Comments on: WWDC 2008: iPhones, 10.6, and a new .Mac?

It's that time of year again, and while everyone and their mother awaits a new iPhone, don't forget that Apple should have more to say about the Mac and .Mac on Monday.

[thelemurking]

Apple is genius at this! It's an easy way for them to pull in millions every year or so, release an update to the OS and pretty much everyone who has a Mac will buy it. Looks like the bean counters at Microsoft caught on and eventually Windows will be doing the same.

Wonder how many iPhone 1.0 people will rush out and buy the 3g version?

[Mr. Dee]

Looks like the Apple feature gravy train has finally reached its zenith. How unfortunate. Possibly 10.6 will follow in the footsteps of 10.1 and cost new users transitioning from Tiger for Intel $129 and Leopard (10.5) users $19.95. Mr. Jobs, tune up the RDF, because you are gonna need it badly to explain this one.

[getwired]

Did you read a different article than I did? The article I read discussed nothing about features. So how exactly can you say it WON'T justify a full upgrade price?

[Tsee-1968031069905097881578618]

You hit it on the head. I just can't believe how much money Apple groupies put out. Yeah, maybe XP isn't as flashy as Leopard and all that, but I don't need to pay $110 or whatever it is every year to keep up...

[kirkules]

There is no have to or need to here. I'm on 10.3 on my old Pismo and 10.4 on my MacBook.

[purcell429]

Yeah, thats true. A copy of vista is only $300+! What a steal! And anyway, its the same way it is with xp; there are people who have not upgraded yet, although the percentage is not nearly as high with leopard as it is with vista...

[purcell429]

Yeah, thats true. A copy of vista is only $300+! What a steal! And anyway, its the same way it is with xp; there are people who have not upgraded yet, although the percentage is not nearly as high with leopard as it is with vista...

[joeboe1980]

Out of curiosity, what new features did XP get over the course of 5 years so you could "keep up"?

[jasonwhitaker]

Apple release more OS's than Microsoft.

But i guess it still cant be installed on anything other that MAC hardware.

Now think about it - tell me that that cant be a money spinner for Apple!

Same old!

[theveggiedude]

Money spinner? If they released it for all pc hardware they would make far more money than now. So your argument doesn't make sense. Plus, look at the site license for OS X vs Windows. It is MS that has the money spinner.

[Kev Orng]

I see no reason why 10.5 and 10.6 couldn't exist side by side, assuming it's true that 10.6 is intel-only. OSX is carrying around a lot of baggage to support PowerPC macs, and yet there are still a lot of PowerPC owners out there, like me; I regularly use two PPC macs that have been working without a hiccup for 6 years.

So yeah, they should make a screaming-fast svelte intel-only Leopard, and number it however they want, so long as 10.5 is there for PPC guys like me to upgrade to if we get tired of Tiger.

And contrary to what previous posters have implied, we Mac users don't leap on every OS update like a bunch of brainless lemmings... I bought Tiger when it got to 10.4.9, and I skipped Panther and Puma. Only the really enthusiastic Mac users who regularly post on forums buy every version.

But even they aren't as bad as the people who shamelessly and angrily shill for vista in spite of people listing specific problems they're having with it.

BTW If Apple calls any version "Cougar" people will make fun of it. Too many people read that as a mature lady on the prowl. Besides, cougar is another word for Panther or Puma, so it's already been used twice.

[nbvail]

I've used the Dot MAC service since its beginning and am pleased with it. I pay $99 a year - around a weeks worth of gas. Cougar could be cool, just think a sultry mature gal - ala Mrs. Robinson joining MAC and an Mrs. Costanza joining PC on the TV ADS.

[open-mind]

The Apple haters are kind of funny. Most are griping about rumors for a platform they don't even own.



On a different forum I actually heard a guy grip twice ... first he griped that 10.6 was useless to him. Then he griped that 10.6 didn't support his hardware. Talk about burning the gripe-candle at both ends! LOL. :-)

[jyoung2k]

I'm one of those groupies.. I used to buy windows machines.. nearly yearly due to required hardware upgrades, licensing and other crap.. I'll gladly pay 110 a year to keep from the fiasco that is Vista.

I have never been so happy with a company as I am with Apple. I can go into store log in online or pick up a phone and get QUALITY service. Rarely do I have to wait for service ever. I remember waiting for MS for hours.

Recently my company (a ms partner) offered me a laptop I said no I'll buy my own mac book pro. They said well we wont spend 3K for a laptop .. No worries I said and I bought it myself. It came a few days later and 20 minutes after that I was up and running with all my software and data. My counterpart took the laptop the company offered, 3 days later he was up and running. With frustration oozing from every pore.

I made more then 3x the cost of my laptop for my company in the time it took him to get up and running.

Who is the lemming...

[kmomrik]

I have to wonder why you'd buy a new PC every year. I've owned the same Windows XP pc for at least 6 years and have never had an issue with a piece of software except "The Witcher" (a video game) which wouldn't work with my Intel 2 GHz P4. Aobe CS2, Expression Web, CAD Software... you name it, my 6 year old PC ran it. If you had to buy a new PC every year, then maybe you should've looked into spending more than $400 on the lowest end PC and gotten something that would last. I've never hear the price argument get switched around so ineffectively. Support... no that one I'll buy. MS Support is a bit lacking, however they dont' control your hardware or your other software as much as Apple does, so you can't really compare. If the issue is really hardware (or drivers), Apple SHOULD be vastly superior because they're responsible for it all. MS shouldn't be held accountable for HP or Dell or Acer. And if it took your co-worker 3 days to get a LAPTOP up and running... you need a new IT dept. I've had 2 Vista laptops manually configured and out the door the same day I got them delivered and they've worked without a hitch for months. XP laptops are even easier. The derogotory term "lemming" indicates a person who does not question what is happening and just "goes along". When Steve Jobs gets up to talk or puts out those ABSOLUTELY IDIOTIC PC vs. MAC commercials that convinces people to buy Mac becuase their cooler and not "nerdy" and fashionable... who do YOU think is a lemming?

[open-mind]

So kmomrik, you feel the lemmings are NOT the 93% of people who follow the norm and use Windows because that's what everyone else uses? You feel the lemmings are the other 7% who actively evaluate both platforms and then decide to choose Macintosh?



You also seem to indicate that the cheapest PC's (the ones usually compared to "expensive" Macs) are a poor decision, since they need to be replace every year or so. Interesting.



I disagree that people buy Macs because of Apple's commercials. The commercials may lead them to evaluate a Mac, but certainly not just buy one like some Jobsian zombie.

[thelemurking]

I absolutely love my Vista laptop... it may not fit in an envelope, but I can watch DVDs on a nice large widescreen. I can actually real games on it such as BF2, COD4, SOASE and my recent addiction Track Mania Nations Forever. It's fast, beefy and has had zero problems since I got it back in December. I spent $650 on it and got $200 in rebates, so I got a bad ass laptop for $450 that will handle anything I throw at it, minus chainsaws and saltwater.

My iMac collects dust now. It seems more like a novelity. It got heavily used the first 3 or 4 months, but then that new shiny coolness wore off and it became just another machine. Sure it has a pretty package, but it's not like I take my computers out for fashion shows.

I have had no problems out of any of my Windows boxes, no problems out of my iMac. My main box at home is a monster game machine and I absolutely love it. AMD X2 6000 black edition, 8gb ram, Vista 64, two 9800gtx cards in SLI on two 24 inch Samsung monitors. It's not as fancy and pretty looking as my iMac, but it is an ungodly beast and I love it so.

I didn't build my game machine because everyone else is doing it... I built it because I wanted to play games and I don't really care for the consoles... I went with Vista 64 because it would handle the 8gb of ram :) If Apple let me build my own machine and install OS X on it, and there were tons of games out there for OS X... but nope, Apple is has to have that tight control, and very few things run on it. Does that make people lemmings because they use Windows when there is 1000 times more software for Windows than for OS X? Sounds more like people prefer having choices and like having a wide variety of software to run. To me, it seems more like the Apple people are a bunch of sheep who will buy anything Steve Jobs and co. put out on the market. There is a great motivator pic of a college classroom where 90% of the students have MacBooks... caption is THINK DIFFERENT, like everyone else.

[matthewadavid]

What about Apple TV? Do you really think that Steve Jobs has forgotten about his "hobby" product? I am expecting something late Summer that will introduce a new product line for Apple around a better Apple TV-like experience.

[fletc3her]

As to spending a lot of money on OSes. 10.5 was released in 2007, 10.4 in 2005, and 10.3 in 2003. I spent $179 for both 10.4 and 10.5 for a family pack to upgrade five machines. About $35/machine every two years is not a lot of money. And, those upgrades brought me Time Machine, Spotlight, and countless minor OS improvements.

It seems likely that 10.6 would be released in 2009, but it's possible that Apple would shift it to 2010. I doubt Apple pays much attention to Microsoft's schedule when they make plans. 10.5 was pushed back by the iPhone so it came out after Vista. In any case, Microsoft is saying Windows 7 won't come out before 2010 last I heard. Given standard delays that means we can look forward to it in 2015 or so.

[Thomas, David]

It's all going to be about the iPhone development, and if we are lucky, multi-touch frameworks for new computers.

[aafuss]

Apple can?t claim they?re the first with ?Mobile Me? because there is a software called ?MobileMe?:

http://www.multiedit.com/mobileME.php

This company will most likely sue Apple for trademark infringement.

and our Mobile Me:

http://babyasoftwaregroup.googlepages.com/mobileme

[Trane Francks]

The Japan Times reported yesterday that Japanese telephone carrier SoftBank and Apple came to an agreement that gives SoftBank exclusive rights to the iPhone in Japan. The report stated that the iPhone will release in Japan by year end. The coming of a Japanese iPhone guarantees a 3G iPhone because SoftBank is a 3G network and 2.5G devices will not operate with it.

[kmomrik]

Not really... but I REALLY do appreciate you trying to turn a valid argument into a generalization. I would greatly prefer that people USE ALL THEIR OPTIONS before BASHING one.

I've used Mac OSX, Ubuntu, Mandrake, Red Hat, FedoraCore, Knoppix, Windows (3.1, 95,98,2K,XP,2003 and my new OS of choice the villianous VISTA), DOS, HP-UX. I CHOOSE to use Windows. Where in your 93% do I fall? OH NO, AN EDUCATED CONSUMER!!!!

It is funny to me how you ASSUME that the other 7% that use Mac do so because they've evaluated and chosen. I know at least 10-20 people that have family in design and have grown up with nothing but Macs... no choosing there. I also know people who have purchased a Mac because they have an iPhone or an iPod and saw some commercials that said PCs were only for work. Then got home and realized that most of the best games won't play unless you go buy WINDOWS to run on your Mac PC. Those same people who BASH Windows will turn around and say "And anyways, you can get Boot Camp or Parrallels and run Windows on a GOOD machine"... Where does Microsoft make money? On the machine just like Apple? No, on the software that you bought to put on your Mac.

How about we don't make this a personal attack on either of us or Microsoft or Apple? What I was trying to point out is that not everyone who uses a Mac is smarter and made a better choice. Likewise, everyone that uses Windows isn't just "following the norm" and using it because "everyone else does"... some of us actually do CHOOSE to run what we run. To each his own...

Apple is not a religion, no one is on a crusade for it (even though people who switch are called converts)... What would be amazing is if everyone would get educated on the machine they choose and pick the one that suits them.

[Norseman]

So when will iPod Touch II with the same non-phone features as iPhone II be announced?

[Mr. Dee]

I am still trying to scrape together cash to purchase my first Mac. Its kinda strange after all these years of prominence I am still unable to get on the bandwagon, but I won't be giving up so soon, even after 7 releases of OS X. :) Anyway, I don't see the point in discriminating against Mac users these days, they are PC users just like regular Windows or Linux stalwarts. It really doesn't matter these days which OS you choose, although Apple makes it kinda hard with its proprietary nature. But I was running Ubuntu 8.04 the other day and I was greatly surprised by how far Linux has come since I last tried it at Redhat 7.2. With Apple going Intel only under 10.6, its just a logical step and as many said, the overhead in resources will come to an end, supporting two completely different architectures, and ensuring both work just like each other whether Intel or PowerPC is just too much to continue doing. If you look at how portable OS X has become its amazing Apple has managed to make it even successful with Leopard (32-Bit PowerPC G4, 64-Bit PowerPC G5, Intel x86 and Intel x86-x64). Knowing that OS X runs native to the platforms architecture through its universal binary. Thats a lot to maintain for the OS alone, not to mention the other developer teams at Apple (Final Cut Studio, iWork, Shake, iLife, Remote Desktop, Aperture, XSAN etc) this move to Intel, 64 Bit only would give them breathing room to innovate and move forward with the platform. Although I won't have to upgrade to a new platform or change architecture to install Windows 7 32-bit in 2010 on my Dell Dimension 8300, 3.2 GHz P4 HT, 2.6 GBs of RAM, nVidia Geforce 6200 512 MB AGP.

[huanbei]

wow vein popping kmo? have to cap every word to "defend" what you use, actually defending wont be necessary since "no one is on crusade for apple", just like you said..

and ok I'm another apple "fanboy" I got iPhone iMac two iPod one for the car. I picked another car over the ford i was getting just for the fact there's a Microsoft logo next to the shift.

im glad more ppl use windows, less attention to os x so i'll never have to update stilupid zonealarm every two days and paying for some waco antivirus crap that I just can't find a "Kill Da Virus" bottom to click on, after like 5 hrs of "scanning"... maybe ur not supose to kill the virus and u r just paying for something that only shows that U Got Infected holy crap windows just detected a serious error is gonna blow up runnnm

[make_or_break]

U Got Infected holy crap windows

So find me a Vista machine that's actually been infected by a virus in the wild...ANY virus. Right now, you'll be hard pressed to find anything outside of research lab. There is proof-of-concept code out there, but then there's also proof-of-concept code malware for OS X as well. Actual wild malware infecting Vista boxes is considerable tougher to find. I'm no fan of Redmond, but even I have to admit that Vista is a LOT harder to infect than holy old XP or any of the earlier versions of Windoze. Up until now, Vista's big problem is its demands on driver compatibility (or lack thereof), not on malware vulnerability.