be glad when it DOES run that there are fixes to be had - you could be stuck with a buggy OS that never has the fixes released on a regular basis (*cough*Microsoft*cough*)
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Re:Nobody is forcing you to upgrade (Score:4)
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Updates (Score:4)
OSX vs. OS9 (Score:2)
The G4 stays in X all the time since I mainly use it only for "work" (which entails several shell prompts and a tn3270 emu) and it does the job fine, it doesn't run slow and it doesn't crash. The iBook on the other hand is a different situation, I hardly ever boot out of OS9.1 for several reasons.
1) There's a marked difference between G3 and G4 proc performance, even though there's only a 34Mhz difference between the 2 machines. OSX runs hideously slow even when doing simple GUI tasks, and the updates have done little to nothing for this.
2) CD Burning. Give me a break... Apple touted that CD auth support would be coming "soon" after the initial release and that was one of the reasons I was willing to plunk down the money for the OS and stick it out from the get go, but iTunes for burning just doesn't cut it for me. It's a great MP3 (I can still say mp3 without being sued right?) and CD player, but I (and many others I know) really prefer Toast.
3) DVD's : 'nuff said.
4) Battery consumption isn't "slightly decreased" as per Apple's claim, in fact I find it to be "basically cut in half" but that just may be me.
Anyway, OSX is an awesome step forward for Apple, but there are many bugs to be worked out and features to be added before it's ready for the general public (which this has already been said, but I thought I'd put in my 2 cents)
On a side note, I've been keeping tabs on the MacAddict forums for some time now, and I keep seeing all these posts on "Where do I go to learn Unix" and "How do I do this in the Terminal". While these people really aren't supporting the Linux movement, they are reaching out for knowledge that's deeper than the content's of a Start or Apple menu, and I think that can only be a good thing for the future.
Cheers,
- Syn
In many situations, it's never too often! (Score:5)
If I can get a painless, nearly-transparent bug or security fix the moment it's ready for prime time just by clicking "update", I'm a happy camper. I'm puzzled by this assertion that every two weeks is too much.
An update scheme such as OS X's should meet the following criteria:
I'm using OS X as my primary OS, and so far, Apple has done an absolutely outstanding job with 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. Only #3 is week -- the only explanation you see when an update is available is "OS X 10.0.3". You have to install the update then try to divine what's changed. If Apple fixes this problem, they'll have a killer mechanism that Linux distros would do well to study.
Mac OS X updates - the right way to do it (Score:2)
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