Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: Trev on March 07, 2008, 09:47:47 PM
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One of these kids is not like the other, and I think we can all safely say which of the four it is. (I would mention Palm or maybe RIM, but that would ruin my Sesame Street analogy.)
If you haven't watched it yet, head over to Apple and take a look at yesterday's Apple Town Hall. The iPhone SDK is neat stuff. (Not necessarily ground breaking, but Apple's got balls and $100M from a US VC firm to help developers get started.) Distribution is similar to Amiga's scheme, but Amiga can't claim 28% market share and nearly universal brand recognition. And let's face it--Amiga Anywhere is years (decades!) behind the competition.
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why bother to compare thoose :lol: A anywere will never be anything else than a failure . Serious kits such as windows mobile and such is bound to be on topp always ...
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vs. AmigaAnywhere??
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! :crazy: :crazy: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Exactly. Setting aside Amiga's off-shore development house, which could be quite profitable, what sort of bull is Amiga feeding its investors?
My current cell phone supports a small, not too feature rich Java environment. Not much you can do with it. Time for an iPhone, I guess. I have an iPod Touch, so I suppose I can start with that.
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Please don't get iBoned! Apple products are overpriced, overhyped junk.
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Nlandas wrote:
Please don't get iBoned! Apple products are overpriced, overhyped junk.
On the contrary, the iPhone is great! it's a media player, a phone and a unix box in my pocket... I can't see how I managed to live without one...
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Wow, all that for $399+a mega expensive 2 year contract what a bargain. I
I've got more than I need in my smart phone for $99.
I stick by my original statement.
The iPhone should cost about $199 with 2 year contract but Apple counts on hype to sell it to people as a status symbol.
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Nlandas wrote:
Please don't get iBoned! Apple products are overpriced, overhyped junk.
What's that got to do with AmigaAnywhere?
I mean look at AA2... It is just a crap compiler that has a switch to only go between Win32 and WinMobile??
I mean what happened to
1) Running "ANYWHERE"
and
2) Having ONE "executable"??? (Again, that could run anywhere)
I mean I thought part of AA (AA2) would be to distribute content over the internet or on ONE card that I could run on ANY device? Ummm... how I am going to do that if I have to COMPILE it for every platform?? I mean that is what I DO now.. Duh!
AA2 is a joke.
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Good luck with your expensive Apple labelled device (gawd, how familiar :P)
I really don't understand the hype with their mp3 players and that phone, better ones are out there for less money :-o
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I like Apple's hardware aesthetic. "Better" is subjective, I suppose. The still insanely popular Motorola Razr certainly isn't better, and my Slvr has a hard time keeping up with my key presses.
The smart phone competition isn't much cheaper, really. The Moto Q is $440. Nokia's least expensive is $300 (most is $1100!!!). I suppose you can get a BlackBerry (meh) for $100. The iPhone does need GPS, though. Its location awareness via cell and WiFi databases isn't very reliable.
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Krusher wrote:
Good luck with your expensive Apple labelled device (gawd, how familiar :P)
I don't need luck I've had one since November and it's great...
I really don't understand the hype with their mp3 players and that phone, better ones are out there for less money :-o
That's not true. If it were I would have one of these mythical "better" devices.
The iPhone does what the Amiga 500 did... it puts a whole bunch of existing technologies in to a single unit with the prefect form factor for my needs.
If you don't believe me as to how good the iPhone really is as a mobile computing platform... then watch the SDK roadmap event video on the apple website...
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So what browser with what plug ins does iPhone come with? How is the viewing of web sites?
Dammy
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dammy wrote:
So what browser with what plug ins does iPhone come with? How is the viewing of web sites?
Dammy
I have no idea what plugins Safari has (but the webkit based Safari is great browser) , the only two things that don't work are are Java and Flash.
Websites are identical to there desktop equivalent... something that is new to me on a Mobile device, where websites are usually rendered in a special mobile form or just plain wrong... Amiga.org is running just fine now ;-)
Java isn't a problem... I almost never use it and certainly don't need it on a mobile device. Flash is more annoying, but again I'm on a mobile device, the internet is much more of an information resource than an entertainment portal... I'll take battery life over flash adverts :-)
I did think that lack of WMV and ogg support would be a problem, but it's not cropped up yet...
I hardly ever connect my laptop to the internet any more... since casual surfing is so good on the iPhone.
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bloodline wrote:
I did think that lack of WMV and ogg support would be a problem, but it's not cropped up yet...
I've ripped all my cd's in OGG format. I don't think I'd be bothered to do that again because of the lack of support by one device. My current mp3 player does have OGG support.
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Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
bloodline wrote:
I did think that lack of WMV and ogg support would be a problem, but it's not cropped up yet...
I've ripped all my cd's in OGG format. I don't think I'd be bothered to do that again because of the lack of support by one device. My current mp3 player does have OGG support.
My First mobile device was a Windows mobile based thing, so most of my early CD rips are mp3... When I got an iPod I still set iTunes to rip in mp3 160kbps... once I got my iPhone I set iTunes to rip in AAC... which is my major lossy format now. I've never been convinced by ogg despite trying to support it.
The audio quality of AAC is much better than other lossy formats, so I'm happy.
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If you don't believe me as to how good the iPhone really is as a mobile computing platform...
2 megapixel camera only
No camera Flash
No GPS
No mass storage media
No file transfer support for bluetooth
No 3G
Sorry, but, this is the spec of a low range phone nowadays (but it cost like a high end phone)
The only thing that is worth is the multitouch part that anyway is being implemented on other phones aswell
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I have no idea what plugins Safari has (but the webkit based Safari is great browser) , the only two things that don't work are are Java and Flash.
That kills it for me. Thanks for the info though. :-)
Dammy
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bloodline wrote:
Websites are identical to there desktop equivalent... something that is new to me on a Mobile device, where websites are usually rendered in a special mobile form or just plain wrong... Amiga.org is running just fine now ;-)
iPhone + amiga.org + unlimited data tariff is lethal...
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moto
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motorollin wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Websites are identical to there desktop equivalent... something that is new to me on a Mobile device, where websites are usually rendered in a special mobile form or just plain wrong... Amiga.org is running just fine now ;-)
iPhone + amiga.org + unlimited data tariff is lethal...
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moto
As I suspect we are both proving right now... :-) A.org in the gym... A.org in the supermarket... A.org sitting by the river... A.org in the cafe... A.org in pub... A.org when you wake up in the middle of the night with a bit of insomnia... I honestly feel like I'm permanently connected to the internet :-)
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I would never ever buy a iPHONE and categorize it as a smartphone. As i run a REAL smart phone "HTC" that has support for thousands of additional applications\programs etc ... It is easy to use\sync with outlook express "unlike my friends iPhone. It has a GPS with Tomtom . I use it for playing mp3 pocked divx and even have scummvm running on the thing .. Also i can surf the nett with opera over HSDPA/UMTS "decent speed".
I can even play quakeII on the damn thing. But for serious apps there is nothing better than a real smartphone.
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bloodline wrote:
A.org in the gym... A.org in the supermarket... A.org sitting by the river... A.org in the cafe... A.org in pub...
A.org on the train... A.org in the library... A.org in lectures...
bloodline wrote:
A.org when you wake up in the middle of the night with a bit of insomnia...
Yes it's scary I do that too :lol: It is a bit worrying when the first think you think when you wake up is "I'll just check for a reply to that thread..."
bloodline wrote:
I honestly feel like I'm permanently connected to the internet :-)
The next step is a direct connection in to the brain. I can't wait... The immediacy of email conversations between iPhones is great though :-)
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moto
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adonay wrote:
I would never ever buy a iPHONE and categorize it as a smartphone. As i run a REAL smart phone "HTC" that has support for thousands of additional applications\programs etc ...
I've jailbroken mine... which was as simple as clicking a button (cheers moto ;-) ) So I have thousands of apps available for mine already :-)
It is easy to use\sync with outlook express "unlike my friends iPhone.
Active Sync due in june will bring full exchange push support... I hope apple (or a third party) will provide something similar with Google!
It has a GPS with Tomtom.
While not as good as Tomtom, the iPhone's location finder works better than my friends N95 with real GPS... at least here in the UK...
I use it for playing mp3 pocked divx and even have scummvm running on the thing ..
Yeah, I've got both Movies (Widescreen) and ScummVM on my iPhone...
Also i can surf the nett with opera over HSDPA/UMTS "decent speed".
For websites the Edge connection is as fast as first generation broadband that I used pay £40 a month for!
It would be nice to have a 3G option... though the terrible battery life of 3G on the N95 makes me think that I wouldn't use it much...
I can even play quakeII on the damn thing. But for serious apps there is nothing better than a real smartphone.
I agree, and one that runs a nice stable unix is the best, that's why I love my iPhone :-)
-Edit- Does your device have hardware accelerated OpenGL support? The iPhone does... watch the last apple event to see what the iPhone can do with Games!!
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@Trev
I haven't watched the town hall speech, but where does the 28% market share come from? Surely not the iPhone, MacOS 10, or Apple hardware. (And, I'd think that the iPod still had more than 28% of the personal music player market...)
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bloodline wrote:
-Edit- Does your device have hardware accelerated OpenGL support? The iPhone does... watch the last apple event to see what the iPhone can do with Games!!
Some (maybe all?) of the new HTC phones have an ATI Imageon hardware 2D/3D graphics accelerator. Although, the Windows driver hasn't been finalised/released yet. (Since the Apple games haven't been released either this is probably a draw...)
I've been looking at the HTC Kaiser. They can be had for as low as $50 and have all the features adonay mentioned.
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I am more excited about the announcement at Mix 08 by Microsoft that Silverlight is coming to Windows Mobile, Nokia Phones and their Linux based N series Mobile communicator, that means great cross platform web interactive applications with Video and Audio on the web and on your Mobile phone, much nicer than the SDK from Apple.
Immediate plans are supporting Silverlight 1.0 sites with Silverlight 2.0 coming later in the year when 2.0 hits release..
By the way I own an IPOD touch and a Windows Mobile Phone and I am a registered iphone developer as well..
While I like the iPhone, here in the USA it's drawback is the SLOW less than broadband spec network. I have verizon for cel phone service and as they say on their ads, "it's the network" that makes a huge difference. I think AT&T is the product's achilles heel. I like the iPod Touch/iPhone interface it's nice to work with but it's a pure "web" style interface and lacking the niceties of things that Flash or Silverlight would provide it with UI functionality.
Jobs seems to have indicated there would still be a long wait on Flash for the iPhone @ the event if you watch what was actually said about it carefully..
The iPhone/iPod touch also has a certain latency with Touch which might be a huge issue with it and playing games..
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Trev wrote:
The smart phone competition isn't much cheaper, really. The Moto Q is $440. Nokia's least expensive is $300 (most is $1100!!!). I suppose you can get a BlackBerry (meh) for $100. The iPhone does need GPS, though. Its location awareness via cell and WiFi databases isn't very reliable.
You're looking at non-subsidized prices. Since you can't buy an iPhone without a contract there's no way of knowing how much it is. For instance, the Moto Q Global is $499, but with plan it's $249 (or less, it's usually ~$150).
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Nlandas wrote:
Please don't get iBoned! Apple products are overpriced, overhyped junk.
On the contrary, I think that Apple's products are ideal for certain groups of people, and Mac OS X is by far the best overall operating system out there for a wide range of people.
Apple's platform is shown to be very flexible as well, as they've adapted it to the iPhone and iPod Touch, which are both extremely capable devices, UI wise, and the SDK will result in an extremely wide range of applications thus making the utility of the device rather incredible.
I do think that they should have more physical computers, as you either have to choose all-in-one (iMac), extremely capable but expensive (Mac Pro), or very limited (Mac Mini). No "Mac".
Compared to the main competition - Windows - there's no competition. Mac OS X is head and shoulders above,
technically. It's where AmigaOS would have been with constant development since 1992. When I come home from work I don't want frustration, I want something that isn't in my way, and Mac OS X is providing that. Linux too, to some extent, if I'm willing to tweak it ;)
What price three years of something that just works ... well, more than Windows.
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adolescent wrote:
bloodline wrote:
-Edit- Does your device have hardware accelerated OpenGL support? The iPhone does... watch the last apple event to see what the iPhone can do with Games!!
Some (maybe all?) of the new HTC phones have an ATI Imageon hardware 2D/3D graphics accelerator. Although, the Windows driver hasn't been finalised/released yet. (Since the Apple games haven't been released either this is probably a draw...)
I've been looking at the HTC Kaiser. They can be had for as low as $50 and have all the features adonay mentioned.
The HTC Kaiser is the size of a small family car and the aesthetics of a particularly ugly coldwar Russian tank... It has half the video resolution of the iPhone and as of 16th of January... there are serious software issues, notably with graphics and video performance... oh and it comes with Windows Mobile, which after using for a year I have vowed never to go back to... near constant crashing/lock ups and terible user interfaces are very off putting...
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@adolsecent
28% of the smart phone market. This is based on Apple's reckoning, of course. According to Wikipedia and Canalys, Apple's at 6.5% behind RIM (11.4%) and Nokia (52.9%). That's likely do to Apple's selective definition of smart phone--or perhaps Canalys is being too generous. Apple may also be including the iPod Touch in their numbers, as it's a viable target for the SDK and their new software distribution channel.
I agree with you on the price thing. You're not required to get an AT&T contract when you buy an iPhone (in which case it's just an iPod Touch with a camera and speakers), but it would be nice if Apple cut the price a bit for people that did. It's an amazing toy, though, and they've made development (from a Mac, of course) as easy as it gets, including using a consumer iPhone/iPod Touch for source-level debugging across a USB cable. (Microsoft hasn't made it to difficult, and Linux is fine, too, but until recently, it was next to impossible for a consumer to get an SDK for a phone based on Symbian. You wouldn't believe what a pain in the ass it was for me to get my Slvr to allow me to upload Java apps over USB, not knowing the internals of the phone.)
I don't own a smart phone at the moment, primarily because I'm not willing to pay more for monthly cell-based broadband than I do for traditional broadband at home. What I'd really like to hear is AT&T saying, "What, you have our broadband service at home? Then Edge is included." That's not going to happen, of course. The US cell market is a frag fest all around, with consumers as the targets. Just about everything is pay-per-use, even when you think you're paying a flat fee (which is really just pre-paying for a block of pay-per-use services, some of which you may not actually use).
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@Hittig
It's where AmigaOS would have been with constant development since 1992.
Sort of. Apple said, "Frak. We can't turn OS 9 into a preemptively multitasking operating system. Hey, Steve. Didn't we buy NeXT from you? How did you guys do it there?" Or something like that.
BeOS was an excellent operating system, already years ahead of Amiga OS, running on a similar platform, and it died. There just isn't enough room in the market for that many competing consumer desktop operating systems.
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bloodline wrote:
The HTC Kaiser is the size of a small family car and the aesthetics of a particularly ugly coldwar Russian tank...
Sure, the device has to be bigger to fit the "real" GPS, usable camera, 3G capability, SD slot, and full qwerty keyboard. Add these to the iPhone and it will be a couple of mm bigger also. I'll take a slightly larger package to save >$300 and have a more functional device.
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All of the late '80s OSs were not designed to do what we need in a modern OS, they all realised it. Had the company that made Amiga survived they would have had to, at one point, throw out Amiga DOS and start again. Because the Amiga was orphaned it is a living fossil, a picture of where OSs used to be.
But there was no winning strategy, had the owners of Amiga spent their money on development instead of beer and chips it would have still ended the same. Likewise there's no path for Amiga to join Apple and Microsoft either, there's just no money and no will to do so and no company to do it if there was.
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persia wrote:
All of the late '80s OSs were not designed to do what we need in a modern OS, they all realised it. Had the company that made Amiga survived they would have had to, at one point, throw out Amiga DOS and start again. Because the Amiga was orphaned it is a living fossil, a picture of where OSs used to be.
So true... Windows 3.1, MacOS 7.x, TOS and AmigaOS were all built for a different generation of machines... much like MSDOS and CP-M were for the generation before... Also there were transition Operating systems, like Win95 and MacOS 9.x...
AmigaOS was actually better positioned than these other OSes... Reading the RKM shows that the plan was there to add memory protection, but developers didn't seem to care too much about that and the 68k hardware was lacking an MMU unlike the equivalent intel hardware... Give the AmigaOS a real security based file system and Memory protection it might have had a chance... but still without major reworking it would have been behind WinNT and MacOSX...
But there was no winning strategy, had the owners of Amiga spent their money on development instead of beer and chips it would have still ended the same. Likewise there's no path for Amiga to join Apple and Microsoft either, there's just no money and no will to do so and no company to do it if there was.
True...
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adolescent wrote:
bloodline wrote:
The HTC Kaiser is the size of a small family car and the aesthetics of a particularly ugly coldwar Russian tank...
Sure, the device has to be bigger to fit the "real" GPS, usable camera, 3G capability, SD slot, and full qwerty keyboard. Add these to the iPhone and it will be a couple of mm bigger also. I'll take a slightly larger package to save >$300 and have a more functional device.
Every engineering solution is compromise... Apple choose to compromise the technical in order to make sure that the human experience is not compromised. Since I have got to an age and situation where I need technology to serve me rather than for me to mess around with some tech toy, I need the human experience to be better, than worrying about if I have a 2mp or 3mp camera...
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If people are still clamoring to buy them, then they are under priced.
Nlandas wrote:
Please don't get iBoned! Apple products are overpriced, overhyped junk.
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On the contrary, I think that Apple's products are ideal for certain groups of people, and Mac OS X is by far the best overall operating system out there for a wide range of people.
True, but I'm starting to think it's not fair that they tie it to "their" hardware.
I mean at some point Apple will get large enough that they will not be allowed to tie their software to only their specific hardware... like MS can't (can you imagine if Vista was only sold on MS hardware!! ;-) ). Apple may not be that size yet, but what size do they have to get??
It seems like a double edge sword. MS gets blamed for being huge and being a monopoly and Apple gets the ohs and ahs for being the little guy, but it's sort of Apple's choice at this point. If OSX was made available like Vista, OSX would have a lot more market share. Maybe not more money though ;-) So is that fair?
Can MS be a monopoly if we a 2nd huge OS company that could be almost as huge, but chooses not to be so they can make more money on hardware even though it limits them to smaller percent of the market?
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Can you imagine if Vista was on Microsoft only hardware, no device driver complaints, few system configurations to support. I would vigorously debate Microsoft's monopoly status people do have other choices than Microsoft, they choose however to buy the Microsoft software with their hardware.
You can buy a Linux or Apple machine with software just as easily today. Linux machines are now sold at Walmart for heaven sake.
If OSX was sold separately it would need to support as many chipsets and generic hardware situations as Vista has to today.. Probably making it the target of many hackers and it probably would have just as many issues as Vista does..
Apple owns (last I checked) a 9% share of the entire hardware market and that hasn't changed a lot in the last 4 years.. The number of Intel Mac owners who have bought Vista for their machines also from what I hear is extraordinarily high because even if they like OSX better they find themselves needing it for compatibility with everyone else..
As far as the iPhone goes, it was smart thinking for Apple to put a video decoder chip in the hardware. I hope they open that access up for others to take advantage of..
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Exactly, if MS had their own hardware like Apple (or like Amiga was trying to do with A1 and license specific hardware) then their wouldn't be all the driver issues, things would probably work a lot better.
And if you say is right, 9%, than that is kinda what I mean with my other point. OSX is really probably more likey to have 40%-50% if Apple wanted it to and didn't tie to hardware.
I'm just saying if things were equal and either Windows was on only it's own hardware like OSX
or
Both were open to run an any hardware like Windows does, then they would have a lot more equal market share...
so who is really keeping MS the monoply?? Is it Apple? I Apple choosing to stay small so they can KEEP the hardware market too to make more money? They get software AND hardware now. If they get too big (sure they are maybe a long way off now but how long?), then eventually they will be anti-trust issues for them to and they will be forced to open up.
Is Apple keeping OSX down?
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Apple is a portable media and content delivery company. That whole Mac thing is just a sideline. ;-)
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Hattig wrote:
Compared to the main competition - Windows - there's no competition. Mac OS X is head and shoulders above,
technically.
Ok, lets talk "technically". OS 10 is head and shoulders above in:
Running on proprietary Apple hardware? Yes.
Running Mac specific software? Yes.
Ummm, that's all I can think of.
Can you explain how else it's technically superior? And, while you're at it explain why you have to use boot camp to run XP or Vista to run applications, games, etc.
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adolescent wrote:
Hattig wrote:
Compared to the main competition - Windows - there's no competition. Mac OS X is head and shoulders above,
technically.
Ok, lets talk "technically". OS 10 is head and shoulders above in:
Running on proprietary Apple hardware? Yes.
Running Mac specific software? Yes.
Ummm, that's all I can think of.
Can you explain how else it's technically superior? And, while you're at it explain why you have to use boot camp to run XP or Vista to run applications, games, etc.
For mission critical apps like my live music work MacOS X has been a dream come true! The audio subsystem suffers less latency than windows even with ASIO and is far more stable. Moving to the Mac OSX platform meant I run more exotic set ups live as well as not having the damn thing crash on me after 3 songs...
OSX also seems to give priority to the audio system, as if I do something stupid that pushes CPU to 200% the audio units keep functioning without stutter and glitches...
There are probably other things for other people but that is the most important for me... The fact that everything just works is nice too... I can buy any peice of exotic audio hardware plug it in and go, no messing around with drivers and reboots...
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@Bloodline
How about a "real" technical issue that can be backed up with fact, not just your subjective opinion. Latency and "crash on me after 3 songs" sounds like a compatibility issue or operator error. Even OS 10 isn't crash proof, and can have driver issues.
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adolescent wrote:
@Bloodline
How about a "real" technical issue that can be backed up with fact, not just your subjective opinion. Latency and "crash on me after 3 songs" sounds like a compatibility issue or operator error. Even OS 10 isn't crash proof, and can have driver issues.
It's not my fault if you don't consider mission critical reliability and low latency audio as important to you... They happen to be the most important aspects of an operating system for my needs, and thus are the issues I focus upon... These are real technical issues, since WindowsXP (I have no idea about Window Vist since I've never used it) is unable to perform reliably in these areas. Linux simply lacks the software, so I am unable to know exactly how that would perform.
There is a reason why 99% of all professional musicians use MacOSX. When I used to gig in the days just after my Amiga, I had no choice but to use a Windows based laptop for live work... it was terrible. I suffered many problems and at least one crash or lock up per gig... I eventually bit the bullet and bought an over priced under powered PowerBook G4 running OSX 10.4... despite its limited power, it never once gave out on me during a gig or during rehearsals... It was a dream come true, I could stop worrying about the damn computer and focus on the music.
Since I never have to install any drivers on the Mac... All professional audio hardware comes as Core Audio compliant, I've never any driver issues...
-Edit-
My friends and I also like the MacOS for it's security... Since by default everything runs as the logged in user rather than root as in Windows, it's just safer...
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Since by default everything runs as the logged in user rather than root as in Windows, it's just safer
That's not required, but it's something Microsoft hasn't gone out of their way to fix. I believe Vista is attempting to make headway here, but people have mostly complained about how annoying it is--the same way it's annoying to use keys to unlock your house and start your car and pin to access your bank account. Can't please everyone, I guess. ;-)
Windows can be quite stable for real-time application use, including audio and video, but you're not going to get that kind of stability with off the shelf parts. You'd have to buy your system from a hardware/sofware ISV that specializes in those configurations.
I made the switch, too, although Yamaha (my primary keyboard/workstation is a Motif ES8) is a little slow in updating their Mac software. I like the Yamaha keys (which was the deciding factor at the time), but the Motif is a {bleep} to use. Wish I'd bought a Korg. It's moot right now, though. My music room is doubling as storage, so I can't actually get to any of it. :-P (And there's a piano and a couple guitars in the living room, so I'm good to go if I want to embarrass myself in front of my friends.)
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@bloodline
That's fine that you consider the audio system mission critical for your work. What I am looking for is an objective reason that MacOSX is technically better than Windows XP/Vista. You said latency which is subjective, and crashes which sound like operator error, a bad computer, or just FUD (every OS can crash..). If you had proof that the same audio hardware on like systems, one running Windows and one running OSX, ran differently then I might take it a bit more serious. The "99% of all professional musicians use MacOSX" falls in the same category. It sounds too made up to be true. Care to site a source?
Regarding your security comment, you don't really know Windows. Windows 9x had a single user security model. NT and later all have separate roles for user and administrator. In the end, if the operator chooses to run as root they can do so just like they can in OSX. Vista has the UAC which is similar to the OSX prompt when root access is required.
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@adolescent
Bloodline did say "by default" re: administrator privileges. When you install a consumer copy of Windows, one of the last things it does before showing you the destkop is ask you which users to make administrators.
It's also a bit more complicated than "separate roles," since administrator != root on a Windows system. An appropriate analogy might be system == root, but the system account is not meant to be used interactively. The default object (file system, registry, devices, etc.) permissons on Windows also complicate things--they're more open than they should be, particularly with respect to the Power Users group. There are certain privileges as well, e.g. process debugging, that are as good as administrator access if you know what you're doing.
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adolescent wrote:
@bloodline
That's fine that you consider the audio system mission critical for your work. What I am looking for is an objective reason that MacOSX is technically better than Windows XP/Vista. You said latency which is subjective,
I assure you it is not subjective, I have to set up my latency compensation very carefully to ensure synchronisation between my equipment. MacOS audio subsystem, fittingly titled "Core Audio", allows me to set up the sample rate and buffer size very specifically to give a set latency... on my MacBook Pro with a 10-In 10-Out Edirol FA-101 fire wire audio interface, at a sample rate of 48Khz I can get 3.43ms in and about the same out... without any audio glitching...
Core Audio also features a modular DSP component system called Audio Units... these can be inserted anywhere within any Audio stream to provide Effects or Synthetics... I can load the system up with these until both CPU cores are maxed out... These Audio Units also offer network transparency, which mean that two Macs can send Audio and Event data over a network transparent to the user... This allows distributed audio processing and sending... Gigabit Ethernet offers fairly low latency, any thing under 9ms is usable... I've tried Wifi (n) and can get about about 15ms latency, which is just about usable for live... but not for the studio...
Windows has nothing as advanced as any of this. I am aware that Vista has introduced a new Audio system but it is incompatible with existing software... and certainly isn't as advanced.
-Edit- I've just read about Vista's new WaveRT audio component that tries to address the above issues, but doesn't work with Firewire or USB audio interfaces... Which pretty much rules out every audio interface a musician would want to use... and certainly rules out laptops, which have revolutionised the music industry.
and crashes which sound like operator error,
Certainly possible, but when I transferred to Mac, I tried to recreate the Windows setup completely, using the same software (music software tends to have both Win and Mac Versions) and the same music hardware/synths.
The Mac system was rock solid...
To be fair I am usually running a hell of a lot of software at the same time...
a bad computer,
Again possible, it was just a midrange Acer...
or just FUD (every OS can crash..).
I never said MacOS X doesn't crash, What I said was that I can rely on it. If I set up a configuration and run it in rehearsals, I know it will function on stage.
With a Windows set up, It might run fine in rehearsals but then it would crap out on stage... Rehearsals have a lot more stop starts than live, where a machine will be powered up for sound check... then left until Performance where it will need to bang through the set at whatever pace were are running at that night. I need to be able to trust it.
If you had proof that the same audio hardware on like systems, one running Windows and one running OSX, ran differently then I might take it a bit more serious.
Usual set up consists of Logic Pro (which was Logic Platinum 5 back in those days), Ableton, Reason and a couple Arturia Softsynths.
All software (with the exception of more recent versions of Logic) are available on both platforms... feel free to try it out for yourself!
I forget the hardware I as using, but I can dig up my old Keytech tour lists...
The "99% of all professional musicians use MacOSX" falls in the same category. It sounds too made up to be true. Care to site a source?
Just try and find a Musician/DJ that doesn't use a Mac!?!?!
Regarding your security comment, you don't really know Windows. Windows 9x had a single user security model. NT and later all have separate roles for user and administrator. In the end, if the operator chooses to run as root they can do so just like they can in OSX. Vista has the UAC which is similar to the OSX prompt when root access is required.
This has already been answered by Trev.
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Trev wrote:
It's also a bit more complicated than "separate roles," since administrator != root on a Windows system. An appropriate analogy might be system == root, but the system account is not meant to be used interactively. The default object (file system, registry, devices, etc.) permissons on Windows also complicate things--they're more open than they should be, particularly with respect to the Power Users group. There are certain privileges as well, e.g. process debugging, that are as good as administrator access if you know what you're doing.
But, the default object permissions shouldn't be a problem if you're not running as administrator/power user. For instance, a normal user can't write in system directories, Program Files, etc. Therefore, any process launched by a normal user can't either.
The permission changes, plus the UAC, are really similar in Vista to what OSX does. The main difference is it doesn't use a sudo type login, it just prompts you for confirmation. (Even as administrator you'll get UAC alerts if you're doing things like writing to a system directory...)
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@adolescent
Agreed. Of course, there are still mainstream Windows programmers writing software with the old APIs (in general, the stuff that doesn't end in Ex and lacks security parameters) or using NULL security descriptors on shared objects. In a corporate world, that means opening up most of the registry and file system. We're talking about consumers though, and what they'll see is something like, "The software installer needs to make a change to your system to allow the software to run properly. Click OK to continue," and Average Joe is going to click OK, blissfully unaware of the changes the installer is making. (Mac OS is no better in this regard.)
I agree with bloodline on the Mac front, but I think a lot of folks use the best tool for the job, be it Mac (Logic, Digital Performer, etc.) or Windows (ProTools--on Mac too, Sound Forge, ACID, etc.). On the PC, though, I think you'll find a lot of folks using dedicated hardware (sequencers, hard disk recorders, etc.), with the PC acting as a simple controller, whereas a Mac becomes a primary workstation.
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I should point out that in my my posts I'm talking about WinXP SP2 vs MacOS X 10.4 since these are the OSs that I use/used... I've not upgraded to Leopard yet (since I need to make sure it is suitable for mission critical operation) and I have no desire/need to use Vista.
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Going back to the iPhone temporarily, I think it's strange how people are quick to point out what is "missing" on the iPhone without really considering the massive numbers of sales following its release. Presumably most if not all of the people who bought one were aware of the features it has as well the ones it doesn't, so they're not sitting there all disappointed that their phone doesn't have 3G/5 megapixel camera/video/whatever. Surely the fact 4 million iPhones have been sold suggests that these features which some people believe are "missing" are not actually very important to a lot of users.
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moto
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Re: Smart phones, my mom has an HTC (w/ AT&T), and she's had to replace it three times. She likes the integration with Microsoft Office (Pocket Word, calendar, etc.), which is why she didn't go with an iPhone. It's just too bad the device is terribly unstable.