OSX Mavericks....meh

[Overmind One]

I just upgraded my MacBook Pro to Mavericks, and it is okay, but not special. I see similar features in Ubuntu 12. The OS seems a bit more smooth, but for all intents and purposes, this OS is the same as we have seen for the past 10 years or so. Seems sort of basic when you work with Windows 7 or 8.

I had futzed my computer by using Bootcamp to run Windows on this Mac before having to re-install everything again Bootcamp broke it (from the Windows side). Now Im back on the map, but have chosen to run Windows in Parallels instead of using Bootcamp. I am doing that now.

 

[EvilSpaceAlien]

I'm in full agreement, I updated mine to Mavericks shortly after it was released and I wasn't really wowed either. But with it being a free upgrade I didn't really expect much from it beforehand either.

 

[Bluce Ree]

I'm not against the "if it works, why fix it?" philosophy. Mac is a good, solid OS based on a BSD variant. Sure, the front end could use a little spit polish but it works and people don't abandon Apple in hoards like what happened with Windows 8.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

[Overmind One]

I'm not against the "if it works, why fix it?" philosophy. Mac is a good, solid OS based on a BSD variant. Sure, the front end could use a little spit polish but it works and people don't abandon Apple in hoards like what happened with Windows 8.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

Apple gave this away to those who already had Mountain Lion, and it feels like an incremental update even though Apple says it is "new". Here is what they say about it:

How is this better than say....Chrome installed on ANY computer with a gmail account? You get the browser, you get syncing across all your devices (no matter if it's Apple or Android or Windows or Linux or even Blackberry). The Power Nap is the same thing as Windows Update set for automatic updates. The "super-responsive trackpad" is no better or worse than any Windows laptop or any laptop trackpad or a touch screen of a computer, except that you have to set up right click...er..."secondary click", you have to turn the scroll bars on because Macs never display the entire page of anything you open

One great thing is that Parallels beats Boot Camp any day. With 8gb of RAM on my MacBook, I can divide it into 4gb for the VM in Parallels and leave 4gb for the host OS. I was able to play Starcraft II in Windows glitch free, and even run Magix 2014 video studio and After Effects. The integration with Windows is exceptional, way better than VMware or VirtualBox. Overall, it is a good update, but it wouldnt have been worth paying for as an upgrade.

 

[Joelist]

I don't mind OSX. Some things in it were well thought out (like the Mach micro kernel as opposed to the usual Unix monolithic kernels) and there's not so much (Finder is still a mess). My favorite version is still Tiger, but obviously if I do land a new MacBook Pro I will get Mavericks. My most hated version was the notoriously unstable Leopard and Snow Leopard - I know a person who works as a "Mac Genius" and they related the joy in the store when they got to wipe the in stock models and replace the Leopards with Lion (much more stable).

 

[Overmind One]

I'm not against the "if it works, why fix it?" philosophy. Mac is a good, solid OS based on a BSD variant. Sure, the front end could use a little spit polish but it works and people don't abandon Apple in hoards like what happened with Windows 8.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

I will say that if one can choose between getting a laptop device, that getting a Mac and installing Windows on it is a good choice to make. At least it is for me, because Apple is starting to show up at the offices I work at in a very big way. iPads are being used as presentation devices, iPhones are being set up with business email and creative departments are using Macs more and more since PCs dropped the ball and made high end computers synonymous with gaming instead of raw computing power. I still prefer a PC for heavy computing work but the enterprise is investing in Apple for their creatives. Having your Windows 7 or 8 living on a Mac along with OSX is actually very logical for me. Even though I still hate Apple, I wouldnt trade my MBP for a standard laptop. Now the Air....many ultrabooks beat that toy by large margins. Even the Surface beats the Air, power and feature-wise

 

[Overmind One]

I don't mind OSX. Some things in it were well thought out (like the Mach micro kernel as opposed to the usual Unix monolithic kernels) and there's not so much (Finder is still a mess). My favorite version is still Tiger, but obviously if I do land a new MacBook Pro I will get Mavericks. My most hated version was the notoriously unstable Leopard and Snow Leopard - I know a person who works as a "Mac Genius" and they related the joy in the store when they got to wipe the in stock models and replace the Leopards with Lion (much more stable).

I didnt get my first Mac until last year, and I wasn't happy about getting it. But once I had it and began to use it for work, I realized how convenient (and logical) it was to have a Mac to live with and become much more intimate with. Apple is tiptoeing into the enterprise in a fairly big way. It is huge in the medium to small business markets. I had Mac running as virtual machines in my previous Windows laptops, but still it was not the same as running Mac as the host OS. You get to know the key combinations and shortcuts, and the quirks and features a bit better.

 

[Bluce Ree]

I will say that if one can choose between getting a laptop device, that getting a Mac and installing Windows on it is a good choice to make. At least it is for me, because Apple is starting to show up at the offices I work at in a very big way. iPads are being used as presentation devices, iPhones are being set up with business email and creative departments are using Macs more and more since PCs dropped the ball and made high end computers synonymous with gaming instead of raw computing power. I still prefer a PC for heavy computing work but the enterprise is investing in Apple for their creatives. Having your Windows 7 or 8 living on a Mac along with OSX is actually very logical for me. Even though I still hate Apple, I wouldnt trade my MBP for a standard laptop. Now the Air....many ultrabooks beat that toy by large margins. Even the Surface beats the Air, power and feature-wise

I think Apple hardware is overrated but the failure rate is lower than mainstream PC hardware. Don't confuse my respect for the stability of its OS with liking everything Apple.

 

[Joelist]

That's why the latest generation of MacBook Pros is interesting.

It used to be that Apple was charging more for hardware that didn't even match up to the PC side. Right now they have some elements in play you can't find on the PC side (probably because they started deploying the latest iteration of Haswell chipsets and such before anyone else) like Iris Pro and PCIe SSDs. So they still are pricey but the hardware (at least for now) isn't a direct comparison anymore because Apple at the moment is using a more advanced chipset than the PC makers, although I expect that soon we'll see this stuff from the PC makers too.

 

[Overmind One]

That's why the latest generation of MacBook Pros is interesting.

It used to be that Apple was charging more for hardware that didn't even match up to the PC side. Right now they have some elements in play you can't find on the PC side (probably because they started deploying the latest iteration of Haswell chipsets and such before anyone else) like Iris Pro and PCIe SSDs. So they still are pricey but the hardware (at least for now) isn't a direct comparison anymore because Apple at the moment is using a more advanced chipset than the PC makers, although I expect that soon we'll see this stuff from the PC makers too.

Well, I should not leave out another important observation, and that is that Apple users RARELY if ever, know anything about the hardware or technology inside their computers. Nor do they care to know. They will be working typically with graphics programs like InDesign and AfterEffects and perhaps Cinema4D, but they wouldn't know PCIe from PTSD. Of the already still small Mac market, perhaps 10% of Mac users use them for anything particularly challenging.

I see the expansion of Apple into the enterprise being more a result of BYOD accomodations than a desire of the enterprise to use Apple.

 

[Joelist]

Of course. In the real world neither iOS nor OSX are really enterprise capable OSes. I agree it is only the implosion of Blackberry that is getting Apple into the enterprise at all. As for me, I DO like to know about what is inside the machine I use. And the utter oddity of Apple having the most advanced laptop hardware out there is what is piquing my curiosity. Typically they are charging a premium for tech that is a generation behind not a generation ahead.

 

[Overmind One]

Of course. In the real world neither iOS nor OSX are really enterprise capable OSes. I agree it is only the implosion of Blackberry that is getting Apple into the enterprise at all. As for me, I DO like to know about what is inside the machine I use. And the utter oddity of Apple having the most advanced laptop hardware out there is what is piquing my curiosity. Typically they are charging a premium for tech that is a generation behind not a generation ahead.

Bolded...that is because you would be considered a geek. If you ask the random Apple user with a brand new Air why they got it, or what the specs are, and they will only be able to say "Its better than the last one!" Also, I would have to argue the bit about Apple having "the most advanced laptop hardware out there". The Sony Vaio Pro 13 has a PCIe SSD made by Samsung as well, and it outperforms any mobile Apple computer. And the PCIe drives being made by Samsung for ultrabooks can easily plug directly into a 5-year old gaming laptop PCIe slot reserved for a second graphics card. New does not necessarily mean "most advanced". Even the very best Apple device available at any price point is still disabled by the fact that it is running Mac OS.

Having said that, I still think Apple hardware and build quality is worth paying for...to a point. But I would never look to Apple for "cutting edge" or leadership in IT.

 

[Joelist]

The VAIO however is dragged down by its overly low powered CPU, small SSD capacity and lackluster build quality for the price. Plus Sony is exiting the market so it is the last of its kind. Plus, remember I noted the novelty of Apple actually being ahead of the curve instead of behind it.

 

[Overmind One]

The VAIO however is dragged down by its overly low powered CPU, small SSD capacity and lackluster build quality for the price. Plus Sony is exiting the market so it is the last of its kind. Plus, remember I noted the novelty of Apple actually being ahead of the curve instead of behind it.

I know. My point is that the idea that Apple is "ahead of the curve" I think is a mistake. Apple has not been even on the cutting edge (technologically) for quite some time now, hence it's falling share values globally. Even the usually reclusive Steve Wozniack sees it:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ling-features-says-founder-Steve-Wozniak.html

Im sorta sensitive to this because in my line of work I have to deal with the average Apple user when setting him or her up. Invariably, the male owners think their Apple is the most advanced computer in the office. Things wont play nice in a Windows environment, and the comments from those types will be something like "perhaps the network is not advanced enough for Apple?" Or, "Apples only work with the latest equipment on the network", both of which are false statements. The reality is that Apples excel in design and marketing and they have acquired a cachet similar to (middle-range) fashion design labels like Pierre Cardin and Dolce and Gabbana. But they are not innovators in hardware. Never have been, even with the iPad and iPhone. They just marketed the ideas better than their competition.

They tilt their heads when I say things like this because I myself have an Apple. But they cannot connect with my reasons for owning it. . I love answering their questions about "Why do you have a Samsung Galaxy S4 instead of an iPhone?" with the answer "Well, I need a much more advanced phone than anything Apple makes to do my work. The iPhone is a consumer phone". They get upset and start talking about Retina and iOS7, but all I hear is a muted garbling as I finish whatever I am doing at their desks.

 

[Joelist]

Oh I know. Note that none of this is actually any innovation by Apple. They just happened to be first to market with a group of components where the actual innovator was Intel (for designing the CPU and chipset needed to get these high performance parts to work properly together in a laptop form factor). And their first to market was basically because they made a deal for early access to Haswell and through that had early access to the Iris class integrated graphics engine. Also because they screwed up in late 2012 by deploying their "retina" (marketing term) displays in laptops without enough graphics power to drive that high density display without hitches.

 

[Overmind One]

Oh I know. Note that none of this is actually any innovation by Apple. They just happened to be first to market with a group of components where the actual innovator was Intel (for designing the CPU and chipset needed to get these high performance parts to work properly together in a laptop form factor). And their first to market was basically because they made a deal for early access to Haswell and through that had early access to the Iris class integrated graphics engine. Also because they screwed up in late 2012 by deploying their "retina" (marketing term) displays in laptops without enough graphics power to drive that high density display without hitches.

Mavericks IS smoother then Mountain Lion, to be sure. I have my Mac open right now and I also have Windows 7 Pro running in Parallels and the thing is smoother than before...noticeably. Perhaps the benefits of this upgrade need to be experienced? Nothing jumped out at me before. But then again, this is the first time I tried Parallels personally. I have set it up for others, but never lived with it. Very very nice integration with the Mavericks desktop. You can open the Windows apps right from the dock, and when the Windows desktop is needed, it automatically wipes to the left and there you are. Very slick.

 

[Joelist]

Parallels is definitely the gold standard in VMs for OSX. I have used it and also used VMWare Fusion and it is no contest.

The other method I REALLY like is a little piece of software called Crossover Mac:

http://www.codeweavers.com/windows-on-mac

Crossover is a heavily expanded and modded implementation of WINE. The beauty is not only does it provide easy install and launching but it has better compatibility than standard WINE; indeed there are tons of applications that work perfectly on it even though they are not in Codeweavers directory.

 

[Overmind One]

Parallels is definitely the gold standard in VMs for OSX. I have used it and also used VMWare Fusion and it is no contest.

The other method I REALLY like is a little piece of software called Crossover Mac:

http://www.codeweavers.com/windows-on-mac

Crossover is a heavily expanded and modded implementation of WINE. The beauty is not only does it provide easy install and launching but it has better compatibility than standard WINE; indeed there are tons of applications that work perfectly on it even though they are not in Codeweavers directory.

I have heard of Crossover. You can actually configure Parallels to run like that, opening apps windowed in Mac as though they were part of OSX. On a Windows machine, however, VMware is king. I have a VM of Mountain Lion running on my Acer 23" touch computer too.