MAC Question: why no spyware/adware

[a_h]

Full ACK - that's exactly what I think. AFAIK there are some efforts to port Mac Os X to x86, but I don't think that this is an easy task (powerpc emulation!) and will need its time.

However, that's the reason mac os is that stable, it's developed for a very limited hardware base - easy to test & no buggy manufacturers drivers. Great!

Cheers, Hannes

[TnT]

Originally posted by a_h
Full ACK - that's exactly what I think. AFAIK there are some efforts to port Mac Os X to x86, but I don't think that this is an easy task (powerpc emulation!) and will need its time.

However, that's the reason mac os is that stable, it's developed for a very limited hardware base - easy to test & no buggy manufacturers drivers. Great!

Cheers, Hannes

If you check out macfixit.com you'll see that there are actually quite a bit of problems with other hardware. There is also a problem with the fans in the G5 suddenly going full blast. I think something goes wrong with the sensors, and well, it is very loud.

That being said, I do enjoy managing a couple G5s. It's nice to show them off

[UtwigMU]

Apple is charging huge premium on their hardware and OS is mainly to sell hardware.

So them being a hardware (or as one said marketing even) company, it's not in their interest to port OSX to x86.

This is why they killed the clones. Imagine being able to buy a Dell or DIY 3.0GHz P4 box with 17" LCD monitor and run OSX on it instead of shelling same amount for 1GHz eMac with 17" CRT of not so good quality.

Or getting either midrange dual Xeons or Athlons of comparable speed to dual Powermac G5 for half the price or high end dual Xeons or Opterons with SCSI disk subsystem and professional workstation videocard that will blow you away for the equivalent of price of dual G5 Powermac.

Unlike Microsoft which is a software company and it's in their interest for their OS and apps to work on majority of platforms that have sufficient marketshare and would not give them problems with charges of monopolism.

For instance there was an Alpha and PowerPC port of NT4.0 Workstation, when those platforms were not dead yet. This is also, why they're actively supporting AMD x86-64.

[TnT]

If PearPC gets good, we'll have to see what Apple does.

[Kurt]

@UtwigMU: only the idiots at Apple do not realize they'd make more money selling more MacOS than trying to sell their tin cans.

Apple is constantly on the verge of collapse, and there's only so many iPods they can sell before the big boys steal the market away from them.

They can't support their own hardware with their own software, because if they did so they'd stop selling said hardware.

They have no real strategy, they're just shooting and randomly hitting it right. That's no business plan.

They have a lot of potential, if only they'd stop jerkin' around...because that's what they are in the end...

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Kurt
@UtwigMU: only the idiots at Apple do not realize they'd make more money selling more MacOS than trying to sell their tin cans.

Apple is constantly on the verge of collapse, and there's only so many iPods they can sell before the big boys steal the market away from them.

They can't support their own hardware with their own software, because if they did so they'd stop selling said hardware.

They have no real strategy, they're just shooting and randomly hitting it right. That's no business plan.

They have a lot of potential, if only they'd stop jerkin' around...because that's what they are in the end...

Kurt, I don't think there's a single thing you said in this post that's consistent with reality.

Apple is hardly on the verge of collape, they're making good profits these days. They were bleeding money when the "clones" were out there.

[a_h]

@utwigMU:

Apple is charging huge premium on their hardware

Update yourself. My iBook costs about 1200 Euro and runs about 5h until I have to connect it to a power supply. Comparable Centrinos cost normally some hundreds of E more.

The Mac OS port isn't done by Apple, it's done by some enthusiasts at sourceforge. I really understand that Apple has no plans to support x86, since the hardware jungle in the x86 world is very dense & they would need 10times the resources they have now to do that.

Instead of doing you guys a favor, they build beautiful and trully great working hardware (actually I'm speaking of my ibook) that just works. It works as a whole product, not as sum of its parts.

@Kurt: I don't think you've got a clue of apple products. Actually using a BSD derivative as their new os was the perfect choice. Rock solid, unix performance and flexibility. Man, they change now parts of the hw abstraction layer to 64bit for their G5s! As easy as in linux. Hey M$ talks about Windows 64bit for a while now, but there is nothing to use now.

Besides: OpenGL will really slow down in Win64. Seems that it isn't that easy to work around their 10year old concepts (yes we're talking about the holy compatibility cow).

Apple hat the chuzpe to kill their old and crappy OS9 and start from the beginning. Something M$ should have done much extensively with WinXP.

Cheers, Hannes

PS: I don't want to say that Apple is without failures (the price of the ipod is really hard), but at the moment I think they're just doing the right things (itunes is the first music online store that works! And makes money.).

[KvHagedorn]

Yes, Apple's business model has always worked for them, but when they allowed clones to come into the picture, other companies really put on the pressure (Power Computing in particular.) That's why Apple let their limited licenses run out. It was an experiment, nothing more. Microsoft has a completely different business model, which works because they have a virtual monopoly. Each company's business model is pretty much tailored to its priorities.. Apple wants to be the innovator in the hardware/software arena and Microsoft just wants to own everything in the PC world that has to do with software. Apple deserves to get a premium for what it does. If they were the monopoly and they were getting the premium for their hardware, too, then I would have a problem with them. If you go into a Gucci shop, you should expect to pay Gucci prices, but the mass throngs do not go there. That doesn't mean Gucci is not making money, though.

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Wombat
Kurt, I don't think there's a single thing you said in this post that's consistent with reality.

Apple is hardly on the verge of collape, they're making good profits these days. They were bleeding money when the "clones" were out there.

As a pointer:
2003 -> 69 millions USD net income on revenues of 6.21 billions USD.
2002 -> 65 millions USD net income on revenues of 5.74 billions USD.

You know how they made that profit? On the interests from the cash they have in the bank.

They can't make money, they just manage to not loose too much in their day-to-day operations and they survive from what interests their cash make.

A winning strategy for sure.

If they want to improve their various financial ratios, they should close their operations and let the cash make more babies in the bank (this would immediately improve their net income and their ROI ratio). They're getting even less by running a 6 billion USD a year company than doing nothing.

Should I put the last sentence between * or _ ?


@a_h: I got a clue of Apple products alright. I worked a lot with them too, and still do even though I think very low of them now. Maybe you should work with me so you'd get a clue too.

On a brighter note, yes they had a good idea to move to a BSD derivative, but they couldn't pick the right one before MacOS 10.3 and their system is still a bastard FreeBSD+Mach (Darwin7 if I'm not wrong) system, since Mach can't operate alone.

BTW, I'm not making a Windows vs Apple comparison, I'm no MS fan, I'm just anti-Apple until they get their act together.

Also, the 64bit HAL trick to speak about is the way is has to be, only you will have to buy a new Mac to run the MacOS in 3 years. Not because your iBook can't handle it, just because Apple won't support it. This ad nauseam...

@all: so many Mac users are fanatidiots and can't look beyond their nose. I hope you guys have more clue...

[UtwigMU]

Originally posted by a_h
@utwigMU: Comparable Centrinos cost normally some hundreds of E more.

There are no Centrinos that slow that they are comparable to iBook. I understand the CPU speed is not main deciding factor when choosing a laptop though. Their laptops and high end dual G5 workstations are to an extent competitive.

Their low end towers, imacs and emacs are not.

My stance: If you love the MacOS so much that you want to pay the Apple price premium for inferior hardware, it's your call.

[a_h]

@Kurt: maybe I should work with you...sure it would be interesting.

Besides the systems kernel and the gui is BSD. I think that's ok, since I can use all GNU/Linux tools (except valgrind since it uses x86 machine commands).

@Utwig:
[/quote]There are no Centrinos that slow that they are comparable to iBook.[/quote]

Measured via the MHZ you're right. From prductivity I just can say that the memory is the biggest components influencing Mac OS X.

The Centrinos are in my eyes a unfair comparison, since they're really great cpus (I hope Intel will develop them further for the desktops). Maybe I should have compared the G4 with a Celeron/P4 (not mobile).

1200E is a tough price since it's not a special sale are somewhat, just the normal price tag.
1400E with WLan (11g), 640MB ram and a 3 year warranty. Come on, that isn't expensive.

Sure the usual iMac stuff is nothing for me, since I love (like you) to get the parts myself together (reading reviews, hunting for cheap prices).

Besides: what exactly do you mean with inferior hardware? The G4/5 itself is a great cpu, the graphics cards used are ati radeons. Standard toshiba hdds. So what of that is inferior?

Ever realised what you get with an apple?

For example I get a nice power supply that has a luminescensing ring on the plug indicating wether the accu is full or is loading. Nice und functional.

Ever seen the power supply of a 17" Gericom laptop with a P4 3.06GHz? Seems to be from the next electronic store: no clips to fasten the cable, just a brick with connectors and some cabling attached.

Hey I know where the price difference comes from. However the gericoms are fairly cheap, but their reliability is the worst of all manufacturers (yep I can proof that).

Happy posting, Cheers, Hannes

PS: boah, didn't read your 2nd line - sorry!

[X-Caliber]

not to add fuel to the fire, but it seems to me that Apple's quality control just plain sucks! I was planning to buy a used powerbook G4, but if you take a look on eBay, all the titanium laptops suffer from paint chipping problems. Apple acknowledges this, and SELLS titanium-colored paint. So rather then cover this under warranty, they expect you to paint your laptop yourself! The titanium laptops also suffer from broken screen hinges. This is actually a very common occurance, but Apple will still charge you the full cost of the repair. They will also sell you the screen hinges seperatly (at a markup of course), so you can fix the problem yourself. The newer aluminum laptops suffer from screen blotches (but I think this was just the first generation). Of course, if you try and buy something used, you have to no idea what you are getting. Point being, if something is not designed properly, it should be covered by the manufacturer, regardless of the warranty period. Imagine for example, that GM sells a car, and after 15,000 miles, the paint starts coming off. Keep in mind that this is a common occurance; should GM take responsibility for this? I think they would, otherwise they would suffer from huge class-action lawsuits.

Sorry for my rant, I have been trying to get a cheap G4 laptop, but it seems that I will have to buy a new one since many of Apple's products seem to have issues.

[Kurt]

@a_h: inferior hardware = low end VGA for ex., that you get in an iMac for 1500 EUR, a 1.25GHz chip, small HDD etc. You can make a fairly high end PC for that price. I agree it will probably bot look as nice, Apple is still N°1 in industrial design in that respect.

But...if you take out the looks, you can get a PC with better specs for half the price. Here inferior doesn't mean they do not use quality components, just outdated components.

Their build quality is usually very high, but they often (or so it seems) sacrify durability for looks for the exterior parts. You like it or you don't, I don't mind the good looks

It just all the rest...

[X-Caliber]

one more thing, why do they have to solder the CPUs to the motherboard? It makes upgrading a real pain.

Even with all this complaining, I am still going to get a G4 - I really like the OS

[Kurt]

hmmm...one small problem there...no more G4. There's a single G5 1.6 (or 1.8GHz, I forgot) due out soon or the dual G5, more expensive.