Apple's Response to Microsoft: Unix Ads? 729
flaneur writes "In light of Microsoft's recent anti-Unix ads and the end of the 5-year contract between Apple, it's pretty interesting that Apple is suddenly running print ads emphasizing the Unix core of Mac OS X. Under the headline 'Sends other UNIX boxes to /dev/null', the ads contain quotes from various journalists praising the OS. But the most interesting thing? There's no IE in the dock -- Netscape is shown instead! Hmmm..."
no IE icon... (Score:4, Insightful)
No kidding.
Re:no IE icon... (Score:2, Insightful)
Works for me.
Re:no IE icon... (Score:3)
Re:no IE icon... (Score:2)
How is Open Office with Mac OS X? I don't see any Mac binaries on openoffice.org, but there are instructions to build it..
Does anyone test Open Office on OS X? how good, fast, bug free is it?
Re:no IE icon... (Score:2)
Sujal
Re:no IE icon... (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't need a Word/Office killer. We need the ability to read documents that are sent to us while using a system that is appropriate to our needs.
Re:no IE icon... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because lots and lots and lots of people use Office. So by showing that Office runs on OS X, Apple is showing you that even that will work.
Besides, it supports the "MS should be making software, not OS'es" theory.
Hell, Apple used to use Office X to promote OS X - they commented that Office X was more advanced and faster than Office 2000 on a PC.
Mac OS is not synonymous with "No-microsoft."
Re:no IE icon... (Score:5, Insightful)
but the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
this is how an anti-unix ad gets to be a pro-unix add on slashodot. it says "put other *unix* boxes to
people, this is an anti-linux ad.
Re:no IE icon... (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, Explorer on Mac OS 9 and OS X cannot show languages like Hebrew, Arabic and some others, and the MS office suite doesn't support those languages at all.
Re:no IE icon... (Score:4, Interesting)
Read the first quote in the ad. They're not competing with Microsoft, they're competing with Sun, SGI and Compaq (DEC AlphaStation). Most of the people quoted are people who've come to MacOS X from other Unix variants.
I see the same thing on
Re:3 icons that say... (Score:3, Funny)
What does that mean?
If they had used Entourage instead of Excel, would it have said: WEPON X? Too bad Access isn't available on OS X.
WEAPON X would have been hilarious
Statements by our leaders on the WXP Trinity (Score:5, Funny)
What Apple is really saying is that MacOS gives you the ability to run Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) on top of a UNIX core environment. But, is that a good thing? The answer is easy enough to obtain if we ask ourselves, with due humility, What ld Jesus Do? Oops, sorry -- wrong church. I mean, what would our leaders have to say about it? Well, my prayers to the Gods of Freenix were answered and what follows are (approximately) the words I heard in the vision with which I was rewarded for my Faith:
RMS:
WRS:
ESR:
CmdrTaco:
[Yeah, I know WRS is dead, but this was a vision, see?]
They have always done this (Score:2)
This is nothing new
This was outlined in the Plans for MS breakup. (Score:3, Funny)
tcd004
Mirror of ad (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Mirror of ad (Score:2, Informative)
Good ad, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good ad, but... (Score:3, Funny)
But i might be off my rocker.
Re:Good ad, but... (Score:4, Funny)
And you wonder why you're a 27 year old virgin?
The X icon. (Score:2, Interesting)
The real question, why would Apple want to show a GUI on the mac that you could use instead of it's own?
Re:The X icon. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The X icon. (Score:2)
Dude. Where have you been [xdarwin.org] for the last year?
Re:The X icon. (Score:4, Informative)
You can (relatively easilly) run an X-server on OSX
that having been said
No big mystery here. . . (Score:2, Interesting)
Take not Linux advocates.
Re:No big mystery here. . . (Score:2)
I cannot ask for anything more. All I really care about doing is running gcc, nedit or a comporable editor, gdb and having a standard tcp stack. Anything else is optional. It wasn't because of their advertising or soliciting. It's because Apple is starting to kick major ass.
If I couldn't buy one, I would give my left nut for one of their cinema displays.
Re:No big mystery here. . . (Score:2)
Targetted ads? What a conspiracy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes the rubish shown here is impressive...
Re:Targetted ads? What a conspiracy! (Score:2, Insightful)
...none of the hassle...? (Score:3, Insightful)
and what up with the other guy: "...after two and a half years of linux, i've finally found joy in a unix operating system..." give me a break, this ad is so targeted at weenies.
need more proof? last quote "...we're old hardcore UNIX hackers..."
Re:...none of the hassle...? (Score:2)
Re:...none of the hassle...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course after 7 years of Linux I finally found joy in a unix OS. I guess I'm just a weenie.
Re:...none of the hassle...? (Score:2)
1. the first time you used any Unix?
2. the first time you switched to Linux?
3. the first time you used OS X?
As a 7-year Linux user, what are the top 5 things you find superior in OS-X? And don't say GUI.
Re:...none of the hassle...? (Score:2)
Re:...none of the hassle...? (Score:4, Insightful)
Word,
Excel,
Powerpoint,
IE,
Photosh
There. That's 5 things I can get on OS-X but not Linux.
Don't get me wrong, to me Linux is like heroin, I'm always looking for that nice, warm, fuzzy feeling I got when I installed Linux for the first time. The feeling I felt when I tried out OS-X the other day was the feeling closest to that very same warm fuzzy feeling I had 6 years back.
I'm even for the first time in my life _seriously_ considering a Mac (if I would have known that 2-3 years ago I would have commited myself to a psychiatric hospital).
Re:...none of the hassle...? (Score:5, Interesting)
1. the first time you used any Unix?
2. the first time you switched to Linux?
3. the first time you used OS X?
I'm not the original poster, but here's a related comment: possibly my most joyful moment in using OS X was when I switched from an Aqua application (running locally, obviously) to an X-Windows application (running remotely on a Solaris/SPARC box) without even noticing it. That's a spicy meatball.
And, honestly, the experience of using UNIX for the very first time could never be described as joyful. Interesting? Yes. Powerful? Yes. But joyful? C'mon now....
As for a top-five list, personally I think leaving out the GUI is, well, pretty stupid. Face it: a GUI is one of the most important facets of how usable a computer is. That said, here's my crack at it:
- Installation. It takes 10 minutes from "Insert CD" to "Play MP3's streaming from the Internet". I've got RedHat down to about 25 - 35 minutes, but it's a chore.
- Development. My professional job is developing software for Solaris/SPARC, and the Carbon/Cocoa API's take out a lot of the hassle. Plus, you get a full-featured IDE (ProjectBuilder [apple.com]) and scores of professional-grade development tools for free. Yes, they're based on the GNU compiler suite, but the stuff you get on top of that (packaging & UI-building tools in particular) are excellent.
- Laptop fanciness. I do my development (both for work and personal stuff) everywhere and anywhere that I can (network connection provided, that is). For 3 years I ran Linux on a laptop with varying levels of satisfaction. Getting it to do somewhat simple things (sleeping when I closed the lid, etc etc) was a challenge. Sometimes I enjoyed the challenge, but sometimes I just wanted the damn thing to work. Oh yeah, and the batteries last 5 hours per charge.
- Main-Stream programs. All hate-mongering aside, MS Office is useful (and necessary for some people). Adobe Acrobat (not just the reader) is great. I like being able to run Palm Desktop when I need complicated appointments, and 'cal' from the command line when I'm just looking for a date.OmniGraffle [omnigroup.com] is quite possibly the best diagramming program to date. Using OS X (with its MacOS history of having strong graphical programs), I can produce documentation that blows the door off of anything I could create with StarOffice/KDE Office/Gimp. I'm not discounting the usefulness of these open-sourced (and very competent) apps -- the OS X ones are simply better. Yes, more expensive, but it's worth the cost to me.
- Top-end hardware support. Bluetooth, firewire, CD-RW, DVD, etc etc. It's all built in to a point that you don't even think about using it. You can burn a CD by drag-and-drop from the desktop for crissake.
Those five things said, the UI is really the best accomplishment of OS X. My mother uses a Unix-based OS and doesn't even know (or care). She just likes the shiny buttons and the way the programs never crash each other.Wow... looks like I'd better get off of the soap box before it breaks from all my gushing.... Basically, in my mind, OS X is an phenomenal accomplishment. It makes my life easier, and it re-taught me to appreciate the beauty of Unix again.
--Mid
Re:...none of the hassle...? (Score:2, Funny)
Odd? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ouch (Score:2, Informative)
Beep...Beep...Beep..............
I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... (Score:5, Insightful)
The X icon is definitely a nice touch to push the BSD/Darwin underpinnings. I compiled and ran several X programs for my iBook a while ago, and with a rootless X server and the right windowmanager, it's a really nice combination.
I was hoping this might be an Apple thread that'd stay away from the lame "It's too expensive for me, hmph!" whining people with no sense of TCO seem to cry out, that gets debunked every single time.
Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... (Score:3, Interesting)
Simply because they have no appreciation of cars at all, and can barely use one anyway.
Find me a school that teaches assembly language, with a choice of 68k/PPC or x86, and I'll show you one where everyone drops x86 ASM after 1 semester, but every student graduates being a master at PPCasm.
Hmmm... another Intel lawsuit? (Score:2, Funny)
It's simple, really (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple realizes that it is converting UNIX engineers (like me) to the Mac platform with OS X. They're simply trying to get more UNIX folks to convert by placing ads in key technical publications
It is odd that IE isn't in the Dock, but the Microsoft Office X suite is well-represented in the Dock.
Apple has a valuable partnership with Microsoft. Sure, there's some rough edges, but for the most part it's a good team. Microsoft even formally announced that it will continue supporting the Mac, even after it's settlement contract expires.
Microsoft apps for the Mac aren't much like their Windows counterparts. They're generally more sensibly written, and the MacBU team seems to pay closer attention to what the user actually wants, instead of what Microsoft thinks they want.
A bigger question may be why they don't have any of the Omni Group's [omnigroup.com] [goatse.cx] software in the Dock. In my humble opinion, Apple is paying too little attention to these people who've been around for years and years (think NeXT) developing great, solid applications.
Not everything is a conspiracy.
can't use iTools with OmniWeb (Score:4, Interesting)
Do I have to mention that it works smoothly if you switch OmniWeb's identity to some MSoft-Products?
Is this very bad style, apple?
Re:It's simple, really (Score:5, Insightful)
By displaying a Netscape icon - they're visually telling the ad's target audience, the Unix person who may be thinking of migrating to OS X, that OS X does run alternative browsers - because most Unix-heads are pretty unhappy with Microsoft's offerings on other unix platforms (for instance, Solaris).
By displaying the Office suite icons, they're visually telling the ad's target audience; here's your solution to the problem of not being able to read MS Office files on your Solaris/BSD/Linux/HPUX/AIX/SGI/etc. box.
I agree with you 100% on your opinion of Omni Group's software - but on the other hand, on OS X, iCab is MUCH faster - even though it's rendering is often very quirky - and personally, my choice is Mozilla. Mozilla is much faster than OmniWeb, plus Mozilla has tabbed browsing.
Re:It's simple, really (Score:2)
It's the best argument for Cocoa I've seen yet; the better font readability is amazing.
I did try the Mozilla-based product whose spelling I can't remember (Chimera? [1]) - it does render text well, but it won't let you change your font. It's way behind OW, although it is nice to see another browser with font rendering that doesn't make me wince.
For some reason, Mozilla's font rendering looks better than IE's, but worse than OmniWeb's. Anyone know why?
D
(*) Marketing hint, guys: When you name a product, make it easy to spell
Process List (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Process List (Score:2)
Which gives you the advantage of being able to
killall microsoft orang
Anyone notice ... (Score:2, Funny)
One word: Optimize.
(now removing tongue from cheek)
And that's in the background! (Score:2)
Re:And that's in the background! (Score:2)
a fine reply (Score:5, Interesting)
The tone of the "Way out" is a whiny "UNIX is too hard" that perfectly matches the designed-by-Smurfs interface they're pushing with XP. It's nice to see Apple having the collective cajones to ante up and reply "Yeah, UNIX can be hard, but (a) it's worth it, (b) we've done it, and (c) it just *works.*"
Interestingly (to me) this is the software version of what I thought Apple was going to do before the iPod was announced. When Jobs said the new hardware item would be "revolutionary", I imagined an industrial 2-U rackmount dual-G4 server with an Apple logo laser-cut into a burly-he-man stainless steel faceplate. With remote Aqua/X admin tools. Now *that* would have been revolutionary for Apple. iPod... not so much. But here they're doing the equivalent serious production-geek-appeal with software. I especially like that X is shown in the dock. Now there's a finger in Bill's eye.
Jon
An ironic reply. (Score:2, Insightful)
When XP came out, people were falling all over themselves to point out how it was a rip off of OSX (and that Windows in general was a rip-off of MacOS. I take it that you think that OSX also fits in the designed-by-Smurfs category.
It's nice to see Apple having the collective cajones to ante up and reply "Yeah, UNIX can be hard, but (a) it's worth it, (b) we've done it, and (c) it just *works.*"
Their message is that UNIX is only usable with a designed-by-Smurfs UI tacked on to it.
Windows timeline correction (Score:5, Informative)
Windows 1.0 was released in November, 1985.
Paul
Re:Windows timeline correction (Score:3, Insightful)
According to this [computerhope.com] X, as an asynchronous immediate graphics windowing achictecture was born May 1984. The first public release was September, 1985, 3 months before the release of Microsoft Windows.
Reguardless, the point is valid: X is not an imitation of Microsoft's Windows. I'm sorry to say I didn't check my facts first. I actually picked up the 1989 from Microsoft's splashscreen at boot (it says Copyright 1989-1998, since I used Windows 98 still). And Microsoft Windows didn't see much popularity until 3.0 started to roll around.
Woo hoo! (Score:2, Funny)
Hehe, very nice
Between? (Score:2)
Apple had a contract with itself? Reminds me of a question posed by my high-school newspaper:
- What is the difference between an orange?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?Re:Between? (Score:2)
Re:Between? (Score:2)
Wrong direction (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhhm, guys... (Score:2)
btw... (Score:2, Interesting)
The ad is on the front cover of the new Scientific American (May, 2002), and in the terminal on the OS X desktop, there is a "Microsoft" (and an "Adobe Photoshop") process running. It's possible that the IE button is trademarked and would require permission for use in an ad.
How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are 3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand, who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury.
-- Tom Duff, Bell Labs
rebus (Score:3, Funny)
What became of IE? (Score:2)
It's just a great system (Score:5, Informative)
Played more Icewind Dale
Used Gimp to make a new banner (with Xdarwin)
Used BBedit to edit a Perl script, then to write a review of Icewind Dale
Ran an old OS 9 Groupwise program to connect to my Day Job mail.
Used MS Word to view some work documents.
Ran a perlscript to edit some 200 pictures with ImageMagick.
Surfed the web/checked email with Mozilla.
Wirelessly connected to my internal network and my Linux server/router and out to the Internet.
Used SSH to tweak some setttings on some Linux boxes.
Used Virtual PC to run Win98 so I could run my Sharkport program to save my Metal Gear Solid 2 saved games from the Playstation 2 to my Mac HDD.
Got pictures of my daughter's birthday party from the camera to the Web for the fam'.
Played music with iTunes (Final Fantasy Pray rocks.).
And most of this was running at the same time, with all the stability of my old Linux box, easier than Windows - so simple that my wife, who hates computers, started messing with the laptop (after I gave her her own account so she wouldn't see my Tifa Lockheart porn).
I've used Windows for over a decade, Linux for 3 years, and a Mac for 3 months. Out of them all, OS X is the best out of the lot.
PS: Before you ask, Apple hasn't paid me $0.01 for this. Though I wish...Where's the game payola, guys
Re:It's just a great system (Score:2)
Ah, well. Maybe next lifetime.
Re:It's just a great system (Score:5, Insightful)
You're essentially claiming that a user's experience is related to the software available to the user.
Meaning your first choice may very well be Windows XP, followed by Windows 2000, followed by Windows 98, followed by Mac OS X, followed by Windows 95, followed by Mac Classic, followed by Linux, right?
You're *wishing* for these companies to support Linux, when reality is that these companies really support *themselves*. If Linux enables them to do so, then that's the platform they would push. But Linux, as great as it is for you, doesn't seem to be all that great for the Microsofts, Adobes, and Macromedias of the world.
The installed user base is one hurdle.
The fixed, targeted, complete API is another Compare to Cocoa, Carbon, W32, DirectX, Quicktime, what does Linux have? SDL? X? The others have OpenGL. QT? QT is available on the other platforms as well. GTK? KDE? Those are hardly competitive, though each has their advocates.
Usability of Linux is another hurdle; compared to Windows or Mac OS X, Linux is still very difficult (I run Debian on my server, and what takes me a few seconds in the other two OSes still takes me minutes or hours in Linux; looking up man pages, installing programs, checking versions, configuring stuff, etc)
So the question is... *can* you get application support parity in Linux? How much are you willing to pay for this *feature*? How much more than an Apple machine is worth the cost of Linux support?
No IE? Duh! (Score:2)
Now, IANAMF (I Am Not A Marketing Floozy), but from a marketing perspective, that makes really good sense. It seems to me that in these ads they're attempting to appeal to more Unix-type people than your more basic "I check email and surf CNN.com" computer users. And, those Unix-type people will instinctively have a negative association with virtually anything Microsoft (IE especially).
So, instead the ads attempt to flaunt the fact that the Netscape you currently run on Linux/Solaris/AIX/Irix/HP-UX runs just fine on OS X too. Note they also have the icon for XDarwin [sourceforge.net], the OS X-native X Window server, running in the dock as well.
I don't think this is a case of Apple dissing Microsoft -- they just have a good sense of the target audience.
--Mid
MS doesn't care about Apple or UNIX (Score:2)
Windows only serious competitor is Linux, the others have already bitten the dust.
Smart audience targeting by Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
Apples have long been used in educational and research settings, but over the last few years, Linux workstations have becoming more and more frequent (especially in light of the need for everyday labs working in genomics and proteomics to be paying more attention to their data generation and analysis). I wonder if Apple is recognising this and specifically targeting people working in bioinformatics and life science research to try and win them back to their 'traditional' platform?
OS X vs. Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
OS X can certainly be fixed up to be as good, mostly, but out of the box, most Linux distributions win:
No bash on OS X
No Vim
Terminal program is nowhere near as good as the KDE terminal program
That's not a complete list, of course. Basically, what I've found is that if I sit down and try to use OS X to develop Unix programs, I run into lots of little things where it is just not as good as Linux.
If I had to have exactly one computer, and if Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot did not exist (their existence makes this no contest...I'd pick Windows), it would be a Mac with OS X, because the combination of an acceptable Unix plus mainstream commercial apps, and a very nice administrative interface for those things I'm not expert enough in to configure by hand, makes it a great system.
Oh, and the development tools and environment are certainly a big plus for OS X. With Interface Builder and Project Builder, using Carbon or Cocoa, it is easy to whip out an application that consists of a nice GUI front end and a traditional command-line stdin/stdout Unix program on the backend.
Yes, you can do this on Linux, using something like Perl/Tk, but when you do it on OS X, you get a great looking interface. Perl/Tk is one of those things we like in spite of its looks.
Re:OS X vs. Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Mac OS X ships with plain vi. Bash is not included, but zsh, csh, and tcsh are... also sh, the real sh (not a sym link to bash).
Re:OS X vs. Linux (Score:5, Informative)
- Vim IS available for OS X. Again, no recompile needed. [imdat.de] About 3 seconds, again Google.
- Agreed, the Terminal is decidedly no-frills. I don't need to spend a lot of time in the Terminal though (thanks to those awesome development tools) so I haven't looked very hard for a replacement. For those inclined, there has to be something better available somewhere. Perhaps someone can recommend an alternative?
Re:OS X vs. Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Given some searching and downloading, all current operating systems (Windows XP, Linux, OS X) can be made into quite acceptable environments.
The nice thing about most Linux distributions is that you don't need to do that searching and downloading. That's especially nice for those that don't have broadband.
That's why I say that for the pure Unix user, Linux wins. It's got all that good stuff out of the box.
OS X reminds me a lot of a commercial Unix in the '80s and 90's. A good base that you can tweek with free software to get something great. And, unlike those other commerical Unixes, it also runs end-user consumer applications.
Let me put it another way. Take away the GUI from OS X and you are left with Darwin. Darwin is available for x86. How many people do you see choosing Darwin/x86 over Linux? Not many...because as a Unix, it just isn't as good a Unix as Linux is.
fruitcake! (Score:4, Funny)
I don't rate their chances highly (Score:2)
I've always enjoyed using Unix for its reliability. When Apple make an OS that doesn't need rebooting 5 times a day then they might get a few more converts from other Unices. Well, that's my experience with 10.1.3 on a PowerBook. As it is my PowerBook is OK to use as a toy but for the heavy duty kind of use that I usually put Unix workstations to I'll keep well away.
Almost there... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, I wish there weren't so many different installers used by various apps. The standard one you get with Apple's development environment is nice in that it allows normal users to temporarily acquire admin privileges by entering a user/password. They all should do this, but I find myself logging out completely and logging back in as admin just to install some software.
Along these lines, it would also be nice to have an easier way to start gui apps as an admin - sort of a graphical sudo. Of course I can do something like sudo open /path/to/Finder.app or whatever but it's a pain.
Well, those are my completely non-expert opinions. Take them with a huge grain of salt. Hopefully Apple will improve on them in 10.2, along with some of the other issues I've noticed. Even so, I love this OS and I'm very excited to see how much better it can get!
Check your hardware. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is unintentional irony at its finest.
Random bsd-layer application coredumps are not normal behavior under OSX, and the number of complete system crashes/lockups you describe are way above the average that I've observed. I would wager any amount of beer that you have a hardware problem.
The ironic part: odds are very high that you have a memory parity error happening. Unfortunately, one of the reasons that those SGIs cost 5X as much as a PowerMac is that they support ECC memory, and can thus recover a bit more gracefully from such errors.
Swap out your DIMMs with registered CL2 sticks from Mushkin, Kingston or Crucial, and I suspect you'll be suitably impressed by the results. (Also, check and make certain that the CPU and case fans are operating at their indicated voltage and RPM...)
Insightful comments otherwise, btw.
Re:Almost there... (Score:5, Informative)
There's a shareware tool for this -- pesudo [tds.net].
Paul
Re:Best quote (Score:4, Funny)
Bill Joy?
Re:Best quote (Score:5, Funny)
Since it takes about 2.5 years to learn to use vi, I would support this hypothesis.
Steve
Re:Dont care as long as Bill Gates (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No IE, but I see PPT (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No IE, but I see PPT (Score:2, Interesting)
This was under classic MacOS, so there wasn't a concept of "left over" cpu time, but what IE did was use interrupt time or something similar to grab more cpu time. Everything else on the computer ran at a crawl when you were browsing with IE.
Re:No IE, but I see PPT (Score:2)
Re:No IE, but I see PPT (Score:3, Funny)
You know, its possible to state your point without being a complete fuck.
Re:No IE, but I see PPT (Score:2, Funny)
No it's not you asshole. This is slashdot moron.
:P
The reasoning's pretty simple (Score:4, Interesting)
They also know that it's aggravating as heck to not be able to read Microsoft files, however evil they may be. They also don't want to enrage Microsoft. So they put in the MS productivity applications almost everyone uses at some point or another.
I think it was a very wise compromise between kowtowing to Redmond and understanding the reactions of Unix users.
Now, I will admit that I would have used OmniWeb if it had been my system. But they probably knew, quite rightly, that few people outside of the MacOS X/NeXTStep communities had ever heard of OmniWeb. So they selected Netscape.
I think it was a very nice gesture of them, and a good tip of the hat to classic Unix hackers. As was the view of top.
D
Re:No IE, but I see PPT (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't remember a time since OS X was debuted when IE hasn't appeared in the dock for something like that.
Maybe it's an indicator that, with the MS agreement coming to an end, Apple won't be completely endorsing IE. There are some cool OS X browsers evolving, so it could make a difference.
mark
Re:No IE, but I see PPT (Score:2)
Re:No IE, but I see PPT (Score:2)
Re:good for them (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong target market. AppleWorks is intended for people with simple word processing needs and that don't want to learn Word. AppleWorks is sensational in education, particularly K-7. Put a kid in front of AppleWorks and they get something done pretty quickly, put them in front of Word and for some reason they get quite confused, even when they're new to both apps. OpenOffice is just a clone of Word that doesn't work as well, other than being free it doesn't seem to have any real advantage.
That's not to discourage the OpenOffice team, I was working on the project in it's very early stages, but it is definitely not an alternative to AppleWorks. With a lot of work it may well be a good alternative to MS Office, but since it doesn't run on OS X yet, that's an awful lot of work. Besides, MS Office on OS X is *really* nice.
Re:good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to be a little careful (especially when considering businesses) - there are very few that don't use Microsoft Office. Office:mac is actually a very important selling point for people moving to mac because once they get there: "Hey, I still have Word, Excel Powerpoint etc... I feel at home"
Of course there are alternatives, but Office is very very pervasive in businesses accross the globe.
I mean, they DO have the superior computer....
Yes, but Apple won't emphasise this. Because noone sells product being "Better" the sell product by being "different". Apple's excellent industrial design is probably the biggest factor in buying a mac when you're "Joe Average".
To us, the innards are what we look for, but to the standard consumer - all they're seeing is perty lines and good looks.
Enough of my ranting - suffice to say that this isn't a simple problem. I think more than anything, it's gonna be the politics (rather than tech issues) that will define the direction the mac platform will take with regards to Microsoft. Both groups will rattle thier sabres at each other for a while, but I think that for quite a while yet you will see IE and Office:mac versions...
-- Dan =)
(Firewall: Debain PC, Main PC: Athlon (using XP), Lappy: iBook 14" OSX)
Re:good for them (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that usability sells Macs, not simply a nice-looking design. IMHO you severely underestimate Joe Mac Average. They have to fight against the notion that 'everybody' uses Windows and their decision is often well-considered (since they get hammered with stupid questions whenever they tell people they own a Mac).
Some of the usability factors that make 'us' buy a Mac:
- GUI
- Great apps (including iTunes and iMovie).
- Consistency between apps (How many different key-combo's for finding something are there in Windows? I think I've seen 5+ ways to do it.)
- Great monitor-support for the new iMac, swing-open case of the G4, standard 802.11 support on all machines and other features of Apple's machines that actually make the machine more usable. Contrast this with some of the 'designs' by other companies that seem intent on making the machine less functional (and are usually butt ugly).
- It works. Apple's OS and hardware have never failed me when I had work to do (or I could fix it easily).
On the other hand I think that Joe Win Average usually focuses much more on Mhz and 'more' features, instead of looking at the things that they want to achieve. Somehow this is considered fully rational. Whatever.
Re:Mozilla (Score:2, Funny)
Re:targeted right at sysadmins (Score:3, Informative)
Re:targeted right at sysadmins (Score:2)
(*back*slash dev *back*slash null - 'nuff said
Re:But what about the kiddie mouse? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:OS-X almost has me (Score:2)
They can't hope to go it alone and the rest of the market is made up of professional variants of the sort of hobbiest you like to dismiss so casually.
Pretending you are a BMW dealership makes some sense when your product actually accomplishes something remarkable. If you are just selling a Kludge Klone with the 386 replaced, such pretense simply doesn't work.
Re:OS-X almost has me (Score:2)