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Posted on 03/22/2007 12:59:16 PM PDT by Swordmaker
"WHEN I STARTED WRITING this column back in 1992, the world of personal technology was positively primitive compared with where we stand today. So armed with the benefit of 15 years of hindsight, and in this final installment of the Mossberg Report, I'd like to take a look back on the distance we've traveled in personal technology over the past decade and a half, as well as make a few predictions about where things might be headed," Walt Mossberg writes for SmartMoney (Feb. 1, don't know how we missed it. By the way, the article's date on the SmartMoney site is currently incorrect, Mr. Mossberg tells MacDailyNews. It should be 2007, not 2006).
MacDailyNews Note: This morning, we asked Mr. Mossberg why it was the final installment of the Mossberg Report and he told us that he has decided to drop this particular column due mainly to increasing demands on his time from his D Conference (http://d.wsj.com) and a new web site launching next month which is an extension of the D Conference, called All Things Digital. See http://www.allthingsd.com for a preview. Mr. Mossberg said, "I am still writing two WSJ columns weekly (Personal Technology and Mossberg's Mailbox), and editing (and occasionally authoring) a third weekly WSJ column, The Mossberg Solution (where our Apple TV review ran yesterday). I am still co-producing my annual tech conference, and now will be co-producing a new tech web site. I just won't be doing the magazine column."
"In 1992 the Internet wasn't available to the general public. There were no iPods or any other portable digital music players. Cellphones were big, bulky and analog, mainly used in cars in the U.S. The first consumer digital cameras had just arrived: crude models that cost $800, worked only in black and white, and held just 32 images," Mossberg writes.
Mossberg writes, "Microsoft was offering the clumsy Windows 3.1, which seemed to crash if you sneezed, and many people were still using the geeky and limited DOS operating system on their 'IBM-compatible' PCs. Apple's technology was way ahead of Windows, but the company would soon enter a period of management mediocrity and product paralysis."
"By around 2001, when the current major operating systems, Windows XP and Apple's Mac OS X, made their debuts, personal technology had vastly improved. Many of the rough edges had been sanded off. The Mac had long been 'plug and play,' and Windows was much closer to that goal. Both systems were fairly stable," Mossberg writes.
Mossberg writes, "There had been viruses for many years, of course, including some big attacks in the 1990s. But over the past five years, the security problem has morphed into a major hassle for people who own and use Windows computers... Today, warding off the myriad threats online takes more and more time, money and effort than ever before. You have to run multiple security programs, interpret all their warnings and alerts, tell them what to do when they detect suspicious activity, and consistently update them. It's a real hassle, one that seriously interferes with the productivity, and the pleasure, computers can and should provide."
"In fact, the burden of using a Windows computer is higher now than it was in 2001. By contrast, Apple's Macintosh is easier to use than ever, partly because it has so far remained free from viruses, spyware and adware — except for a few minor cases. After stagnating in the mid-'90s, Apple's software and hardware are once again markedly superior to those of Windows PCs," Mossberg writes.
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I and my Linux toaster are ready for it.
I disagree about the hardware aspect. Let's be honest here Apples are now x86 PC's with a Apple OS. Meaning simply any joe can build a computer with the same guts as an Apple. The OS is a different arena altogether, but I don't want to argue that.
Took the plunge last night. Hopefully I didn't get ripped off. Not a PC gamer, not a graphics person - just wanted a more stable system.
"Apple iMac Desktop with 20" Display MA589LL/A (2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive)"
Personal Computers; $1,499.99
Sold by: Amazon.com
Could have gone the used route, I suppose, but I figure this platform will run Leopard and I'm going to have a learning curve, anyway.
I bought the misses an Intel iMac last June. I had grown tired of spending so much time keeping her Dell Win XP box up and running. She was constantly frustrated by all of the BSODs and system slowdowns.
She loves the iMac. She never complains, never needs my help, OS X never locks up, and she never reboots. It's a great machine.
Is Jeff Bezos going to install and plug it in for you?
FWIW, I'm holding off until July. Some of the iMacs are getting in short supply in Europe, which indicates Apple might be getting ready to upgrade the iMac line.
What I can't get over is WHERE'S THE BOX? A little intimidated, still.
Should be here in a couple days.
I actually gave a pretty nice HP laptop, way more machine than my current PC desktop.
Like they say, "it just works". I'm not abandoning MS at all, just broadening horizons. A home machine is not a work machine, though you need to talk to each other on occasion.
Not quite true... the optical drives and primary hard drives are Apple certified and marked so on their labels. The Mother Board is also proprietary. Joe can get close to, but not exactly, the same parts.
Congrats... Great. Welcome to the best side of computing.
My point is that you can build a PC with the same guts, not necessarily the same proprietary BIOS, ROMS or what have you which really is the difference in hardware between Apple and PC's.
http://www.osx86project.org/
They play around with OSX on x86 pc's with different hardware.
Please tell me I didn't get ripped off. All I went on were your Mac threads and occasional benchmarks I'd see, as well as my BIL, who told me to wait until Leopard.
I didn't want to wait, because I think prices for their hardware will rise if you want a reasonably current machine.
You didn't get ripped off. ;^)>
I am sure there will be people who will post you could have bought a PC cheaper... ignore them.
For what I spent, I could have built two PC's and had legit copies of XP (Vista, out of the gate, seems like a dog with its lack of existing app support), without monitors.
If need be, I can always go back. Just want a more user-friendly experience. BSD is robust and likely makes better use of the chipsets.
For instance, running a Lin session on a dual-boot PC (with Lin in ultimate charge, of course), your Linux apps are slightly slower, but will seldom, if ever, nuke your system.
They may have similar parts, but not similar engineering... and I will bet that the Mac will still be cheaper than the sum total of the cost of the equivalent parts. This is what Mossberg is referring to... superior hardware.
Apple uses the same panels for there LCD's as Dell. Most of there components are rebranded by them. The motherboards for Macs are made by intel, and you can readily find the equivelant to them for PC'sm exccept some changes are made for Apple like the memory. The video cards are the exact same ones you can buy for PC's, which by the way you as far as I can tell Apple always seems to be a bit behind in having the best video cards available for there desktop PC's and laptops. Like I said the key difference isnt the hardware per se, but the small proprietary differences like the bios and small changes made to the hardware.
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