The REAL Mac Story Isn't a $500 Computer....

[thisDude]

Good points so far, but I think Apple's new strategy may just backfire in the long-run. End-user experience, status and brand-loyalty are intangible assets that are hard to measure. No doubt that in the short-run, many of these new units will move and stocks will go up, but as their market share increases, more and more viruses will be made for the mac. That combined with the potential, if not, apparent willingness of the company to "jump the shark", ie. co-branding, bundling, spyware for marketing and data mining, selling to the masses... can result in a very "un-mac-like" end-user experience.

 

If Apple adopts the strategies of Microsoft, it may be their undoing because all things being equal (as it pertains to price and user experience), there is no need for a number 2. I think all will side with compatibility and expansion options of a PC.

 

Lets hope Jobs is careful about with whom and how business gets done. I dread the day I turn on my mac and it tries to sell me something (that I didn't ask for).

[KenElevenShadows]

Originally posted by theblue1:

Ken

 

You're forgetting the Shuffle.

 

It and its keychain drive bretheren represent the no moving parts drive you're talking about.

 

A GB or two may not seem like much by today's standards but it wasn't that long ago that I was doing multi-track audio production on a 2.5 GB drive.

Oh, okay. I really don't know very much about computers, to be honest, so I am not really familiar with the Shuffle.

 

And yeah, I had a Micron PC with three audio drives of 2G each. I stopped using this computer in 2001, picking up the G4 instead (which I still working great!), but for the longest time, that's how I was editing music. What a big difference!!!!!

[doc taz]

(my take on the craziness...)

 

I totally understand Craig's view. Yes, this Mac may not have the muscle of a similarly priced PC. So what? Does that make it less usable? I think not. Heck, now my idea of a budget computer has just expanded.

 

For instance, most of my tones on guitar and bass these days are done via multifx units. I have a Zoom GFX-5 for guitar, and a DigiTech BP200 for the basses. Sure, they may not be as flexible as having separate stomp box and/or rack units, plus the actual amps and speaker setups. But still, they're useful. I'd love to have all the amps these units model, and racks and racks of stuff, but I simply do not have the room for them all! I mean, I don't have the same budget Jay Leno spends just for his motorcycles alone!

 

This is where I can see the elegant simplicity of Steve Jobs's mission at Apple. I'm quite awed by that, coming from a PC background myself. I've never felt dissatisfied when I've had to use a Mac, especially when visiting my brothers in virginia for the holidays. The iMac G3 (red one) I used to help me upload pics to my Yahoo! photo account certainly did the trick. It read my digital camera without extra software, though I did use Photoshop 6 to edit the pics.

 

For me, the Macs are just another tool to mess on. Plus, there are good versions of Linux that run on the Mac! I'd happily run Linux on one of these minis with that, alongside MacOSX, and MacOS 9.

 

Life is good.

 

"Even if somebody sucks, I can't hear the suckiness - It's all beautiful to me, brother."

Dimebag Darrell Abbott (1966-2004), Feb 2005 GP

[KenElevenShadows]

I guess it's just kinduva different thing, and has its own usefulness. People have already mentioned some useful ideas for this Mini-Mac.

 

And maybe, just maybe criticizing it by comparing it to PCs is like criticizing an iPod because it ain't a boombox.

[Rim]

These Macs vs. PCs debates crack me up, too. I started on Macs (my first personal computer experience) and I can see their pluses and minuses. I then had an engineering lab and was forced to use a PC and I was very clueless at first but I am now a PC guy. I also see the pluses and minuses of PCs.

 

The point folks may be missing is that we should ALL rejoice that we have two solid choices of computing power for under $500. I remember about 10 years ago when a co-worker was showing me his specs of a Pentium (original) PC with water cooling that he was gonna spend $3000 (or was it $5000) for.

 

It's all about crunching the numbers, folks. The package it comes in is personal preference.

 

All hail BINARY!!!

[Anderton]

I think another point people often miss is that not all computer applications are created equal. My office computer hardly breaks a sweat doing Word, Excel, and internet. I could run a Pentium I and with enough RAM, it would work well enough for what I do. I'm running Windows 98SE on my office computer not because I like vintage operating systems, but because it's pretty much unaffected by viruses (they seem to focus on XP and 2K). It's a 566MHz chip and it really doesn't matter.

 

Now my music/video computer is another matter altogether. Every ounce of performance matters. But the new mini Mac fits perfectly into that "appliance" category. I couldn't care less if you could edit a feature movie on it...I want to buy one for my wife so she can have a desktop model to match her iBook. If I had to buy her a dual G5, it would never happen. But for $500...yeah, why not?

 

As was noted earlier, it's ALL good. I feel very, very fortunate to have both Windows and Mac machines at my disposal.

[John Sayers]

I note all the things they claim you can do with minimac and garageband yet it doesn't have an audio input - only output.

 

cheers

john

[Anderton]

<>

 

Not surprising. Even if it did have an input, I'd stick in a cheap USB thingie to keep analog electronics out of such close proximity to all the EMI.

[Philip OKeefe]

Craig, MY office computer is a old PI 200 Mhz running Win 98 SE , and for word processing and so forth, it STILL works fine. I just built an Athlon XP 2600 for my wife to use for office stuff, internet browsing and basic music duties, and a while back I built myself a Athlon XP 2400 for surfing the 'net. Both were dirt cheap, and I suppose I could replace the office PC with something faster, but why? It does what it needs to do, and as long as it is still working, I really don't see the need.

 

The new mini-Mac might not be all things to all people, but for many people, and for several tasks, I'm sure it will be just fine, and I commend Apple for bringing the Mac to a whole new price point.

[Dylan]

Originally posted by Philip O'Keefe:

Craig, MY office computer is a old PI 200 Mhz running Win 98 SE , and for word processing and so forth, it STILL works fine.

You know, I always laugh when I see people spending $1000 + on an office system that will just be running MS Office and surfing the web. Anything over 1GHz is usually a complete waste for most non-music+multimedia apps, IMO.

[Geoff Grace]

Originally posted by Dilligan:

You know, I always laugh when I see people spending $1000 + on an office system that will just be running MS Office and surfing the web. Anything over 1GHz is usually a complete waste for most non-music+multimedia apps, IMO.

I'm eyeing this new Mac for just that purpose. I already have current Mac versions of Office 2004 and Quicken 2005, plus I have a spare flat panel display, keyboard, and mouse all gathering dust. This looks like a good way to go for me!

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Saint Johnny B]

Apple is back...and back in a big way....

 

Stock went from like 16 bucks to 75 bucks...that's an excellent ROI for those who understand corporate "bean counter" lingo..

 

Apple has 5 or 6 billion dollars in CASH.....

 

That's more than enough to buy all of Apple Records assets and the entire Northern Songs catalogue...bye bye any lawsuits...hello music...and cool rights that have will have value for the foreseeable future...into infinity...

 

Press the help button and you hear "Help." That'd be cool.

 

And one thing to notice, esp. for all of us here, is that Apple's huge success has rested squarely on the foundation of music....

Music is what is making Apple great...Music is what brought Apple back...Apple owes it all to music....

 

That and a very talented crew....and of course, Steve Jobs who does that innovation and vision thing better than anyone....

 

And what if you took those new Mini-macs and plugged them all together in a huge network...or a studio area network...might need a G5 or G6...but the foundation tech for a SAN is there...right there at Apple....

 

With Apple, you will have all kinds of possibilities presented...it's a company to keep your eye on....

[KenElevenShadows]

Hey, Geoff, that's a great avatar.

 

Do you have one for Analog/Digital too?

 

Actually, that's probably not necessary. People have really cooled off on that stupid argument now.

[gmstudio99]

Originally posted by Ken/Eleven Shadows:

Do you have one for Analog/Digital too?

 

Actually, that's probably not necessary. People have really cooled off on that stupid argument now.

Wait, who won?

[theblue1]

Originally posted by Johnny B:

Apple is back...and back in a big way....

 

Stock went from like 16 bucks to 75 bucks...that's an excellent ROI for those who understand corporate "bean counter" lingo..

 

Apple has 5 or 6 billion dollars in CASH.....

 

That's more than enough to buy all of Apple Records assets and the entire Northen Songs catalogue...bye bye any lawsuits...hello music...and cool rights that have will have value for the foreseeable future...into infinity...

 

Press the help button and you hear "Help." That'd be cool.

 

And one thing to notice, esp. for all of us here, is that Apple's huge success has rested squarely on the foundation of music....

Music is what is making Apple great...Music is what brought Apple back...Apple owes it all to music....

 

That and a very talented crew....and of course, Steve Jobs who does that innovation and vision thing better than anyone....

 

And what if you took those new Mini-macs and plugged them all together in a huge network...or a studio area network...might need a G5 or G6...but the foundation tech for a SAN is there...right there at Apple....

 

With Apple, you will have all kinds of possibilities presented...it's a company to keep your eye on....

Motley Fool analyst Seth Jayson takes a considerably more jaundiced view:

 

http://www.fool.com/Server/FoolPrint.asp?File=/news/commentary/2005/commentary05011203.htm

[doc taz]

Originally posted by theblue1:

Motley Fool analyst Seth Jayson takes a considerably more jaundiced view:

 

http://www.fool.com/Server/FoolPrint.asp?File=/news/commentary/2005/commentary050112 03.htm

Man, the Fool has several good points in there. A must read.

[Saint Johnny B]

Yeah, but the "fool" advised people not to buy Apple stock even when it was at 16 bucks...it's now around 75 bucks...and that makes the "fool" wrong...and the people who listen to him...losers...Look at the return on investment they could have made...Do the math...it's a lot better than doubling your money...

 

But even the "fool" notes that Apple has 5.3 billion in cash...

 

That kind of cash comes from being successful...and that kind of cash gives Apple even more opportunities to change the world we live in....

 

And I think the "fool" misses the point because he does not understand music, the music industry, or how Apple's return to being very successful is based almost entirely on music...

 

5.3 billion in Cash! Steve Jobs can do a lot with that including buying Apple Records and Northern Songs....plus other acquistions and lots of new R & D....

 

Apple might even be able to add AVID to its stable....think of what that would mean if Apple owned Apple Records, Northen Songs, and Avid...

 

And with Steve Jobs at the helm...you know that Apple will keep on innovating and changing the world....It's always been that way...Jobs has that gift of "vision" like no other person...

[theblue1]

Well, Motley Fool is an investmentoriented newsletter -- not a computer-consumer guide.

 

If you want to buy in on the stock at this price now, go ahead. If enough folks feel like you maybe the p-to-e will bust two hundred...

 

But I think a lot of the reasoning in the article is solid.

 

Fun facts for Apple shareholders: Apple diluted your stock 6.6% last year, and nearly a third of the cash the firm took in came not from operations, but from exercise of stock options. Given that people generally only pay to exercise an option when they're pretty sure they can sell the underlying stock at a premium, how do you think that changes the bottom line? For a clue, check the footnotes in the 10-K for the pro forma reconciliation of the result of the firm's generous options plan. For 2003, the $0.19 profit turns into a $0.27 loss. For 2004, the $0.71 profit shrinks down to $0.45. Oh my. Think that's just a little bookkeeping thing? Think again.

 

Why is it that Apple refuses to share some of its $5.3 billion in cash (and short-term investments) with shareholders via dividends? Saving it for a stormy day? Perhaps, but I'm guessing the disaster it's planning to clean up is the major wave of dilution that will continue as Apple insiders cash in on the rising stock price. If a share buyback is announced, remember: It would be your money being used to mop up for the compensation given to Apple employees. Stockholders deserve better.

[Franknputer]

Originally posted by gmstudio99:

Originally posted by Ken/Eleven Shadows:

Do you have one for Analog/Digital too?

 

Actually, that's probably not necessary. People have really cooled off on that stupid argument now.

Wait, who won?

Apparently, analog threw in the towel.

[Saint Johnny B]

I think Bill Gates is a big stock holder in Apple....Gates and Jobs have been doing business together for around 30 years...

 

Gates is far richer...and now has the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation devoted to do-gooder causes...like hugging trees and saving the planet...

 

And certainly MS DOS in its various forms has the biggest market share...but I think they are both winners...

 

Two very interesting guys...Gates and Jobs...

 

As for the other winners, besides Apple and MS employees...it is probably the consumers because they have some good choices and things keep getting better in both the Apple and the MS/Dos worlds...

 

Nevertheless, there will always be a debate of who has the bigger...penis...the hotrodded hardware and the best OS for any given application...

 

Some even like Lynx best of all...

 

So the debate itself is rather silly, in that, we all like what we know and what gets our job done...

 

Sort of like a heated argument of whether you'd like your new car's color to be red, green, or blue...

 

The car's color is irrelevant...since the car will still get you where you want to go...

 

But if the debate where about the seats..the interior...the ride...

well, then we are really discussing the details of the application software...

 

For me, it's mostly all about the application software that gives you the ride to where you want to go, not so much about the underlying hardware...

 

And while Lynx and MS/Dos/Windows in it's latest version can support pics and sound...

 

The MAC OSX has really been optimized for music..and pics...so that's a big factor in making the apps interoperable...

 

And Macs really do make it easy for people to do stuff...and that's another point for Apple....for now...

 

Now why some people get so worked up over this stuff is a question for the head doctors...

 

MAC vs PC vs Lynx...kinda of a dumb debate...

 

YMMV

[Bill Heins]

You have a lot of good points there Johnny but I don't think you've ever used a PC...we've had pics and sound for a long time now

 

Darkon the Incandescent

[Saint Johnny B]

Oh, you are quite wrong...I've used them all...

 

In truth, I have a love/hate relationship with all computers and all OS's...

 

I really want that robot thing that will do everything for me...and it communicates with my brain by telepathy...it will automatically do the right thing without me having to issue ANY commands and will not require ANY effort on my part at all...

 

But Artificial Intelligence is not that far along in its development...ah...maybe someday...

[theblue1]

Johnny B

 

Mac OS X (specifically, Jaguar and Panther) has added long-needed system level support for audio and MIDI, but the old OS didn't even have a multichannel audio layer, a MIDI layer, or a plug-in API, which Windows has had since 1996. MIDI and audio application developers had to roll their own low-level audio and MIDI functionalities and there was no common standard for any of it, save proprietary pseudo-standards like OMS. Some very good apps were developed that way, no doubt, but the transition to OS level services has been difficult for some vendors. That said, it seems like it was well worth it. Prior to Jaguar and Panther, Mac MIDI latency was stuck in the 8-9 ms range, while some Windows MIDI interfaces were pulling latency in the sub 3 ms-range. OS X now has a theortical MIDI latency under 1 ms.

 

The aquisition of Emagic allowed Apple access to important technology which they built into the OS and which has brought the Mac OS to contemporary standards. But previously, the Mac OS could hardly be said to have been tuned for multimedia, despite the existence of excellent multimedia apps that used proprietary technology to accomplish their ends.

[Saint Johnny B]

Hmmm, ok...here's where they are going according to Apple's Developer website...

 

"Tiger Articles

 

"Mac OS X v.10.4 Tiger Overview: New features, APIs, and frameworks.

 

"Working with Spotlight: Powerful search technologies available to developers.

 

Developing Dashboard Widgets: Powerful mini-applications that are quick and easy to develop.

 

Developing 64-bit Applications: Mac OS X Tiger breaks the limitations of 32-bit computing.

 

Working with Automator: Extend the value of your application with Automator Actions and Workflows.

 

Mac OS X Tiger breaks the limitations of 32-bit computing and allows developers to create command-line applications, servers, and computation engines that can work with mind-blowing amounts of memory. Previous versions of Mac OS X have been able to take advantage of more than 4GB of system memory when running on a G5-equipped Mac, but each application was still subject to the 4GB limit imposed by a 32-bit address space. Tiger obliterates that restriction and allows applications to access a 64-bit address space when running on the PowerPC G5. Better yet, this support comes with no compromise in the ability to run current 32-bit applications.

 

This is no small feat. Others are trying to bring 64-bit computing to the desktop but have met with limited success. Apple is doing so in a manner that maintains 32-bit compatibility at full speed while providing the headroom to meet application requirements for the next 20 yearseven if application memory requirements double each and every year. As well, only Mac OS X will support both 32-bit and 64-bit hardware with a single version of the operating system. From G3 to G5, from iBook to Xserve, there is just one kernel and set of core system libraries for Tiger.

 

Furthermore, the transition of the Mac to 64-bit computing has been, and will continue to be, a smooth one. This is, in large part, because the PowerPC architecture was defined as a 64-bit architecture with a 32-bit subset from day one. This means that a 64-bit migration strategy has been part of the platform since the PowerPC was first introduced. It is also the reason why 32-bit applications don't have to run in a special compatibility mode as is required on other 64-bit architectures. No penalties. No compromises. In fact, thanks to overall system improvements and fine-tuning, many 32-bit applications will run more efficiently than before.

 

This article shows you what 64-bit computing means for you, how 64-bit support has been built into Tiger, and how you can build 64-bit applications. First, let's start with what 64-bit computing can deliver.

 

What 64-bit Computing Gets You

 

By definition, the difference between 32-bit computing, the gold standard for the last 20 years of desktop computing, and 64-bit computing is the size of the memory space an application can use. In a 32-bit world, an application can address 4GB of memory. For many of the applications that we use everyday, such as word processors and spreadsheets, this is more than enough memory. However, if you work with large datasets, such as the human genome or geospatial data, 4GB suddenly becomes very limiting.

 

64-bit computing shatters the 4GB limit giving a virtual address space in excess of 16 exabytes. That's 16 billion billion bytes. You can't even begin to put that much RAM in a Power Macyetbut Tiger sets the stage for some truly incredible system capabilities.

 

64-bits in Real Terms

 

The idea of a 4 terabytes of physical memory, much less 16 exabytes of address space, is a bit mind-blowing. To help you wrap your head around the scale of data that we are talking about, consider the following:

 

A DVD can hold 4.7GB of data storing over 2 hours of high quality MPEG-2 video.

 

250 DVDs can contain about a terabyte of data.

 

4 250GB hard drives, the largest currently available in the Power Mac G5, will also store a terabyte of data.

 

A fully loaded Xserve RAID can currently hold 5.6 terabytes of data.

 

The largest physical library in the world, the U.S. Library of Congress, contains about 20 terabytes of text.

 

The Internet Archive, dedicated to maintaining an archive of the Internet, holds over a petabyte (1000 terabytes) of data and is growing at over 20 terabytes a month. It would take 175 Xserve RAIDs, 4000 250GB hard drives, or 4.4 million DVDs to store that much data.

 

An exabyte can contain 1000 Internet Archivesat least right now.

 

No matter how you slice it, 16 exabytes is a lot of address space. There's a lot of headroom for the future and it will take a long time to exhaust the potential of the 64-bit address space.

 

Tiger's 64-bit Support

 

The focus of Tiger's 64-bit support is to enable C and C++ applications that are most likely to benefit immediately from a larger address space. These include scientific data processing applications, rendering engines, and high load servers. These applications have naturally large data sets. Typically, these applications are facelessmeaning that they don't have a GUIand are executed from the command line.

 

To meet this focus, Tiger will ship with a 64-bit version of libsystemthe system library implementing most of the fundamental UNIX APIs. In addition, a 64-bit PowerPC ABI, based on the 32-bit ABI, will be introduced. 64-bit binaries will be contained in an updated Mach-O format that will run on G5 systems with Tiger or later.

 

It is important to note that in the Tiger release, the support for 64-bit programming does not extend throughout the entire set of APIs available on Mac OS X. Most notably, the Cocoa and Carbon GUI application frameworks are not ready for 64-bit programming. In practical terms, this means that the "heavy lifting" of an application that needs 64-bit support can be done by a background process which communicates with a front-end 32-bit GUI process via a variety of mechanisms including IPC and shared memory.

 

Fat Binaries

 

The updated Mach-O format in Tiger supports the concept of Fat Binaries. These allow both 32-bit and 64-bit executables to be shipped as part of the same file. This means that developers and network system administrators can distribute a single version of an application to all users regardless of whether their system contains a G3, G4, or G5 processor. When the application is executed, the system automatically selects the appropriate code for the system without user intervention. Using Fat Binaries greatly simplifies distribution, installation, and administration of applications.

 

I/O

 

64-bit applications can use posix read, write, and ioctl APIs to access storage devices and can use sockets for network I/O. However, they won't be able to use IOKitLib and IOUserClient plug-ins to access devices.

 

Benefits to 32-bit Applications

 

Tiger's support for 64-bit computing doesn't leave 32-bit applications out in the cold. 32-bit applications will be able to access most of the 64-bit based registers in the G5 as well as take advantage of the 64-bit based load/store units and logic units of the G5.

 

In addition, 32-bit applications can take full advantage of the G5's massively parallel execution core. This core sports two pipelined double-precision floating point units, support for more than 200 in-flight instructions, and more than three times the internal bandwidth of the G4. Even when running 32-bit applications, the G5 makes short work of the most complex tasks.

 

Creating 64-bit Applications

 

Creating a 64-bit application is fairly straightforward. For the most part, it's programming as usual. Xcode and the GCC compiler take care of most of the details. You do need to keep in mind the 64-bit data model as well as the limitations of the 64-bit support in the Mac OS X frameworks.

 

Enabling the 64-bit Compiler in Xcode

 

To build a 64-bit executable from within Xcode, all that you need to do is edit the executable's target and make the "Architectures" setting either ppc64 or ppc ppc64. The first of these will produce a 64-bit only binary. The second will produce a fat-binary containing the executable code for running on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

 

LP64 Data Model

 

The 64-bit data model used by Mac OS X is known as "LP64". This is the common data model used by other 64-bit UNIX systems from Sun and SGI as well as 64-bit Linux. The LP64 data model defines the primitive types as follows:

 

ints are 32-bit

 

longs are 64-bit

 

long-longs are also 64-bit

 

pointers are 64-bit

 

The use of the LP64 data model ensures that source code created for Linux, Sun, or SGI platforms can be easily ported to Tiger. There are, however, a few important things to note about the LP64 data model in comparison to programming in the 32-bit world. These are:

 

Since pointers are 64-bit, ints can no longer hold pointers.

 

Casting variables can destroy data if you cast between a 64-bit type and a 32-bit type.

 

An unsigned 64-bit number may look like a signed 32-bit value.

 

Be sure to use the correct printf directives. For example, use %p to print pointers.

 

64-bit API Support Macros

 

To conditionally compile 64-bit code or define 64-bit APIs, you can use the __LP64__ and __ppc64__ macros. For example, the following shows a function prototype defined two different ways depending on whether the code is being compiled as a 64-bit executable or not:

 

#ifdef __LP64__

int getattrlist(const char*,void*,void*,size_t, unsigned int);

#else /*__LP64__*/

int getattrlist(const char*,void*,void*,size_t, unsigned long);

#endif

 

Adding a GUI to a 64-bit Application

 

As mentioned earlier, the use of a 64-bit address space is limited to non-GUI applications in Tiger. This doesn't mean, however, that the results of a 64-bit enabled computation can't be displayed on the screen. The strategy that you should use is to create two separate executables that are cooperative. These are:

 

A 32-bit based Cocoa or Carbon GUI executable that the user can launch and which presents the application's user-interface.

 

A 64-bit based command-line tool that is launched by, and under the control of, the GUI.

 

Once the 64-bit executable has been launched, communication between the two executables can be accomplished using one or more of the following strategies:

 

Simple message passing using the standard input and output pipes of the command-line task.

 

Message passing using a UNIX domain socket.

 

Shared memory.

 

Mach based IPC messaging.

 

Any of these strategies will work. However, you should use the simplest possible strategy for your application so that you can preserve future flexibility. For example, if you use a filesystem-based socket to communicate between the 32-bit and 64-bit executables in your application, you have the ability to later convert your application to use a TCP/IP client-server approach. This would let you run the 32-bit client on any Mac while communicating with a 64-bit server process running on a G5-based Xserve.

 

Conclusion

 

As you have seen, Mac OS X Tiger takes the next step in 64-bit computing with the ability to build certain types of applications, such as server applications, and background processes used by renderers and computational engines, as 64-bit applications. These lower-level tools can communicate with graphical front-end applications for presentation and other visually-oriented functions.

 

Mac OS X's transition to 64-bit computing is a long-term effort. The support in Tiger for 64-bit applications is just the second of many phases. The timing and specifics of additional support for 64-bit applications will be decided with feedback from the developer community.

 

How You Can Get Started

 

Tiger doesn't ship until sometime in the first half of 2005. But as a developer, you can get started working with pre-release builds of Tiger now, and be ready to release your application when Tiger ships. How? Take advantage of the Tiger Early Start Kit, which will give you everything you need to start your Tiger development today, including pre-release versions of Tiger and Xcode 2.0, and the Tiger ADC Reference Library.

 

For More Information

 

Optimizing for the Power Mac G5

 

Tuning for G5: A Practical Guide

 

Posted: 2004-12-20"

 

So that looks pretty cool, aye?

 

I'm sure Bill Gates and his Redmond crew know all this..and have their own things planned...

 

But Apple looks to be in a good position to satisfy many creative people's needs for the foreseeable future...

 

YMMV.

 

.

[Henchman]

Wow, that's a read and a half.

 

But I never have really cared about the technical nonsense behind any OS.

 

All I care about is, will it be a drain on available CPU power.

 

I remebr installing BEOS on an old PC, and was blown away how much faster the sytem was.

 

I don't really want jumping Icons, spinning balls, Icons so big they look like they're designed for blind people.

 

I want a slim, lean OS, that leaves most of the CPU power reserved for the task at hand.

 

Wouldn't it be cool if there was a DAW that did a dualboot into it's own slim OS that could still use existing VST plug-ins and instruments.

[Musicianista]

Well, both my kids saved their money desperately to buy themselves iPods and both are very keen on iBooks in the future despite already having a compulsory Notebook for highschool.

 

Apple may well be marketing very successfully to their future market share when all these kids grow up and insist on having Apple to take care of their lifestyle computing, while they may very well be still using PC's in their workplaces.

 

My wife is forced to have her workplace full of PC's to run medical software and billing, but comes home to her funky PowerBook that takes care of all of her personal needs with no threat from viruses or clunky Windows apps.

 

The future may see Apple enjoying a loving loyalty spilt over from all of this generation's kids that can't pass those iPod billboards without being mesmerised and silently leaning toward the Apple style of life.

[theblue1]

Johnny

 

No doubt about it, and as I've said so many times it's pretty much automatic, OS X seems to me to be an often clever and friendly GUI well-grafted onto a stable and well-performing UNIX variant and the last two updates have brought the multichannel audio and MIDI support a multimedia oriented OS needs. It's poised to become an increasingly powerful environment for multimedia work.

[theblue1]

Originally posted by Henchman:

Wow, that's a read and a half.

 

But I never have really cared about the technical nonsense behind any OS.

 

All I care about is, will it be a drain on available CPU power.

 

I remebr installing BEOS on an old PC, and was blown away how much faster the sytem was.

 

I don't really want jumping Icons, spinning balls, Icons so big they look like they're designed for blind people.

 

I want a slim, lean OS, that leaves most of the CPU power reserved for the task at hand.

 

Wouldn't it be cool if there was a DAW that did a dualboot into it's own slim OS that could still use existing VST plug-ins and instruments.

Henchman

 

It depends on what you're looking for in an OS. If you want the kind of broad support for a wide variety of devices and activities you get from a modern multimedia OS like XP or OS X, there's just going to be a certain amount of bloat. Things can be tuned. Some system tweakers have actually done radical surgery on Windows, patching around 'unnecessary' but normally linked in subassemblies. But sophsitication and breadth comes at a price.

 

That's why there will always be server editions of major OS's and utilitarian business-oriented OS's like Linux. And Linux is a world where multimedia functionality is pretty much roll your own but where there's a huge open source community. Still, it's clearly a huge job creating a multichannel audio and MIDI app from the ground up (as evidenced by the rarified ranks of audio apps).

[Saint Johnny B]

J. Gasse was another interesting guy...former Apple Fellow before doing the BeOs thing...I guess Harrison Consoles went with BeOs which did have a lot of promise at one time...and still may, for all I know...which ain't much...

 

What was that Apple number above?...

 

Yes, that's right, it was 16 Exabytes...that's 16 billion billion bytes!

 

Now that's a ton of memory...ponder that one for a while...

 

You could probably have a billion or two billion tracks with 100 million effects all going at once...

 

Just kidding....but you sure could do a lot with 16 Exabytes!

[gmstudio99]

Well regardless of all of this and that, the fact is that everytime Steve Jobs sneezes, more than a few 100+ threads pop up here and on other sites.

 

Dell and Gateway never generate even so much as a passing glance. And go ahead and find a positive MS thread that was started out of sheer exuberance for how kick-ass Windows is.

 

Just saying.