Java v. iPhone v. Windows Mobile v. Amiga Anywhere

[adolescent]

@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.

 

[Trev]

@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.

[bloodline]

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.

[adolescent]

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...)

[Trev]

@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.

[bloodline]

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.

[motorollin]

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.

--
moto

[Trev]

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.