SuperSite for Windows’s “review” (imagine me making finger quotes) of Tiger immediately tells me that the author has either illegally obtained a copy, has broken an NDA, or has based his review completely on marketing information and externalities. The fact that he cites Spotlight and Dashboard as the primary features of the OS and quickly brushes right past the API and subsystem changes, tells me his information comes from the latter, and even then he didn’t read it all or selectively ignored most of it.
Here’s the real corker:
Apple Mac OS X 10.4 ‘Tiger’ is the strongest OS X release yet and a worthy competitor to Windows XP. Though it is marketed by Apple as a major release, Tiger is in fact a minor upgrade with few major new features, more akin to what we’d call a service pack in the Windows world. However, that won’t stop Apple fans from flocking to Apple Stores on April 29 and standing in line to buy it, even at its inflated $129 price.
Let’s see if I understand this correctly… Features such as a metadata search engine (Spotlight) available as a system service to all applications and a GPU-driven UI (Aqua / OpenGL / CoreVideo / CoreImage / Quartz Extreme) constitute a minor revision to Mac OS, yet similar features are already cornerstones of the next major release of Windows. That’s quite an inconsistency.
For those who care, you can see what a major upgrade looks like, and what a service pack looks like. They’re very different in both features and number of changes. (A number of Windows XP SP2 features, such as pop-up blockers, firewalls, improved wireless support, and Bluetooth technologies are catch-up items for Windows compared to OS X.)
Also, if anyone is interested in inflated prices, they’re more than welcome to compare. (A 5-license family pack of OS X is $100 cheaper than a single XP Professional license. The Tiger, iLife, and iWork bundle is $50 cheaper.)
Ok, I’ve already paid too much attention to this troll.
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April 20th, 2005 at 1:29 pm
Aaron,
Well being a recent switcher I can see where they are coming from…
You need to understand that these stories are coming from the “Windows” or “Microsoft” jaded press that does not now, nor will likely in the future ever use a mac.
And since they really have no idea what features Mac OS X has in the first place and are just trying to grab a newsbite or a headline they are just spewing what they can off the top of their head’s without really understanding what they are talking about.
Personally I recently switched because of newly upcoming Spotlight addition to OS X among many other reasons, but Spotlight was indeed a biggie. I’m getting tired of trying to find something on my Wintel box every time I turn around and that search taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R! Plus the whole spyware, malware, virus issues are just getting totally out of hand!
Ok sorry for getting off track there for a moment…
From a non-mac, non-technical person’s perspective, they read the press release on the “New and Improved Mac OS X 10.4″ and what are the things that catch them?
Spotlight and Dashboard! Oooo, cool whole system search! Oooo, cool translucent desktop widgets! To prove my point go to http://www.apple.com right now and what do you see on the home page?
Spotlight and Dashboard.
Now mind you Konfabulator does a way better job of the Dashboard Wigets and has been available for some time. And the whole F12 to view widgets, F12 to make them go away. What’s that about? If I want widgets, I want them there on the desktop keeping me up to date 7-24-365, not when I hit a hot key. Sheesh!
And the Spotlight functionality is only available if you click on the little blue magnifying glass in the upper right side of the desktop and not the one that pop’s up in every finder window? Not the functionality I was expecting either.
Aqua, OpenGL, CoreVideo, CoreImage, Quartz Extreme? To an end user or a switcher this sounds like Gobble de gook, and not something that might actually benefit them later on down the line once developers actually start taking advantage of these great new under the hood technologies.
What the press release should have said was “Now get DirectX and Avalon like graphics speed and flexibility” and the Microsoft/Windows crowd would have had something to talk about.
Now you and I know these features matter, but to the typical end user they are going to fixate on the big one’s they can understand.
I hope I didn’t ramble on too badly here…
-Shawn
April 20th, 2005 at 1:58 pm
What makes it “better”?
That’s a matter of personal choice. One of the reasons I didn’t like Konfabulator way back when was because the widgets crowded up my desktp all the time and I prefer my workspace to be clean and clear. Pressing a key to bring widgets in and out of view is exactly what I want. I don’t need the phone book, address book, weather, stickies, and whatever else available all the time.
Also, Dashboard can be customized to come up based on the key or mouse corner of your choice, so pressing F12 is not the only option. If you don’t want Dashboard at all, don’t set either a key or corner for it, and it will never be initially called up, and you won’t have to be concerned with it. All users have the choice of either Dashboard or Konfabulator. Anyone is free to effectively disable Dashboard when they wish, and nobody is required to install Konfabulator. It’s totally a non-issue, non-problem.
See my comments under the “What Spotlight is” story.
True, but I would expect someone with technical knowledge such as the author at Win SuperSite to understand the potential of these technologies and acknowledge them, even if they don’t like them.
That would be a weird thing to say considering the DirectX / Avalon combination isn’t even a real product yet, against which Apple has no way to measure Quartz.
Sure, but for Win SuperSite to say the only weak (in their opinion) improvements in Tiger are Spotlight and Dashboard is disingenuous, at the very least.
April 20th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Aaron,
I can see this is going to be a “lively” discussion!
By “Better” I meant that you could choose to have the widget’s displayed all the time with Konfabulator. You cannot with Dashboard. I like widget’s. I want to see my weather widget all the time. I’m hoping in the next version of Dashboard this is an option. It is indeed a matter of personal preference. I want some up all the time, you don’t. Different Strokes, Different Folks.
Since they are both using the same type of XML widget’s I guess they could be called “Similar” or maybe copied? Hmmm, that seems like a Microsoft thing to do…
I am surprised that Apple did not purchase or buy out the company that makes Konfabulator.
Oh and being a Windows developer I can tell you that DirectX/Avalon does indeed exist. We are coding apps for it now. It is total crap, but it does exist. You can get a plugin for Windows XP now to develop for it.
And don’t assume that the Winsite article author is anything more than a 13 year old X-Box loving kid working from his home after school as a part time job. He probably wouldn’t even know what disengenuous meant.
-Shawn
April 20th, 2005 at 8:16 pm
Ok, that’s fine. If that feature is important to you, I have no problem with it. I just wondered if there was a technical reason for your assertion.
If the users ask for it, Apple usually responds.
My understanding is that there are major differences under the hood between Konfabulator and Dashboard. (I’m not a developer so I can’t tell you exactly what those differences are without some research.) While the interface and/or user interaction may be very similar, Dashboard is different enough that Apple didn’t see the need to buy it because they redeveloped it from the ground up in order to make major changes.
I should clarify. DirectX / Avalon doesn’t currently exist as a shipping product that’s available to the public where Apple can make a comparison. Comparing technology that’s about to be released with technology still very much in development is silly.
I know exactly who the author of the article is, and he’s smart enough to realize what Tiger is really all about. (Although I’m not sure about “disingenuous”… ;)) I choose not to name him because this post isn’t about him personally, but rather about the contents of the review.
April 21st, 2005 at 11:51 am
Aaron,
I should have realized you “media types” all know one another…
Thanks for the lively discussion! Hopefully I can keep you on your toes and entertained in the future.
-Shawn
April 21st, 2005 at 12:59 pm
Media types?
I’m just a loser with a blog. Feel free to pitch in at any time… the more comments and feedback this site contains, the better.