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Author Topic: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)  (Read 38953 times)

jjj

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #60 on: February 22, 2012, 11:07:10 am »

Based on my experience, 29+ years in IT and every generation of OS6/7/8/9/10 and W3.31 to 7, both current OSs are very stable until you introduce hardware issues, then they both can be a pain.
Depends on your definition of stable or good. OSX has had numerous problems, some fixed by updates, some caused by updates and all with no hardware changes. For example I had graphics problems with Leopard. They vanished with the 10.5.4 update and never reappeared again.
Bear in mind that if OSX was genuinely stable and bug free there would not be seven or eight service patches per version of OSX. I avoid the first three as a rule and was even told by one of the geniuses in my local Apple store [who probably sees more Macs that just about anyone else] that he doesn't use a new OSX version until v4 or v5. Which is similar to PC people avoiding Windows until SP1 arrived.
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Gemmtech

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #61 on: February 22, 2012, 04:00:22 pm »

I agree with you and as somebody who repairs both I can tell you that Apple products break down more often than PCs costing the same amount of money (naturally the PCs have much better parts).  Before I bought my first MAC I thought they had higher end parts than the Dells, Gateways, HPs, Lenovo, etc.  Not true...
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Gemmtech

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #62 on: February 22, 2012, 04:04:35 pm »

I agree with you and as somebody who repairs both I can tell you that Apple products break down more often than PCs costing the same amount of money (naturally the PCs have much better parts).  Before I bought my first MAC I thought they had higher end parts than the Dells, Gateways, HPs, Lenovo, etc.  Not true...
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jjj

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #63 on: February 22, 2012, 04:12:01 pm »

I agree with you and as somebody who repairs both I can tell you that Apple products break down more often than PCs costing the same amount of money (naturally the PCs have much better parts).  Before I bought my first MAC I thought they had higher end parts than the Dells, Gateways, HPs, Lenovo, etc.  Not true...
And this is why Apple are by far the most profitable company in the business. Put cheap parts in a pretty case and charge a lot of money. Also giving no or very reduced options also reduces costs. This is why a 17" laptop has the same functionally reduced keyboard as an 11" laptop. Whereas every Sony laptop keyboard is bespoke for that form factor.
Apple's profit margins are close to 50%, which is astonishingly high compared to everyone else.
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hjulenissen

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #64 on: February 22, 2012, 04:23:26 pm »

What are the chances of high-quality photo applications for Linux? Perhaps Adobe shipping its wide-spanning media applications with a dedicated Linux image that lets them do their thing optimally?

It would seem that a professional setup could be well-served by a tailor-made Linux distribution, where e.g. color management is open and documented, where superflous stuff is removed etc.

-h
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Farmer

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #65 on: February 22, 2012, 05:21:45 pm »

Who would support such a Linux distribution?

Software vendors like Adobe want to deal with a single point (Apple, Microsoft) and this is true of most businesses.

Linux is a great idea until you have to support it, because in supporting it you don't have control of it.
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Phil Brown

Schewe

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #66 on: February 22, 2012, 06:35:58 pm »

What are the chances of high-quality photo applications for Linux?

From Adobe? Somewhere just north of zero. Adobe did do a 3rd flavor of Photoshop back in the 3.0 days for UNIX. It lasted for one version and was dropped for lack of sales and support difficulties. The way Adobe does code, they can compile for Mac or Windows from the same basic code structure. I think it very unlikely that Linux could be easily whipped up as a 3rd compile....
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BJL

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #67 on: February 22, 2012, 07:00:27 pm »

Apple should be much, much, much better than PCs [or rival phones] for reasons mentioned above.
Apart from the irrelevance of those factors in the bottom line comparison of how the reliability actually compares (and I agree with the observation that overall, both systems are now quite reliable overall, anecdotes and anachronistic BSOD memories aside), your terms of comparison ignore the fact that Windows generates vastly more revenue than OS X, allowing MS to spend maybe 10-20 times as much on its impressive efforts to support a far wider range of hardware. The advantages and disadvantages on both sides make it very hard to judge who "should" be able to do a better job.

Though for reliability, neither matches the Sun workstations I used to run. Rebooting was almost only ever for OS upgrades. Way expensive though.
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BJL

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Adobe has a low priority on GNU/Linux, so GIMP or nothing?
« Reply #68 on: February 22, 2012, 07:04:05 pm »

What are the chances of high-quality photo applications for Linux? Perhaps Adobe shipping its wide-spanning media applications with a dedicated Linux image that lets them do their thing optimally?
Adobe has just ended development of Air for Linux, citing its persistently low share of the desktop market, around 1%. That and the fact that Linux users tend to the side of using free or DIY software, and I would say that Adobe sees little reason to expand its Linux offerings.
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jjj

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #69 on: February 22, 2012, 08:35:38 pm »

Apart from the irrelevance of those factors in the bottom line comparison of how the reliability actually compares (and I agree with the observation that overall, both systems are now quite reliable overall, anecdotes and anachronistic BSOD memories aside), your terms of comparison ignore the fact that Windows generates vastly more revenue than OS X, allowing MS to spend maybe 10-20 times as much on its impressive efforts to support a far wider range of hardware. The advantages and disadvantages on both sides make it very hard to judge who "should" be able to do a better job.
Being able to spec just a very few specific items of hardware to run on makes for a much easier job of stable running. As does quickly dropping support for older kit and software. Certainly not irrelevant factors either as iffy hardware drivers and older software causes all sorts of grief. Apple has silly amounts of money to spend and is far more profitable than MS and they would still be if they gave OSX away. They are a hardware company after all.
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BJL

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #70 on: February 22, 2012, 08:59:26 pm »

Being able to spec just a very few specific items of hardware to run on makes for a much easier job of stable running. As does quickly dropping support for older kit and software. Certainly not irrelevant factors either as iffy hardware drivers and older software causes all sorts of grief. Apple has silly amounts of money to spend and is far more profitable than MS and they would still be if they gave OSX away. They are a hardware company after all.
I already agreed to the relevance of those factors, but as I said this has to be weighed against the compensating fact that Microsoft has good reasons to spend ten to twenty times as much on Windows development than Apple does on Mac OS X development. The ROI on that particular part of the business is the main factor, not the total assets of the company, and Mac OS X is by now a small fraction of the total, always greatly outweighed by Mac hardware, which in turn is dwarfed by iOS products. With Windows plus Office the main lifeline for Microsoft, clearly it can and will spend far more on that part of its business than Apple does on Mac OS X.
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jjj

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #71 on: February 22, 2012, 10:54:57 pm »

I already agreed to the relevance of those factors, but as I said this has to be weighed against the compensating fact that Microsoft has good reasons to spend ten to twenty times as much on Windows development than Apple does on Mac OS X development. The ROI on that particular part of the business is the main factor, not the total assets of the company, and Mac OS X is by now a small fraction of the total, always greatly outweighed by Mac hardware, which in turn is dwarfed by iOS products. With Windows plus Office the main lifeline for Microsoft, clearly it can and will spend far more on that part of its business than Apple does on Mac OS X.
Not necessarily. Besides simply throwing more money at a more complex problem is not necessarily the most effective solution. Reducing the complexity of the main problem by many orders of magnitude [as Apple has done] is much easier. Just consider how many different potential components and combinations thereof there will be for Windows to run on. Which would be impossible to test on (Unlike the handful of variations with Macs) and would cost far more than a mere 10-20 times more.
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Gemmtech

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #72 on: February 23, 2012, 10:14:18 am »

The entire discussion regarding which OS has the easier job, that's a no brainer, Apple keeps tight control over the hardware and software to keep it simple, they keep ALL of their products simple so that the "Sheepole" can use them.  There are some pros with this approach (fragmentation of Android comes to mind) but for the most part I like some control over my device, Apple simply tells you what is right for you.  It has to be exponentially easier to deal with the Mac OS than Windows, as I stated before Apple worries about maybe 4 motherboards, let's say 20, how many motherboards does Windows have to worry about supporting?  True, a lot of them are using the same chipsets and the like, but still they all add their own idiosyncrasies to the mix.  I won't regurgitate what I already said, but the simple fact that the Windows OS is every bit (pun) as stable if not more so than Mac OS says a lot about how much smarter the engineers are at MS than at Apple.  It takes me about 5 minutes to change a hard drive in one of my computers and white gloves and about 1.5 hours to change one in an IMac, yet Jonathan Ive is considered a design genius :-(  form over function is idiotic when both phenomenal ergonomics and aesthetics can be equally achieved and live in perfect harmony. 
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Ellis Vener

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #73 on: February 23, 2012, 10:42:35 am »

Thank you everyone's input.

As I said earlier OS X Lion is working very smoothly for me. As a working photographer, as a businessman, as some who enjoys photography more than mucking about in the guts if a computer that is all I want from a computer: smoothness and reliability. Look down your nose at me all you like, I don't care. If Apple products start failing me in my little world I have no qualms about switching to a more reliable solution with a different company's logo on it.

As this has now devolved into an Apple vs Windows attack zone I am exercising my prerogative as the initiator of the thread and locking it.
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