Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

olePigeon · 10:40 AM

http://news.com.com/Ballmer+sees+squ...l?tag=nefd.top

Target date is December 31st, 2006. I guess it's technically 2006. I wonder if it'll be 11:59PM as well.

Edit: Fixed.

Turias · Oct 5, 2004, 12:56 PM

Originally posted by olePigeon:
I wonder if it'll be 11:59PM as well.

Fixed.

ManOfSteal · Oct 5, 2004, 12:59 PM

They won't make it.

SafariX · Oct 5, 2004, 01:02 PM

I'm REALLY looking forward to it! </sarcasm>

CD Hanks · Oct 5, 2004, 01:03 PM

Originally posted by SafariX:
I'm looking forward to it!

Fixed.

demograph68 · Oct 5, 2004, 01:03 PM

He did not repeat that phrasing on Tuesday, instead saying, "I don't know what I said exactly, but it was bad."

businezguy · Oct 6, 2004, 10:26 PM

That's the most ridiculous estimated shipping date I've ever heard of. They are obviously desperately trying to make sure Longhorn ships in 2006, even if they have to ship it on the last day of the year.

I bet Apple will be close to releasing the successor to Tiger at that point. Since they have already cut out Win FS and Avalon, Apple should remain the company with the most advanced operating system in the world.

Truepop · Oct 6, 2004, 10:41 PM

You win this round Apple...

Superchicken · Oct 6, 2004, 10:55 PM

Apple won this round with Panther the rest is gravy.

MilkmanDan · Oct 6, 2004, 11:01 PM

You mean, when we expect apple to release OS 10.6 or something?

Krusty · Oct 6, 2004, 11:14 PM

Wait .. this isn't even the "real" longhorn with all its whizbang feature.... this is just the "XP plus" version of longhorn, correct ?

[promo]
"From the people who brought you Sol.exe and "Works" comes the next major advance in home computing. 5+ years in the making. Longhorn ... it has a NEW name"
[/promo]

BTW, this is especially funny to me right at this second. Just got off the phone after 45 minutes of tech supporting my bro with the sound problems he's been having after upgrading from ME to XP Pro. Seems he got some spyware that had rendered his computer completely unusable and decided to upgrade since he was going to have to do a complete system wipe anyway. I know I'm preaching to the choir on these boards but folks, if you're a "light" user (surfing/email/light word processing) ... do yourself a favor and cough up a few extra bucks for a low end eMac. Headaches saved over several years will be worth every penny and more.

MilkmanDan · Oct 6, 2004, 11:19 PM

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.... you said 'ME'

Spliffdaddy · Oct 7, 2004, 12:12 AM

Microsoft could always follow Apple's lead - and release their operating system 2 years before it's finished.

CD Hanks · Oct 7, 2004, 12:14 AM

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
Microsoft could always follow Apple's lead - and release their operating system 2 years before it's finished.

HAHAHAHAHA

Good one.

Krusty · Oct 7, 2004, 12:20 AM

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
Microsoft could always follow Apple's lead - and release their operating system 2 years before it's finished.

Good point. I'm glad they decided to hold off on SP2 for several months until is was "finished". Otherwise, it wouldn't be the rock solid, secure, and problem free release that it is today.

Spliffdaddy · Oct 7, 2004, 12:35 AM

I'm sure it was worth a hundred bucks for the privilege of beta testing OSX.

The free upgrade for twenty bucks was just icing on the cake.

damn. I kill me sometimes.

As a peecee troll, my finest hour was during the initial retail release of OSX.

"Damn, it's slow."

"The OS? or the hardware?"

"Good question."

His Dudeness · Oct 7, 2004, 01:31 AM

What I find funny is that all the PC mags are touting this new 3D interface... looks very familiar... where have I seen this stuff for the past
four years? Oh, OS X.

storer · Oct 7, 2004, 02:12 AM

Originally posted by MilkmanDan:
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.... you said 'ME'

how could you?

Xeo · Oct 7, 2004, 02:28 AM

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
damn. I kill me sometimes.

just once will suffice. ba dump, ching

jk man, 10.0 was a piece of crap

Gee4orce · Oct 7, 2004, 02:49 AM

I can guarantee thought that there will be a million times as much hooplah made about this than any - nay - all Apple OS releases combined. You'd have though that Mac OS X didn't exist. All the MS drones will be crowing about how their GUI now has accelerated graphics and translucent windows * etc, etc, and all us Mac users will be sat on the sideline quietly mentionin that ours has done that for 5 years....

I remember the Windows 95 launch.

* - has this been removed though ? Or does XP already do this. What was it Longhorn was supposed to do agian ?

PB2K · Oct 7, 2004, 07:10 AM

xp has translucent windows, you have to enable that option, when you press shift simultaneously with dragging, the window becomes transparent. handy huh?

thank you, thank you, you are a wondeful audience

mitchell_pgh · Oct 7, 2004, 07:53 AM

Just out of curiosity... what is left in this version?

They took out a good portion of the WOW!!! stuff...

Krusty · Oct 7, 2004, 07:56 AM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Just out of curiosity... what is left in this version?

The price

MilkmanDan · Oct 7, 2004, 08:05 AM

Originally posted by Krusty:
The price

Not IE or Windows Media Player. Thats for sure.

xi_hyperon · Oct 7, 2004, 08:40 AM

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
I'm sure it was worth a hundred bucks for the privilege of beta testing OSX.

The free upgrade for twenty bucks was just icing on the cake.

damn. I kill me sometimes.

As a peecee troll, my finest hour was during the initial retail release of OSX.

"Damn, it's slow."

"The OS? or the hardware?"

"Good question."

The best part was listening to *********s like the clown from MacNet2 who said the retail version was not the same thing as what he tested. Good times.

To be fair though, if X hadn't come out when it did, it would have probably taken much longer to get the 3rd party companies to release compatible software. Without that, I doubt that migration would have been as successful.

Cipher13 · Oct 7, 2004, 10:05 AM

Originally posted by PB2K:
xp has translucent windows, you have to enable that option, when you press shift simultaneously with dragging, the window becomes transparent. handy huh?

thank you, thank you, you are a wondeful audience

Get off the stage.

olePigeon · Oct 7, 2004, 10:30 AM

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
...and translucent windows * etc, etc, and all us Mac users will be sat on the sideline quietly mentionin that ours has done that for 5 years....

Solaris users are still yawning about the translucent part.

olePigeon · Oct 7, 2004, 10:42 AM

Originally posted by demograph68:
He did not repeat that phrasing on Tuesday, instead saying, "I don't know what I said exactly, but it was bad."

That was in regards to him saying iPod users are thieves.

An Alias · Oct 7, 2004, 10:50 AM

OS X is nice, but until it can run the apps I need, and at the same level of performance/features as Windows versions, it's about as much use as a tampon on my dinner plate. No amount of fluff in an OS can make it any better than something else if the apps don't exist.

So, that being said, XP does the business as of now, and Longhorn will just be a welcome upgrade.

Still, Mail.app is cool, I like that.

Superchicken · Oct 7, 2004, 11:01 AM

Originally posted by An Alias:
OS X is nice, but until it can run the apps I need, and at the same level of performance/features as Windows versions, it's about as much use as a tampon on my dinner plate. No amount of fluff in an OS can make it any better than something else if the apps don't exist.

So, that being said, XP does the business as of now, and Longhorn will just be a welcome upgrade.

Still, Mail.app is cool, I like that.

And you're in a Mac forum why? Troll.

That said, Yah Longhorn has gone from the most important windows update ever to, XP with a new theme.

An Alias · Oct 7, 2004, 11:05 AM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
And you're in a Mac forum why? Troll.

Erm, because I have a Mac and use it everyday? Maybe that's why. If you managed to read my post you'd see that I do like OS X, and Mail.app

, so that kinda implies I use one.

Anyway, yes, I do have one, a PB for mostly web stuff, email, Unixy things, writing, and a little graphics work here and there in Photoshop.

The main point is, for high-end work that I do, the Mac doesn't cut ot, mostly due to software problems, but that doesn't mean I have to be shoehorned into one OS.

turtle777 · Oct 7, 2004, 11:13 AM

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
Microsoft could always follow Apple's lead - and release their operating system 2 years before it's finished.

How dare you !

-t

turtle777 · Oct 7, 2004, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by An Alias:
OS X is nice, but until it can run the apps I need, and at the same level of performance/features as Windows versions, it's about as much use as a tampon on my dinner plate.

-t

An Alias · Oct 7, 2004, 11:17 AM

Originally posted by turtle777:

If I only had that amount of hair today, ahhh...

Superchicken · Oct 7, 2004, 11:25 AM

Originally posted by An Alias:
Erm, because I have a Mac and use it everyday? Maybe that's why. If you managed to read my post you'd see that I do like OS X, and Mail.app , so that kinda implies I use one.

Anyway, yes, I do have one, a PB for mostly web stuff, email, Unixy things, writing, and a little graphics work here and there in Photoshop.

The main point is, for high-end work that I do, the Mac doesn't cut ot, mostly due to software problems, but that doesn't mean I have to be shoehorned into one OS.

Regardless of whether or not you're a Mac user or not, I still call troll. If only for the fact that you claim to be doing "unixy things" and yet are referring to the advances made by OS X in things like CoreImage, Spotlight, etc as fluff. One would hope anyone who has a clue how to use Unix would also be able to respect the work Apple has done with OS X to make it a solid and competitive OS.

An Alias · Oct 7, 2004, 11:30 AM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Regardless of whether or not you're a Mac user or not, I still call troll. If only for the fact that you claim to be doing "unixy things" and yet are referring to the advances made by OS X in things like CoreImage, Spotlight, etc as fluff. One would hope anyone who has a clue how to use Unix would also be able to respect the work Apple has done with OS X to make it a solid and competitive OS.

LOL, you missed my point by a friggin mile there. I could have used any OS as an example, point being, all those really cool OS advancements mean nothing if the computer is incapable of doing what you need it to do.

Now, don't take that to mean OS X is junk (which it's not), but rather, FOR ME, there are certain, very critical tasks that I do, and Macs don't cut it, the software isn't there, and if it is, it's sub-par to Windows versions.

That's all, nothing more, nothing less, a simple truthful observation.

Superchicken · Oct 7, 2004, 11:44 AM

Originally posted by An Alias:
LOL, you missed my point by a friggin mile there. I could have used any OS as an example, point being, all those really cool OS advancements mean nothing if the computer is incapable of doing what you need it to do.

Now, don't take that to mean OS X is junk (which it's not), but rather, FOR ME, there are certain, very critical tasks that I do, and Macs don't cut it, the software isn't there, and if it is, it's sub-par to Windows versions.

That's all, nothing more, nothing less, a simple truthful observation.

They're not meaningless they show what developers can and will bring out very soon. You may not care about CoreImage but those of us who do a lot of graphics work welcome this, I can't wait to see when Adobe and Macromedia blend this into their apps (or if they don't and get clobbered by a new Dev who beats them silly with far less work than they've had to do.) These features may not be useful to you now, but they're not meaningless. They show what will come down the line, and what will enrich the platform, what will bring in new users, and keep the ones we have, and ultimately will give Apple and their developers more of an audience to design for. And who knows with all these cool new features and all the new people that we'll have switching to the Mac to do their pro work, we might even see your precious PC only software ported and continued to be developed on the Mac.
Lets try and be a little less short sighted.

hayesk · Oct 7, 2004, 11:45 AM

Originally posted by An Alias:
Now, don't take that to mean OS X is junk (which it's not), but rather, FOR ME, there are certain, very critical tasks that I do, and Macs don't cut it, the software isn't there, and if it is, it's sub-par to Windows versions.

My wife's aunt kept telling me that she couldn't buy a Mac because the school system used software that was only available on Windows. She didn't want to muck with virtual PC but she suffers with Windows every day. Well, when she came to visit, she brought her laptop. I found out the crucial piece of software that only ran on Windows was a FileMaker Pro database.

My point: The troll labelling would stop if you told us what apps you need that don't exist on MacOS. There may be alternatives that you don't know about.

An Alias · Oct 7, 2004, 12:20 PM

Originally posted by hayesk:

My point: The troll labelling would stop if you told us what apps you need that don't exist on MacOS. There may be alternatives that you don't know about.

Jeez, never thought I'd get hauled up for stating that OS X didn't do everything I wanted.

As to my apps, believe me, there are no Mac equivalents, and the ones that are on the Mac perform badly.

Here's a short list.

3DS Max - No mac version, and is crucial for certain game dev. we do.

Softmage XSI - No mac version, and is crucial for film/tv work, years of animators trained in Soft can't just be shunted onto something else.

Motion builder - Mac version is useless to us since it plugs into Max, and that the Mac version underperforms.

Maya Unlimited - available on Mac, but is woefully utter sh!t compaed to the Windows version, hell, my Irix version runs better tha the OS X one.

Combustion - Mac version is one huge underperforming mess compared to the Windows one.

I could list a dozen more, but I won't
Now, there's no chance in hell we can use alternatives, even if there were ones, the OS and computer platform is completely secondary to the spftware. Our animators train on the toolset and they become pretty loyal to them, like any craftssman with their favourite tools.

Having said all that, I have a Mac, I like it for what it does, and that's it. It's not black & white to me. Just because I am forced to use Windows does not mean I think it's a superior OS, or that OS X sucks.

Windows gets the job done which is all that matters. I wish OS X could be as flexible as Widows in the high-ed arena, but it's not, so sadly my own use of OS X is mostly for simple things, which I enjoy

So superchicken, you get me those apps on OS X, and to the same level of functionality as their Windows equivalents. Not alternative versions, but those exact ones because all I care about is the software, not the OS, and I'll buy you a beer, deal?

kcmac · Oct 7, 2004, 12:27 PM

I would also be interested in the apps you are using.

dampeoples · Oct 7, 2004, 12:28 PM

Yeah, like open source or shareware games

kcmac · Oct 7, 2004, 12:33 PM

Good one. But I think you know what I mean. Someone ragging on an OS and blaming apps and then not mentioning the apps by name.

An Alias · Oct 7, 2004, 12:39 PM

Originally posted by kcmac:
Good one. But I think you know what I mean. Someone ragging on an OS and blaming apps and then not mentioning the apps by name.

I didn't think I'd have to qualify a statement such as this, 'OS X is no good to me for my work because it does not support my apps'.

Why do people get so worked up over the fact that some of us use a multitude of OSes and that some are better than others for certain tasks?

I'll say it again, OS X is useless for what I do, but it's also perfect for what I do

Superchicken · Oct 7, 2004, 02:51 PM

Originally posted by An Alias:
I didn't think I'd have to qualify a statement such as this, 'OS X is no good to me for my work because it does not support my apps'.

Why do people get so worked up over the fact that some of us use a multitude of OSes and that some are better than others for certain tasks?

I'll say it again, OS X is useless for what I do, but it's also perfect for what I do

Dude, you really need to take a course in not sounding like a troll. I don't think you're trying to be irritating but... develop some web social skills

olePigeon · Oct 7, 2004, 03:03 PM

Originally posted by An Alias:
Now, don't take that to mean OS X is junk (which it's not), but rather, FOR ME, there are certain, very critical tasks that I do, and Macs don't cut it, the software isn't there, and if it is, it's sub-par to Windows versions.

We all know how critical Quake and Half-Life are.

An Alias · Oct 7, 2004, 03:04 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Dude, you really need to take a course in not sounding like a troll. I don't think you're trying to be irritating but... develop some web social skills

Gimme a break, it's a net forum, full of angst. You're problem is that I spoke my mind about something you are overly passionate, and loyal about.

Social skills fail when up against single-mindedness

hayesk · Oct 7, 2004, 04:37 PM

Originally posted by An Alias:
Jeez, never thought I'd get hauled up for stating that OS X didn't do everything I wanted.

That's better. But basically, you've chosen your modelling/rendering environment around a Windows app (3DS Max), then there's not much you can do. Every app you mention has a Mac alternative. A friend of mine works for a game dev company (makes PS2 games) and uses a different environment but runs on Macs. He claims it runs great. But I haven't seen it and haven't talked to him in a while so I can't give you any more info.

goMac · Oct 7, 2004, 05:57 PM

Originally posted by olePigeon:
We all know how critical Quake and Half-Life are.

Problem is theres a OS X version of Quake.. :-\

An Alias · Oct 7, 2004, 06:12 PM

Originally posted by hayesk:
That's better. But basically, you've chosen your modelling/rendering environment around a Windows app (3DS Max), then there's not much you can do. Every app you mention has a Mac alternative. A friend of mine works for a game dev company (makes PS2 games) and uses a different environment but runs on Macs. He claims it runs great. But I haven't seen it and haven't talked to him in a while so I can't give you any more info.

Doesn't work like that though. Pipelines are usually ingrained in companies, artists are trained on specific software, and if we hire trhem, we expect them to learn what we have. Macs, Windows, etc is all irrelevant when it comes to software.

Took this comany a few years to move from SGI to Linux/Windows (although we still use SGI for high-end film work). It's all a qyuestion of cost, performance, flexibility, etc. In that, Windows/Linux meets that criteria.
As to alternatives, there are none, there's no equivalent to XSI on Mac, don't say Maya, because we rely heavily on XSI's animation mixer functionality, as well as the animation tools. At the end of the day. it's all about software, I can't stress that enough, the OS, the hardware, etc. all comes after that. We build a pipeline around those software tools we need, and then worry about the hardware. Deciding on Windows was irrelevant, our tools were all Windows, or Unix based (Non-Mac), so it's far easier to go that route, than force an artist to get a Mac and hope for the best. Why have that hassle?

CharlesS · Oct 7, 2004, 08:13 PM

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
The free upgrade for twenty bucks was just icing on the cake.

I didn't pay anything for the 10.1 upgrade. They were giving it away for free at many Apple authorized resellers. The twenty bucks was only for shipping if you were too lazy to walk over to a reseller.