Apple gearing up for OS war(Is Apple ready to fight the evil empire?)

volesoft ^ | 09 November 2005 | Nick Farrell

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

APPLE PUNDITS are predicting that the entertainment gear maker is set to take on Microsoft in an operating system war again.

According to Architosh, an Apple insider has told it that Apple's Messiah Steve Jobs is planning to make an announcement about expanding the Macintosh market share soon.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

^^^^^^^^The Mac community closely watches the market share and installed base figures, and if the Linux installed base passed Mac, that would be big news.^^^^^^^^

It was when those stories were fresh. But I doubt the mac crowd would want to draw attention to their losing of the spot they've had for years.

^^^^^^^^Perhaps the figures you saw excluded OS products pre-installed on new computers?^^^^^^^^

Nope. But I still wasn't talking about marketshare. I don't doubt one bit Apple's larger marketshare. But marketshare is short term. Userbase is total.

^^^^^^^^^^^But the Linux user interface is awful for the average desktop/laptop computer user. Frankly, it's stinks worse than Windows.^^^^^^^^^^

I disagree. Windows is always in the way with it's spamming the desktop of whatever icons are in the toolbar.(security center, AV, antispyware, auto updates, etc) Whenever another program has some sort of prompt it takes the emphasis away from your current task and puts it on the prompt.

The mac doesn't do that, and neither do the linux distros I've used.


As far as mac/linux, I just have a preference to linux. I don't find either to be more/less easier. Both have graphical installers off their respective CD's, and both have easy install algorithims...... Mac involves .dmg files, linux you use synaptic.

And I know about the growing converts. I'd encourage you to re-read post 1.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Both are good ideas, but I don't fully agree.

Apple is not a small company, but I don't know if they have the resources to take on that much all at once.(perhaps some mergers would change that)

They'd have much better luck by pushing technologies already available.

They already re-packaged one OSS technology, KHTML. That's called Safari. They could(should) repackage open office.

Then just focus in on the games.

And being UNIX, Apple's OS compared to windows is the better OS. Including gaming.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

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Linux also has an infinitesimally small marketshare of joe user, much higher only in the geek world.

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There's more geeks out there than you think. And besides, don't forget those who are just anti microsoft to be anti microsoft therefore will use anything else.

Linux may require more work to learn out of the gate but by no means is today's distros hard/impossible. For someone who is genuinely motivated it'd be very easy to pickup.

[HAL9000]

I was just looking at the Net Applications O/S Share statistics for October 2005.

According to their user agent data, collected from web server log files around the world, Mac OS accounted for 3.87% and Linux is at 0.3%.

So how would you account for that?

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

3.87% would mean that apple has how many users world wide?

[HAL9000]

It means that Macs users vastly outnumber Linux users on the worldwide web, according to the log file statistics.

[antiRepublicrat]

For someone who is genuinely motivated it'd be very easy to pickup.

Motivation is the problem. Average joe user doesn't want to have to be motivated. He wants to sit down, turn it on, and start using. Mac provides the best of this, Windows next, and Linux third, although improving rapidly.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

^^^^^^^^^^^It means that Macs users vastly outnumber Linux users on the worldwide web, according to the log file statistics.^^^^^^^^^^^^

Let's try this again.

http://www.c-i-a.com/pr0904.htm

There will be somewhere over a billion users in 2005.

Let's work with a number of 1.1 bil.

For apple to genuinely have 3.87% they'd have to have a userbase of around 45 million. By *apple's own numbers* they have only 25 million.

Your link is inaccurate.

If you wish to post something which has closer/more updated numbers than the number of 1.1 billion worldwide computers, then by all means post it.

And as to the .03 % linux users, that would mean that there are only 3-something million linux users worldwide.

Just by the sheer numbers alone of computers worldwide, that isn't accurate either.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Hey! Thanks for taking my words out of context. Love it!

^^^^^^^^^^^ Motivation is the problem. Average joe user doesn't want to have to be motivated.^^^^^^^^^^

You obviously don't realize how much anti-microsoft sentiment there is out there. 1 out of every 3(roughly) knoppix disks that I hand out will be a person who comes back and asks for more details, and will come back again later and thank me for the education and the "freeing" from the insanity.

Here's what I originally said.

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And besides, don't forget those who are just anti microsoft to be anti microsoft therefore will use anything else.

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There's your motivation for joe user. Because once linux is installed, it *IS* exactly as you state. Sit down, turn it on, and use it. Just like a mac. It's only windows that requires constant babysitting.

Most people just simply don't know that linux exists.

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Linux may require more work to learn out of the gate but by no means is today's distros hard/impossible. For someone who is genuinely motivated(such as the large anti-microsoft crowd) it'd be very easy to pickup.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

One more thing. Going back to your marketshare link.....

If you were to say that your numbers represented the american market/userbase only.....

I'd believe you there. Apple's numbers are much higher saturated in the american market, wheras linux plays it's "catchup game" with the rest of the world weighed in due to it's price, and the view of the microsoft monopoly.

But apple's biggest problem in this arena is the fact that macos will only work on a mac. Linux will work on anything. Including a mac. It's sheer numbers.

[HAL9000]

"Your link is inaccurate."

The link is accurate. It's not a measurement of global OS usage - it shows OS percentages based on user agent statistics from web server log files. The statistics show that there are far more Mac users using the World Wide Web than Linux users. You haven't produced any evidence to the contrary.

Despite that, you claim there are more Linux users than Mac users. Apparently, your phantom army of Linux users doesn't use the Internet.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

^^^^^^^^^^The statistics show that there are far more Mac users using the World Wide Web than Linux users.^^^^^^^^^^^

Yeah, so many that just simply don't exist.

^^^^^^^^^^^^Apparently, your phantom army of Linux users doesn't use the Internet.^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It's possible. Far more likely than phantom macs that don't even exist, by apple's own numbers.