8th May 2006, 4:58 PM
Quote:I decided to check out the updates added to the "cat family" updates of OSX, and to be honest, that sort of stuff is not worth paying for. The OS proper? Sure, I've heard lots of good things about the OS, as a system, and it sounds neat. But those updates? Not worth it. An updated search utility or, and this is just terrible, "added hardware support" in the form of supporting the new switch to Intel cores? I'm sure a lot of code was reworked for that, but that really should have been a free update, and yet they charge full price to update each time. Apple is master at one thing at any rate, extoring money out of people who won't settle for less. Only they could release music players with LESS memory and get people who have ones with more memory to actually willingly pay for it. And, need I mention the dreaded iLamp? A frickin' screensaver to read your book by, and that's worth MONEY somehow?
Ahh DJ, you forget the most important fact: Mac fans are utterly devoted. They don't care that they're spending way, way more, that Apple rips them off massively, that that's just because Apple wants bigger profit margins, etc... just read DMiller's post up there -- all kinds of exsuces for Applie's actions... but the core of it is, Apple knows that they can get away with it, so they do. Simple as that.
Quote:and ABF, that is the main reason you would want to update)
I've read enough about XP to know that it is not exactly the answer to all one's problems... maybe it's better in most ways, but it's far from perfect.
Quote:There are clearly big issues with Windows that need to be addressed, and these, thanks to the new found stability of XP (and ABF, that is the main reason you would want to update) center around security and protection of the users from themselves. Mac users don't have to worry about screwing up their systems themselves because they don't have the ABILITY to do that. That's not really a bad thing. If I can run my programs well, I won't need to mess around with my OS, and if the OS is hardware locked, I really don't need such capabilities at all. Further, as the article notes, security on a Mac or Linux is pretty effective by just forcing a pop-up to appear to allow any programs doing admin'y type stuff to do their thing. This is something that has been lacking for too long and XP is only now starting to do that by including these warnings, to an extent, in the system, but they are limited in what they do.
Now then, there is one other aspect. Users need to start being educated more. A computer is meant to have a lot of different stuff used on it. It is a multipurpose machine, and that requires a certain level of freedom that will inevitably result in users screwing up any machine. The mac isn't even immune. Need I mention extensions? No security system, save completely locking out the function entirely, will prevent a user from "clicking here to see the cute bunnies". They will click on any "okay to proceed" box or type in whatever password is needed to get at those bunnies.
There are viruses for macs... not s many, but they exist. And how good is Apple at fixing the holes? No better than MS, that's for sure.
Also, how is having the system be so locked down not a bad thing? It limits your options so much... it's like Firefox vs. Mozilla -- there is no benefit to having a system which is missing most of the options!