True. I'm not a die hard fan of Apple, but just after working for 12 years
with Mac OS computers I can say that I have always liked the way it works
much better than Windows.
Back in high school and through most of my undergrad, I was a
die-hard mac guy. I got tired of all the promises of the new OS (Copland
at the time). When OpenStep finally became the thing and became viable as
MacOSX, I'd already bought two more generations of computers. Cheap DIY
SMP Intel boxes that I ran linux on. I like to say I went from the
easiest OS to use to the hardest in one shot. I bypassed Winders
altogether.
I just hope that "universal" applications will be
available a little longer than "fat" ones as it was during m68k -> Power PC
change. Their marketing is strange too - it was not so long ago when they
showed superiority of RISC based Power PC processors over old, still
somewhat influenced by 8086 Intel CPUs. Now it is just contrary situation.
It was pretty much a matter of support. Motorola had MUCH less
incentive to put R&D into making PowerPC faster than Intel had fighting
AMD. As such, RISC and CISC sorta converged together so the
characteristics of each are found in both. x86 is sledge-hammer
engineering at its finest, but even after all that it's still faster these
days.
Frankly, I'm surprised that it took this long. I used NeXTStep on
both 68k black NeXT boxes and x86 machines in undergrad. Elegant,
beautiful, seamless multiplatform support. I'm sure OSX as a descendent
is even better. If the Apple hardware didn't cost 2-3x as much as what I
could build an equivalent machine for, I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Run
MacOS-X, linux, and even Winders if I wanted all on the same hardware
would be great.
Updates to universal binaries for Apple's pro apps will cost $49
each. Knowing how this works, that's near to cost recovery for the
packaging, shipping and media.
They could provide online updates for free :-)
Oh that's right... some people still *buy* commercial software to
use on their computers. I forgot about that. ;-)
-Cory
(linux user since MkLinux on a PowerMac 7100/66 circa 1995)
--
*************************************************************************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
*************************************************************************
