“Mac fans let out a collective roar Friday night, with thousands of eager shoppers turning out at Apple stores across the globe to scoop up Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the latest version of Apple’s operating system, as it went on sale at 6 p.m. PST… [In San Francisco] the line stretched for a block down Stockton Street, past storefronts for Benetton, Fossil, Armani Exchange and Crate and Barrel,” Ina Fried reports for CNET News.
“Not everyone was impressed. ‘What is a tiger?’ asked one woman as she passed by the crowd. When someone informed her it was computer software, she shook her head and scurried past,” Fried reports. “In addition to those lined up to buy the OS, a fair throng of gawkers gathered to see what all the fuss was about. Pizza maker Ivan Ochoa said he likes his Windows-based computer, but probably wouldn’t line up to get a new version of the OS. ‘It’s like they are waiting for their favorite singer,’ he said, looking at the long line of Mac faithfuls. The Apple stores were not the only place to grab hold of Tiger. A block away, amid some balloons but far less fanfare, CompUSA also put the new OS on sale, offering a $30 discount if buyers spent $400 on other purchases.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What is a tiger? Exactly. We’ll spell it out for you Uncle Steve: A-D-V-E-R-T-I-S-E. Please? Some of OUR own relatives don’t even know what Tiger is — they wanted to know why we were so excited today — that should give you an idea of the total lack of recognition Mac OS X has with the general public.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Forrester analysts: Apple should advertise Mac OS X Tiger on television and in movie theaters – April 29, 2005
Apple posts QuickTime movies of Mac OS X Tiger features in action – April 13, 2005
Why doesn’t Apple advertise Mac OS X on TV? – April 12, 2005
I have yet to see anyone raving about the new Quicktime H.264 codec, so I’m gonna do it…. I reencoded a 376MB DVD file (a .VOB file), 720×404, into a Quicktime movie (same size, using 1-pass High quality setting – which is 1 step down from Best quality) using the H.264 codec. The result was an 80MB file that looks identical to the original. It is truely amazing. I also encoded the same file using 2-pass Best quality setting and could not tell any difference, except it took twice as long and resulted in a 99MB file. Wanna see? (These images are in uncompressed TIFF format, around 1MB each)
A frame from the original DVD:
http://wingsy.spymac.net/DVD.tif
Same frame captured from the H.264 version, Best quality:
http://wingsy.spymac.net/H264.tif
Same frame captured from H264, High quality:
http://wingsy.spymac.net/H264-1pass.tif
This means that one could put a DVD quality movie from a 2-hour DVD onto a CD. Is anyone as impressed as I am?
“best that people like that don’t get it… you’d only end up providing technical support to them. i don’t really want to get involved with people that scurry”
Funny! I was in an Apple Store last year when one of the sales attendants was talking to this woman that was having trouble connecting a printer to her mac. Seemed to keep going on and on. Told the sales assistant serving me that his workmate should hang up on her, she’s obviously too stupid to use a mac.
Can someone provide a link to a news video showing the lines and all the commotion?! I hope it exists.
Thanks
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“what is a tiger?”
An online retailer from Florida of course! DUH!! Have you been living under a rock for the past 15 years!!?
mine is still waiting in a fed ex depot 8 miles away….. i think i’m just gonna drive down and snatch it…
although i do like the luxury of things being brought to me right at my door.
it makes me feel like I am somebody. =)
I happened to run into a friend of mine at the CompUSA store last night. They were running a promotion of 12 mo/same as cash on purchases over $700 so he bought a new G5 and 2Gigs of RAM with Tiger!!
that lucky boy…
I think Apple’s ad campaign for the Mac is going exactly as planned.
People listen much more closely to friends that whisper than strangers that shout.
Would any other type of advertising result in hundreds of people LINING UP outside every Apple store and create millions of on-line orders?
I stood in line at the Raleigh-Durham Apple store and I was asked by dozens of people what was going on. It got to the point where I just started being sarcastic and making stuff up like U2 tickets or Bono was coming. When you told them it was computer software or a new OS, they just nodded their heads and walked away. Everyone in the world seemed to know when Windows 95 came out but what the hell is tiger is the question of the week.
“Everyone in the world seemed to know when Windows 95 came out but what the hell is tiger is the question of the week.”
Well, if everyone was calling it Mac OS 10.4 instead of a codename/nickname, maybe non-Mac-geeks would know what the hell you’re talking about.
I’m using Tiger right now using the Dashboard’s dictionary. LOL! if anyone gets a chance check out the definitions of “tiger” and “longhorn” and see which one you like best! Tiger is a joy to use so far.
I ordered from Apple weeks ago – still no FedEx package. 1:15 PM Sat. 4/30. Grrrrrr.
Have I mantioned yet that I like to lick Triumph’s ass?