Apple's Leopard leaps into action Apple has sold two million copies of Leopard, the latest version of its Mac OS X operating system, since its release on Friday. The company said the Leopard sales rush outpaced that of its predecessor Tiger, until now the most successful Apple operating system. The two million sales figure includes copies of Leopard sold at …
Ah, the endless battle... but serves them right for ditching RISC and switching to cheap-ass PC architecture.
Still, I wonder if Leopard would actually fare better than Vista, at least more Macolytes are willing to jump on the Leopard than Windozers on Vista. Given the small percentage of Macs in the computer industry as a whole, I doubt it would surpass Vista sales (especially with MS force-feeding it to OEMs), however if we take in mind the Leopard adoption % *for Mac users* and Vista adoption % *for Vista users*, Mac would definitely win over. ;)
The so called BSOD is caused by a hacky 3rd party program thats well known for crashing applications. And incompatibilities with Java 6 is hardly an issue - it's not as if Vista is compatible with it, is it? Nor is Java 6 actually massively different from Java 5.
I'd say there were other more valid issues with Leopard you could mention...
Considering that OS X is based on the BSD family of OSs, which is by and large considered to be the most secure, it doesn't surprise me more Apple users are willing to jump on the bandwagon than Windows users are on Vista's. PC users can remember being burned by 1)Me and 2)XP when it was released. For the most part, we're a more cautious lot, unless necessity has driven us to purchase a new Vista driven machine (a very big brick on the desk).
If I had the hardware to run OSx86...I'd probably have it by now.
What the Hell is a "Windows PC" designation for an x86 standard computer doing in an article on a Technology magazine?
I mean the NYtimes or some other mainstream paper sure, but this is THEREGISTER?
What you can't run Linux or Solaris or anything but windows on these machines?
Please oh please don't post garbage like this just because.
and then this line:
but observers have been quick to point out "un-substantiated flaw 1", "unsubstanciated flaw 2".
what is going on, when did you guys become the NYPOST, or DAILYNEWS?
It's about time someone stripped that shit OS from its proprietary hardware, Apple rave about not having to activate their software, as if it's beneath them. Well, as the hacking of this dung OS improves and becomes more widely available apple will have to do something about it to protect their profits. The best thing is more and more people use the OS and all this publicity is probably going to get those spyware lot keyboard happy for the mac, we'll see how far this "amazingly secure" OS fall from its pedestal in the coming years.
Ed - "incompatibilities with Java 6 is hardly an issue", lol - yeah unless your work revolves around it.
Two million copies in 5 days is not so bad. And the price is not bad either. They made something close to 200 million $ in just 5 days. I'd be happy with that
Considering that iLife is not bundled with the OS that's an additional potential sale to anyone who has not bought a Mac.
Of course there is the drivers problem. But that could be solved with a "Certified for OS X" program. And anyway, Vista has a driver problem too.
I see mostly a missed opportunity here. But Stevey is a control freek and just as big a monopolist as Billy. Just a less successful one.
... and not to mention the fact that OSX's stability comes wholly from the simple fact that the platforms it will be installed on are limited and controlled. They do not have to handle the billions of combinations of hardware available in the x86 world so compatibility is a cinch.
I'd love to see what would happen to smug ol' Apple if they WERE having to support their OS on the rest of the world's x86 machines. I'm betting it would fall over horribly in terms of stability.
I'm thinking that is the major reason why the OS is not available to all...
I have 8 Macs numerous ipods and an iphone. I'm a Macfan since 1984 but the upgrade to Leopard was one of the worst nightmares I ever experienced. Thousands of other people will experience the spinning beachball problem which can only be resolved by deleting some folders from the Aplication support folder in the library folder. Apple i.m.o. has done a lousy job in testing the system. I not only had to remove one (APE) or two (DIVX) -- which I didn' have but cause problems -- but 10 different kind of files before getting access to my system...none of those were mentioned in any thread. In any case, Leopard feels sluggish on my brand new Core 2 Duo macbook, folders look outright ugly and I can't see the benefit of viewing stuff in Album view....this really sucks as Backup worked fine for me and I don't really need Time Machine....all my other 7 machines will not be upgraded before I get a better feel if this piece of code is really worth it....
haha
well actually i would like to see OSX running on a pc, i'd certainly be willing to give it a try.
having used Vista now for a good few months i have to say i am VERY happy with it. it & the machine it came with run perfectly with every application i choose to use.
i can only assume that those people whining about Vista are either incredibly dense or just MacFanBoys.
but then, i'm not the kind of user that installs dumbass crappy hack apps
the issue is also with Logitec - their mouse control panel software has been found to install a part of that same 3rd party program without telling the user about it. so even people who never installed Unsanity's ApplicationEnhancer software also ran afoul of the bsod.
3rd party shareware blowing up on a new OS, you kind of expect it, it goes with the territory. and that's why you always upgrade to their latest versions because you never know what bugs they've fixed
But a company like Logitech, you'd have hoped they'd go to the effort of writing the code themselves, instead of using a core part of a 3rd-party shareware hack. At the very least, they should have released updates to their control panel software everytime that Unsanity updated theirs.
am just glad when my MX1000 gave up the ghost i replaced it with a wireless mighty mouse and not another Logitech mouse
I *think* that Apple would also then have the issue of hardware compatibility to worry about.
One reason Apple has managed to achieve this 'it just works' status is that it has a nice firm grip on the hardware it builds its machines with, so it doesn't have to worry about assuring compatibility with a million and one different hardware configurations.
Other OS makers however don't quite have that luxury which (i'm guessing) is why everyone's is finding this Apple BSOD thing quite so funny.
I'd imagine that they've probably considered selling the OS for deployment on non-Mac boxes, but found the issues surrounding hardware compatibility a right headache and more trouble than its worth.
"Why on Earth would Apple not want people to install their OS on PCs?"
Because then they would be in the same seat as Microsoft, and have to support umpteen bazillion different hardware setups, rather than a small, select and tightly controlled set of hardware.
It's the same basic idea as behind consoles, only not pushed to the same extreme: the more unchanging the system, the less unknowns there are and the easier it is to keep things stable.
Because, as has been mentioned, then nobody would pay AAT (Apple Added Tax) for a Mac and more importantly, Apple would have a complete support meltdown, trying to support Leopard on hundreds of thousands of hardware permutations worldwide, instead of just one hardware platform with small variations between them.
Tim
Mac OS does not want to go head to head with Windows because of the circular relationship with Microsoft. Mac OS is a viable OS choice for the majority of its users because it does cool stuff AND it runs MS Office.
The Windows monopoly is largely based on Word and Excel.
If a good (or better) OS ran on white-box PCs with a flawless Word and Excel, how long would Word and Excel remain flawless? My guess is they would be unusable within one service pack, so that MS would continue to control the desktop - anti-trust rulings or not.
I'm the owner of a 17" MacBook Pro (which is great by the way) that worked perfectly with Mac OS X 10.4. I connected to my network wirelessly and used a Bluetooth wireless mouse. No problem, worked "out of the box". So imagine my surprise and frustration when I installed 10.5 to find no wireless mouse and No Internet!!!! After many hours of messing about I finally got the mouse working; but days of friggin about with AirPort and wireless connectivity still have not restored my wireless connection. Apple telephone support was a waste of time. I will be un-installing Leopard and re-installing 10.4 (Tiger) VERY SOON.
While Apple controls the hardware it controls more of the environment and thus the environment's stability and the user experience.
Installing OSX on a cheap x86 box with random rubbish peripherals/components may lead to a degradation in the "user experience" on which Apple's image is based.
Of course, using better hardware may improve it, but Apple doesn't seem to particularly need better hardware to improve its image.
Entering an OS war with MS might distract them from focusing on what they do well - premium-priced devices which look beautiful, are easy to use and just work. Why bother fighting MS when you can be smugly superior!
There are plenty of reasons for apple keeping OS X off generic PCs. Apple keeps all the hardware sales to itself, making more money and keeping out competition. But more importantly to us users of it, it means that there's only a handful of different machine specs so apple can keep good standards of software control. Getting a dodgy driver is very rare.
The 'teething troubles' mentioned are pretty much insignificant - systems with a 'system hack' application fail to upgrade, and it's a version behind on java (which will no doubt be updated anyway when it's ready). Overall the leopard launch has been surprisingly smooth, and there's plenty of good new stuff in there to justify the upgrade.
The bad news though is that apple have arsed around with a few things and made them worse:
- The dock is now 'reflective', making it less legible. But who cares about usability if it's shiny, right?
- The menu bar is now translucent, making it a LOT less legible. Why? So you can see the top 10 pixels of your background picture. Really useful.
- The stacks are a nice idea, but they have no icon (the icon is just the contents of the stack, all piled up) so if you have a few of them it's hard to tell which is which, and the icons change when the content of the stack changes. The old pop-up menu in tiger would be better for some folders, but it's been taken out.
- The icons for folders are crap. Instead of a folder with a nice colourful representation of what it contains on the top, so it's easy to tell which folder is which, they're all plain blue folders with a faint embossed bit to tell you what it is. At a glance, they look identical!
The price of Leopard is 129 euro in the euro zone which at today's exchange rate is $186. US customers pay $129 which means that Apple rip their European customers off to the tune of a cool $57 on every purchase.
This seems to be the norm for Apple - not that it matters, since their fans will just roll over and beg to be ripped off again.
Anybody want to buy a Ma¢? I'm going back to Linux...
Because that would affect the stability of OSX. Having full controll over the hardware process ensures there are minimal compatibility issues with the OS. MS's Support-almost-anything policy is the biggest windows "own goal" security and stability wise (But is good business sense, since as you've pointed out, sells more copies). Would people go for OSX if it wasnt more stable?
As well as not wanting to loose money from selling their "cool" but overpriced hardware (which is the same as everybody else's on the inside), Apple doesn't want to have to start supporting lots of generic hardware. Software (OS) stability can only be reliably managed when you have control over all the sensitive system stuff like drivers. Apple's job is therefor much easier that Microsoft's, where Windows can be crashed by a misbehaving driver from a 3rd party. If Apple allowed OS X to be installed on generic PCs they would undoubtedly loose all brand credibility for stability.
Apple did take a tentative step down the "licenced third party machines" route many years ago.
Did we see innovative machines that had features Apple couldn't provide on their mainstream products ? No
Did we see machines aimed at filling the gaps in the product line ? No
What did we see ? A couple of cheap clone makers intent on ripping the bottom out of the market and competing almost exclusively on price.
Down that route lies a cheapened brand and commodity pricing that doesn't support further development. Unless you have the market dominance of Microsoft, you end up paying what the market will stand, rather than what you impose on the market. No, whilst I think the idea of running OS X on third party hardware sounds appealing, on the whole, I think the longterm risks far outweigh the benefits.
Sure I'd like to run OS X on third party hardware, I've enough gripes with Apple as it is, but I think I'd rather they were still around in 3 years time !
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