[foobars]

Browsing these forms is depressing. Every post is about how much OSX sucks. I happen to like it. It's way better than the PB and I definetly got my money worth. It's fast, stable, and really functional. I mean, I think Apple did a great job for a 1.0 release. Sure it has it shortcomings but it's such a huge step foward in the greater scheme of things, and it's definetly the slickest implementation of UNIX out there. I guess I'm not really saying much here but I thought a more positive topic mught cheer people up.

[Kosmo]

This is NOT 1984...it's 2001 unless you forgot... Since when do we have to accept OS X's short comings because it's a 1.0 release???


Kosmo

[bitfly]

Let me guess, you do nothing in OSX but surf the web and show your friends how cool it looks. For that.... it is great.
Well, the surfing in X is a bit of a gray area.

[mr_sonicblue]

Originally posted by Kosmo:
This is NOT 1984...it's 2001 unless you forgot... Since when do we have to accept OS X's short comings because it's a 1.0 release???

Well, for one, the positives far outweigh the negatives. Especially since most of the negatives are resolvable (like the fact that software *will* be carbonized, and enough hacking utils will pop up to make everyone happy)

------------------

[foobars]

Originally posted by Kosmo:
This is NOT 1984...it's 2001 unless you forgot... Since when do we have to accept OS X's short comings because it's a 1.0 release???


Kosmo

Ok think what you just said for a second. When has Apple ever, and I mean ever, released a peice of 1.0 software and not updated within three months. OS 8->8.1 right after release. OS9->9.04 very shortly after. iTunes 1.0->1.1. Apple, has been following it's system of release a 1.0 version and revise it soon after forever.

Furthermore, this is a 1.0 release of a COMPLETELY NEW operating system. You read the reviews. You knew there would be shortcomings, and it's stupid to expect a 1.0 release of an OS to have all the features a fully matured OS does. Lighten up people.

[the_sisko]

Most of the problems will be fixed by the end of the summer. If you don't like OSX now, wait until then to use it. Complaining on the forums won't help anything. The stability and interface of OSX alone are worth the upgrade to me.

All in all I'm very happy with it. After reading all the complaints I was afraid to install. It took me until 5:00pm yesterday to get up the nerve. When I did it was the simplest install I've ever done. No speed problems in OS X. Classic seems almost as fast as 9.1. I don't know what I did right but, I guess I just lucked out. Some control panels don't work ( from classic) but, that's to be expected.

[applenut1]

foobars,

that's funny. Isn't Apple marketing OS X as version 10.0 and not 1.0?

stop kissing Apple's ass. what do you owe to them? you spent 130 bucks on an unfinished product and you are still willing to neglect the short comings and make really lame and dumb excuses for Apple.

I went from DP3 to the retail version. there was no speed increase at all. the only improvements were in support and interface (thank god). there is no excuse for that. OS X is slow and unfinished. Apple better release an optimization update SOON or else they will see customers begin to leave in droves.

[foobars]

10.0, 1.0 same thing- it's an initial release. And I'm not saying it's ok that the 1.0 release has shortcomings, I'm just saying it always happens and people need to cool down about it.

And the retail version is much, much faster for me than the PB.

[mr_sonicblue]

Originally posted by applenut1:
you spent 130 bucks on an unfinished product and you are still willing to neglect the short comings and make really lame and dumb excuses for Apple.

I'd gladly pay $130 to have *ANY* alternative to OS 9.

------------------

[jbmelby]

stop kissing Apple's ass.

I'm usually rather moderate in my replies and postings in these fora--but what the hell gives you the right to accuse someone of "kissing Apple's ass" just because he expresses an opinion about OS X that differs from yours? I've been using computers on a daily basis for thirty-three years, and I like OS X very much--and I'm not in the habit of kissing asses, Apple's or otherwise. If you don't like OS X, say so, give your reasons, and then shut the hell up. Don't go around making ad hominem attacks on those who have the colossal effrontery to say something that you don't agree with!

Oh--BTW--have a nice day!

Originally posted by applenut1:
I went from DP3 to the retail version. there was no speed increase at all. the only improvements were in support and interface (thank god).

I suspect there's something wrong with your computer then. Even on my G3, retail is much faster. The only slow things on my machine are some of the interface elements (resizing especially).

I played with OSX on a G4 at CompUSA and all I can say is you folks with G4s are blowing this way out of proportion! It's nice and speedy on a G4, resizing is only slightly slower than realtime. Yes, it should be faster, and I hope that in the near future there will be improvements...but damn, on a G4 it's not bad at all.

Sorry to anyone who is having problems. It just isn't the case here. My G4 450 buzzes along just as fast as before. Classic is a little slow for games but still playable. And that's a little not a lot.I'm very happy with this first release.

[Kestral]

Originally posted by mr_sonicblue:
I'd gladly pay $130 to have *ANY* alternative to OS 9.

To quote the religious Mac fanatics, if you don't liike it OS 9, then use Windows.

I think OS X will be great when it's functional but right now for most people it lacks even basic functionality. It's a crippled OS. For example, I use the computer to access the internet, but OS X can't do that well; consider,

-- no Java applet support. This may sound like a trifle to some, but i like to read a site that requires java applets so what should I do? Not read it because I use OS X? -- that is a loss in functionality compared to the alternatives, 9 and Windows. Why should I or anyone do that?

-- no realplayer. Again, some people may never use it but it is the streaming media standard -- ANY os without it is crippled.

About the only thing OS X can do currently well for the average consumer is email. It just isn't ready for prime time -- that's why Apple is so quiet about it. It still needs a lot of work -- the reality is that OS X is coming out in the summer, probably with further speed optimizations, full internet functionality, and some major applications.


Just have to wait until then...

[DannyVTim]

I have a B&W G3/300 and it runs fine for me.

I think that the people like tie, Applenut (pc lover at heart is more like it) and Kosmo are just negative people. You can certainly voice you opinion but you state things as fact that are not and your so hard in your opinions that you leave no room for the idea that other people may actually like it.

I've had the dev cd for a while, but I didn't load it up because it was suppose to be such a disaster of an OS which it's not.

It performs well and yes it is a 1.0 release. I think that some people are just not use to 1.0 releases. I've used computers for 20 years and I'm very impressed and looking forward to the bug fixes and then the optimization after that to round out what is here.

IF you guys aren't happy, it's because you're extreme in your views.

[DoctorGonzo]

In my view, the much-feared mass exodus from LinuxPPC (and other PPC distros) is not going to happen. At least not for a long time.

[This message has been edited by DoctorGonzo (edited 03-25-2001).]

[DannyVTim]

-- no realplayer. Again, some people may never use it but it is the streaming media standard -- ANY os without it is crippled.

This is the way it works. The OS comes out and then the software.

Realplayer is not a standard they are just popular. There wasn't a realplayer on Linux for a long time either so Linix isn't and OS?

I don't use it at all and haven't used it in years. So, I should be able to use the OS because you can't listen to Realplayer streams?

It's a bit narrow mined no?

OmniWeb supports JavaScripts. I'm not sure about IE. But, how is this a problem with Apple's Os?

I am running X on a rev A iMac and I love it. It is obviously slower than OS 9 and I wish apps like Real Player and Word were carbonzised. Still, it has many clear benefits. I appreciate those benefits and am willing to bear the minimal costs. If I thought I could work better in 9 I would do so, but right now that is not the case.

Coolidge

[spectre]

I for one am enjoying OS X even though I'm running it on my Rev A iMac 233 with 160mb of ram.

OS X is an awesome starting point for a next generation OS.. and it has so much more potential then OS 9 in almost every single way. Look at the advantages OS X gives us, and you will see that they far out weigh the mostly temporary negatives of OS X.

Also, the things that most people dont like about it (speed, bugs, hardware support, lack of apps) will and can be fixed. OS 9 was a dead end...

Sure, I'll admit that version 1.0 (10.0) isn't awesome, and by no means as matured as OS 9, but by the summer expect OS X to address all of the shortcomings and be far better then OS 9 ever was.

Instead of looking at the negatives, look at the positives, and the great potential this OS has. Consider it untapped potential which will soon be tapped

[JSD303]

I just wanted to add my experience with 4k78 so others might see the full spectrum of systems and reviews etc...

My systems -
Dual G4 500, 768MB RAM, DVD-RAM
40GB 7200 with OSX over OS9.1 provided
20GB 5400 with OS9.1 GM

G4 466, 384MB RAM, CDRW
30GB drive (two partitions - OSX on one and OS9.1 on another)

Okay, so I have fast systems... but I'm still very happy with the performance under OSX and Classic. I would consider myself a power user, and not strictly surfing the web. Familiar with *NIX and command line. I've set up FTP/WEB sharing -oooh that was tough ::grin::, and all has worked fine... I have a home network of 4computers all talking to each other TCP/IP (two G4 macs, old linux box, and P3 winPC)... I've setup a Carracho server 1.0b1 under classic, and also tried version 1.0b2 Server native in OSX (0b1 in classic was far more stable and less resource intensive)... I've run just about every app under Classic that I normally run (aside from the DVD player, etc) and most apps seems just as snappy under OSX. Classic has not crashed on my computer yet... in fact, I've told it to launch at startup and used the system prefs to set it to "never shut down"... IE5.1 PR is slow and I'm not very impressed with it. OmniWeb 4cf1 is beautiful and I've been using it - can't wait til they finish this fine browser!

I'm not going to say that it is as fast with every app in Classic, as I've seen some games take huge performance hits (klondike 3d card game under classic is horrible). While MSWord, Photoshop6, Dreamweaver, etc all seemed to work well in classic - again, no crashes.

I understand that the opinions on this subject are very strong and quite differing. People tend to bend the truth just a bit. Each person is entitled to express their experience with this OS... but let's not just discount what another person claims just because it differs greatly from our own experience! On both my G4s sherlock launches in 1 bounce - Mail in 1-2bounces - finder is instantly on the screen... window resizing is slightly choppy under list view (as everyone agrees it seems.) When Cipher said it took a minute for him to launch sherlock I was stunned, but I didn't assume he was lying. I believed him. I assumed that something might be wrong with his install, because my experience was fantastic with it... Just different actual experiences with the exact same OS...

I've tested versions - 4k17, 4k29, 4k33, 4k46, 4k50, 4k56, 4k60, 4k73, 4k78 on both of my G4s... I had some installs with the same clean install of a version on the same computer that turned out very different from previous installs (with regards to performance etc). Most were fixed with a reinstall over the top of my current sys... or a clean install in worst case... I've found that with each build it was happier with a clean install with OS9.1 on a sep. partition... your mileage may vary... I can tell the difference between the single G4 with 384 MB of ram and my dual G4 768MB of RAM... I might remove some RAM from the Dual to see if RAM or the proc is the big reason the difference is noticeable.

Again, I'm very happy with OSX 10.0 - I believe it is a great product to build on for many years to come! I'm sure it will get faster and more feature rich over time! This summer will give us an indication as to the types of increases we can expect... let's not rush to condemn this first release, or the people that report on it!

JSD303

Even BeOS has Real Player. I can't believe Mac OSuX doesn't.
The IE browser is terrible unfortunately. Omniweb isn't as wonderful as everyone makes it out to be. It feels sluggish to me.
I tried to like it. I really wanted to so bad.

Even the first releases of BeOS were so much more responsive and better than Mac OS X. BeOS has always been so fast.

I hope they can start speeding it up and get rid of that damn spinning CD or I'm going to have to stick with Classic or look elsewhere. Once I was scrolling in a window and that stupid CD came up and wouldn't let me scroll anymore! Why? I thought the OS could multitask.

It also crashes when copying files from a CD to the hard drive, or copying from one partition to another. It crashed in the middle once and it wouldn't let me delete half the files that were copies so I could start over. It's really frustrating.

I installed it 3 times, zeroing the hard drive every time. I repartioned twice. I have a brand new iMac with 256.

Also suddenly my keyboard and mouse don't work on startup anymore. I have to plug them in and out 2 times. How annoying! With 9.1 that never happened. It really sucks.

[Todd Madson]

I was a Be developer.

Even now, almost four years later lots of stuff that are standard on X
are still missing in BeOS.

-Multi-user functionality ripped out of the OS way early, never got put back. It wasn't a focus for multimedia.

-Doesn't have a Java virtual machine - at least X has it, now the apps need to take advantage of it.

-Web browser always had problems (at first NetPositive, later Opera) in terms of feature sets - they never quite finished it.

-Sure it was fast, but what ultimately could you do with it? I read e-mail, ran distributed.net and surfed the web, did a little software development. That was it.

I think X is very useable. I do have complaints, I just know better than to use a Mac discussion forum to do it.

[aleph_null]

Originally posted by jbmelby:
I'm usually rather moderate in my replies and postings in these fora--but what the hell gives you the right to accuse someone of "kissing Apple's ass" just because he expresses an opinion about OS X that differs from yours? I've been using computers on a daily basis for thirty-three years, and I like OS X very much--and I'm not in the habit of kissing asses, Apple's or otherwise. If you don't like OS X, say so, give your reasons, and then shut the hell up. Don't go around making ad hominem attacks on those who have the colossal effrontery to say something that you don't agree with!

Oh--BTW--have a nice day!

You go boy! (applause)

I'm with the folks who thinks it rocks. Or rather, it will rock. No, it's not perfect, but you're expecting too much if you think it should be perfect right out of the gate. The ball is mostly in the 3rd party software court, at this point. There are a few things Apple needs to work on, but the main thing lacking is sufficient software support. Other UI and feature items are trivial (relatively) to fix.

It will be a kick-ass OS in a year. Why is Apple selling it now? Because not a single software company will release for-pay software for an OS that hasn't officially been released. The OS must come before the software. That's just the way it works.

In light of this, OS X is in NO WAY a "crippled" OS. The OS itself is 100% functional, and then some. To suggest that because some particular company's software is not available yet, the whole OS is useless, is utterly absurd. (And RealPlayer blows anyway, IMHO...)

Point is, if it doesn't do what you need now, don't use it. The potential is there for it to in fact live up to its marketing hype, and about that I'm very excited. Bravo, Apple.

[nemanirc]

I have been very impressed with OS X so far! I had anticipated a long transition period because Office and Palm were not carbonized yet. However, I have found that the Classic environment works great! I was able to synchronize my Palm IIIxe with Entourage easily. The only real problem I have encountered has been Quicken 2001; it fails to launch in either OS X or Classic. I assume this problem will be addressed soon.

[applenut1]

I'm usually rather moderate in my replies and postings in these fora--but what the hell gives you the right to accuse someone of "kissing Apple's ass" just because he expresses an opinion about OS X that differs from yours? I've been using computers on a daily basis for thirty-three years, and I like OS X very much--and I'm not in the habit of kissing asses, Apple's or otherwise. If you don't like OS X, say so, give your reasons, and then shut the hell up. Don't go around making ad hominem attacks on those who have the colossal effrontery to say something that you don't agree with!

Oh--BTW--have a nice day!

was that suppose to be an insult? you really let yourself go wild in that post

I suspect there's something wrong with your computer then. Even on my G3, retail is much faster. The only slow things on my machine are some of the interface elements (resizing especially).

there's nothing wrong. did you go from DP3 to final? DP3 was quite good for such an early build. from DP3 speed went downhill and finally began going back up with the Cheetah builds.

I think that the people like tie, Applenut (pc lover at heart is more like it) and Kosmo are just negative people. You can certainly voice you opinion but you state things as fact that are not and your so hard in your opinions that you leave no room for the idea that other people may actually like it.

LOL. you clearly have no clue at all to what you are talking about. PC lover at heart? I think anyone who has spent a minute at the AppleInsider forums (when they are up ) would strongly disagree with you on that.

It performs well and yes it is a 1.0 release. I think that some people are just not use to 1.0 releases. I've used computers for 20 years and I'm very impressed and looking forward to the bug fixes and then the optimization after that to round out what is here.

uh... people seem to forget that there is a development process before a product is released. I would have no problems if Mac OS X 10.0/1.0 was missing a few features but was fast and bug free. and that's the way it should be. Optimization does not come after you release a product. it comes in the late beta stages along with bug fixes.

IF you guys aren't happy, it's because you're extreme in your views.

the people are saying its fine and fast don't want to admit the truth

I was a Be developer.

Even now, almost four years later lots of stuff that are standard on X
are still missing in BeOS.

-Multi-user functionality ripped out of the OS way early, never got put back. It wasn't a focus for multimedia.

-Doesn't have a Java virtual machine - at least X has it, now the apps need to take advantage of it.

-Web browser always had problems (at first NetPositive, later Opera) in terms of feature sets - they never quite finished it.

-Sure it was fast, but what ultimately could you do with it? I read e-mail, ran distributed.net and surfed the web, did a little software development. That was it.

I think X is very useable. I do have complaints, I just know better than to use a Mac discussion forum to do it.

as a Be developer you should also know that BeOS was developed by roughly 10 people at most times and with very limited financial resources. How can you possibly compare 10 people with a few thousand dollars to a billion dollar company with endless amount of resources and a development team of at least 100 at all times?


Don't get me wrong. I really like OS X. it's my everyday OS on this machine. BeOS 5 pro is on my other macs. But Apple messed up. There is no excuse for the performance issues and even the installation issues beige g3 users are experiencing. it was a rushed product when Apple should have had plenty of time.

[This message has been edited by applenut1 (edited 03-26-2001).]

[mr_sonicblue]

Originally posted by Kestral:
To quote the religious Mac fanatics, if you don't liike it OS 9, then use Windows.

I *have* a Windows machine.....and I'm having a hard time lately trying to figure out which is worse.....

------------------

I have never used rhapsody or osx server. How is the speed of those compared to osx1.0?

I have never used rhapsody or osx server. How is the speed of those compared to osx1.0?

[applenut1]

OS X Server is quite fast. But it also uses a different 2d system, Display Postscript. I have only used OS X Server for a few days. Performance is basically the same as OS 9.


I wish Apple kept some of the UI elements from Server like tea off menus, movable dock (although the server version is VERY different), and the more useful column view.

[This message has been edited by applenut1 (edited 03-25-2001).]

[fmalloy]

Originally posted by edumacationboy:
I hope they can start speeding it up and get rid of that damn spinning CD or I'm going to have to stick with Classic or look elsewhere. Once I was scrolling in a window and that stupid CD came up and wouldn't let me scroll anymore! Why? I thought the OS could multitask.

This is really what disappoints me the most.

With OS X, I expected much better responsiveness due to the UNIX multitasking. What's ironic is that it seems that its quite a bit less responsive than OS 9! I too see the spinning cursor quite often, and can't do anything in the same application when it occurs, and little in other applications. animated GIFs freeze when scrolling, and I thought this was supposed to go away with preemptive multitasking. It almost seems like cooperative instead of preemptive! Seems like the reverse of what you'd expect! At this point, it seems hard to believe that its really UNIX under there

I hope Apple focuses on improving overall performance - application launch, task switching, and graphics, instead of just adding more bells and whistles. I really can't believe it went out the door with such poor app launch times, dynamic scrolling and window resizing. I really really really hope Apple just doesn't assume we're all going to run out and buy 1GHz G4s to solve it - my beige G3 runs OS 9 just wonderfully, thank you.

I hope folks here agree that this isn't whining, just a constructive analysis of OS X.

I'll continue to use OS X, and I am really trying to be open minded, but its sad to see how relieved I get when I have to boot into OS 9 and how fast everything has suddenly become

[rplat]

Lighten up, the guy has right to express his opinion. It's a stinking operating system not a religious scripture.

QUOTE]Originally posted by jbmelby:
I'm usually rather moderate in my replies and postings in these fora--but what the hell gives you the right to accuse someone of "kissing Apple's ass" just because he expresses an opinion about OS X that differs from yours? I've been using computers on a daily basis for thirty-three years, and I like OS X very much--and I'm not in the habit of kissing asses, Apple's or otherwise. If you don't like OS X, say so, give your reasons, and then shut the hell up. Don't go around making ad hominem attacks on those who have the colossal effrontery to say something that you don't agree with!

Oh--BTW--have a nice day! [/QUOTE]

[theUpsetter]

I love OS X, solid, good looking, and in a couple of months, as functional as os 9. I can accept it's current short comings BECAUSE its 2001 and not 1984. Operating systems are a LOT more complicated because the hardware is a lot faster, humans, however, still write the code and still make mistakes.

Brandon

[This message has been edited by theUpsetter (edited 03-26-2001).]

For christ sakes, it's an operating system!
remember OS 9 was your guide to the internet, OS 10 is the world's most advanced operating system. see? it doesn't matter if it has realplayer!

[3.1416]

Even BeOS has Real Player. I can't believe Mac OSuX doesn't.

And this is Apple's fault how? Would it be fair to say that BeOS sucks because it doesn't have Quicktime or a Java VM?

Even the first releases of BeOS were so much more responsive and better than Mac OS X. BeOS has always been so fast.

Maybe if your sole measure of performance is window resizing. Mac OS X's graphics model is much more complex and powerful than Be's, so of course it's going to take more CPU power.

I hope they can start speeding it up and get rid of that damn spinning CD or I'm going to have to stick with Classic or look elsewhere. Once I was scrolling in a window and that stupid CD came up and wouldn't let me scroll anymore! Why? I thought the OS could multitask.

It can. When the spinning wheel comes up, you can always switch to another application and continue working (unlike in OS 9 when the watch appears). What you're seeing is that the Finder is not sufficiently multithreaded. While this is clearly bad and should be fixed, it is not an OS-wide problem.

[k2man]

A couple of things:

** 1) To whoever said OS X is not functional:**
What have you been smoking? I can run 95% of my classic apps with little appreciable slow down. That's functional TODAY. What are you complaining about? Window resizing? Longer load times? That's hardly a good benchmark for an O.S. And if you're complaining about lack of Carbon apps, I've rarely seen a new platform launched with anywhere near the 3rd party support I would have liked (laser disk, DVD, Mac, Windows, Playstation 2, etc. etc.). Lack of carbon apps is not Apple's or OS X's fault, it just takes time, and it will indeed resolve itself in the next several months.

**2) To whoever said Apple better fix these problems soon or customers will be leaving in droves.**
It might not occur to you, but the fact that you've installed OS X within a day of its launch (or even beforehand), and the fact that you're online ranting about it already indicates that you're a very RARE and UNIQUE user. The vast majority of Mac users tend to be much more casual than all of us. They're not even going to think about installing X right now (if they're even aware of it), and most will simply wait until they buy a new machine. This launch was meant for early adopters, and to take the painful-but-necessary step of simply getting a very new and groundbreaking product out the door. The step's been taken now. You should be happy, as you're one step closer to that OS-bliss you seem to have expected right out of the gate.

**3) To whoever complained that Be had 10 people working on its OS, while Apple had vast resources to throw at X, and it therefore should have been better.**
It's very easy to make such comparisons but they just aren't realistic (by the way, B's a failure--so much for their development efforts). Think about it: Unless Apple is truly unique in the industry, I think it's safe to assume that most people there are industrious, intelligent, competent, and desiring success. And yet, despite all of said people working on the project, at all levels of the company, version 1.0 is what it is. Now, do you really think all of these people simply screwed up and completely dropped the ball, whereas some other group of people would have delivered something entirely better? Or, MAYBEEE, could it be that the challenge of designing and creating a new OS **while** maintaining compatibility with a much older technology, **while** trying to take advantage of all sorts of newer techs, *while* smoothly transitioning millions of users with thousands of different hardware/software configurations all at once, is simply a VERY HARD PROBLEM no matter how many people are working on it? And since it's a very hard problem (which I assure you it is), then that means it's to some degree NOT FULLY CONTROLABLE. Which means that it doesn't make sense to start freaking out and ranting about what can't realistically be controlled and perfectly planned. Some things--like teenage years, lost love, and operating system transitions--are simply a rough road no matter what.

OS 1.0 is what it is. I doubt any other company would have done a better job given all the things this OS has to do. You could fault Apple for shipping it now, but I don't: X needs to be thrown out into the real world and go through this trial by fire. It will help focus Apple's continuing dev efforts, and I think app developers need to see it out there to really get serious about carbonizing their apps (and we all want that!)

The process has to start somewhere. It has, and now X can keep evolving. By summer, you'll be a lot happier, and by the end of the year, with hindsite, these discussions will seem like a tempest in a teapot.

I feel better about Apple today than ever, and I'll make X my daily OS as soon as Final Cut and Office are carbonized...

Originally posted by applenut1:
as a Be developer you should also know that BeOS was developed by roughly 10 people at most times and with very limited financial resources. How can you possibly compare 10 people with a few thousand dollars to a billion dollar company with endless amount of resources and a development team of at least 100 at all times?

Let's not exaggerate too much, applenut. Be, Inc has burned through about 40 million USD post IPO. Prior to that, they had about 30 to 40 million USD from private investors. Their head count is somewhere around 100 employees (with 60 to 70 probably doing technical work) which requires about 10 million USD per year just to employ people. All you need to do is go look at their financials on any financial website. They lost 21M USD FY00. From what I recall, they have lost about 5 to 6 million per quarter ever since they became public, and I doubt that number changed all that much pre-IPO if their head count was about that level. Not that bad of a waste of resources actually (there has been much worse), but "10 people with a few thousand dollars" is not a very accurate by any stretch of the imagination. Unless "few" is somewhere around 20,000 thousand dollars, but I digress.

Apple probably has somewhere around 300 engineering people working on Mac OS 10. I'd almost say that is too much, and I don't think Avie Tevanian nor Jobs would make a managerial mistake like that. However, once they have a real release with a proper code freeze - like they do now - more people can be work on it writing apps (DVD player, FCP, iDVD, drivers et al) while the optimizations, bugs, and other added features of the system can be worked on.

Don't get me wrong. I really like OS X. it's my everyday OS on this machine. BeOS 5 pro is on my other macs. But Apple messed up. There is no excuse for the performance issues and even the installation issues beige g3 users are experiencing. it was a rushed product when Apple should have had plenty of time.

Their are plenty of excuses for the performances issues. I don't know how people arrive at their expectations, but there is no such thing as final software when it consists of millions of lines of code. Every single release will have issues. For Mac OS 10, features will be added (like preemptive multithreading for the UI in Carbon apps or better integration with Cocoa apps), and when they are released, it'll break apps and make the system unstable. As it is now, Mac OS 10 is an operating system consisting of a Mach kernel with FreeBSD, a new driver architecture, a new graphics architecture, a new audio architecture, 3 APIs on top of it: Cocoa, Carbon and Java, and to top it off, an entirely separate operating system literally running side-by-side. What do you guys suspect is going to happen? I'm quite impressed they pulled it off to the point that they did. When I get my Powerbook G4, Mac OS 10 is what I'll be running, and Mac OS 9 and Classic is going to be wiped from my system.

The installation issues are a bigger problem however.

[naden]

Anyone who is putting not having RealPlayer as a reason that OSX is bad should straggle a few dollars together and get themselves a clue.

Too many people are forgetting what the letters OS mean in Mac OSX. That means things like:

Applications Support including RealPlayer
DVD Playback
iTunes port
CD Burning

ARE ALL NOT CORE OS SERVICES. They are all applications. People need to distinguish between the two. The real problem with the OS that you CAN fault Apple on is speed, interface issues, driver problems with APPLE HARDWARE ONLY, bugs and what not.