[motti]

I'll be showing off my ibook running X at the end of this week to my chef. He already asked me what would be easier with a mac? And why do pros use macs for photoshop or video editing?
Just need some powerful arguments

[Fdanna]

Originally posted by motti:
I'll be showing off my ibook running X at the end of this week to my chef. He already asked me what would be easier with a mac? And why do pros use macs for photoshop or video editing?
Just need some powerful arguments

Chef? I think you mean boss or manager :-)

[derekn]

Here's one good place to start:
http://www.apple.com/switch/

You can click on Why Mac etc, of course it's heavily pro-mac but it's a good place to start.

As for why Pros use Macs for video editing, simple, Final Cut Pro. I know a Windows user who does video and even for her FCP is the BEST. And Graphics Pros use Macs for Photoshop because that was where it all started. The Mac pretty much made Adobe what it is now through Photoshop.

[cube-dude]

Don't forget to mention the free-for-life iTools account, er . . . nevermind.

[motti]

not chef but boss..
why is photoshop still better on the mac? i know the handling "feels" better, but feeling is not a hard fact.

[BTP]

For one thing, you can run every major OS on it, with varying degrees of performance.

You have to worry far less about viruses, spyware and security problems. That's partially because MS's lack of focus on security and on the pervasiveness of Windows. They are bigger, so more people are going to look for, and find, holes. There are quite a few and if you don't update, you can open yourself up to a load of security problems. Aslo, there are a lot of tie-ins in Windows and people can send emails that have far too much ability to control the PC. I digress...

Quality is a good selling point, as it TCO.

A common refrain about Macs: "They just work"

The networking is excellent. Airport built-in has far superior range than any PC with a card sticking out the side. Connect to PC networks.

Easier to learn and use. I am basing that on personal experience with people that started out on both, and people with a Mac, in my experience, were able to be more productive and needed less help. Many others may say the same, this is my personal experience.

No DRM.

I tried for some less mainstream.

As for Photoshop being better, I don't use it, I can't say. I do know quite a few people that use Macs for video and it seems to be that it is a great solution. I know some people that use Avid, but a lot use FCP 3. Again, something I don't use, but have observed.

Why not ask that in the AV forum if you don't get a good answer here?

HTH.

[Edit: I found this, which has parts that relate directly to your question. I can't vouch for it personally. Here it is:

http://www.jcrdesign.com/macsrule.html

[designbc]

Originally posted by motti:
not chef but boss..
why is photoshop still better on the mac?

I use Photoshop in both platforms and Photoshop ISN'T better on the mac. It is just that the printing industry is based mostly in Macs. That's it.
Photoshop feels the same in both to me, as well as Illustrator.
Quark 5 looks much nicer in Windows. (Even though I hate this program without shortcuts for the tools in both systems)

[derekn]

Originally posted by BTP:
You have to worry far less about viruses, spyware and security problems. That's partially because MS's lack of focus on security and on the pervasiveness of Windows. They are bigger, so more people are going to look for, and find, holes. There are quite a few and if you don't update, you can open yourself up to a load of security problems. Aslo, there are a lot of tie-ins in Windows and people can send emails that have far too much ability to control the PC. I digress...

That's a good point and one I forgot. LOL Another problem with Windows is the digital rights management. It's not bad yet but it will get worse with the next major release which was previously known as Palladium. You quite literally will NOT be able to do things in Windows without M$ knowing about it. So they'll be constantly over your shoulder watching what you do etc. On the Mac you don't need to worry about that right now. Hopefully it won't come to anything like M$ but for the time being what you do on your Mac is your business and is private.

[Mark Tungston]

dude,

start off with no viruses...EVER

then tell him apple gives away all the programs he needs:

email
browser
chat

and others he may/may not use

[KidRed]

What's that domain- whyamac.com or something? I'm sure that's be a great source of factual data.

[mitchell_pgh]

Two Words

Unix Based

Most people that don't know dick about Macs at least know something about Unix.

Photoshop and the Mac go hand and hand. With Apple, Photoshop is a priority, where in the Windows world, it's just another application (Photoshop is still a major seller for Adobe even with a 3% market...)

P.S. If you are talking about a desidn environment, just say that EVERYONE uses a Mac (they use it to boast about Windows all the time!)

Drop names like Time Magazine, USA Today, etc. etc.

[sniffer]

It's like you can do the same tasks on both platforms, but you do things in different ways. It really is hard to find the really strong arguments pro either side. I'll think the answear why some are pro macs has a lot to do their subjective feelings towards the platform. At least that might be how I feel. But in the same time there is also things like, stability, no(known)viruses, nice designed GUI, underlaying *nix, a great community, and so on, that convince me to use this platform over others. It's quite induvidual.
It's possible that you don't really need to put so much into the verbal arguments why the mac platform is good. I know a few people that have swiched because they have seen my mac in action, and what I can do with it, and not because I have tried to talk them into swiching to mac. The first thing people notice about a mac is a nice designed hardware, and then the small details like e.g. "Hey, you have a glowing Apple back of the lid.. Wow!!, and so on. Macs have many nice touches, and just by have it around many people get a nice impression on macs. You really don't need to "push" it to anyone. That is quite cool.

[NeXTLoop]

Perhaps one of the greatest, but often overlooked, reasons is consistancy. There's often times no rhyme or reason to the way Windoze programs work. They're no real interface guidelines that they're forced to use. Not to the extent that Mac programs do.

With pretty much every Mac program you may use, you know certain things about it. You know that its pretty much going to work and act like every other Mac program.

In addition, software on the Mac often times works better than Windoze. I remember reading a review that CNET did on Netscape 7.0 when it was first released. One reason that CNET listed for giving it a bad review, was that the Mac version was worse than the Windoze version. They said that over the years they had come to expect that Mac versions of software would look and work better than Windoze versions, but that wasn't the case with Netscape 7.

It's been mentioned before, but Macs JUST WORK. No screwing around with Registries, no messing with viruses. They just work. Scott Kelby of MacDesign also works for a PhotoShop support line. He wrote in one issue of MacDesign, that his conversations with Mac users calling in for support most often consist of requests for information on how to achieve a certain effect with PS. When Windoze users call in, they're most often calling in because they can't even get PhotoShop to work. Says a lot...

[CatOne]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Two Words

Unix Based

Most people that don't know dick about Macs at least know something about Unix.

Photoshop and the Mac go hand and hand. With Apple, Photoshop is a priority, where in the Windows world, it's just another application (Photoshop is still a major seller for Adobe even with a 3% market...)

P.S. If you are talking about a desidn environment, just say that EVERYONE uses a Mac (they use it to boast about Windows all the time!)

Drop names like Time Magazine, USA Today, etc. etc.

And that's compelling why? UNIX based isn't a great selling point for most people -- from what they know it's difficult, confusing, and hard. Being UNIX based isn't a benefit to people -- the results of it may be though (more stable, you can run multiple programs at one time without issues, etc.). But you can do all that just fine on Windows (NT/2000/XP are really quite good under the covers) so it's not a compelling benefit over Windows IMO.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by motti:
I'll be showing off my ibook running X at the end of this week to my chef. He already asked me what would be easier with a mac? And why do pros use macs for photoshop or video editing?
Just need some powerful arguments

Why not turn it around -- ask him "Why not a Mac?" and see what his concerns are?

If it's "software availablity" then find exactly what he needs and show him what's available. If it's "compatibility" then show him your machine connecting to a PC. If it's "games" well then you'll have to either admit the PC is better or find out the games he likes and see whether they play on the Mac.

These days I don't really see a compelling reason NOT to use a Mac as a primary computer (except for some business machines which require software which won't run on a Mac at all).

[Spheric Harlot]

Heh. Try this:

--------------------------
Examining Microsoft Update
Posted by michael on Wednesday February 26, @10:00AM
from the policy-of-no-privacy dept.
eggsovereasy writes "The Inquirer is reporting that a group in Germany has deciphered the information sent to Microsoft during an update using Windows Update and says that information on all software installed on your computer is sent, even that which is not Microsoft's own software." The original article is, unfortunately, pay-per-view. Update: 02/26 18:19 GMT by T: ionyka points to this "related article from ITWorld that deals with Microsoft's transferring of information through Windows Media Player. When you open up Media Player it sends information back to Microsoft like what movies you play, what songs you listen to and where they come from."
--------------------------
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/02/2...id=109&tid=158

This is not uncanny timing - if you look through the micro$oft section of Slashdot, this kind of horrorshow (and worse) turns up about twice a week or so.

-s*

[Dale Sorel]

Originally posted by NeXTLoop:
With pretty much every Mac program you may use, you know certain things about it. You know that its pretty much going to work and act like every other Mac program.

Yep, one word says it all: intuitive

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by CatOne:
And that's compelling why? UNIX based isn't a great selling point for most people -- from what they know it's difficult, confusing, and hard. Being UNIX based isn't a benefit to people -- the results of it may be though (more stable, you can run multiple programs at one time without issues, etc.). But you can do all that just fine on Windows (NT/2000/XP are really quite good under the covers) so it's not a compelling benefit over Windows IMO.

Most people do think complex when they hear the term Unix, but they also think stable, secure and advanced.

Apple is also known for it's easy to use interface.

It really is the best of both worlds...

[Namorado]

The best all-around site I've found. in layman's language, every aspect from
hardware speeds to user work productivity is dealt with effectively:
http://www.macvspc.info

Contains hundreds of studys and proofs... and two downloadable/printable
PDF-versions are available. Frequently updated. Please visit and refer others to

Mac vs. PC

submitted by [email protected] [delete old [email protected]]

[saltines17]

"Perhaps one of the greatest, but often overlooked, reasons is consistancy. There's often times no rhyme or reason to the way Windoze programs work. They're no real interface guidelines that they're forced to use. Not to the extent that Mac programs do.

With pretty much every Mac program you may use, you know certain things about it. You know that its pretty much going to work and act like every other Mac program."

As much as I otherwise love OS X, this really isn't true anymore... even among Apple's own applications.

[ntsc]

i don't think thats true, Apple's applications in particular may not follow the nuances of the interface guidlines but the experience is still preatty unified they do work in mostly the same way (much more than windows does anyway) just look a little different.

In fact the worst offenders imho when it comes to mucking up consistency are developers who cling to the OS 9 guidlines in a misguided attempt to show us what a "good" interface is when all they are doing is breaking the consistancy that they so crave. Not to mention annoy everyone who uses their software into the bargin.

[Spheric Harlot]

more from slashdot:

-------------------------
Trustworthy Computing At One Year
Posted by timothy on Wednesday February 26, @05:31PM
from the still-an-infant dept.
ackthpt writes "One year ago Bill Gates issued forth an email directing the company to work toward Trustworthy Computing, making Microsoft operating systems, applications and services secure and reliable. Where is that effort at today? vnunet has this Q&A with Microsoft security chief Stuart Okin. Slow, steady progress seems to be the result. They've targeted Security, Privacy, Reliability and Business Integrity, but so far have had a go at Privacy. Okin indicates the strategy may take 5 to 15 years, but more immediate milestones are targeted within the next two years and focusing on reducing vulnerabilities in the next version of Windows, rather than attempting to fix 2000 or XP. I'd chalk this up as a frank and honest interview, rather than madly spun, and paints a picture of the massive cat herding effort undertaken."
-------------------------

[hardcat1970]

1. no scary dialog boxes
2. no the s***head pop up wizard
3. better human interface
4. you still have a choice using a mac

but i just used windows xp for the first time, and i think the gap between windows xp and osx is much narrower than it was before.

[philzilla]

Originally posted by motti:
I'll be showing off my ibook running X at the end of this week to my chef. He already asked me what would be easier with a mac? And why do pros use macs for photoshop or video editing?
Just need some powerful arguments

find out what he'd want to do, and angle your arguments that way. for example, there's no point in pushing the Unix factor, if he's a vague technophobe. and so on...

[Westfoto]

Originally posted by motti:
not chef but boss..
why is photoshop still better on the mac? i know the handling "feels" better, but feeling is not a hard fact.

Colorsync is one way to answer that

[hudson1]

Well, let me go on record as saying that the marriage of the Mac and Unix is more of a compromise than a "best of both worlds" result. Don't get me wrong, I like my Mac and OS X but I'm not entirely blind to the fact that not all of the changes have been for the better. Just the net result is better and this is by far the best marriage between "normal" computer usage and Unix that anyone has created.

Thanks to OS X:

My System/Apple Apps/Users partition contains 200,000 files which is probably 100 times the number it would have under OS 9.
I can't drag and drop the Users folder to another location. I need the Terminal, a tutorial and a few prayers or Mike Bombich's utility (with a manual and maybe a prayer).
I can't move the Applications folder to another partition without messing up Software Update and who knows what else.

For sure I'm as appreciative as anyone for the benefits that I've enjoyed with OS X. I won't list them... you know them all. But every once in a while I wonder what Apple would have made out of BeOS. Could we have had most or all of the same benefits without getting bogged down in permissions, symbolic links, and an incomprehensible number of files on my hard drive?

[wadesworld]

And that's compelling why? UNIX based isn't a great selling point for most people

Recently I was on a plane and I had done two hours of work. I was listening to my iPod and didn't hear the "final approach" announcement. A flight attendant came up and encouraged me to quickly put my things away.

With OS X, I simply closed the laptop and stuck it in my bag. I did not even take time to save. That's something I would *never* have attempted with my Windows 2000 laptop, or OS 9.

-- from what they know it's difficult, confusing, and hard.

If you're going to use that argument, then no other computer has a place in the world. The average user knows nothing about any computer system, other than what their friend "that knows a lot about computers" told them.

But you can do all that just fine on Windows (NT/2000/XP are really quite good under the covers) so it's not a compelling benefit over Windows IMO.

Is it a compelling benefit on the surface? No. But when you've used both systems for a while, you come to understand that Windows, while pretty good, isn't quite as good at stability or multitasking.

Wade

[KidRed]

Originally posted by hudson1:
Well, let me go on record as saying that the marriage of the Mac and Unix is more of a compromise than a "best of both worlds" result. Don't get me wrong, I like my Mac and OS X but I'm not entirely blind to the fact that not all of the changes have been for the better. Just the net result is better and this is by far the best marriage between "normal" computer usage and Unix that anyone has created.

Thanks to OS X:

My System/Apple Apps/Users partition contains 200,000 files which is probably 100 times the number it would have under OS 9.
I can't drag and drop the Users folder to another location. I need the Terminal, a tutorial and a few prayers or Mike Bombich's utility (with a manual and maybe a prayer).
I can't move the Applications folder to another partition without messing up Software Update and who knows what else.

For sure I'm as appreciative as anyone for the benefits that I've enjoyed with OS X. I won't list them... you know them all. But every once in a while I wonder what Apple would have made out of BeOS. Could we have had most or all of the same benefits without getting bogged down in permissions, symbolic links, and an incomprehensible number of files on my hard drive?

Moving the applications folder and wondering later why applications didn't get updated is a a no brainer. You move it, it won't see it. That's no inconvenience, it's convenience because you don't have to locate the files to update.

Why would you want to move the users directory? Just look at the root level (apps, system, users, documents) as a system folder in 9. They all need to be right there, you can play around inside but not with the folders themselves.

Once you understand that, X is easier to deal with. As for BeOS, I heard that Apple wouldv'e sucked with it because of it's file system? Or something, I read argurements against BeOS.

[hudson1]

Originally posted by KidRed:
Moving the applications folder and wondering later why applications didn't get updated is a a no brainer. You move it, it won't see it. That's no inconvenience, it's convenience because you don't have to locate the files to update.

Why would you want to move the users directory? Just look at the root level (apps, system, users, documents) as a system folder in 9. They all need to be right there, you can play around inside but not with the folders themselves.

Once you understand that, X is easier to deal with. As for BeOS, I heard that Apple wouldv'e sucked with it because of it's file system? Or something, I read argurements against BeOS.

Doing even intuitive things like subfolders inside the Applications folder can mess everything up. As for why anyone would move their Users folder to another partition or drive.... That's been commented on many times. Of the reasons that have been mentioned, probably the #1 reason is so that you can reformat and reinstall the OS without severe difficulty. Regardless of whether you think it's a good thing to put Users on a separate partition (I think it makes tremendous sense), the Mac ease-of-use concept and selling point suggests that it should be a drag-n-drop operation, not a "C colon backslash" type of thing that we all made fun of years ago.

[stew]

Originally posted by KidRed:
[B]Moving the applications folder and wondering later why applications didn't get updated is a a no brainer. You move it, it won't see it. That's no inconvenience, it's convenience because you don't have to locate the files to update.

If Apple used their filesystem correctly, it would find moved applications. The Dock finds my apps when I move them in subdirectories, why should software update not be able to do the same?

Why would you want to move the users directory?

Because I am the user and the computer has to do what I want, not the other way.

As for BeOS, I heard that Apple wouldv'e sucked with it because of it's file system? Or something, I read argurements against BeOS.

You obviously have no clue about BeOS or its filesystem.

[stew]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Two Words

Unix Based

*yawn*

You don't need Unix to build a stable multitaksing OS. Also, you can write very unstable Unix systems too.

Honestly, I don't see any advantage in beingn Unix based. A POSIX layer is enough.

[wadesworld]

But every once in a while I wonder what Apple would have made out of BeOS. Could we have had most or all of the same benefits without getting bogged down in permissions, symbolic links, and an incomprehensible number of files on my hard drive?

For the final time, no.

BeOS was far from a complete OS and was missing many necessary pieces.

Folks, OS X may not be perfect, but this fantasy that BeOS was this "perfect" OS just waiting for Apple to snap is up is simply ludicrous.

BeOS had some innovative pieces. But you can't take innovative pieces and make a complete OS appear in a reasonable amount of time.

If BeOS was SO good, and SO complete, as many on here believe, why is it the OS that never got snapped up by anyone?

Wade

[stew]

Originally posted by wadesworld:
BeOS was far from a complete OS and was missing many necessary pieces.

For example?

BeOS had some innovative pieces. But you can't take innovative pieces and make a complete OS appear in a reasonable amount of time.

Apple could have done a lot with BeOS, but instead they chose to waste time and money on Copland and Rhapsody...if you invested a fraction of that effort in BeOS, you'd end up with something at least equal if not superior to OS X. Not to mention the money Apple would have saved if they had bought Be instead of NeXT...

If BeOS was SO good, and SO complete, as many on here believe, why is it the OS that never got snapped up by anyone?

If Macs were SO good, and SO complete, as many on here believe, why is it the platform that has only 3% marketshare?

If Windows was SO bad, and SO incomplete, as many on here believe, why is it the OS that everyone uses?

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by stew:
Apple could have done a lot with BeOS, but instead they chose to waste time and money on Copland and Rhapsody...if you invested a fraction of that effort in BeOS, you'd end up with something at least equal if not superior to OS X.

Highly questionable. And rather pointless, because if they'd invested a fraction of *that* back in 1988, they could have *built* BeOS, and Gassee would never have left to form his own company.

Suddenly it's "well, if they hadn't invested in Copland, they would have blah blah blah". Newsflash: If they'd done something sensible in the first place, INSTEAD of investing in Copland, THEY WOuLDN'T HAVE HAD TO BUY ANYTHING to save their ass. Must feel good to analyse in hindsight, eh? How's your own company doing? Cool - I'll ask you again in fifteen years.

Not to mention the money Apple would have saved if they had bought Be instead of NeXT...

They bought a complete, working OS, complete with Steve Jobs. They got a BUNCH of stuff that was DONE, that BeOS didn't have. I'm not too firm on BeOS myself, but that has been covered on here and in the OS X forum extensively over the last two years.

Originally posted by stew:
If Macs were SO good, and SO complete, as many on here believe, why is it the platform that has only 3% marketshare?

If Windows was SO bad, and SO incomplete, as many on here believe, why is it the OS that everyone uses?

Oh God.
Why did Betamax fail?
Why does nobody in the States use trains?
And, for that matter: WHY DID BeOS DIE, IF IT WAS SO MUCH BETTER?

At least conform to your own weird logic if you're trying to tie up others in a discussion. Basically, you've just tripped up yourself.

And for the record: NeXT was very likely to pair up with Sun, in a pretty good deal, shortly before they were bought up.

-s*

[hudson1]

Originally posted by wadesworld:
For the final time, no.

BeOS was far from a complete OS and was missing many necessary pieces.

Folks, OS X may not be perfect, but this fantasy that BeOS was this "perfect" OS just waiting for Apple to snap is up is simply ludicrous.

OK, enough of the strawman. I never said anything about BeOS being a "perfect" OS. All I did was ask what it would have become if Apple went that route.

BeOS had some innovative pieces. But you can't take innovative pieces and make a complete OS appear in a reasonable amount of time.

What do you mean by reasonable? It took five years from the purchase of NeXT until OS X was good enough to become the default booting OS.

If BeOS was SO good, and SO complete, as many on here believe (another strawman), why is it the OS that never got snapped up by anyone?

Wade

Like by whom? Amiga? There's M$ and Apple. That's it.

[Don Pickett]

Originally posted by designbc:
I use Photoshop in both platforms and Photoshop ISN'T better on the mac. It is just that the printing industry is based mostly in Macs. That's it.
Photoshop feels the same in both to me, as well as Illustrator.
Quark 5 looks much nicer in Windows. (Even though I hate this program without shortcuts for the tools in both systems)

One word: ColorSync.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by Don Pickett:
One word: ColorSync.

Word.
Color management built in at the system level.

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by designbc:
I use Photoshop in both platforms and Photoshop ISN'T better on the mac. It is just that the printing industry is based mostly in Macs. That's it.
Photoshop feels the same in both to me, as well as Illustrator.

100% incorrect

Photoshop IS better on the mac. Here's a few reasons:

ColorSync (like some people here mentioned earlier)

DPI - What you see on screen is usually the same size on paper. On Windows, it's always smaller on paper than what you see on screen.

Mouse Tracking - In Mac, the tracking is much more smoother and very accurate therefore you can draw with greater details.

Drag-and-Drop - You can move any graphic file from desktop into window to paste.

Window Management - In Windows, you have to minimize the program if you want to use the desktop or other programs. In Mac, there are no work space (gray background) so you can click on other program's window and switch to it. This is very time-saving.

Take advantage of MacOS X's powerful features - MacOS X have far better multitasking than in Windows. If Photoshop is rendering something, you can switch to other app and work there without any lag.

I could go on but I think you get the idea now

[MindFad]

Photoshop, GUI-wise feels faster on Windows to me, but here's why I can't stand using PS in Windows -- the damn evil window in window application environment of it! I can't see my desktop, and that's a bad thing. The multitasking. I agree with some of what Adam said, though mouse tracking has really caught up now, and it's not much of an issue anymore, but it does seem to be a problem on certain systems for some reason (the Hz that the USB captures tracking, what have you). I like the Mac OS interface more, too. Even with the pinstripes. I use Max's SmoothStripes Gloss. Very nice theme.

[Don Pickett]

Originally posted by aaanorton:
Word.
Color management built in at the system level.

Admittedly, you have to be (or have been) a real pre press nerd to understand the importance of standardized and consistent color space(s), but it's one of the main reasons Macs still rule in design, production and pre-press.

[MDA]

From what I hear the multi-tasking with any version of Windows is far inferior to the multi-tasking in OS X. This is a big, big issue with power users like graphic designers. I hear Windows users complain that they can't burn a CD and do anything else at the same time because it will bring Windows to it's knees. There have been times in OS X that I have forgotten I have something else, like burning a CD, going on in the background because there is no drag on the system at all. Another reason that OS X is better than Windows 98/NT/XP is the incredibly irritating help popups/wizards in Windows that you can't seem to get rid of. Yet another reason that OS X is superior is a simple one, Windows XP has a really silly looking GUI. There is far more but that's it for now.

MDA

[stew]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
THEY WOuLDN'T HAVE HAD TO BUY ANYTHING

No nee to get loud.

Must feel good to analyse in hindsight, eh? How's your own company doing? Cool - I'll ask you again in fifteen years.

No need to get personal.

They got a BUNCH of stuff that was DONE, that BeOS didn't have.

I asked before: Like what?

Oh God.
Why did Betamax fail?
Why does nobody in the States use trains?
And, for that matter: WHY DID BeOS DIE, IF IT WAS SO MUCH BETTER?

For the same reason that Microsoft is king and Apple got 3% marketshare:
Commercial success is not an indication for technical quality.

At least conform to your own weird logic if you're trying to tie up others in a discussion. Basically, you've just tripped up yourself.

Where?

[wadesworld]

Originally posted by hudson1:
OK, enough of the strawman. I never said anything about BeOS being a "perfect" OS. All I did was ask what it would have become if Apple went that route.

What you were insinuating was that the MacOS would have been "better" had BeOS been used.

Otherwise, why ask the question?

What do you mean by reasonable? It took five years from the purchase of NeXT until OS X was good enough to become the default booting OS.

And BeOS probably would have taken 10 years, since it was in a much less complete state.

Like by whom? Amiga? There's M$ and Apple. That's it.

Right. And if it's so much better, why did one of them not choose it?

Wade

[fat mac moron]

Originally posted by stew:
For example?

Apple could have done a lot with BeOS, but instead they chose to waste time and money on Copland and Rhapsody...if you invested a fraction of that effort in BeOS, you'd end up with something at least equal if not superior to OS X. Not to mention the money Apple would have saved if they had bought Be instead of NeXT...

From LowEndMac

Not-quite-Unix

BeOS had a powerful command line and Unix-like underpinnings that could compile and run POSIX compliant software. Every Unix-like operating system has failed in the marketplace except Linux (which is free, and for all intents and purposes it is Unix). The Amiga Operating System was developed with similar goals in mind, and that particular operating system withered and died as well. Being able to compile POSIX compliant software is not a marketable advantage (even Windows NT can do it).

The lesson: Unless you are actually going to include full Unix services and compatibility, like Linux or the Mac OS X, being Unix-like is no advantage.

Please the developers

BeOS was designed by geeks for geeks (we will revisit when discussing marketing mistakes). Designing an OS with fantastic underpinnings does not sell software. Look at the success of Windows 95 and, for that matter, Mac OS 9. A 64-bit database-driven file system and pervasively threaded libraries on top of an efficient kernel may please developers and geeks, but it doesn't sell software. A software company looks at how much money they can make developing for a certain platform, not how easy it is to write great software. In order for BeOS to succeed as a platform, a lot of volunteer effort and/or some sort of industry partnerships were needed. While there was an enthusiastic BeOS community, Linux surely consumed most of the enthusiast developers. Be did not get solid industry partners until it was far too late.

Apple Drops a Bomb on Be

Most BeOS aficionados are convinced that Apple chose NeXTstep as the core of Mac OS X because Steve Jobs was key in making the decision. Apple is first and foremost a business, and if Apple could have made more money buying BeOS and retrofitting it as Mac OS X, they would have.

This leads to one of the most contentious BeOS myths; that BeOS was a simple drag-and-drop replacement for the Mac OS. Many Be enthusiasts believe this because classic Mac OS applications could already be run from within BeOS. It sounds plausible.

However, BeOS needed serious usability engineering. The operating system could, as previously mentioned, run eight QuickTime video streams at once, but it didn't enable the user to do very many useful things. All of the tuning and elegance was poured into features transparent to the user, like the file system.

This idea also rests on the assumption that developers would port their applications to BeOS. Because BeOS had no "Carbon" layer, developers would have had to essentially develop two versions of their software for the Mac platform, one legacy and one BeOS-based. Because the graphics subsystem and GUI were substantially different between the two, as were the Mac OS toolbox and the BeOS development APIs, it would have been like writing the application for a whole new platform. Furthermore, there weren't a lot of experienced BeOS developers in the field to work on porting applications.

Developers simply didn't want to do this, and Apple understood. Whether it chose Be or NeXT, Apple would still have had to write a "Carbon" layer to encourage development of applications for the new operating system. This would allow developers to write one program that runs on both platforms. Since both operating systems would need a "Carbon" layer and a lot of usability engineering and retooling, the decision probably came down to three points.

1. There was and is a wealth of highly experienced developers who are familiar with Unix. There also was and is a smaller but active and experienced subset of NeXTstep (Cocoa) developers. While not as technically elegant as BeOS, having trained talent available to port your applications and debug your OS is great advantage in favor of NeXT.

2. Unix already had an established and proven core of network services and server capabilities. Choosing NeXT gives Apple the option of seriously competing in the server arena, if it so chooses. BeOS would have to be tested, validated, and developed for some time to achieve the maturity of BSD in this area.

3. The most cynical reason of all, of course, is profit. Which operating system will drive your hardware sales -- the light and efficient operating system that can play eight QuickTime video streams on a G3 or the huge, big-iron, Unix-based operating system? Apple is first and foremost a hardware company. The most useful advantages BeOS offered the end user were memory and space efficiency. By the time Apple gave up on Copland, hard drives were already in the multi-gigabyte range and standard memory was hovering around 32 MB. The advantage of a small memory footprint had diminished significantly. The small size and memory footprint were no advantage at all, as Apple wished to drive sales of new hardware.

Sorry for the long post, but take the time to read the whole article.

[hudson1]

Thanks for sharing the article. I had not seen it before. In some ways, though, the article answers the question "Why Be failed" better than it answers the question "Why Apple chose NeXT".

First, the author correctly pointed out that regardless of which direction Apple went, they had the task of developing a porting environment that offered software developers some option of using existing code to create native OS X code. I don't see how they could have known that that task would be easier with NextStep than BeOS. In fact, it turned out to be quite difficult. How long did it take Adobe to go from that first Macworld preview of PhotoShop (where jobs said it was a few days porting job or whatever) to a real shipping product? It turned out to be months or years, not days. Same for MS Office and many other large legacy Mac apps. Considering that there was an existing Mac emulation environment for BeOS already, it might have turned out to be an easier path. That's hard to argue either way.

The "Be was for geeks only" argument cuts both ways, too. NeXT didn't have any market share, just like Be. NeXT most certainly had some enterprise-oriented applications but it's hard to make a claim that the Be desktop applications were behind what you could get for NeXT. I hope Apple didn't pick NeXT because they thought OmniWeb (a good product) would be a state-of-art web browser that would compel everyone to buy a Mac.

As for Unix, well Unix is for geeks more than BeOS. There weren't any Unix web browsers or word processors at the time that were going to threaten Microsoft.

Now that I've said that, I think the real reasons Apple chose NeXT instead of BeOS are these:

1) Scalability. If Apple ever wanted to provide large scale computing solutions, at least there was a Unix underpinning that was geared and proven for scalability. Like probably 95% of Mac users, I only have a desktop or laptop machine so that's not a biggie for me but I can see where it might be for Apple.

2) Objective C. This was a rather unique tool that in theory allowed developers the opportunity to create software in a shorter timeframe. Objective C would help Apple be less beholden to Microsoft over time. (I think the jury's still out on this one).

3) Java. Apple knew that Sun would support Java for Unix and so it should be able to be used on a NeXT-based OS.


And wadesworld.... Most people do ask legitimate questions that aren't just veiled statements. Give it a try sometime. You'll find others actually offering thoughtful answers.

[gorgonzola]

Let's get back on topic, please. While the BeOS vs NeXTSTEP argument is certainly interesting, the man wants good reasons for using a Mac over Windows, not whether Mac OS X would have been better if BeOS had been used as the original codebase.

Feel free to start a new thread if you would like to continue the discussion.

thanks.