[MacDV] Re: The 20inch LCD Conspiracy (or the whole-new Mac conspiracy?)

[Mark M. Florida]

On Saturday, February 1, 2003, at 10:35 AM, Steven Rogers wrote:

>
> On Saturday, February 1, 2003, at 01:47 AM, Mark M. Florida wrote:
>
>> . . . My point is that, in my opinion, Apple wasted so much time 
>> making the GUI look "gooey" (pardon the stupid pun) that they should 
>> have spent on getting the OS a little more optimized.  Here we are 4 
>> years after the release of the first OS called "X" (that's "ten", you 
>> know), and it's still super bloated, buggy, slow, etc.  . . .
>
> OS X is certainly not "super bloated". The OS might not be perfect, 
> but I wouldn't call it buggy now.

You need at least 128 MB of RAM *just for the OS*.  I know RAM is 
cheap, but is that any reason for sloppy programming?  Try running OS X 
on less-than-optimal hardware (like a 350 MHz iMac with 128 MB RAM) -- 
no joy.  BeOS was *F*A*S*T* on the current-at-the-time 604-based 
hardware -- the only reason it never made it to G3 or G4 processors was 
because Apple stopped giving away the family jewels to the cloners and 
other developers (like Be) when they switched to the G3 processor, so 
the documentation was not available to continue BeOS development on the 
new hardware.  Sad really.  And around the same time all of this was 
going on, PowerComputing designed the fastest Mac (clone) around 
anywhere at the time.  But guess what?  They couldn't release it 
because Apple wouldn't let them, and we all had to settle for Apple's 
half-assed G3 systems (compared to PowerComputing's powerhouse 
offerings anyway).  Imagine a G3 tower with 6 PCI slots, drive bays out 
the wazoo, and more RAM slots than were conceivable at the time...  Now 
all you can do is imagine it, because Apple killed it, and they never 
made a beige G3 with anywhere near the versatility or expandability of 
the PowerComputing "G3".

Here's an old post I found on geek.com, from the end of the "Mac clone 
era":
http://www.geek.com/techupdate/macfrust.htm

Another from LowEndMac:
http://lowendmac.com/archive/010209.html

That kind of sums it up.

In my opinion, the whole OS X thing is much more than just a monitor 
conspiracy.  It's a whole machine conspiracy.  If you have a machine 
(other than a G4 tower) that's more than 1-1/2 or 2 years old, running 
Mac OS X is an exercise in frustration.  Apple is a hardware company.  
If they release a kick-ass OS that is only usable (in the sense that 
Mac OS 9 is very usable on 3 and 4 year-old G4 towers), then people 
will buy new machines to run the new OS and the new exciting apps that 
come with that.  That's good for Apple as long as people are willing to 
basically trash a 2 year-old computer because the OS runs so poorly 
that they can't take it any longer.  In the PC world, if you have a 4 
year-old computer, you can run a four or five year-old OS, and still 
buy NEW applications that run on it.  Granted it certainly won't be as 
fast as the latest Pentium 4 "Furnace Edition" processor, but it will 
most likely be usable.  As an example, has anyone tried running the 
latest Macromedia apps on Mac OS X?  It's just awful.  Slow, buggy, 
bloated, all but completely unusable...  How about Macromedia apps on 
Windows?  They actually behave themselves, and are quite usable, in a 
Windows kind of way, of course.  ;-)

>>  . . .  I'm soooo glad Steve Jobs came back to save his baby (Apple), 
>> but I think his vision is severely clouded by his own stupid ego.  
>> And that's bad for all of us.  He should have just secretly bought 
>> the BeOS after Amelio was ousted, and spent a couple of years on that 
>> beast to get it to print and network better. . . .
>
> The main benefit of OS X is that it is basically a well known 
> operating system. One of the main reasons Macs didn't catch on in the 
> business world is that sys admins didn't like them because they're 
> different. Now the Mac is a known quantity - just another unix box. 
> Moving the Mac to BeOS would be incredibly stupid because there is 
> effectively zero programming community for that OS and zero support 
> for it in schools and businesses across the country.

I don't think Macs will ever catch on in the "business" world.  Why?  
There is still a stigma about Apple that Windoze IT people just don't 
like.  Maybe it's that "use Macs for creative stuff, but give me 
Windoze to get some office work done" mentality.  Or maybe since they 
work so well, switching to the Mac would put tons of IT professionals 
out of a job since they wouldn't need to futz with the OS so much, like 
they do with Windows.  But I honestly think it's MS brainwashing from 
the initial training and education of the average IT worker.  You learn 
how to use Windows for all of your needs, then you don't really need to 
make any hard decisions about how to do things -- your VAR calls you 
up, gives you a demo, sells you the Windows solution, sets up your 
stuff, sells you training, then sells you support because you can't 
make it work.  I think people are finally realizing that there *are* 
choices out there that are better and/or less expensive (in actual 
dollars or work hours) than Windows...  but that's a whole other story 
altogether...

On the other hand, the Mac has always been a "niche" computer, and the 
BeOS would have played to that niche quite well.  The BeOS was already 
making friends with the folks on the creative side of the music 
industry.  OS-level support for rich media (midi, multitrack audio, 
real-time video) helped it develop a following... but ultimately, that 
alone wasn't enough.  Apple's Mac OS programmers figured out a way to 
make classic apps run right along-side OS X apps via "classic" mode.  
There is/was a similar functionality on the BeOS, although it was a 
third-party "emulation" type app (not really emulating though, since it 
was on Mac hardware, but "blowing a hole" in the OS to run another OS 
at the same time, similar to the old "Blue Box" of OS X Server 1.2) -- 
so they could have figured out how to make it run like "Classic" mode 
runs now on Mac OS X.  Also, Apple could have developed a BeOS 
carbon-type environment where Mac apps can be "native" BeOS apps with 
some relatively easy programming changes, much like the Carbon apps 
many of us use today.  Then as the developers get familiar with the new 
OS, they can clean up and optimize the code for the next release and/or 
port to the completely native "Cocoa"-type APIs to take full benefit of 
the new OS.

My point is that things could have worked out fine going the BeOS route 
as well... although I can see things getting botched up along the way 
along the lines of "I can do all that stuff on Windos, too, what's so 
special about the BeMac?", or the fact that Steve Jobs probably 
wouldn't have been around to keep the Mac community inspired, eagerly 
awaiting the next great thing from Cupertino.  But then again, Windows, 
like the Mac (even Mac OS X), has lots of cobwebs building up in the 
codebase, and the BeOS was *truly*, I mean *really* a modern OS, with 
no legacy to bring it down, and only a few missing pieces left to fill.

It's all a matter of priorities.  Apple wants to sell more hardware.  
It seems obvious to me that they are designing their OS to warrant the 
need for new hardware (Quartz Extreme, anyone?).  If they can get 
people to cough up the dough, then more power to them.  But a strategy 
like this will probably not *increase* their market share, but rather 
keep it steady (if even that) as previous Mac users need to upgrade to 
use the latest and greatest gee-whiz apps.

Then again, I think of the iApps and how they're coming together... and 
the fact that iPhoto 2 runs much faster than iPhoto 1, and there could 
be hope.  All I want is to have my old Platinum interface back... or 
even HAVE A CHOICE!  Apple?  Please?  ;-)

So there you are...  We could've all been using iMovie 3, now with 
real-time multiple-layer transparency and renderless transitions, all 
running on your old Beige G3 233 MHz with only 128 MB of RAM on Mac OS 
Be (I know that's kind of exaggerating... or is it?), but as it is now, 
lets hope that you can render your iMovie 3 project on your 
Power-Dual-Mega-Giga-Hertz Mac in time to just get a little sleep at 
the end of the day.  But hey, it runs Apache!

;-)

- Mark