Ze Olde Mac vs. PC thread

QUOTE (forza_schumi @ Dec 23 2008, 12:16 AM)

couldnt resist : LOL.
anyway, i wanted to resist from taking part in this discussion, but

Interesting fact, can you get me a citation on that ?

CODE

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/mar/01shake.html

QUOTE (KC @ Dec 23 2008, 02:23 AM)

adroit,

do you write code and develop on both Mac and Windows?

Not if you're talking professionally! But, I do use my mac from home, transfer data from the office network, and then code out solutions using my Mac! A windows machine wouldn't have helped me in that case, specially not out of the box! I do a lot of scripting though.

For personal use, I tried my hands at coding some software for some problems I had with my Windows machine, but gave up eventually as it was very difficult for me to integrate my C++ knowledge with the amount of C# coding example out there!

Since I moved to the Mac, I have written a couple of Mac applications for my personal use, one of which my colleagues at office found useful to automate a major part of their work. The second one, is in direct competition with a paid utility! I am seeing if I can evolve it to become a serious threat to it! Will keep you guys posted if I ever decide to do that (and find the time!)

By the way, I work for a semi-conductor company which has a very big software group too! Systems, SoCs, etc. But, I am a hardware design engineer. Hence, the love for the way Apple has brought the best of Embedded design to it's consumer products!

QUOTE (dude @ Dec 23 2008, 03:00 AM)

This thread is growing interesting with every post

Welcome Back! I was actually missing a reply to this thread; maybe this could be the reason why I buy a Mac in the future

Do let me know before you get it! I just might want to fix up some sort of commission with Jobs for that purchase!

QUOTE (dude @ Dec 23 2008, 03:00 AM)

Oh, that was your point. But then again, a Mac is just another variant of BSD which is a variant of Unix. Guess a mac just provides more eye candy for Linux fans than a plain old Ubuntu machine with Gnome.

Yes, that, plus the fact that they try to work with the hardware companies to get software support as well as compatibility which has not been completely successful in the Linux domain, unfortunately! About eye-candy, look up Baghira for Linux. It really is a great set of utilities to make your Linux interface look like a Mac! But of course, this "just another variant of BSD" can be downloaded as "Darwin OS" from Apple's web-site. It would be minus the eye-candy, and maybe some Linux "freak" might want to try it out!

QUOTE (dude @ Dec 23 2008, 03:00 AM)

I am not sure what this suggests. That Apple had a great OS in the beginning are are dumbing it down to make it more usable? Also IMHO even things like your Zune must have gone through extensive prototyping, not sure what Apple does different here except perhaps market their products a bit differently. I personally think that iPOD is an expensive gadget for its features, maybe it is just that aluminum look that sells.

No Sir, they aren't dumbing down the OS! They just accepted the fact that in order to be able to survive and sell, they need to make people comfortable in using them! They acknowledged that the Windows PCs far out-number them, and in order to make the users more comfortable about "switching", they made sure things don't change a lot on the interface, for the switchers, but at the same time, didn't compromise on their own standards, a part of which is the "Apple Human Interface Guidelines" that professional application designers for the Mac are expected to follow, which gives the OS a consistent look and feel! Hence, almost all the keyboard short-cuts, menus, context-menus, toolbar-customizations, etc, work the same as each other, irrespective of the application to which they belong! You don't hunt for stuff!
When they designed their desktop-search feature, spotlight, they made sure it was of the highest grade! Hence, even Google doesn't offer a desktop-search engine for the Mac! They accept this fact and offer only some utilities to make the experience of using Google's products on the Mac, more seamless! For instance, I can look for my Picasa pictures straight from the spotlight search in-built into my Mac!
About the extensive prototyping, every company does that, but Apple goes a little nuts about it! They don't flood the market with 10 products, all looking at the same market share, and with only a couple of differentiating features! They pick the best (by their judgement), and go all out in getting the hardware accessory makers, the software designers, and even the Hollywood Studios (in case of the iTunes rental issue) to toe the same line, while Windows users have to download a "Zune jukebox" because their own WMP is not compatible for use with it!
Also, the brushed aluminum look is not unique to the iPOD! Look up the latest "unibody" Macbooks and the now-old iMac line! [The unibody construction method might be of interest to many engineers! It's a single piece of aluminum carved into Macbook chassis'!] The reason, to me, why the iPOD sells a lot is because of the seamless integration with iTunes, which offers nearly everything under the sun, and without the studios being able to charge differential prices for different songs! Every song costs the same! You have a choice not to buy the whole album, etc! And, of course, the iPOD Touch 2.0 has been hailed as a truly ubiquitous computing device due to it's internet-capabilities as well as the quality of gaming possible on the device! And, not just possible, all the major gaming majors like EA have been providing an iPOD Touch/iPhone compatible version for a lot of their games now! [Why do I sense that you will switch to the dark side as soon as EA starts releasing titles for Mac at the same time as Windows! ]

QUOTE (dude @ Dec 23 2008, 03:00 AM)

Hmmm, in an industry where it is difficult for people to know what direction things will go (see Bluray vs HDDVD) it is surprising to see Jobs actually 'predicting' multi core computing which has been there once since 3 years is it? Of course Multiprocessors had been there before that but I would have been surprised if anyone thought about making a personal computing (read Mac too) system using that for mass markets.

Apple has not only been predicting, they have been guiding the market too! When the world was stuck with Serial ports, they head-started the USB revolution! Then, there was the Firewire thing, which all professional cameras today use! They go out of their way to give their consumers the latest and greatest that technology has to offer! Multi-core computing for consumers has been out only for the last 3 years or so! But, as a semi-conductor designer myself, I know that these things began in the labs a lot of time before that! When Apple released the Macbook Air in the beginning of this year, they were the ones to get Intel to cut the footprint of their mobile processor by half in order to save space in the Macbook Air! They were the first to market with it! And now, the others are following suit and buying the same thing! The latest "switch-able" GPUs in the unibody Macbook Pros were also developed in collaboration by NVIDIA, with Apple! Look-up the feature! If Macs had more games you'd go out and buy a Macbook Pro probably today! But again, the designers (graphics, SFX, etc) are already doing that! You can actually toggle between the dedicated GPU and the integrated one (both from NVIDIA) without re-booting! [You have to logout today, but they're working on it!] I work on a similar chip (it's a graphics accelerator) and I find this ability truly remarkable!

QUOTE (dude @ Dec 23 2008, 03:00 AM)

Better or not, I look at the price/feature or performance factor before settling on anything. I may get a supercomputer for 1 Million but then the factor is too skewed for me to go for that.

Precisely my point!
You don't need to spend a million any more! Snow Leopard is planned to incorporate "Grand Central" which is supposed to finally make programming for multi-cpu machines easier, which has truly not happened in any space! Mac OS X does it's own handling of applications such that the multi-core option in the CPU is utilized! But, most Windows software simply doesn't utilize the option! Companies like Adobe had to really fight it out with the present resources to make it work for their CS suite! Tomorrow, me and you would be able to do it without a team of programmers dedicated to this cause, courtesy Apple!
About the price-point thing! Please do configure a Dell on their web-site and let me know! I know you won't have a lot of the features like the switchable GPU on the Dell, but do make it the same config as far as possible. Of course, do consider the physical aspects too, like ignoring the chunky and ugly Inspirons! [Apologies to Inspiron users, but they do look and weigh like a brick!]