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Author Topic: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)  (Read 38964 times)

Farmer

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #20 on: February 19, 2012, 02:00:10 am »

Actually, the rev 2 G15 doesn't look nearly as good with far fewer keys.  The G19http://www.logitech.com/en-au/keyboards/keyboard/devices/4956 looks like the best bet now - it even has onboard memory so it remembers your shortcuts if you take it to another computer...

I may need a keyboard upgrade!
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Phil Brown

BernardLanguillier

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #21 on: February 19, 2012, 09:26:39 am »

Yeah...Win 7 doesn't suck too much...like I said, the main issue in use is keys...but for my main apps-Word, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop & Lightroom, Win vs Mac is really 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other...would I prefer Mac? Yes...am I worried about Mac Big Iron? Yes...can I get the work done that I need to do with Win 7/8? Yes.

Actually Win7 is pretty good. I have been using it at work for one year and a half in parallel with 10.6 at home. The one OSX feature I miss is expose, for the rest I may actually prefer Win7 or at least is it probably a draw.

This is sad because if I end up replacing my Mac Pro by a Win machine, so will the Mac book pro and Mac mini.

The real tiring thing is the swap of apps from OSX to Win, but that will be a one time pain.

Cheers,
Bernard

DeeJay

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #22 on: February 19, 2012, 12:28:41 pm »

I think we are to expect some rather big development this year in relation to hardware and software. Wether that is a touch screen iOS kind of thing I'm not sure. Basically Apple are looking to roll out entire new line of Macbook Pro's, iMacs and Mac Pros this year.

Something on the horizon and I think it's big.
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JBerardi

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #23 on: February 19, 2012, 03:09:49 pm »

It's a pity that Apple isn't prepared to release OS X without the hardware requirement in the EULA - even on a "no support" basis.  That would allow Hackintosh to become legitimate and let people who need "big iron" as Schewe puts it continue on their OS of choice (albeit without direct support, but then the community could likely keep it going quite well and Apple would still make software sales).

Competition is always good, and less isn't really going to help anyone.

One small problem with that logic:



http://www.asymco.com/2011/09/29/comparing-revenues-apple-and-microsoft/

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Farmer

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #24 on: February 19, 2012, 03:58:44 pm »

That's not really a problem.  If it's offered for sale without support on non-Apple hardware (but legal), then there's potential extra revenue for something that already developed and being used to support existing hardware.  It might be a small component, but for so long as they're still making OS X why not open the licence up?  (There are actually a number of reasons, like increased support costs even though it's offered at no support and, probably more importantly for Apple, it exposes the OS to potential crashes or security issues that may not present on Apple hardware and this will reflect on the OS even though it's offered without support).

It won't happen, and that's a shame.

For some good news, those Logitech G19 keyboards are Mac compatible!
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Phil Brown

red2

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #25 on: February 19, 2012, 05:33:02 pm »

Actually, you may want to seriously consider doing this...the chances of "Big Iron" being updated and staying current at Apple is diminishing...a recent problem with the EU regarding energy star ratings (I may have this slightly wrong, but it had to do with some sort of change with EU laws and power consumption) seems to have bitten Apples towers. Which would be the perfect excuse for Apple to drop the tower line up entirely.

...


Well, I have no idea what the future of the Mac Pro is (I own one and like it -- late 2010 model with 3.3GHz 6-core CPU), but I am curious about your comment regarding the energy star ratings. The EU apparently did adopt new regulations in 2009 (don't know if there are more recent changes) and I had the impression that Apple's desktops (including the Mac Pro) were OK with this. Here is a link to an Apple analysis of the Mac Pro's environmental footprint:
http://www.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/MacPro_Product_Environmental_Report.pdf
If there are energy efficiency problems with Apple's high end, I suspect this might be true of anything you might be considering as a replacement. I could be completely wrong, though. Haven't researched it much.

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Regards,
Bob D.

JBerardi

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #26 on: February 19, 2012, 08:34:44 pm »

That's not really a problem.  If it's offered for sale without support on non-Apple hardware (but legal), then there's potential extra revenue for something that already developed and being used to support existing hardware. It might be a small component, but for so long as they're still making OS X why not open the licence up? (There are actually a number of reasons, like increased support costs even though it's offered at no support and, probably more importantly for Apple, it exposes the OS to potential crashes or security issues that may not present on Apple hardware and this will reflect on the OS even though it's offered without support).

It won't happen, and that's a shame.

For some good news, those Logitech G19 keyboards are Mac compatible!

The point of that chart is that Apple is in the business of selling hardware, and at high margins. Licensing their OS would be the fasted way for them to destroy their cash cow. It would also ruin their brand, something Apple is obviously very concerned with. And, it would cause a ton of technical problems for the because OS X is integrated with the iCloud services, so "no support" isn't really an option... I frankly don't see any reason to do it other than to please a handful of geeks who can just as easily use Windows anyway.
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Chris Kern

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #27 on: February 19, 2012, 08:34:57 pm »

Personally, I'm worried...and so is Chris Sanderson (and some Apple employees I know). People who need big iron are a diminishing group and Apple tends to drop diminishing groups from their lineups. Even though they have $90 billion in the bank, it's due largely to iPhone/iPad sales. Real computers is a diminishing %. Big iron is falling even faster.

I would be surprised if Apple abandons big iron.  The cachet of having so many major players in the graphic arts industry is still important to the company for a number of reasons (not least that it helps in recruiting top software developers).  I've been told that Apple's management is already anxious about the migration of institutional customers to MS-Windows.

I'm more concerned that Apple engineering will be forced for economic reasons to strip some features that aren't of interest to the consumer market from the OS X bundle.  This is already happening with the 10.8 release next summer: X11 functionality, which until now was part of the product, is being migrated to the open source community.

I hasten to add that this isn't necessarily bad.  If Apple continues to support the X11 community developers, those of us who prefer OS X as a runtime environment but need access to standard UNIX tools -- and that includes every insitutional system administrator of Macintoshen I am aware of -- might actually be better off because Apple hasn't always been keeping current with the evolution of the mainstream UNIX environment, which mostly takes place on Linux these days.

I believe the published reports that there will be a new Mac Pro before by the end of the summer that will run Intel's "Ivy Bridge" processors and NVIDIA's "Kepler" graphics devices -- I suspect its launch will coincide with the 10.8 "Mountain Lion" release (do these public development code names really serve any useful purpose?) -- and that it will provide a lot of parallel CPU cycles for a price-point at or lower than the current Mac Pro product.  I'm looking forward to buying one.

I'm more inclined to worry that Apple's management may be inclined to edge away from the complete control and coordination of hardware and software that has characterized the product line until now.  I have long been a proponent of open source software, but OS X already is less stable that the big-three commercial UNIX operating systems from HP, IBM and Oracle, and increasing dependence on the open source community for what may seem to be peripheral functions to the end-user may be of critical importance to the institutional market.

Chris

Chris Kern

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #28 on: February 19, 2012, 08:53:08 pm »

A reader's email suggested that I say explicitly something that was only implicit in my earlier post.

I don't think Apple's management will deliberately walk away the institutional desktop market.  However, it is possible that certain decisions regarding software support could inadvertently drive institutional customers away by making large populations of Mac desktops difficult to administer efficiently.  If that were to happen, I suspect a business decision to abandon the Mac Pro product line would not be far behind.

Chris

Farmer

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #29 on: February 19, 2012, 10:48:05 pm »

The point of that chart is that Apple is in the business of selling hardware, and at high margins. Licensing their OS would be the fasted way for them to destroy their cash cow. It would also ruin their brand, something Apple is obviously very concerned with. And, it would cause a ton of technical problems for the because OS X is integrated with the iCloud services, so "no support" isn't really an option... I frankly don't see any reason to do it other than to please a handful of geeks who can just as easily use Windows anyway.

I agree.  As I said, it's not going to happen, and there are good reason for it to not happen, but it would be good for those who use big macs.  That's all :-)
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Phil Brown

Schewe

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #30 on: February 20, 2012, 12:03:52 am »

I would be surprised if Apple abandons big iron.  The cachet of having so many major players in the graphic arts industry is still important to the company for a number of reasons (not least that it helps in recruiting top software developers).

Look, I sat in a meeting where Phil Schiller explained that the 50K "pro users" couldn't "save Apple". Then he explained why Steve killed the 6 PCI slot Mac and then rolled in the Bondi Blue iMac and said it was the savior of Apple.

To a certain extent, history has proven Phil (and Steve) correct.

But...Apple is not throwing it's considerable assets at being the top line CPU suppliers anymore.

Apple had a deal with Intel at one time that Apple would have a period of time in which Apple got the fastest motherboards/CPUs in an exclusive time period. That is no long active. The Mac Pro Towers are no longer the top end. And that really sucks.

Also note that certain Apple employees (who obviously I can't name or else their ass would be grass) have expressed a real concern that the guys who have been working on big iron are either gone or working on consumers sorts of hardware. That's a real concern.

Yes, it's entirely possible that Apple will pull out a game changer when it comes to big iron–what Steve Jobs referred to as "trucks" last year. I can only hope...but the drumbeat says otherwise. And that's what has me worried.

If you have any friends at Apple...tell them that you need big iron...make your voices heard. Help the cause. But be prepared to seek alternatives.
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Gemmtech

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #31 on: February 20, 2012, 08:59:13 am »

"Apple had a deal with Intel at one time that Apple would have a period of time in which Apple got the fastest motherboards/CPUs in an exclusive time period. That is no long active. The Mac Pro Towers are no longer the top end. And that really sucks."

How would that even have been possible?  And when?  Apple started using Intel based systems in 2005-2006?  I have never taken a MAC apart that had the most cutting edge parts in it, they never have.  How stupid would Intel have to be to tell all their much larger customers, hey we're giving all the best stuff to Apple for an exclusive period of time, you'll have to wait.  it just doesn't make sense.

I've taken my fair share of Apple products apart (IMacs and Minis are the worst), they use mid-grade parts and in some cases, garbage, they just stick a higher price tag on it, that's called marketing 101, when you can get a lot more money for the same product.  

Intel motherboards aren't the crème de la crème anyhow...


« Last Edit: February 20, 2012, 09:21:51 am by Gemmtech »
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JimGoshorn

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #32 on: February 20, 2012, 10:10:09 am »

How would that even have been possible?  And when?

As I recall from what I read at the time, in order to really seal the deal with Macs going to Intel, Intel gave Apple first access to it's latest developments. I don't remember though how long that deal was in effect.

Jim
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Schewe

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #33 on: February 20, 2012, 12:46:25 pm »

As I recall from what I read at the time, in order to really seal the deal with Macs going to Intel, Intel gave Apple first access to it's latest developments. I don't remember though how long that deal was in effect.

Yep...for a period of time, Apple got a time based exclusive on the fastest new Intel processors...not any more though. I'm also not sure how long that deal lasted. But when the first Intel based Mac Pro tower came out (and for at least 2 or 3 after that) the Mac Pro were the fastest upon launch. It was always some months afterward that other hardware makers got the same chips.
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Gemmtech

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #34 on: February 20, 2012, 03:51:12 pm »

I don't believe Intel "needed" Apple, Apple cleary needed Intel, as a  matter of fact I'm positive.  Granted, it adds something to Intel's bottom line, but I doubt it's much.  And the dates don't mesh, the Intel CPUs were launched and then many months after an Apple Mac Pro was launched.  Apple still doesn't launch their Macs and IMacs in accordance with Intel's latest CPUs, they have always lagged behind every other manufacturer, IOW, they have never been bleeding edge.  Why would you "screw over" 99% of your clients to attract one insignificant player?  The first Intel Mac Pro was "Woodcrest" August 2006, the reviews on PCs was already happening in June-July 2006.  I've been building PCs since 1998 and for awhile was shipping them all over the world, Apple never had the bleeding edge products, possibly the first were close, but since that time they really lag behind and they never are at the front of the pack in anything, phones included.  I suppose anything is possible, but the dates just don't support the theory they were the first to have the fastest Intel CPUs and personally I think they are making the same mistake that they did in the beginning, which almost lead to them going bankrupt, if not for Bill Gates and Co. you would have never heard of an IPhone or IPad...  

It's all a moot point now, Apple will eventually quit "making" "computers" and will concentrate on music, videos and IOS devices and who knows what will happen once WinTablets hit the street (I'll buy one then) and other phone makers continue their onslaught of superior products....We shall see.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2012, 04:58:44 pm by Gemmtech »
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BJL

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will the arrival of 10.8 prevent us from staying with 10.6 or 10.7?
« Reply #35 on: February 20, 2012, 04:40:41 pm »

I find the fast pace of OSX releases together with the remarkable ability of Apple to generate issues in terms of application compatibility to be a real pain.

It seems that my 8 core Mac Pro, only 4 years old will not be supported by 10.8 according to this source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5544/apple-releases-os-x-108-mountain-lion-preview
My solution to that is not to upgrade the OS until I have a need to, and often that need is when software updates that I want need a newer verso of the OS that I have. This tends to correlate with Apple's ending official support for the version I am running. On that basis 10.6 (Snow Leopard) is my target, and might still be after 10.8 arrives. So from that point of view, the main question is how would your 4 year old Mac Pro suffer by staying at 10.7 for the rest of it service life? I count that Apl ewil end 10.7 support until at least the arrival of 10.9, going by past practice.

Does anyone know if the release of 10.8 will mean the end of official support for 10.6?
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JimGoshorn

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #36 on: February 20, 2012, 05:04:51 pm »

For me, there are 3 factors that determine how long I hang onto hardware:

1. Will the Apple OS support it?

2. Will Adobe support it (which is why I got a 2009 Intel - Adobe dropped G5)?

3. Will Photoshop or Lightroom require better hardware to run well.

I really hope Apple doesn't kill off towers because the thought of buying new hardware and learning a new OS to replace something that works isn't thrilling...

Jim
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #37 on: February 20, 2012, 06:25:30 pm »

I really hope Apple doesn't kill off towers because the thought of buying new hardware and learning a new OS to replace something that works isn't thrilling...

Yep, but since the tower is a critical piece of equipment for me I have started to look at replacement options. My Mac Pro is not doing too well at 4.5 years old and I will have no choice but to buy a replacement quickly the day it dies. I would for sure not invest in the current Mac Pro without visibility on the future or the line up.

OSX has served me well and I am really not looking forward to the switch back to Windows... but it seems that the Dell Precision T5500 is a close equivalent to the Mac Pro: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=bw1s1422&c=us&l=en&s=soho&cs=ussoho1&model_id=precision-t5500

3,800 US$ for a dual 6 core Xeon machine (12 cores), 12 GB RAM and Quadro 4000 2GB graphic card, Firewire and USB 3.0 support. We use these at work for high end applications and they are rock solid and very silent in operation.

The additional problem is that I don't want to work in a mixed Win/Mac environment, so I'll regretfully start to look next week also for potential replacement options for the Mac mini and Mac book pro as well.

Cheers,
Bernard

kers

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #38 on: February 20, 2012, 06:40:26 pm »


OSX has served me well and I am really not looking forward to the switch back to Windows... but it seems that the Dell Precision T5500 is a close equivalent to the Mac Pro: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=bw1s1422&c=us&l=en&s=soho&cs=ussoho1&model_id=precision-t5500


Yes I agree .... IT IS UGLY (and still uses old techno like 3g harddisks)
and if i am correct Dell is part of Apple..? So thats the trucks company from now on...
« Last Edit: February 20, 2012, 06:50:08 pm by kers »
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Pieter Kers
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Farmer

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Re: OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
« Reply #39 on: February 20, 2012, 06:54:50 pm »

Dell is not a part of Apple...

What's a 3g hard disk?
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Phil Brown
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