“In a recent article, [H]’s esteemed Editor-in-Chief [Kyle Bennett] made some flagrantly, but not uncharacteristically, blunt comments regarding his opinion about Mac OS and, indeed, the company as a whole: ‘Apple operating systems = suck. All of them. Actually, it’s Apple itself that sucks.’ He later specified his particular distaste with the company with the following rationale: ‘It shoves its terribly overpriced ‘froo froo’ hardware down my throat to make me get the OS, and, quite frankly, I am just not buying it,'” Scott Unzicker writes for [H] Enthusiast.
“He’s not happy because the most stable OS on the market is only available with Apple hardware. This is understandable, and perhaps Apple does suck for excluding nearly the entire DIY enthusiast market as potential customers,” Unzicker writes. Unzicker doesn’t fail to mention “the Mac’s ability to run OS X, Linux/UNIX (along with the literally thousands of apps out there associated with that family of OSs), and Windows.”
Unzicker writes, “Apple has its faults, like any company, but at least they’re innovative, and not the derivational product of stunted, homuncular minds, ripping off ideas like rats picking scraps from the higher mammals’ tables.”
“Microsoft has come out with Vista, and by my and many observations, it’s a pale shadow and a weak reflection of what the Apple engineers successfully released in April of 2005. Longhorn essentially evaporated and rained back down in a watered-down expectoration of abandoned objectives,” Unzicker writes.
Unzicker writes of security, “Why is the Mac OS so secure? In short, when the core of your OS is open source (FreeBSD, for the most part), one can achieve a level of security and maturity unattainable to one written by cloistered, myopic bean counters, drunk and delusional from the stale, fermented laurels of past successes.”
“As mad as Kyle may be that Apple won’t let him shoot himself in the foot by trying to install the OS on some duct-tape and barbed-wire system, he has to respect that the segment of the consumer market Jobs targets doesn’t really want to be able to shoot themselves in the foot. They want a pre-packaged, eminently functional, and perfectly integrated system. Money is not everything. The quality of experience Jobs provides to the Apple faithful is more important than the almost-certainly engorged bottom line he’d see by licensing the software to run on other platforms,” Unzicker writes.
Unzicker writes, “Is Apple perfect? No way in hell. Do I believe they have the best commercial operating system on the market? You bet. Integrity trumps shareholder dividends any day of the week.”
Oh, yes, there’s much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jimbo von Winskinheimer” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
USA Today on switching: Apple Macs can also be screaming-fast Windows machines – March 15, 2007
BusinessWeek: Microsoft’s Windows Vista is ‘slow and dangerous’ – March 15, 2007
Analyst: Microsoft’s Windows Vista is very good for Apple Mac – March 13, 2007
Windows expert dumps Windows, switches to Apple’s Mac OS X, finds software plentiful – March 12, 2007
InfoWorld: 9,000 people switch to Apple Mac every day (plus testing ‘Embrace and Extinguish’) – February 28, 2007
Netscape founder Marc Andreessen switches to Apple Mac – February 28, 2007
Computerworld: Windows expert dumps Windows, switches to Apple’s Mac OS X – February 08, 2007
Embrace and Extinguish in action: TechIQ’s ‘The VAR Guy’ dumps Windows, switches to Mac OS X – September 25, 2006
Windows sufferer spends six hours trying to ‘upgrade’ to Vista, says: ‘I should’ve bought a Mac’ – February 07, 2007
Windows Vista woes push BBC News editor to regret never having ‘defected’ to Apple Mac – February 06, 2007
Bill Gates unhinged with Apple envy; Microsoft on path to become high profile casualty – February 06, 2007
Apple takes dead aim at Microsoft’s Windows Vista in latest ‘Get a Mac’ ad (with video) – February 06, 2007
Digit: Don’t buy Vista; Microsoft may be driving millions to stick with XP or move to Apple Mac – February 05, 2007
Bill Gates has lost his mind: calls Apple liars, copiers; slams Mac OS X security vs. Windows – February 02, 2007
TIME Magazine: Microsoft’s Windows Vista ‘an embarassment to the good name of American innovation’ – February 02, 2007
Microsoft’s Windows Vista: Five years for a chrome-plated turd – January 30, 2007
Those unfamiliar with Apple’s Mac OS X may be impressed with Windows Vista – January 29, 2007
Digit: ‘Microsoft’s Windows Vista may be the best reason yet to buy an Apple Mac’ – January 29, 2007
Pioneer Press: Windows Vista shows ‘Apple is an innovation engine; Microsoft, not so much’ – January 29, 2007
Windows Vista disappoints, so get a Mac – January 29, 2007
Microsoft emails reveal serious Mac OS X Tiger envy – January 26, 2007
Analyst: Microsoft’s Windows Vista could be an opportunity for Apple – January 26, 2007
CNET Reviews Windows Vista: Is that all? Clunky and not very intuitive vs. Mac OS X; warmed-over XP – January 24, 2007
Mossberg: Microsoft’s Windows Vista offers lesser imitations of Apple’s Mac OS X features – January 18, 2007
Windows Vista disappointment drives longtime ‘Microsoft apologist’ to Apple’s Mac OS X – January 17, 2007
InformationWeek Review: Apple’s Mac OS X shines in comparison with Microsoft’s Windows Vista – January 06, 2007
NY Times’ Pogue reviews Microsoft’s Windows Vista: ‘Looks, Locks, Lacks’ – December 14, 2006
Unlike Microsoft’s Windows Vista, Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard will create no new jobs – December 12, 2006
A Windows expert opts for a Mac life, finds the experience ‘superb’ – December 07, 2006
15-year Windows vet tries Apple Mac: ‘My God! This is amazing!’ – December 04, 2006
Dave Winer: ‘Microsoft isn’t an innovator, and never was – they are always playing catch-up’ – December 01, 2006
Harvard Medical School CIO picks Mac OS X over Linux and Windows – November 30, 2006
A Windows expert opts for a Mac life – November 06, 2006
Apple Macs can run more software than Windows PCs – October 30, 2006
Microsoft’s Windows Vista is basically Microsoft’s version of Mac OS 9.3 – October 11, 2006
Embrace and Extinguish in action: TechIQ’s ‘The VAR Guy’ dumps Windows, switches to Mac OS X – September 25, 2006
Top Windows developer dumps Microsoft’s ‘pile of crap’ for Apple’s Mac OS X – September 12, 2006
$399 for Windows Vista Ultimate?! (Hint: Get a Mac) – August 29, 2006
Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard is 64-bit done right, unlike Microsoft’s Windows Vista kludge – August 14, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista: If you can’t innovate… try to impersonate Apple’s Mac OS X – August 10, 2006
Analyst: Apple’s new Mac OS X Leopard sets new bar, leaves Microsoft’s Vista in the dust – August 08, 2006
Microsoft botches another copy job: Windows Vista Flip3D vs. Apple Mac OS X Exposé – June 26, 2006
Windows Vista rips-off Mac OS X at great hardware cost (and Apple gains in the end) – June 13, 2006
Computerworld: Microsoft Windows Vista a distant second-best to Apple Mac OS X – June 02, 2006
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 20, 2003
I couldn’t agree with the headline more.
Headline needs correction. I believe it should read:
Apple’s Mac OS X: the best operating system ever
“In short, when the core of your OS is open source (FreeBSD, for the most part), one can achieve a level of security and maturity unattainable to one written by cloistered, myopic bean counters, drunk and delusional from the stale, fermented laurels of past successes.”
What a great line. This guy undoubtedly earned A’s in English.
“Integrity trumps shareholder dividends any day of the week.”
Brilliant.
Has this guy actually looked at the Apple hardware? I mean, my iMac has really great features – such as LEDs on the mobo that illuminate to provide teh status of subsystems for trouble shooting…not so in my Dell from work.
This is scarey, I ran across this from the article
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1168858
News Flash:
“It shoves its terribly overpriced ‘froo froo’ hardware down my throat to make me get the OS, and, quite frankly, I am just not buying it”
MacBook Pro
Mac OS 10.4
15.4″ Widscreen
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz
1 Gb DDR2 SDRAM @ 666 mHz
120 GB Hard Drive
6X SuperDrive
Airport Extreme (n-draft wireless)
Blutooth
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 128 MB SDRam
built-in iSight
+iLife, lots of developer tools, ability to run numerous OS, no need for AntiVirus software etc.
$1999
Dell Precision M65
Same as above except the following changes:
Windows Vista Ultimate (needed to compare features to Tiger)
only a/g wireless
8X DVD+/-RW
NVidia Quattro 512 MB SDRAM
no built-in camera
+no useful additional programs
$2311
Longhorn essentially evaporated and rained back down in a watered-down expectoration of abandoned objectives
That’s another great line!
This guy is nutzier than me.
@ hotinplaya
Wow…scary is right! Not hardly one pro Mac comment. One guy admits that when he is feeling lazy he will use his Mini rather than fire up his PC. These guys are feeling pretty insulted by this article as it is coming directly from a haven of nerdy muffin buffin Windows lovers. There are some pretty nasty comments about Mac users. They DO NOT want to hear what they are hearing. Quite amusing.
On to other news,
Apple should make this feline its mascot for their new OS:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=442309&in_page_id=1965
She’s beautiful.
anaknipedro so right you are, they even gave it a slogan
with fearsome fangs capable of killing its prey( VISTA) in a single bite.
er, best commercial operating system on the planet actualy.
Thanks for that anaknipedro.
That’ll be my desktop picture in about a month from now. Or soon? When exactly is Leopard coming out, anyone heard for sure?
Mac OS X is the best “commercial” operating system? Does this imply that it is not the best OS, period? Is some “non-commercial” packaging variant of Linux better?
I had an old Panasonic Toughbook CF-47 laptop sitting on a shelf not doing anything, so I put Ubuntu (ubuntu.com) on it to see what Linux was like. This laptop is from the Windows 95/98 timeframe; it has a Pentium III in the 500 MHz range. It has been upgraded with a 20GB hard drive and to about 220MB of RAM. It pretty outdated, but it’s a sturdy “tank” (and it has a very nice screen and a great keyboard), so it was nice to use it again.
First thing I liked about Ubuntu is that you can download and burn a “live” CD and boot from it into the Ubuntu OS. This let me try it to make sure it works on my hardware. Then it was a simple matter to use that same CD to install the OS onto the hard drive. It was as easy as any Mac OS X installation I’ve done. It established a network connection through a PCMCIA ethernet card without any manual configuration.
Ubuntu packages a set of applications with the basic installation, much as Apple bundles its core applications with new Macs. The default UI is Gnome. The browser is Firefox. The email program is something called Evolution. The Office suite is OpenOffice. GIMP is installed as the graphics app. Additionally, there is an equivalent to Apple’s Software Update utility. This program has notified me of updates and handled the update installations without issues. Another utility handles the installation (and removal) of programs. The UI was unfamiliar, but by clicking on the Firefox icon, I could to 75% of what I do on a Mac these days.
The Ubuntu organization has made Linux easy to install and configure. It is handling the work of improving the user experience, by “limiting” novice user choices, just like Apple does with its Macs; more experienced users are free to make changes, of course. The last time I tried Linux, I had to do some command line stuff to set it up properly and using the OS itself was a hassle. Now it seems to “just work,” like with a Mac. Even on my ancient hardware, it run surprisingly well.
With the Windows Vista fiasco here to stay, Apple should be more concerned about Linux on the desktop. Since Windows Vista requires higher-end hardware to run, there may be a trend for PC box makers to install Linux on their low-end (sub $500) machines. And the box makers will have the added benefit of NOT having to pay Microsoft for licensing Windows. If my positive experience with Ubuntu is typical, Linux may yet become the “good enough” OS for the masses.
I agree with the conclusion here about the Mac OS, if not the convoluted speech. I can’t honestly say that I recognized an “esteemed Editor-in-Chief in this rag. Some of these lines sound as if they were written by a teenager who has just discovered the dictionary and now wishes to add some derivational hormuncular elements to his vocabulary in order to impress. Plain English, please!
Microsoft doesn’t even pay dividends anyway.
ken1w, I too had an extra PC that I decided to try Ubuntu on. It’s originally an Windows ME box, had 256 MB RAM and some Intel processor.
It was impossible to use from the Ubuntu CD, slow as molasses after I installed Ubuntu on hard drive. It only became usable after I upgraded the RAM to 512 MB.
I don’t really believe that Ubuntu is usable on old hardware.
It did the basic things easily, like network connection etc. But upgrading from 6.06 to 6.10 was impossible without help and use of command line. Installing printer drivers (there were many from Lexmark, first time Ubuntu user had no way of knowing which to install and how). Upgrading to Firefox 2 or OpenOffice 2 was also a pain.
> MacFinn
I guess user experience with “self-installed” Linux will vary because there are so many PC configurations out there. My PC laptop is inferior to your machine (by the specs), yet my experience was very good with Ubuntu. I also had the advantage of installing laterst version (6.10) directly.
However, if PC box makers installed the software, it work be configured to work well with the hardware “out of the box.” Since many users these days are in a web browser most of the time, a Linux distribution could be a compelling alternative to Windows (since it is unlikely Apple will license Mac OS X).
Mac OS X is better than any Linux desktop distribution and it is certainly better than Windows Vista. However, Windows 95 proved that many customers will settle for “good enough” if the price is right.
…stunted, homuncular minds…
This guy obviously has been watching too much Full Metal Alchemist!
LOL, sometimes even Windows users pretending to be über-usels and know-it-all clearly show how little they do know about Macs and OS X in general.
In the threaded discussions most if not all complain about Apple overpriced hardware, “at least 20% more than any PC”, yeah right. Whatever.
Then again the old saying: no games. Ohh, ok, weird you do not hear yourself when you say it: The combo Windows and PC is really just a toy: you use it to play games. Get a life already.
Then the “if Apple had the same market share of Windows then virus situation would be reversed”. Über-user and über-idiot at the same time?
Last “If Apple had such a great hardware it would be capable of running Windows” HELLOOO???? über-6feet-under? What a bunch of wankers.
That was a fun read. It’s becoming very clear that M$ is in ever-growing trouble. Mini-MSFT blog reaffirms this again and again. It sounds like even if they really wanted to turn things around, Ballmer and other management are actively working against their own good. Internal destruction. In one year, things could be significantly different. A bit of speculation: I’d bet that Google is almost ready to reveal a little OS of their own. With all that cash, it seems silly that they wouldn’t give it a go. Google, being a tad Apple-esque might be a serious threat all around.
Interesting times.
Thanks for the link hotinplaya
Those hardcore Win modder guys are steemed but they are right about Apple in a few ways. Apple hardware is limited in upgradeability and desktop pricing is still a big issue why Apples marketshare will continue to be limited.
OSX is great in my books and I will continue to recommend it but those issues will continue to hamper Apple.
Im sick of the teeny tiny DIY market whining about Apple hardware.
SUCK IT, I say. Apple isn’t going to water down the Mac experience for EVERYONE else just to satisfy the demands of a few tinkerers. Yes, you guys are a tiny slice of the market. Don’t fool yourselves into thinking that everyone and their grandma want to build their own systems. They don’t.
Most of the people in the Mac community would rather spend their time using their comps to DO STUFF with than have it up on blocks in the front yard with the hood up.
I’m sick of you Mac snobs degrading my PC …
Why .. I can walk right into my TOWER and jury rig a new hard drive .. or sound card .. or video card .. or dvd player … or motherboard … or bios chip … or tv receiver card … or fan … or regulator .. or transformer .. or alternator … or …. anyway … you get my drift.
Let’s see you Mac boys do that! Ha!!!!
What …? YOu mean all your stuff just works right out of the box ..
Who the hell would want that??