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John123 · Oct 23, 2002, 09:38 PM

A lot of folks on here are really eager for a PowerBook upgrade this year. My reason for wanting it this year is a bit different than most of the ones I've seen: I won't buy an OS X-only PowerBook.

I know that many of you love OS X and find it to be sleek and stylish. But the reality of the matter is that it's bulky and slow. I've owned lots of Macs, including a 667 DVI most recently, and the performance of OS 9 is leaps and bounds better than X. If Apple restricts me to OS X, and if no third-party workarounds become available, I'm afraid I'll have to go over to the dark side. (Frankly, I've been pretty pleased with my Dell PCs at work in terms of speed and stability...forced to use the "evil" machines, I've learned that they aren't half bad).

Are there any other people who share my feelings on this out there?

i6s1 · Oct 23, 2002, 09:42 PM

I presume you use Windows 3.1 on this Dell, because its faster then Windows XP?

<snicker>

maceye · Oct 23, 2002, 09:50 PM

I hate OS 9. It is the bane of the Mac platform, and I honestly can't believe that I was ever productive in it. The few times I have had to bot into OS 9 I have found myself cursing my computer for acting like a PC-illogical and counterproductive (buggy too). I switched to OS X as soon as Photoshop was released and I have NOT looked back. In fact, I switched my design workflow to InDesign from Quark just to get away from OS 9. It turns out that I like InDesign more than Quark, but that's not why I switched.

If you prefer OS 9 to OS X then you should probably switch to Windows XP-it is more like OS 9 in terms of usefulness, and it is certainly more stable than OS 9. I really think that you should give OS X a real chance-use it exclusively for a month (do not use OS 9 at all) and I promise that you will never go back to the clunkiness of OS 9 (or Windows).

Markian · Oct 23, 2002, 10:11 PM

Hey, I hear you guys,and yes, OSX is great. But cut the guy some slack. I visited my cousin last week; she now has my old 8600/300 running 8.6. Yes, it feels weird after using OSX. But it's just as intuitive. The main complaint in useability is that Aqua had a chance to start fresh; the previous OS had years to accrue all sorts of tiny irritations.

But you know what else I noticed? it was _fast.. LIke, responsive all round. It was great. Still, I'm willing to give OSX the benefit of the doubt. OS7 started slow, 7.5 was better. 8.6 was pretty much there, and 9 was good and fast. So far, each subsequent release of OSX has increased speed, performance, and responsiveness.

Another thing. I like to play diablo II. And Unreal. And Deus Ex. The first to _do have carbonizations. But they are slower, and have some visual bugs. Deus Ex does not have a carbon version. I usually don't play it because I don't feel like rebooting. However, a friend who plays more than I do frequently reboots for the better gaming performance.

So yes. I, too, would have to think carefully before buying a non-OS9 booting notebook.

Incidentally, this is one other reason I think we're due for a powerbook before January. A lot of powerbook users, IMO, still flip to OS9 for things like better battery life. If apple releases an update unable to boot OS9, I think sales would suffer. Bad idea.

Markian

justinkim · Oct 23, 2002, 10:19 PM

I never use OS 9 any more, and I don't think I could live any more without the UNIX command line. I do freelance web development and having UNIX on my Powerbook has been a liberating experience. I've also come to love the OS X UI.

I do understand some of the performance issues people have. My 400MHz G4 PowerBook is noticably slower when running X, and with Jag I'm noticing more spinning beach balls than I have under other versions of X. Still, the machine is very usable and I imagine a machine with a processor >= 800MHz and a decent video subsystem will be more than satisfactory.

John123 · Oct 23, 2002, 10:21 PM

Wow, I ask a mature question and get snyde commentary. Very mature.

To address the rhetorical question: I actually use Windows 2000 on my PCs. I find Windows XP to be very much like OS X: heavy emphasis on the aesthetics with less emphasis on functionality. I run Windows 2000 on a couple computers, but my main one is a Dell with a 2.53 Ghz processor. Incidentally, you can get such a machine bare-bones for around a thousand bucks (I've souped my main one up at work with a SCSI hard drive and a couple digs of RAM, but my feeling about my PC hold even with a lot less RAM on IDE drives as well).

For the record, I've been using Macs for roughly the last decade. I've owned five of them (and no PCs). So I'm hardly a biased PC user here.

In truth, it's the power-user-applications that I find so difficult to use in OS X. I find it painfully slow to run Photoshop, LiveMotion, Word, and a couple other applications at once. So much for pre-emptive multitasking. By contrast, I find very few problems running these thing simultaneously in 9. And this was on a machine with 768 MB of memory.

I don't get why you guys find 9 to be clunky. Anyone care to share some anecdotal examples? At the risk of sounding caustic myself, I'm just going to suggest the possibility of operator error...

Mr. Blur · Oct 23, 2002, 10:21 PM

everyone screamed when they didn't put a floppy drive in the imac too. i have not booted into os 9 for months and months....it's time to move on.

John123 · Oct 23, 2002, 10:24 PM

I wouldn't mind moving on, if Apple would quit spending so much money and resources on developing i-Apps that I couldn't care less about and devote MORE time and resources to streamlining the code in their OS (or at least making it possible to turn off the obnoxious GUI gimmicks that slow it down).

OS 9 was and is an easy OS to optimize. Want to speed it up? Get rid of third-party extensions and control panels. Shrink your Fonts folder, or use a fonts management program.

The tweaks for X seem to be quite lacking indeed.

jhunt5247 · Oct 23, 2002, 10:38 PM

Originally posted by John123:
Want to speed it up? Get rid of third-party extensions and control panels.

What? You can't turn that off. I am about to buy a powerbook, and I have played with OS/X for like 5 mins. Though, I noticed when you minimize a window it has to show it shreaking to the bottom task bar. I also noticed when you open IE for example, IE icon bounces a couple of times to look pretty.

I assumed you could turn off all that nonsense if you wanted to. Your saying you can't??

John123 · Oct 23, 2002, 10:45 PM

Some stuff you can turn off. The "genie" effect you're referring to, you can turn off. I think the other option is the scale effect, which is faster.

And you can make the icons not bounce as well.

But look at the fonts on the screen. See how smooth they are? That's anti-aliasing at work in the OS. That's different than the "blocky" fonts OS 9 uses. See also the dropshadow on the fonts -- how they are white with a black shadow to them? Same thing.

Part of the big push with Jaguar is that a lot of the graphics could be offloaded to the GPU. With OS 9, that was never necessary. Furthermore, the DVI PowerBooks, which have the ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 with 32 MB of onboard DDR-RAM, should be optimized to take full advantage of Quark Extreme. The reality of the matter is that they're still slower.

Just try encoding a movie in Discreet Cleaner, or preparing some animation in Adobe LiveMotion, or running a filder in Photoshop. Do it while other applications are open. Benchmark it in 9 and in X. You'll see what I mean. For a really obvious benchmark, download the program that opens and closes a window 1000 times (the program has the word "bloom" in the title, but I forget the exact name...you can find it on one of these boards, though). You'll notice a huge lag in 9 versus X.

Don't mistake what I'm saying. I'm all for progress. And if X is the way of the future, then that's fine. But I've used every almost iteration of X -- from the Public Beta to 10.0 to 10.1 to 10.2...and it still lags in speed.

I could put up with OS X's irksome features if they'd just optimize it.

FlashGordon · Oct 23, 2002, 10:47 PM

Your thinking is a bit flawed. X is slow on the 667 b/c it is running on a 667. I would bet it also has 256 MB of RAM( but it does not change the point). I will not argue that X is slower, but it will most certainly be much faster on any new Rev of the powerbook with 512 MB of RAM. I noticed that X ran slow when I tested a 667 tibook but it runs along with zip in any stronger Mac. If anything you should want a new Powerbook b/c it will run X at a speed you can accept. No one should argue that 9 is more stable than X, and it is likely that most software defencies in X will be ironed out by MWSF.

John123 · Oct 23, 2002, 10:48 PM

And there's that little issue of price. When you can a Dell 2.2 Ghz laptop with a 15" UltraSharp UXGA display combo drive and DDR-RAM and a Radeon Mobility 9000 for under $2200.....

maceye · Oct 23, 2002, 10:52 PM

To the person who said they prefer OS 9 for games: get a PC if you are serious about games. I'm not trying to be rude here, but why would you buy a Mac if you want to do any serious gaming? Games come out later (if at all) on the Mac platform, and sometimes they are very buggy (remember Descent 3?). And I will admit that OS X isn't that fast on older equipment (as in G3-powered computers, but it should be fast enough on a 667Ti (I have an 800 and it's fast enough for me). Although I have never used an iBook, so maybe they are fast, i don't know...)

Justin W. Williams · Oct 23, 2002, 10:53 PM

Anyone not wanting an OS X only Powerbook is living in the past. OS X is plenty fast on the Powerbook800. A revised line is gonna make it even better.

UnixMac · Oct 23, 2002, 10:59 PM

OS X will get faster and faster, while OS 9 will stand still. As of now, I think that OS X.2 is the hands down winner when running with duel processors. But the GUI in 9 is still snappier, but that doesn't mean that the underlying OS is faster, don't kid your self. It don't get much faster than Unix. The bottle neck for OS X is the G4 in it's current incarnation.

iBorg · Oct 23, 2002, 11:08 PM

John 123 brings up some good points, some of which I've been thinking about myself, as I prepare to upgrade from a Pismo to a (hopefully upgraded) Ti Book.

There are some programs that simply don't run well in Classic, (and some that don't run at all!) and alot of people are going to be reluctant to simply toss out software and programs that they've shelled out $$$ for.

Many popular games have no OS X version, and running them through Classic is very slow, even on my G4 800 iMac, not just my Pismo. Stop tell people "buy a peecee if you want to play games" - we don't need more people leaving Mac OS!! Especially with current sales now hovering between 4-5% market share!

Another program we should all be concerned about: Virtual PC is not just an important program to alot of people, it's a tremendous selling point for Mac OS - "run you peecee programs on a Mac." Have you ever tried VPC under OS X? It's painfully, glacially slow! - not just a little, it's almost unuseable, whereas under OS 9, it's almost, dare I use the term, "snappy!" Connectix has stated that VPC will never run as fast on X as it does on OS 9. And many Mac-users must be able to either use VPC for some programs, or buy a second peecee.

Don't flame the guy because he wants to be able to boot into OS 9 - his was a legitimate question. I assume it's a question that's on the minds of many Mac-users, with the 1/02 deadline approaching.

iBorg

John123 · Oct 23, 2002, 11:20 PM

I haven't tried any of the new dual processor models yet, so I don't have any first-hand experience comparing 9 to X on those kinds of machines. I have, however, used a Pismo, a PowerBook G4/550, and a PowerBook G4/667 (DVI) with 9 and X, and in each case, using 9 was snappier.

As for UNIX: in its barest form, I'm sure it is a very sleek OS. But in its present implementation and deployment, it's just as fast. Anyone who's not sure on this can do some benchmarking. Whip out a stopwatch and time some things -- opening and closing windows, running operations, etc. It becomes really clear in not too long.

I think my general point applies to all OSes -- be they for the Mac or the PC. As machines get faster and as hard disk capacities grow ever-larger, programmers have this nasty tendency to let their code balloon instead of keeping it neat and trim. My Power Mac 6100 had five floppies with it, if I recall -- and three of those were utilities and extras. OS X wants a pair of CDs? Something is wrong with this picture.

Markian · Oct 24, 2002, 01:01 AM

2 quotes:

I don't get why you guys find 9 to be clunky. Anyone care to share some anecdotal examples? At the risk of sounding caustic myself, I'm just going to suggest the possibility of operator error...

Originally posted by John123:
I wouldn't mind moving on, if Apple would quit spending so much money and resources on developing i-Apps that I couldn't care less about and devote MORE time and resources to streamlining the code in their OS (or at least making it possible to turn off the obnoxious GUI gimmicks that slow it down).

OS 9 was and is an easy OS to optimize. Want to speed it up? Get rid of third-party extensions and control panels. Shrink your Fonts folder, or use a fonts management program.

The tweaks for X seem to be quite lacking indeed.

ok, in response to the first, I _agree with you; perhaps I wasn't clear. OS9 runs smoother and quick er than OSX. OSX, while improving, is still clunky. However, I disagree about the problems you're having with multitasking. That is, I believe you have problems, but I don't believe the problem is with the multitasking; that's one of the things that's done correctly in OSX. If your machine seems sluggish doing this, I have to ask if it has as much ram as the old machine?

I also agree that I wish apple would put as much time into optimizing their OS as they do with iApps. While I understand the need for the iApps, I want a system that works well. In my case, that means proper process utilization. See my post in the OSX developer section: http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=128757

To me, this is a serious drawback. It means that in a final tournament system, I would not be using a powerbook (or whatever) even though I really want to.

And yes. It was easy to optimize OS9; quit other apps, minimal system, and go. No one yet has been able to explain to me why the "active" memory in OSX grows and grows regardless of what processes are running. Is there a massive memory leak somewhere in the kernel? Or do I not understand something about Unix memory management?

Markian

Markian · Oct 24, 2002, 01:07 AM

Originally posted by UnixMac:
OS X will get faster and faster, while OS 9 will stand still. As of now, I think that OS X.2 is the hands down winner when running with duel processors. But the GUI in 9 is still snappier, but that doesn't mean that the underlying OS is faster, don't kid your self. It don't get much faster than Unix. The bottle neck for OS X is the G4 in it's current incarnation.

ah, but it does get much faster. this is one of my complaints about OSX. see http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=128757

If the "unix" part of OSX was properly married to the GUI, this wouldn't happen. It doesn't happen in x-windows, and it didn't happen in BeOS. There is no reason you can't have a snappy GUI _AND_ a responsive unix. OSX still lacks in the latter.

Markian

Markian · 01:20 AM

Originally posted by maceye:
To the person who said they prefer OS 9 for games: get a PC if you are serious about games. I'm not trying to be rude here, but why would you buy a Mac if you want to do any serious gaming? Games come out later (if at all) on the Mac platform, and sometimes they are very buggy (remember Descent 3?). And I will admit that OS X isn't that fast on older equipment (as in G3-powered computers, but it should be fast enough on a 667Ti (I have an 800 and it's fast enough for me). Although I have never used an iBook, so maybe they are fast, i don't know...)

I hear you. And you're probably right. But, I am not a _serious_ gamer. The three games I mentioned are about all I play. One of them is not available for OSX. the other 2 perform, though somewhat substandardly in OSX Carbon, and even worse in Classic. If I want to enjoy these games, I have to reboot. Not to knock Blizzard. Diablo II OSX is great, and they were very helpful on their support number as I helped them track down bugs! Unreal... the OSX works, but there are graphics flaws. ditto diablo II. And Deus Ex... well, it's OS9 only, and not really playable in classic.

Ordinarily, I buy less than a game a year. Not worth buying a PC! If I buy a tibook in January, I lose the abililty to play at least one of my games, and have a substandard experience in the the other 2.

Markian

bstone · Oct 24, 2002, 01:26 AM

Originally posted by Mr. Blur:
everyone screamed when they didn't put a floppy drive in the imac too. i have not booted into os 9 for months and months....it's time to move on.

My Pismo 400 wasn't made for OS X in mind. Sadly, even 10.2.1 is just not good enough to run on it. My G4 450 at work with 786 MB RAM and 16mb AGP video card can barely run OS 10.2.1 without me goign nuts.

John123 · Oct 24, 2002, 01:37 AM

Originally posted by Markian:
2 quotes:

ok, in response to the first, I _agree with you; perhaps I wasn't clear. OS9 runs smoother and quick er than OSX. OSX, while improving, is still clunky. However, I disagree about the problems you're having with multitasking. That is, I believe you have problems, but I don't believe the problem is with the multitasking; that's one of the things that's done correctly in OSX. If your machine seems sluggish doing this, I have to ask if it has as much ram as the old machine?

I also agree that I wish apple would put as much time into optimizing their OS as they do with iApps. While I understand the need for the iApps, I want a system that works well. In my case, that means proper process utilization. See my post in the OSX developer section: http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=128757

To me, this is a serious drawback. It means that in a final tournament system, I would not be using a powerbook (or whatever) even though I really want to.

And yes. It was easy to optimize OS9; quit other apps, minimal system, and go. No one yet has been able to explain to me why the "active" memory in OSX grows and grows regardless of what processes are running. Is there a massive memory leak somewhere in the kernel? Or do I not understand something about Unix memory management?

Markian [/B]

All my Macs of late have had 768 MB of RAM. Even the DVI PowerBook. And it was still sluggish with several apps open at once.

dialo · Oct 24, 2002, 11:51 AM

So I should be forced to buy upgrades of all of my software? Buying a OSX only powerbook would require a lot more than I'm ready to give up. I would need to buy logic 5 (I use 4), illustrator, photoshop (I still use 6) and office x among others. Not cool.

kcmac · Oct 24, 2002, 06:28 PM

So Apple forgets about (or never developed) the iapps, mail, addressbook, etc. Works solely on making OS X faster.

Who goes to OS X?

Are you kidding? The migration has been slow enough even with exciting apps that only work in X. The iPod would be nothing if iTunes hadn't been developed.

Apple clearly has a lot on their plate right now. It was a big risk completely changing the OS. It is still a risk. They still have a ways to go. But the potential is huge.

Dropping OS 9 from the next installs is something they have to do. Some may say it is too soon. Some of us have been using OS X for over a year and a half and won't even take notice.

John123 · Oct 24, 2002, 09:43 PM

That's a rather selfish perspective. "It doesn't affect me; therefore, the company should continue that policy."

Apparently, some of you newbies have forgotten about Apple's financial troubles in the 1990s. Had it not been for the PowerPC, which brought Apple back to the competitive playing field, and for the iMac, which brought that playing field to the consumer market, I daresay that most of you would be typing away on Pentiums at the moment.

Alienating a user base is simply bad business. You may argue -- correctly -- that a company must be forward looking. I'm not disputing that point. What I am disputing is the notion that OS X is ready for primetime. It's not.

When the floppy drive was dropped from iMacs, no one really skipped a beat, BECAUSE THEY HAD OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO THEM. Many of my friends purchased USB floppy drives and other removable storage devices with greater capacity. This isn't the same issue. Absent a third-party workaround that enables newer Macs to boot into OS 9, those purchasing Macs in 2003 will be unable to continue their previous patterns.

The implication for you, Joe Blow OS X User, is that people like me won't BUY Macs -- causing Apple to lose marketshare, causing fewer software programs to be written for the Mac OS and those that are to be sold at a higher price.

Like I've said over and over...if they'd optimize the OS, I'd make the move and swallow the other stuff that I don't like about X. Without that optimization, Apple isn't going to get the money eating a hole in my pocket.

Nebrie · Oct 24, 2002, 09:50 PM

Originally posted by John123:
That's a rather selfish perspective. "It doesn't affect me; therefore, the company should continue that policy."

Apparently, some of you newbies have forgotten about Apple's financial troubles in the 1990s. Had it not been for the PowerPC, which brought Apple back to the competitive playing field, and for the iMac, which brought that playing field to the consumer market, I daresay that most of you would be typing away on Pentiums at the moment.

Alienating a user base is simply bad business. You may argue -- correctly -- that a company must be forward looking. I'm not disputing that point. What I am disputing is the notion that OS X is ready for primetime. It's not.

When the floppy drive was dropped from iMacs, no one really skipped a beat, BECAUSE THEY HAD OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO THEM. Many of my friends purchased USB floppy drives and other removable storage devices with greater capacity. This isn't the same issue. Absent a third-party workaround that enables newer Macs to boot into OS 9, those purchasing Macs in 2003 will be unable to continue their previous patterns.

The implication for you, Joe Blow OS X User, is that people like me won't BUY Macs -- causing Apple to lose marketshare, causing fewer software programs to be written for the Mac OS and those that are to be sold at a higher price.

Like I've said over and over...if they'd optimize the OS, I'd make the move and swallow the other stuff that I don't like about X. Without that optimization, Apple isn't going to get the money eating a hole in my pocket.

Then buy the latest Mac, get 2-3 years of use out of it, and if OS X isn't good enough for you by then, you might as well leave because it never will be.

John123 · Oct 24, 2002, 10:03 PM

Originally posted by Nebrie:

Then buy the latest Mac, get 2-3 years of use out of it, and if OS X isn't good enough for you by then, you might as well leave because it never will be.

As I said in my last post, that is myopic and ultimately self-defeating rhetoric.

Thanks for elucidating my point.

azark · Oct 24, 2002, 10:33 PM

Anyone not wanting an OS X only Powerbook is living in the past. OS X is plenty fast on the Powerbook800. A revised line is gonna make it even better.

So every musicians, music producers, etc. are living in the past?

I use OS X for everything except Audio-pro.
But audio is the main purpose of my PB.
(for the rest an iBook would be great)
Do you think I love to reboot all the time, that I want to use a so called "dead OS" just to be retro?

Lots of people use their computer to work! And until EVERY apps we need are ported to X (incl. Plug-ins, etc.), we don't have any choice.

So I will buy a new PB, only if it can boot OS 9.

Audio is probably not the only domain in this case, so it makes sense to me to have one last revision of all pro lines booting OS9 after they announce the OS X only harware for 2003.

Stop being selfish like that.

Justin W. Williams · Oct 24, 2002, 11:02 PM

Originally posted by azark:

So every musicians, music producers, etc. are living in the past?

I use OS X for everything except Audio-pro.
But audio is the main purpose of my PB.
(for the rest an iBook would be great)
Do you think I love to reboot all the time, that I want to use a so called "dead OS" just to be retro?

Lots of people use their computer to work! And until EVERY apps we need are ported to X (incl. Plug-ins, etc.), we don't have any choice.

So I will buy a new PB, only if it can boot OS 9.

Audio is probably not the only domain in this case, so it makes sense to me to have one last revision of all pro lines booting OS9 after they announce the OS X only harware for 2003.

Stop being selfish like that.

I am not being selfish, but Apple cannot hold back progress because of one group. All the main applications have been ported, Pro Tools is on its way, and a lot of the other main audio applications are already here.

John123 · Oct 24, 2002, 11:35 PM

Justin, performance *IS* progress.

Wanting your OS's GUI to be pretty and cute over functional is simply vain.

kcmac · Oct 25, 2002, 12:04 AM

I certainly recognize that OS X is not ready for prime time for all of us Mac users. But for the vast majority of how most of us use a computer, it certainly is. And it certainly should by in January/February '03 with 10.3.

OS 9 will continue to work on the mac you now have. It will work on anything you buy before the end of the year. Your only suffering will be because you can't have the bleeding edge machine next year?

I am betting on two things.

The laggard developers will kick it into gear and join the party when the OS X only party starts or soon after.

Apple will have enough in 10.3 that we don't have to boot into 9 to do disk repair and other things like that which we sometimes find ourselves with in 10.2.

Some of our user base will not move to OS X for the same reason that they still haven't moved to OS 9. What they have still works for them. Such is life. It is all good.

justinkim · Oct 25, 2002, 12:30 AM

Originally posted by John123:
Justin, performance *IS* progress.

Wanting your OS's GUI to be pretty and cute over functional is simply vain.

I guess functional is in the eye of the beholder. I find the OS X GUI to be both functional and attractive. Enough so that I'm going to be upgrading my computer clueless mother's iMac to 10.2 very soon.

You seem to be taking this whole OS X thing very personally, John. If you need a faster PowerBook, pick up one of the current 800MHz models now and wait until everything you need's been ported over. If it hasn't in a year or two, you can always defect to the dark side like you mentioned you might do in your first post.

(the other) Justin

John123 · Oct 25, 2002, 12:42 AM

I'm hardly taking it personally. I'm just dissatisfied with a clearly boneheaded decision by Apple.

As for picking up one of the 800 Mhz PowerBooks, I already said that I had purchased a 667 DVI. That's how I know how glacially slow they can be.

Justin W. Williams · Oct 25, 2002, 12:45 AM

Originally posted by John123:
Justin, performance *IS* progress.

Wanting your OS's GUI to be pretty and cute over functional is simply vain.

Almost everyone here wants OS X to be the speed demon that os9 is on their existing hardware. Not gonna happen. os9 is based off a codebase that started almost two decades ago. Of course its gonna be fast! OS X is a speed demon on any new Apple hardware. If it wasnt, they wouldn't be able to sell computers.

John123 · Oct 25, 2002, 02:15 AM

You're saying that Apple made a move to an OS that never can and never will be as fast as its older OS? If that's an accurate assessment, then I sure pity Apple.

Really, I don't even understand why you people even *like* OS X, other than its cuteness. What is it that's so wonderful? And don't talk to me about stability...I've run Systems 6 through 9, and run properly, 9.2.2 is a very good OS. On several machines, I've had very little trouble with it.

So what's your problem with 9?

JLL · Oct 25, 2002, 04:55 AM

Originally posted by John123:
You're saying that Apple made a move to an OS that never can and never will be as fast as its older OS?

Not on the same hardware (as he said) - just like Mac OS 9 is much slower than Mac OS 8 on the same machine.

Tiauguinho · Oct 25, 2002, 06:10 AM

Originally posted by John123:
I wouldn't mind moving on, if Apple would quit spending so much money and resources on developing i-Apps that I couldn't care less about and devote MORE time and resources to streamlining the code in their OS ...

That was the dumbest and the most stupid comment that I've ever saw in a thread... I do understand that you are the kind of user that Apple Macintosh have problems with, the kind of user that does not understand the way and the ideology that Apple Macinosh is following... The iApps are one thing that trully brings people attention to the Macintosh plattform, the simple, easy and joyfull way of dealing with your Digital Lifestyle. It's their ideology, the way they Think Different, they way that you can trully enjoy playing and working with your computer.

iBorg · Oct 25, 2002, 06:10 AM

Originally posted by JLL:

Not on the same hardware (as he said) - just like Mac OS 9 is much slower than Mac OS 8 on the same machine.

First time I've ever heard that! I've used every Mac OS from 7 on through 10.2, and the move from OS 9 to X is the first time Apple has had such a backlash against "upgrading" because of slowness of the OS. And not just a _little_ slower - we're talking massive slowdown on critical apps like Office, Photoshop, Virtual PC, etc., etc. Each revision of X is getting a little faster, but "speed" has never been mentioned in the same sentence as "OS X."

On the positive side, OS X is much more stable than 9 - I used to have to reboot from a crash fairly regularly in 9 - in a little over one year with X, I've had exactly one kernel panic, and less than five system freezes requiring a "3 finger salute." And multitasking is great - but you need a modern, high-speed G4 to get away from the "spinning beachball" - the GUI is just too slow yet.

Apple has made the decision to make it impossible to boot into OS 9, to force it's customers to upgrade to X - not because it's technically necessary, but for it's financial bottom-line, and to force developers to "get on the bandwagon" and upgrade their apps to X - ultimately this is good for all, but it will cause hardships for many people in the short-run.

I just hope the new Ti's come out soon, so I can still enjoy the best of both worlds, without having to "settle" for a too-slow G4 800 MHz CPU.

C'mon, Apple!!! Gimme my 1 GHz G4 Ti!!!

iBorg

TheTrinity · Oct 25, 2002, 07:52 AM

iBorg,

Time for a little perspective.

I'm going to have to really disagree with you on your last comment:

Apple has made the decision to make it impossible to boot into OS 9, to force it's customers to upgrade to X - not because it's technically necessary, but for it's financial bottom-line...

There's more to an OS than speed, and there's more involved in updating the hardware than turning up the "speed" like a volume dial. Apple has to update MacOS 9 for every significant change to the hardware. That costs resources which necessarily limit development resources available for Mac OS X.

I remember how great it was to use WordPerfect 4.3 with DOS on a 286. It was blazing fast. The machine only had 640k, but I could load the entire application into a virtual disk in memory and it was blazingly fast. (Remember now, the application and system, along with all of my data files, were on my 5.25 floppy.)

Unfortunately, when WordPerfect 5.1 came on the scene, it was MUCH, MUCH slower on the same hardware. In time, WordPerfect stopped updating 4.3, and it became incompatable with new hardware. But did we complain? Well, a little. But not much, because after the transition (and faster processors), we realized that the new paradigm that 5.1 represented was worth it. It could do things that 4.3 could NEVER do.

The same is true of OS X. It's a new paradigm. We pay an initial performance hit. I'm willing to bet that Mac OS X will NEVER be as fast as OS 9 on the same machine. NEVER. But the paradim shift is still worth it, and it will allow us to do things that OS 9 will never be able to do. AND, in time, OS X will be much faster than OS 9 simply because the hardware keeps getting faster and faster.

The speed will come in time...

Actually for me, the more significant issues are applications and DRIVERS that are not yet available in OS X.

TheTrinity · Oct 25, 2002, 08:01 AM

RE: iBorg

First time I've ever heard that! I've used every Mac OS from 7 on through 10.2, and the move from OS 9 to X is the first time Apple has had such a backlash against "upgrading" because of slowness of the OS.

Also, if you'd been around just a bit longer, you'd know that there was the same kind of concern in the transition from MacOS 6 to 7.

Mac OS 7 to 9, were variations on a theme. OS X is a new theme.

mrmister · Oct 25, 2002, 08:57 AM

Yep, this is an old story--a little more extreme this time, but the same.

Folks, if you hate X, or you can't migrate for some reason--DON'T. Stick with your current hardware on 9 until they pry it from your cold, dead hands.

It is a free country, and by the time you begrdugingly upgrade to X, somehow I suspect that the speed issues will be eliminated by better hardware and future upgrades to the OS.

icruise · Oct 25, 2002, 09:47 AM

Wow, there are still a lot of feelings running high over this issue, aren't there? First of all, let me say that I agree with John123 that making new Macs OS X-booting only is really dumb. It's just too soon. But I can't agree with his opinion about OS X in general.

I have made some of the same arguments that John123 is making in the past, but I think that if he would spend some time getting to know OS X, he might just like it. I have been using OS X since the public beta, and frankly until very recently it was kind of an embarrassment. There were just so many things that OS 9 could do, that it couldn't, without even getting into the whole speed issue. But with OS 10.2 we are finally starting to see what the OS can do, and what the future holds in store.

Is it too slow? Sure. Is it too slow to be usable? No. I use a 400mhz Powerbook G3 (recently upgraded to a 500mhz G4) and it is far from being a speed demon, but it is usable. I think one of the new 800mhz Tibooks would be pretty good.

Why do I like it? Well, John seems to have a problem with eye-candy, but keep in mind that this same argument has been made many times in the past. At one time it was one of the main arguments that hard-core PC users used against the mac -- "Who needs all those pictures taking up CPU cycles? I'm faster with DOS!" (prominent Mac-basher John Dvorak was one of the people who originally made this argument, by the way...) The fact is that while some of the eyecandy may seem kind of superfluous, almost all of it is useful. The genie effect may seem stupid, but it does tell you where your window went, and it seems to be helpful for new users. Same with bouncing icons -- they let you know what programs are opening up, or if a program needs your attention. OS X is still young, and designers are still learning how to use translucency and so forth in useful ways, but it's coming. Speaking of icons, OS X's icons are beautiful. Take a trip to www.iconfactory.com or www.xicons.com. It's amazing how great some of these icons are, and they help to personalize your computer experience.

I like OS X's multitasking. THere are way too many times that OS 9 forces you to use just one program. Many times you can't even change to another program when there is an open dialog box.

Stability is another biggie. My OS X experience has never been as good as others I have read about in this respect -- I still have to restart occasionally, and I sometimes get programs or even the whole OS to freeze with the spinning beachball, but for the most part OS X is far superior to OS 9. I think I had a relatively stable system for OS 9, but having the whole system freeze fairly regularly was no fun. With OS X 9 times out of 10 any weirdness can be solved by quitting a program, or by logging in and out -- rarely are you forced to restart, and rarely do you lose work because the system and all of your programs decided to freeze up.

I guess my point is that OS X still has its share of problems, but you should try and use it for a while, look at the hints and tips sites out there, see what software add-ons and enhancers are available, and above all and stop trying to do exactly the same thing you did in OS 9 -- that is a recipe for disappointment. But if you take some time to see what the new system can do, and change your way of working a bit to accommodate it, you may find yourself liking it better than OS 9.

But yes, Apple should let us boot into OS 9 for at least another year.

fisherKing · Oct 25, 2002, 10:41 AM

i'm running 9.2.2 on a pismo 400, love it.
but i know that next year i will move to a new powerbook, and osx.

x is the future, that's all there is.
i remember when apple started to implement usb ports, everyone cried about no peripherals...now usb is everywhere.

can't stop progress, so we move to x, or eventually, miss out on better apps, better functionality.

if it's not there yet, it will be, and i wanna be there to see it...

(once i save up enough to upgrade ALL my apps...*sigh*)

John123 · Oct 25, 2002, 12:52 PM

Originally posted by Tiauguinho:

That was the dumbest and the most stupid comment that I've ever saw in a thread... I do understand that you are the kind of user that Apple Macintosh have problems with, the kind of user that does not understand the way and the ideology that Apple Macinosh is following... The iApps are one thing that trully brings people attention to the Macintosh plattform, the simple, easy and joyfull way of dealing with your Digital Lifestyle. It's their ideology, the way they Think Different, they way that you can trully enjoy playing and working with your computer.

Way to go, buddy! Instead of making an intelligent argument, you dive into personal invective!

For starters, if you're going to talk about stupidity, you should read your own post. It's riddled with grammar and spelling errors.

That point aside, you sound very much like a newbie, so let me let you in on a secret: there were a lot of us using Macs before the iApps. And I can assure you, they were not (and are not) necessary to "bring people['s] attention to the Macintosh [platform]." People buy computers for performance. If you want art, go buy a piece of artwork. I could care less about a "digital lifestyle" if I'm going to have to wait twice as long watching a beach ball spin to get from point A to point B in that lifestyle.

As I've pointed out a couple times already in this thread, viewpoints such as yours are ultimately self-defeating. By ignoring a sizeable portion of the Apple market share and thus alienating it, you only shrink the likelihood of available and affordable Macintosh computers and software titles.

John123 · Oct 25, 2002, 01:07 PM

Originally posted by Icruise:
Wow, there are still a lot of feelings running high over this issue, aren't there? First of all, let me say that I agree with John123 that making new Macs OS X-booting only is really dumb. It's just too soon. But I can't agree with his opinion about OS X in general.

I have made some of the same arguments that John123 is making in the past, but I think that if he would spend some time getting to know OS X, he might just like it. I have been using OS X since the public beta, and frankly until very recently it was kind of an embarrassment. There were just so many things that OS 9 could do, that it couldn't, without even getting into the whole speed issue. But with OS 10.2 we are finally starting to see what the OS can do, and what the future holds in store.

Is it too slow? Sure. Is it too slow to be usable? No. I use a 400mhz Powerbook G3 (recently upgraded to a 500mhz G4) and it is far from being a speed demon, but it is usable. I think one of the new 800mhz Tibooks would be pretty good.

Why do I like it? Well, John seems to have a problem with eye-candy, but keep in mind that this same argument has been made many times in the past. At one time it was one of the main arguments that hard-core PC users used against the mac -- "Who needs all those pictures taking up CPU cycles? I'm faster with DOS!" (prominent Mac-basher John Dvorak was one of the people who originally made this argument, by the way...) The fact is that while some of the eyecandy may seem kind of superfluous, almost all of it is useful. The genie effect may seem stupid, but it does tell you where your window went, and it seems to be helpful for new users. Same with bouncing icons -- they let you know what programs are opening up, or if a program needs your attention. OS X is still young, and designers are still learning how to use translucency and so forth in useful ways, but it's coming. Speaking of icons, OS X's icons are beautiful. Take a trip to www.iconfactory.com or www.xicons.com. It's amazing how great some of these icons are, and they help to personalize your computer experience.

I like OS X's multitasking. THere are way too many times that OS 9 forces you to use just one program. Many times you can't even change to another program when there is an open dialog box.

Stability is another biggie. My OS X experience has never been as good as others I have read about in this respect -- I still have to restart occasionally, and I sometimes get programs or even the whole OS to freeze with the spinning beachball, but for the most part OS X is far superior to OS 9. I think I had a relatively stable system for OS 9, but having the whole system freeze fairly regularly was no fun. With OS X 9 times out of 10 any weirdness can be solved by quitting a program, or by logging in and out -- rarely are you forced to restart, and rarely do you lose work because the system and all of your programs decided to freeze up.

I guess my point is that OS X still has its share of problems, but you should try and use it for a while, look at the hints and tips sites out there, see what software add-ons and enhancers are available, and above all and stop trying to do exactly the same thing you did in OS 9 -- that is a recipe for disappointment. But if you take some time to see what the new system can do, and change your way of working a bit to accommodate it, you may find yourself liking it better than OS 9.

But yes, Apple should let us boot into OS 9 for at least another year.

My problem with it is that I have tried it. I know my way around it, and I've used it...and I've come full-circle back to OS 9. I tried as hard as I could to force myself to use it when 10.2 came out...but in the end, each time I had to boot back into OS 9 for a little thing, I was reminded of 9's benefits. I never found X to be a holy grail of stability, and adding the performance bottlenecks to the picture was the straw that broke this camel's back.

icruise · Oct 25, 2002, 02:03 PM

I'm sure you have tried it, but I just wonder if you aren't letting your gut reaction to change (and some of the changes are not for the better, I admit) color your attitude twoward the OS. I used to feel just like you -- I would go back to OS 9 and be amazed at how fast it was, or how much better I seemed to work, but after a while I found that I would dread going to OS 9, because it seemed to primitive, and I was used to the OS X way of doing things (no dock! what?) I haven't used OS 9 for months now, and I don't miss it. I miss a few of the nice features that it had, but they don't outweigh the problems I had.

iBorg · Oct 25, 2002, 02:40 PM

Originally posted by TheTrinity:
RE: iBorg

Also, if you'd been around just a bit longer, you'd know that there was the same kind of concern in the transition from MacOS 6 to 7.

Mac OS 7 to 9, were variations on a theme. OS X is a new theme.

Irrelevant - I was refuting the previous post stating that OS 9 was a similarly significant slowdown from OS 8, which was untrue.

iBorg

John123 · Oct 25, 2002, 09:47 PM

Originally posted by Icruise:
I'm sure you have tried it, but I just wonder if you aren't letting your gut reaction to change (and some of the changes are not for the better, I admit) color your attitude twoward the OS. I used to feel just like you -- I would go back to OS 9 and be amazed at how fast it was, or how much better I seemed to work, but after a while I found that I would dread going to OS 9, because it seemed to primitive, and I was used to the OS X way of doing things (no dock! what?) I haven't used OS 9 for months now, and I don't miss it. I miss a few of the nice features that it had, but they don't outweigh the problems I had.

Please don't take this the wrong way, because I don't mean any malice by it...but I wonder if folks like you are brainwashed a bit by Apple's propaganda. Does the dock really make you more productive? Of course not...no more so than a hierarchical Apple menu. And as for the genie effect, which one user has commented "helps new users know where their window went," OS 9 has Windowshade -- so that your windows don't go ANYWAY. If you want to be able to collapse your windows like that in OS X, you have to buy a piece of shareware.

I fully agree that the OS X UNIX core offers a lot of great services. There are some nifty programs that make the machine more functional (I love the network utility -- you sure can't ping from any OS 9 Apple software). And I'd happily make the move if they could JUST speed it up...and that could be accomplished fairly easily by allowing the user to turn off the eye candy. It wasn't hard to turn stuff off in OS 9, by moving extensions, using the Easy Finder, etc. Can it really be that hard in X?

kcmac · Oct 26, 2002, 12:38 AM

It's not brainwashing. The more you use OS X for extended periods of time, you will understand what a lot of OS X users are saying.

The more you use it, the more you notice it is fast in other ways. You will start to notice that the "eye candy" actually gets out of your way or is not as noticeable.

You will also be shocked when you go back to 9 at how tired, old and in your way the graphics look. You will also find that suddenly, you can't remember how to find or do something you used to do because you now are used to doing it the OS X way.

You will find this to be a good thing.

It almost sounds cult like, but that is the Apple way, eh?

iDaver · Oct 26, 2002, 01:54 AM

John, you make some very good points but you come across as pretty negative and a little resistant to change. Try to relax a bit, send some constructive criticism to Apple http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/ and before too long, all of your concerns will be met.

Perhaps it is a little early for Apple to be killing "OS 9 boot-ability" but it's inevitable and I'm sure there are reasons for doing it sooner rather than later. As others have said, hang on to your hardware which boots 9 for another year or two if you must and by then the pokeyness of OS X (or lack thereof) will be a non-issue.

Classic Mac OS was a great operating system, but its days are nearly over, like it or not.