[geeks] Mal de OS X (was: Weird MacOS issue)

[Mark Benson]

On 26 Dec 2008, at 18:32, Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> I really hated to see them change their name from Apple Computer.
>
> Their other products are nice, but it's their computers that really  
> matter to the market.

You have to say, business wise, they did at least make a relatively  
sound decision to do the iPhone. It's not exactly underselling :)

I agree though, their change in focus has harmed the computer side.  
Hopefully it's not irreparable, but it's certainly caused a loss of  
confidence in their product from people who already used it. On the  
flip side a lot of PC folks are switching and finding the Mac is  
nicer, better and faster than their POS Dell box so it was worth the  
extra cash, but given what they are used to you can see how they'd  
think that. I see, as a long term user, an OS that's slowly coming  
unstitched at the seams (but help is on the way hopefully), a hardware  
platform that lacks the quality and reliability they used to have, and  
a company who is losing focus on what they did best.

Times change and so do companies. I'm not getting to precious about it  
like I would have done when I was a misty eyed idealist youngster  
(about 6 years ago :P). They are just a corporate entity trying to  
make money out of people, just like any other at the end of the day,  
and the sooner the fanbois realise that and top being blindfolded by  
Uncle Steve, the better.

>> Mine's been fine, don't go giving it ideas! *hides Mac Pro's eyes*.
>
> I suspect most of them are fine, but it's clear that a whole lot of  
> them are not, and Apple won't admit it.

Apple never do admit fault. Haven't you noticed? They are monumentally  
bad at accountability, they always have been. Even when they do admit  
they made a mistake or something doesn't work right it takes forever  
to get a confession and it's usually a very guarded one. Just look at  
the monumental disaster that was MobileMe.

> Some of it is probably because Apple's lack of experience.
> Going from custom tailored hardware to fairly generic Intel  
> reference systems is probably part of it.

Its taken everyone who's done the same a bit of time to get it right.  
They'll get tit right in the end but it'll take time. I think a lot of  
their problems stem from trying to beat Intel stuff into computers  
designed for PowerPC. The MacBook fiasco is a classic example.  
Initially they pushed the technology too far beyond it's design  
parameters. They are slowly learning that they must design their  
casings and additions to compensate for the technology, not try and  
push it outside the very finite envelope it was designed for.

>> nVidia would probably even do it for them.
>
> Apple and its fanboys often say Apple handles the drivers for  
> reliability reasons.  I've even heard them say "Hey, you want Apple  
> drivers to be like Windows?"

Yeh, I know, I used to be one of them before the switch to Intel. Now  
I just wish they would let NVIDIA handle it as they know the GPU  
better, or at least have a team that worked closely with NVIDIA (I  
mean properly, not like they do now) to get the drivers as good as  
they are in XP/Vista.

> I have to laugh because in my case the answer would be yes.
> Apple's drivers are buggy, so I'd personally like the chance to  
> upgrade them on my own.
> My Windows nVidia drivers work great.

Amen. I just updated mine to the 185.x drivers for Vista and it worked  
flawlessly and added a significant slice to the performance of my  
8800GT.

>> Apple's sleep code is buggy on everything.
>
> What I can't figure out is that it seems to work for some people all  
> the time.
> I had to turn sleep functions off on my Mac Pro because it KP'd so  
> much if I let it sleep.
> That sucks because as you know, a Mac Pro is not exactly a lean  
> machine.

I put mine to sleep manually when I leave the desk or not at all. I  
have had problems myself with letting the OS do it for me, and not  
just on a Mac Pro.

>> Again, no issues here, and I have run mine ragged (had it down to  
>> 12 fps at some points in Mass Effect, because I was using forced AA/ 
>> AF with HDR on at the same time) and while the fan was rolling  
>> pretty hard it still kept ticking).
>
> Apple has had to replace a lot of 8800GT systems.

I know, I count myself as profoundly lucky!

>> Hard to say without trying the same thing with VMWare in Windows or  
>> Linux and watching the results.
>
> I don't believe that will work.  Virtualization runs Fusion, but  
> within Fusion, I don't believe you can then run virtualization  
> inside of virtualization.

No, no, I meant natively, to make sure the bug wasn't in the computer  
rather than the OS. I strongly suspect it'll work fine in other OSs  
though ;o)

>> If Snow Leopard isn't a significantly stability and functionality  
>> improvement over Leopard then they can kiss my custom goodbye. I'll  
>> buy a Dell next time ;)
>
> The Mac is the only system where I've spent significant money on  
> commercial software, and I'd hate to replace it.

I was half-joking :) I prefer 'living with' OS X because it's less  
frustrating. If it had a better way to handle Windows games than  
bootcamp it'd be even better but you can't have everything I guess.

> I also don't like doing actual work with Windows.

I have to and 90% of the time it's not a problem. It's just the 10% of  
the time Windows XP decides it's gonna spit it's guts up on me I kinda  
resent the fact. I have little choice at $work though, all our  
software is Windows based and a lot of it comes from outside providers  
on a 'use Windows or thou shalt suffer' basis. All the systems I have  
designed are totally platform agnostic, of course, as they run off  
MySQL, PHP5 and Apache 2, but they are only half of what we use.

> I don't like Linux with Gnome on top of it, and can only barely  
> tolerate KDE.

I don't like either. I've only ever used 2 *nix GUIs I didn't hate,  
one was CDE, the other was the Irix window manager. One reason I  
haven't as yet looked into using Linux at $work is if it drives me  
bats lord know what it'll do to the non-literate users :\

> The truth is, I don't like any of them.  The whole industry needs to  
> shape up and start making reliability and engineering job number one.

Agreed.

> But for now, the Mac is the one I feel most comfortable doing my  
> daily work.  The software is generally very good and the OS I think  
> just needs some TLC and more hard work from Apple.

Yes, Apple see previous comment :o)

-- 
Mark Benson

My Blog:
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Visit my Homepage: <http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson>

"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."