Comments on RoboJenny: Praise for Apple

Like rmitz said, there was a time when Windows use...

2008-09-19T03:59:00.000-04:00

Like rmitz said, there was a time when Windows users actually had reason to look down on mac users with pity, but Windows has imploded since then and Apple has been crowned King of Shiny-tech, like you said. But I think on the high end of the geek scale the real question is "why Mac instead of BSD/Linux?" A couple years ago Mac OSX was so pretty with its Aqua and Cocoa fun and kicked the pants off of anything the linux world had in the shiny department. Compiz and other fun with compositing window managers (like awn) is changing that. For the couple years I've been using macs for my laptops (because I like laptops that are guaranteed to have 100% driver support from the get go, and know how to sleep properly), and linux for desktops. But Apple has kind of become slaves to their shiny, and (I think) consequently bugs that I consider important (like japanese input management, crashing/hanging hideously when using samba, failure to sleep/wake) get ignored in favor of their high-profile issues in iTunes/iPhone/Safari. Linux driver support has gotten much much better lately, and even ACPI/power-management stuff is now (I'm going to go out on a limb and say) better than MacOSX. Basically it's getting harder and harder to justify Mac OSX over Linux even for laptops. I agree with "andrew smith" that given the choice, I'll use linux when I can.

Having a similar background to Michael I still agr...

2008-09-18T21:17:00.000-04:00

Having a similar background to Michael I still agree with him in principle.

However even though I invariably have a Mac on my desk (currently a new MacBook Pro), it rarely gets used and is pushed to one side in favour of the Linux workstations that have been at the centre of my "work" for the last eight years.

Fact is, every time I sit down to a proprietary system, no matter how shiny it would seem to be on the surface, I am overwhelmed by a sense of claustrophobia and have to run back to the unadulterated freedom that can only be provided by my beloved Linux now.

Does anyone else ever feel this way?

@shimniok -Thanks for your great comment! You also...

2008-09-18T13:39:00.000-04:00

@shimniok -
Thanks for your great comment! You also sound more experienced than myself and I love how you both described your personal experiences as they related to my post as well as commented on my viewpoints stated.

I've been a Mac user since about 1988 with a Mac P...

2008-09-18T07:58:00.000-04:00

I've been a Mac user since about 1988 with a Mac Plus and managed some from about 94-97 at a major phone company. So I've seen MacOS version 4 through present. To the devotees they were almost always better than peecees. ;)

There were a lot of problems with Apple during the dark years of the early 90's or so. Definitely some (not all) versions of OS 7, 8, and even 9 were far less stable than others, etc. (I recall most folks in the know clinging desperately to OS 8.6 with a death grip).

I'd been a unix aficionado and system admin so merging my two favorite OSes was a dream come true and I think that was true for many.

I think you nailed it -- the blend of lustworthy packaging, intelligently designed user interfaces, impressive Windows compatibility, and mainstream Unix under the covers made the Mac really the ideal geek platform, surpassing, for many, Linux.

That's why you now see SO many Macs in the hands of developers, robotics tinkerers, infosec professionals, and other geeks of all sorts, and why the open source community has supported the platform so well adding to the momentum.

Michael

@rmitz -Hm, my experience during that period was w...

2008-09-17T16:54:00.000-04:00

@rmitz -
Hm, my experience during that period was with iMac G3s with OS8, which I didn't really have any trouble with, nor did I think they were hard to use. But I do yield to your expertise when it comes to Macs. What I said was more of my guess. Though I still suspect most people didn't even try Macs during that period anyway to find out about their poorly written software and drivers.

I do love my current products though.

Having administered some Macs during the Dark Age ...

2008-09-17T16:42:00.000-04:00

Having administered some Macs during the Dark Age following System 7 up to OS X, I can tell you that, no really, they did pretty much suck then. They were at the mercy of poorly written software and drivers, and just didn't work that great anymore--there was a lot of cruft. Moreover, Windows had caught up to them ease of use wise and had surpassed them in system stability.

Now, this period was never have supposed to last that long--that is a story of internal mismanagement, which we don't need to go in here.