Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard VS. Windows Vista

[BurtonCCC]

Besides, if they are able to release a product that improves on the old one (which by all accounts is pretty good already), then who's going to complain?

The people who just bought the product a month before and now it's lacking features that the new product has.

Sure, it's great for people who waited to buy a new product, but annoying for those who didn't. I got my 3G iPod like a week before the 4G came out. Then I had to go to the hassle of selling it to a friend and getting a 4G. This was before I was a member of MacRumors and could've checked that Apple was releasing something new soon.

Anyways, that experience has ruined me because now I'm paranoid that as soon as I buy a 17" MBP, they're going to get a processor upgrade or some of the cool features of the MacBook like the magnetized closure instead of hook and latch. Little stuff like that pisses me off.

Daniel.

 

[BurtonCCC]

don't you think microsoft will use this "time" advantage- as in microsoft creating a bunch of buz about vista- to make features that blow vista away?

and then release it BEFORE vista, so buyers will buy macs and then not buy vista when it comes out?

i study business too- and the cost benefit of not capitalizing over the holiday season is just too large- something that microsoft may be able to afford- but apple, not. you see, apple is just starting to become big- people are noticing them- but if they fade away one more time, they've lost their chance.

just my two cents.

Microsoft already is playing catch-up, so yes, Apple will continue to use this time to expand the huge gap between OS X and Vista.

As for the holiday season, I'm not saying at all that Apple isn't going to do anything huge. I'm saying that there's three main things that are going on in the Apple world:
1. New fullscreen iPod.
2. Merom and Conroe. Somebody remind me of what their real names are now?
3. Leopard.

I'm saying Apple would be stupid to release all three for the holiday season. Their best move would be to release the first two for the holidays and the third after. Remember that all computers sold over the holiday season will feature Tiger if Leopard isn't out yet. So let's say I buy myself a MacBook Pro with the new Merom processor (if it comes out) in December and it's still running Tiger. The way I upgrade mine, it will be over $3000. So I just spent 3k, but then Leopard comes out a month later. To hell with having an outdated OS! I then buy Leopard for another $129, therefore Apple now has $3129 of my cash instead of $3000. If Apple released the new processors and OS at the same time, they would only have $3000 because 10.5 would have come on my new MBP.

Am I making sense?

Daniel.

 

[divadmojo]

Vista is much more than a year and a half late. It's more like 4 years late. MS has fumbled so many times on this one it's actuallty getting absurd how long they have delayed. If it actually ships in 2007 it will have been in development for SEVEN years. I guess when Apple revolutionized their OS, creating the most beautiful and functional face ever worn by a UNIX kernel, old Bill Gates had nowhere to steal his next OS. I would not be surprised if someday we find out that VISTA is a stolen and very well disguised version of X.

i can assure you that vista wont ship till about 2008. i would be willing to bet on it. Microcrap has already delayed if i recall right, a year and a half. Also will all the 60% code that had to be re-written, and more delays, it will be forever since they released a new os. remember that osx came out in 2000/2001. Long time since a new product, what kind of business is that? Very poorly managed one if u ask me. I think people would get pissed if car manufactures didn't release new models for 5/6 years. Pathetic...absolutely pathetic.

 

[Scruff]

Well, I recently read a feature in PC Pro that compared Tiger and Vista. Vista won out fairly clearly, but I don't think it was because it was a biased magazine, there were some fairly good points... I won't go into them now, but it did seem that Vista is quite a nice package.

However, it is wrong to compare them, since Leopard will be out when Vista is released. They mentioned it, in fact, in the article, but said they couldn't get their hands on it, so they just used Tiger (no wonder they couldn't get their hands on it, since we've barely heard anything about it ). Vista did have some cool sounding features, but they're the kind of features that will put Windows out ahead of the competition if OSX doesn't try to implement them, but the second they do implement them, the way OSX does it will blow Vista out of the water . At least, I hope so.

It was stuff like integrating web searches into Spotlight (or Vistas equivalent), that sounded quite cool.

I'm anxious to hear about Leopard... I hope it has some cool features that will convince people to shy away from Vista.

 

[telecomm]

The people who just bought the product a month before and now it's lacking features that the new product has.

Sure, it's great for people who waited to buy a new product, but annoying for those who didn't. I got my 3G iPod like a week before the 4G came out. Then I had to go to the hassle of selling it to a friend and getting a 4G.

You had to? Look, there's always going to be something better down the line (at least, let's hope so!), but you should buy to fill your needs. Did the 3G stop working as soon as the 4G came out?

If you always have to have the current model you're setting yourself up for frustration, and a lot of expense.

 

[dirtleg]

Couple of points here from a novice on the MR board.

First, don't some people wait, purposely, to buy a computer or OS till the "bugs" have been worked out. I know I tend to wait a couple a three months, especially on new OS, before making the jump. So buying later in a business cycle seems to be a strategy for some, not a disadvantage in the upgrade life of the product.

Second, and forgive my ignorance, what is resolution independence (I think that is the term referred to above)?

 

[godbout]

I know that the OP is asking for a comparison of OS's but in my opinion it does not matter which OS ends up being better (I assume 10.5 will be) because the reason that he is asking is because he wants to get a laptop and wants to be able to run his favorite OS regardless of what that turns out to be. So, if you need a computer in the near future (before the two OS's are out) then you definately should get a Mac. You will be able to natively run either OS on the macbook (so long as Microsoft does not require higher specs than the Macbook has to offer) so that is all there really is to it. It has been my stance that at this point with the Macbook and iMac being excellent deals, if you like the specs and looks, then there is NO reason not to get a Mac regradless of what OS you like the most...

To sum all that up... if you like and want a Mac get it because you can run whatever OS you want on it natively (Linux/OS X/Windows)... something that *no* other computer can do

 

[Subiklim]

EDIT: I also wouldn't take the advice of anyone who refers to a company as Microcrap or M$ or any other childish insult that proves his bias.

I've been saying this for quite some time now, and ye far no one has heeded my call. While I think that OS X is far superior to XP, it would be stupid to think that OS X can solve all the worlds problems. For some people XP is better. For others OS X is. There's no sense in arguing this any further as it is merely personal preference.

However, if an XP user would be better off using OSX, I guess someone should warn him/her. In that case arguing that OSX is the better operating system would actually be effective.

 

[BurtonCCC]

You had to? Look, there's always going to be something better down the line (at least, let's hope so!), but you should buy to fill your needs. Did the 3G stop working as soon as the 4G came out?

If you always have to have the current model you're setting yourself up for frustration, and a lot of expense.

I didn't have to have it, no, but I felt it was a very necessary upgrade. I feel that the upgrade from Tiger to Leopard will be a very necessary upgrade as well. Sure, some people will make due with Tiger, but I personally don't see myself doing that. There's a lot of people on here that are worse than me. I only have one iPod at a time. And I've only owned three total. Some people on here have every generation of iPod, then the minis, the Shuffle, and the nano. I think the question of "did the previous version not work when the new one came out?" should be directed to those people.

So I guess my point is, no, nobody's forcing you to buy every single upgrade, but, in my opinion, I feel very cheated by Apple when I buy a product and then a month later a new one replaces it, even if I don't feel the need to sell my now-outdated product for a new one. For example, I would have been pissed if I had bought a nano when they first came out and then the video iPod came out a month or so later.

Daniel.

 

[iScott]

In this OS battle it is too close to tell

 

[Gatorman]

I'm saying Apple would be stupid to release all three for the holiday season. Their best move would be to release the first two for the holidays and the third after. Remember that all computers sold over the holiday season will feature Tiger if Leopard isn't out yet. So let's say I buy myself a MacBook Pro with the new Merom processor (if it comes out) in December and it's still running Tiger. The way I upgrade mine, it will be over $3000. So I just spent 3k, but then Leopard comes out a month later. To hell with having an outdated OS! I then buy Leopard for another $129, therefore Apple now has $3129 of my cash instead of $3000. If Apple released the new processors and OS at the same time, they would only have $3000 because 10.5 would have come on my new MBP.

Actually, don't they still put the reduced-price os upgrade coupon in the box with the computer? I remember being able to purchse the new upgrade for around $25. It's been so long since I bought my Apple and it had thsoe in it. So, if that is true, the profitability margin will be much lower and would not seem beneficial to release at such a time.....again, if they still do that.

 

[dr_lha]

Actually, don't they still put the reduced-price os upgrade coupon in the box with the computer? I remember being able to purchse the new upgrade for around $25. It's been so long since I bought my Apple and it had thsoe in it. So, if that is true, the profitability margin will be much lower and would not seem beneficial to release at such a time.....again, if they still do that.

You do it via their web site now. If an new Mac OS is released within a month of you buying your computer, you go to their website and type in your serial number and they send you an "Up-To-Date" disk for $15. Believe it or not I have sucessfully done this for 2 Macs. They say the Mac has to be bought in the past 30 days, but experience shows that they are often more lenient than that. For example, my Tiger upgrade was fine, even though I bought the computer about 10 days before so the called "cut-off" date.

Funnily enough, I'm expecting to get a new Mac laptop sometime around the end of the year, or the beginning of 2007, so maybe I'll get the $15 upgrade a 3rd time!

 

[Pancake]

Second, and forgive my ignorance, what is resolution independence (I think that is the term referred to above)?

I would also like to know what Resolution Independence is? I didn't even know my current resolutions were being repressed.

 

[mpw]

I would also like to know what Resolution Independence is? I didn't even know my current resolutions were being repressed.

One more dullard looking for a an explanation of the benefits I'll see from RI.

EDIT: For dirtleg & Pancake
from www.tuaw.com

...but to summarize: most of the dimensions of elements in Mac OS X (and other OSes to my knowledge) are defined in pixels - the menu bar is 22 px high, for example. This explains why things 'seem to look a little smaller' when you move from the 1024 x 768 dimensions of a 12" display to the 1440 x 900 resolution of the latest 15" PowerBook G4 or MacBook Pro displays. Conversely, if you decrease the resolution on the machine you're working on now, things will look a bit bigger; you have smaller resolution and fewer ppi (or dpi) on screen, so some elements change size. This can become a problem in the context of notebook displays and their resolutions - if you take the 15" MacBook Pro's resolution higher than 1440 x 900, things could become smaller than what many might consider usable (these same rules apply to Windows and I believe Linux as well). Further, you can't just keep increasing notebook display sizes like you can with desktop displays; I've heard of the 19" notebooks Engadget has come across, and I personally don't consider a 16 lb computer worthy of the 'portable' adjective.

This idea of resolution independence, as you might glean from the name, is a new concept (as far as I know) that restructures how element sizes are defined in Mac OS X, ideally making it possible for higher resolutions without forcing users to squint at everything they do on-screen. This also could usher in much higher ppi resolutions which could bring computer displays that much closer to properly displaying high-detail objects...

 

[telecomm]

One more dullard looking for a an explanation of the benefits I'll see from RI.

Uh, what's with the sharp reply?

They weren't asking for an explanation of the benefits of resolution independence, they were just asking what is resolution independence. Not knowing what resolution independence is doesn't yet qualify anyone for dullard status. It also hadn't yet been explained in this thread.

At any rate, resolution independence allows you to change the resolution of your display while keeping the physical size of displayed elements the same. So, when you increase the resolution, GUI elements look more detailed, without getting simultaneously smaller. More detailed explanations are available about halfway through the thread here.

 

[mpw]

Uh, what's with the sharp reply? ...[/URL].

No, no, no I didn't mean the previous poster was the dullard, I was, and I was just adding my name to the list of people who didn't know what RI was all about.

You'll see the link I found after a quick Google.

Anyways it looks like it would be a cool feature if it does appear.

 

[telecomm]

No, no, no I didn't mean the previous poster was the dullard, I was, and I was just adding my name to the list of people who didn't know what RI was all about.

Ah, sorry about that. I didn't know what it was until a few days ago myself.

At any rate, it does look like a cool feature!

 

[matticus008]

Anyway, obviously you can run Vista on a MacBook but with reduced graphics, so you're not stuck with OS X (not that I think you won't like it).

Vista will work on the MacBook with Aero support. Otherwise, excellent post.

 

[Mojo67821]

has resolution independence officially been announced as a feature of 10.5?? I thought that was a rumor?

Forgive the ignorance here, but what is resolution independence?

 

[matticus008]

Forgive the ignorance here, but what is resolution independence?

The simple answer is just a few posts up.

 

[Storrow]

Anyways, that experience has ruined me because now I'm paranoid that as soon as I buy a 17" MBP, they're going to get a processor upgrade or some of the cool features of the MacBook like the magnetized closure instead of hook and latch. Little stuff like that pisses me off.

Daniel.

i hate that too. but its gonna happen. i think i have OCD when it comes to that. i wish there was a pill that could cure it. I bought a blackbook a week ago and the things ancient to me.

 

[sgd88]

I am new to the world of macs. Could anyone tell me what the upgrade process is like when the new version of the OS does come out. Is it easy to upgrade? What would the cost roughly be of doing the upgrade?

 

[Chundles]

I am new to the world of macs. Could anyone tell me what the upgrade process is like when the new version of the OS does come out. Is it easy to upgrade? What would the cost roughly be of doing the upgrade?

The new OS will probably cost US$129 like they have the past few releases. It's a simple matter of popping in the disc, double-clicker the installer package and following the instructions. You can choose from a list to do an erase and install where the HDD is erased and the OS goes on clean, an archive and install where a copy of your system is made, the OS installed and all your documents, programs, settings etc are copied over to the new OS - you can then choose to delete the old system folder once you've ascertained that everything is working properly. The final one is a regular upgrade.

As for the cost of the upgrade I'm not sure what you mean, 10.5 will cost US$129 in all probability.

 

[sgd88]

Thank you very much.

 

[wako]

you can also look at XP and see that it is almost exactly 2000 in a new theme. 2000 is just the 98 theme on NT. how old is NT now? MS is making a minor change to a system more than a decade old. almost all the major changes they claimed it would bring have been dropped, and they are rewriting it AGAIN as i type this. do you think it will finally get a real feature?

ROFL...


you base OS by its appearance? Well no wonder you dont see much of a difference. If you knew something a bit more technical than just what you can see with your eye, you would see HUGE differences between each OS, and most importantly what they offer and what they can do.