posted
Don't know if it's appropriate to address his essays here, but here goes:
I read Card's diatribe on Apple (ostensibly on the iPod, but really on Apple in general) and found myself hearing the same old Windows line, albeit with much more intense rhetoric and the usual OSC sense of style, that I've been hearing for years. However, much of what he said is simply not true, or at least one-sided.
Admittedly, Apple forces users to buy their hardware and operating system from them, forming a dependency which is often a compelling reason in itself to stay with Apple.
Admittedly, at many points in its history Apple's products were not superior to those of its competitors, and his experience with the "dumb young movie producer" may have been one of those times.
However, there are people -- like myself -- who prefer Apple for entirely rational reasons. First off, performance:
When Apple first introduced the G4, they pulled ahead of their competitors in a big way (you don't have to believe me, or Apple for that matter, try rendering the same After Effects project on two contemporary computers). It took PC makers quite some time to introduce a computer which could beat the original G4, and having bought one of the early models (after my then 5-year-old computer bit the dust) I enjoyed a literally top-of-the line computer for much longer than is usual in the industry. Of course, in the next four years or so, little improvement was made to the G4 chip and Apple stagnated while other PC makers took the lead. However, more recently, with the introduction of the G5, Apple did it again (and again, now 2 years later, they have still to release a significant upgrade to the chip...or a laptop with it for that matter ). As a digital filmmaker and motion-graphics designer, the performance of Apple computers is definitely a bonus (It's not for nothing that one of the top 3 supercomputers in the world was constructed out of Apple computers for roughly %10 the cost of the other computers in the top 10).
Second of all, the interface. I know all too well that there's no point in arguing this one: those who learned the ropes on Windows prefer Windows, while those who learned Mac OS prefer Mac OS. That's about what it comes down to. As for click efficiency, I'd love to see an example. Efficiency is very important in my work, and I've never had a problem. Windows on the other hand is a whole different story.
Third, security. Let us consider for a moment, the worm du jour in the windows world. "Blaster", maybe? or one of it's equally unfriendly relatives, it invades your computer, steals your passwords, and emails itself to everyone in your address book. And new ones are coming out at the rate of several a day. Now, maybe you can prevent against infection by zealously updating your antivirus software (unless you contract one of those viruses which disables them) and carefully check all emails, even ones from friends, but I'd rather not have to. I want my computer to be safe, and an operating system which has never had one (that's right, not one) successful virus sounds pretty good to me. Now maybe some brilliant Windows programmer will decide he wants to wipe the smiles off all those smug Mac faces, but so far he's never succeeded.
As for the iPod, I couldn't care less. I bought an Epson P2000 because it's much better for photography. I bought a Mac because IT'S better for photography too, so take your pick, but enough rhetoric.
Posts: 61 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Personally, I love Macs, and have been using them for years. However, I understand what Card is getting at. Yes, Apple is a strangely pretensious company, as are it's fans. They do a lot of dumb things, and try to market a lot of even dumber things.
It is somewhat funny when people laud the Mac for being ahead of it's time. I look at Mac OS 9 and laugh, compared to whatever the operating system for Windows was at the time. Mac OS 9 was way behind the times, and was basically the same OS that come out some 20 years ago with lots of little features added on.
However, with Mac OS X, they really took a huge leap forward into the present. In my opinion, Mac OS X is an extremely solid, (like AutumnFire said, there are currently no viruses or spyware/adware that affect it) graceful operating system.
Oh, and I'd also like to see an example of click efficiency. I can usually access just about anything with a few clicks. Panther does that extremely well, allowing for all the shortcuts.
Anyway, I'm not trying to bash you for your opinion on Apple. But I do think that behind the plastic, and "pretty-pretty" feel is an extremely solid, secure, efficient operating system that I enjoy very much.
Posts: 290 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:I want my computer to be safe, and an operating system which has never had one (that's right, not one) successful virus sounds pretty good to me.
How are you defining a "successful" virus? If you mean "popular," I'm afraid Apple just doesn't have the market share to play host to a "successful" virus, unless someone hacked the iPod.
But if you mean "able to exploit/control the parent system and self-replicate," there have already been viruses that have affected OS X.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Tom, your definition of "successful" is fine, but there have not been any viruses. There have been a couple of Applescripts that can do things like erase your hard drive and copy themselves onto all network disks, but you've got to put your own password in to make them work. That's not a virus, it's just a bad (or even buggy) program.
Now hacking the ipod...
Posts: 61 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
you can set up windows to require a password to access it as well...many people just choose not to. As for the e-mail viruses...to get them you have to open an attachment. If you get an e-mail claiming to have a picture attached, but you see it is an exe or pif file, you should know to not open it. It is common sense. There are also settings in outlook that block attachments that can lead to danger. However, most people turn that off, since it is inconvenient.
The lack of security in windows is cause by the user, not the OS. If you wish to have windows be secure, you can with very little effort. My anti virus program automatically updates itself, and runs scans while I sleep. I don't download attachments that are clearly viruses, and I don't have problems.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hi, I'm an IT guy for a stupid big company. Okay, that's not true, I'm an IT guy for a smallish company that manages the IT resources of stupid big companies. It's basically the same as being the IT guy in a stupid big company though, we just have a nice abstraction layer of management.
Apple computers have the same issues as PCs. Security wise they've had some horrible problems, but people don't bother to write worms or viruses for them. Why not? It comes down to the fact that too few people run Apples to make this worthwhile. It's the same reason FireFox seems more secure than Internet Explorer, not enough people use it for people to be actively trying to compromise it yet. MacOS X is every bit as broken as Windows in many respects relating to security, and will likely continue to be.
The problems with MacOS and Windows come down to abstraction layers. The users are shielded from the guts of the OS by virtue of a pretty GUI. They only know enough to navigate the GUI, and most of them don't understand basic premises of security. As a result all machines are as insecure as their users are ignorant. This is potentially a much larger problem with Apple than with Microsoft, but it balances out due to the fact that Apple's security model is quite a bit better. UNIX-style OS's are bit more secure and a bit more fault-tolerant than ones based on good old DOS.
As far as pro-Mac perspectives go, Apple for the most part has always had a superior product. The fact that they don't license their hardware or software to be produced by other vendors does make it substantially more expensive. There's no competition in the market, and thus no drive to make the components used in the computers cheaper. What this does do, however, is create an amazing amount of properly quality control. Windows is unstable primarily because of third-party device drivers. The hardware is unreliable, and the vendor is the one who is responsible for creating the drivers, which are frequently poorly written. Microsoft then has to create a buffer between the OS and the drivers which causes the entire OS to be far less efficient.
Apple on the other hand knows exactly every peice of hardware that will be used in their systems and exactly how it works. The OS developers write the drivers, and the drivers work perfectly every time. The hardware that you add to your Mac always works because it's designed specifically to work with the hardware that you have. There's no shoehorning, it all simply works, and that's what the end user wants.
The basic design of the OS has always been in Apple's favor. MacOS, from the beginning, has had a better interface than every other operating system out there. They were the first people to have "windows," they were the first people to have "menu bars," they were the first people to use concepts like "click," and "drag and drop." This continues to this day, where the interface is so intuitive anyone who is able to read is able to use the computer. Microsoft is continuing to try to emulate MacOS, but they're still far far behind. Instead of making a more intuitive interface they attempt to dumb down their current interface. As a result they end up with an interface that's infuriating to power users and infuriating to new users. Apple on the other hand has an interface that lends itself well to both.
Who would I like to win the OS/Machine war? Apple. They simply have a better Plan.
Who will win? Microsoft. They have the market share, they have the corporate contracts.
No company can succeed focusing on a user base composed of home users. The real money comes when you have a 100k/yr corporate support contract, all the upgrades, etc. The average home user gets the $10 OEM bundled OS and never buys the upgrade.
Posts: 68 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
The Apple plan that you say is better is actually quite limiting. Apple tried third party vendors for a short while, and failed miserably. It is quite tricky to make a system be even marginally stable when so many different manufacturers are creating the hardware and drivers the OS has to work with.
But there are great advantages.
For instance, while it may be true that the typical home user PC is outclassed by an Apple as far as graphics rendering goes, a PC can easily be built that far outstrips the Apple. Very few rendering clusters are build out of Apples in the visual effects industry these days.
We have not purchased an off the shelf computer since the first one we acquired. There are now five working desktops in our home as well as a networked computer for rendering power. These were all built by my husband with spare and purchased parts. Everytime he upgrades, the other computers get the hand-me-down parts. We have lots of parts hanging around, and my husband is often able to repair friends computers with these parts as well. This simply is not something one can do with Macs.
The variety available to the PC user is far superior than what the Mac user can get, and cheaper as well. This might be why Microsoft gets more corporate contracts. This is true even in companies that provide Linux products as well. Linux runs on PCs, not Apples.
And Macs do crash. I've been in a school lab with kids and Macs and we get 2 or 3 crashes in that hour.
There is no conspiracy. One must look at it as survival of the fittest. PCs are the better product if only for the variety that allows for faster evolution. Macs may stick around because of stability, but if they stick to their Plan, they will never outnumber PCs.
Posts: 3495 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sid, in general game designers and programmers use PCs because most games are designed FOR PCs and it's easier to do that ON a PC.
On the flip side, most imaging professionals (filmmakers, graphic designers, photographers, and increasingly publishing houses) use Macs.
Posts: 61 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Just for information, Mac performance vs. PC performance is almost impossible to measure. The biggest problem for Apple is the fact that they come out with a new processor once every 3-4 years, and there are very few upgrades between those times. Meanwhile, PC manufacturers are putting out new processors and hardware every 6 months on average. The shear drive to compete closely with a competitor is enough to push performance capability through the roof. Every time Apple gets a leg up on the competition, it occurs with technology that has been around for a year already, optimized and set up perfectly so it all works as fast as it can because there is no need to worry about driver conflicts and there is no overhead for code that is meant to optimize software for specific pieces of hardware.
Other issues, Mac's break. It does happen, don't tell me it doesn't. If there were as many Macs in the world as there are PC's, there would be no difference in the number of viruses/worms/bugs or whatever. Now, when a Mac breaks, who gets to fix it? Well, according to Apple, a technician has to be completely certified before they are really even allowed to open the case on one of those. There is exactly one Mac certified technician in my town of 30,000 people, and he's only here because he works for the college. He easilly gets away with a $75 an hour service charge. Meanwhile, there are at least 1000 people in my town who know how to build PC's. a small number less than that know how to fix them. Maybe 50-60 people here know what they're doing. What that results in is a base of knowledge that is out there for any person to have if they want to get their computer fixed. There are computer shops that fix computers, but they fix them for half of what the Mac guy charges.
Next, don't ever buy a retail built computer (HP, Compaq, Dell) and use it as a comparison. Those computers are built with dollar signs at the foundation of the design process. As such, all the worst hardware is used in building them. They don't perform at all (No, not even the Dell XPS), and as such are not going to stand up to a Mac in performance. You really do get what you pay for in the world of PCs.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah, I thought the article was a little overly antagonistic, but I can understand that because Mac users are often a little snooty without good reason. :-) Of course, Windows and Linux users are never snooty, right? Right?
Linux is what I use, anyway, for the tremendous amount of software available (a huge majority of which is free, both in cost and in freedom), the full customizeability (don't like something? change it yourself! Or file a bug with the person that wrote and ask them to, or hire someone to, or whatever you want!), the matchless security, the lack of cost (free, with free technical support from real people), stability, etc, etc. Most of all, it is more efficient for me to do the things I do every day (e-mail, web, graphics, programming, games, etc).
And, Amka. you can run Linux on Macs as well as PCs, if you wanted to. That's the beauty of Linux -- it can run anywhere that has a C compiler.
And, signine, Firefox actually IS more secure than Internet Explorer, not because less people are trying to exploit it, but because it is not tied in so directly to the operating system as IE, and because it's written better and with an open-source model. If you have been in IT long enough to remember the old Netscape Communicator when it was the browser of choice, you will remember that it didn't have all the security issues that IE has had then and now (though it did have some).
Part of this security comes from its open-source model. Anyone can find a bug, not just people who are trying to find exploits in the program. And when a bug is found, many people can work together to come up with a solution quickly, instead of having to go through a bureaucratic company interface. The code is reviewed by the many, many developers who work on it, instead of just a few teams at one company. For example, a potential exploit was discovered May 7. On May 11, FOUR DAYS later, a patch was released. Contrast that to known issues in IE that are STILL not fixed, even after over a year
posted
Wow! OSC sure has started a lot of discussion with his opinions about Apple. I'm a fan of both Apple and OSC (although a much bigger fan of OSC because he has actually had a more profound impact on my life/perspectives than a technology company) and find it kind of interesting how devoted people are for what they believe in, almost to the point of forsaking reason in order to defend their ideals (not necessarily a bad thing).
Even in this forum (which I have been a longtime reader without having actually contributed anything) people seemed divided in who or what they want to defend. Obvsiously here in an OSC-based forum, people are going to favor OSC, but it's interesting to see how the other side views his comments.
Here is an example of the debate that has been started but from a different perspective.
quote:Originally posted by Bokonon: There is nothing inherent in any home computer OS that makes a system better or worse for game design...
-Bok
Whoa! Although there's nothing _inherent_ in MacOS that makes it better at games, Mac games are better. When a game is ported from Windows to Mac (Civ II is an example), its interface must have major improvements, or the game will bomb. The standards are higher.
But I still won't buy another Mac. Too expensive, and I can't get anyone to repair it in my area.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
"Whoa! Although there's nothing _inherent_ in MacOS that makes it better at games, Mac games are better."
What's the weather like on your planet?
Seriously, while you can defend Apple on a lot of fronts -- and I have -- the quality of the games made for that system is really not one of them. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:For instance, while it may be true that the typical home user PC is outclassed by an Apple as far as graphics rendering goes, a PC can easily be built that far outstrips the Apple. Very few rendering clusters are build out of Apples in the visual effects industry these days.
Not true really, a PC can easily be built that outstrips an Apple in performance per dollar spent, but a G5 tower is going to be mightier than any PC you can put in a Desktop using non-server components. The PC that could outclass it would also, frankly, cost more money. When it comes to rendering, this is true, but also very few PCs are used into today's rendering clusters. Your average rendering cluster is built on an SGI model, not an Intel one.
quote:We have not purchased an off the shelf computer since the first one we acquired. There are now five working desktops in our home as well as a networked computer for rendering power. These were all built by my husband with spare and purchased parts. Everytime he upgrades, the other computers get the hand-me-down parts. We have lots of parts hanging around, and my husband is often able to repair friends computers with these parts as well. This simply is not something one can do with Macs.
The funny thing is that you can, most people simply do not, because they've spent the money on an Apple they usually also buy a support contract which means they do not have to work on their own computers unless they want to.
quote:The variety available to the PC user is far superior than what the Mac user can get, and cheaper as well. This might be why Microsoft gets more corporate contracts. This is true even in companies that provide Linux products as well. Linux runs on PCs, not Apples.
Corporate contracts are generally for servers, not workstations. Workstation OS's are usually provided by the hardware vendor, and you'd be hard pressed to find a corporation today that doesn't purchase their workstations from IBM, Dell, or HP. Additionally Linux runs quite happily on an Apple (Debian, Yellow Dog, and Gentoo have all been ported), and MacOS X is based loosely on NetBSD, so you don't really need to run Linux on an Apple. It would be kind of pointless considering you can install GCC and all the libraries and pretend you are running Linux (There's even a Gentoo MacOS X port that enables you to run Portage in MacOS X natively).
qirien said:
quote:And, signine, Firefox actually IS more secure than Internet Explorer, not because less people are trying to exploit it, but because it is not tied in so directly to the operating system as IE, and because it's written better and with an open-source model. If you have been in IT long enough to remember the old Netscape Communicator when it was the browser of choice, you will remember that it didn't have all the security issues that IE has had then and now (though it did have some).
FireFox is patched more often than IE, other than that it has all of the same security problems IE does. Windows is entirely too restrictive at "Power User" and "User" levels of access, so almost everyone is a Local Administrator on their machine (and in fact XP does so by default). FireFox thus has the same capability to do damage to your system that IE does.
I've also been in IT Security long enough to know when Netscape Communicator had some really huge issues, but no one really cared about them because at that time people were more interested in getting into servers than into workstations. That has since changed.
quote:Part of this security comes from its open-source model. Anyone can find a bug, not just people who are trying to find exploits in the program. And when a bug is found, many people can work together to come up with a solution quickly, instead of having to go through a bureaucratic company interface. The code is reviewed by the many, many developers who work on it, instead of just a few teams at one company. For example, a potential exploit was discovered May 7. On May 11, FOUR DAYS later, a patch was released. Contrast that to known issues in IE that are STILL not fixed, even after over a year
This is true, but then again you have to rely on the users to install the update, which frequently doesn't happen. If you remember the MSSQL "Slammer" worm that devistated many companies (and the internet as a whole) a couple years ago, you'll also remember that MicroSoft released a patch for the problem exploited by that worm a full six months before the worm hit the net. In truth FireFox has more than its share of holes (both published and unplublished), people just like it more and thus pursue it less heavily than MSIE.
Posts: 68 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
I've got to hand to you, some of the comments from there were pretty funny. Especially the one about how he must be an idiot since he drives a Ford Crown Victoria.
posted
Also the comment about having no comments, and the further out right declerations that his choice in cars prooves he doesn't know anything about computers.
posted
And finally, in the middle of calling him a homophobe and ignorant, the discussion turns into trying to figure out why, while writing one of these things, one of the poster's Mac computer broke.
posted
Wow...Mr. Card has managed to get two cult like groups riled up: The trekers and Apple Pod people. I wish I had that sor of power...
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I find this all very amusing. Card really doesn't like Macs! I think he got more fired up about them than anything to do about politics. It's pretty funny.
I've never been a fan of Macs. I'm not a fan of Microsoft either. I am a PC user, though... use windows of course. But we're going to be dual-booting linux and windows soon on both our computers (my husband and I). That way, we can still play games in windows, but do all of our other activity in linux.
Ya'll are just too funny, I swear. Computer wars!! My Crappy Computer is better than your Crappy Computer!!!
The Firefox thread of conversation reminds me of something the IT guy here said to me the other day... I had mentioned that we were going to start running linux (my husband knows computers and has used linux before) because it's more secure, and the IT guy started telling me how linux is so much more insecure and exploitable... I was shocked...but there was no way I knew enough to counter his argument. I think I just kinda smiled and shrugged.
posted
Linux is not more secure, it's more obscure. OS X, likewise, is simply more obscure.
In both cases it's relatively accurate to say that they're not plagued by the same security problems as Windows PC's, because they're really not. Computer criminals still have a large base of unsecured Windows PC's to exploit. It's an economies-of-scale thing.
It's hard for me to really care. Apple bundles what I's told is a pretty good home video processing software suite. The mini is a good-looking and less expensive computer that won't take up too much space on my desk, and has that software. The bundled Windows software stinks in comparison, and all the machines I could build myself would be noisy and suck down the power.
I have my own other reasons for getting a mac, but only in the mini configuration. Largely I want a quiet computer that will sit and serve web pages, and store and process our home videos. Macs do that quite well. Maybe it's something Mr. Card doesn't do at all. (What does he like to be called, around here?)
posted
Isn't Linux more secure because every file has read, write, and modify access, so that the core system files are only accessible by logging in as 'root'?
Posts: 2756 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, kaioshin. In fact, Linux and BSD (on which OSX are based) have more granular and more powerful security models, and their default installations are considerably more secure than most default Windows installations. This is as far as I'm concerned the primary weakness of Windows: until just a few years ago, its designers made it impossible to do much without connecting as root, which means most users require administrative access.
This means that hacking an account or running a dangerous script on a Windows machine is considerably more likely to jeopardize the system than it would a Unix box.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)
). As a digital filmmaker and motion-graphics designer, the performance of Apple computers is definitely a bonus (It's not for nothing that one of the top 3 supercomputers in the world was constructed out of Apple computers for roughly %10 the cost of the other computers in the top 10).
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
