Apple today announced that starting in January 2003, all new Mac models will only boot into Mac OS X as the start-up operating system
Well I guess they've made my decision for me and a lot of other people. The new Macs are pretty slow, no better than the last generation pretty much. They've probably cut off 10 - 20% of pro customers. The next generation might be monsters but I've got too many little apps for specialized purposes that will not run on OS X. I thought the 933s were the best machine they'd made in years, even so my buddies 933 on OSX is not much faster than my 350/9.xx on most things. I my opinion, the dualies don't pack much more power in general, even in some apps that supposedly take advantage of dual processors. Dualies are just a desperate attempt to keep up with AMD/Intel. Dual machines require enough power to obliviate the low power advantage, and of course fan noise. Dualies also require a more complicated, faster bus which they don't seem to have yet. So my path now will, most likely, not be to buy another NEW Mac for the next 6 years or so, at that time I'll re-evaluate. They've lost me as a new computer buyer. I'll keep an eye out for a used single processor Mac with a SuperDrive at a good price, but I'm afraid the last generation of machines will be hard to find. I'm guessing processor upgrades will be available for the last generation (excluding the present dogs) so that will extend their value and lifespans, while the new generation is transitional and won't be very upgradeable. I'll up grade my PC with the money I'll save.
I've been running OSX but I've also made the decision there's not much advantage for me at this time so I'm going to return to 9.xx since it's quite a bit faster. I've purchased Jaguar and will install it as soon as the bug fix is out but I'll probably only be using it 20% of the time or less. I might be screwing around with it's server capabilities but not much more.
Too bad. I had high hopes for OSX and Apple in general. Great general decisions but they've tripped on the details. To bad.
I think what we have here is a company that has great design ideas but is not pragmatic enough to build on them. Jobs is a great strategic general who cannot delegate to his tactical managers.
If they would have invested in an interface that advanced the older Mac interface they could have really challenged Microsoft. My guess it that Microsoft will make big advances in usability in the next 5 years leaving Apple behind in this area while Intel/AMD will do the same with processors. Apple will transform itself from a graphics niche company to a consumer niche company OK for grannies and people who barely use computers and amature photo/video buffs, but content creators will slowly go Microsoft as color management, plug and pray etc improves on that side. |
