Tiger's Out This Week. No Bull.

Newsweek ^ | 04/25/2006 | Steven Levy

[r5boston]

It's Steve Jobs's plan to make this the Week of the Tiger. But Bill Gates and his minions at Microsoft are crying bull—specifically, a Longhorn steer. Despite the zoological bent, this dust-up is not about animals, but operating systems; Apple and Microsoft just happen to have named each of their major system upgrades after beasts of the realm. This Monday, Bill shows off the future of Windows, a.k.a. Longhorn, at a developers' conference. The oohs and aahs may be tempered by the fact that the hundreds of millions of Windows users won't get their hands on it until holiday season, 2006. (Unless it's even later.) On Friday, Jobs proudly presents the latest Macintosh OS X upgrade, named after that big striped cat that he always seems to have by the tail. When can the 25 million Mac users get their hands on Tiger? This year. This month. That day. Growwwl.

That's a big point for Apple in the latest matchup in high tech's equivalent to the rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox. Both companies seem to understand what's really necessary and really cool for the next stop in desktop computing: support for the powerful new generation of 64-bit chips that are coming online; search capabilities built in, so you can mine your own documents as smoothly as Google scans the Web; a suite of persistent, constantly updated tiny applications that keep track of stuff like weather and stock quotes. A way to take advantage of the hot RSS technology that lets you "subscribe" to Web sites instead of visiting them every day or two. And a sleek appearance that relegates the traditional file-and-folder metaphor to the antique shop. Both new systems go a long ways toward making that big step.

[CheneyChick]

We are the only ones who could make a Jehova's Witness say "Well, I gotta get going now ..."

Well, at least you got one thing going for you.

[softwarecreator]

Thanks ... you obviously have a good sense of humor

[softwarecreator]

Two things, but not here, okay?  =)

[CheneyChick]

I dunno, how would you ever convert anyone from using a Flower Power iMac? That's some good stuff there.

[softwarecreator]

WOW!  Why didn't they show this earlier?  Now I am converted!

[N. Theknow]

I've been trying to get Mac users to calm down too. I'd like to see Mac and PC threads that don't get hijacked by arguments every time.

You mean like.....

For Yea, God didst maketh two groups of monkeys with one of an evolving nature and another to remain static as a control group.

[papertyger]

I've conceded advantages to the Mac for certain things. You need to do the same for the areas Windows is clearly ahead. And programs with a handwriting interface is clearly one of them.

Amen fella. While I love my mac, I also love my pocket pc. I was one of those unfortunates who purchased the only newton with enough horsepower to be useful... about three weeks before Jobs killed it. Putting the next generation StrongArm processor in the PPC sold me after seeing how well my newton worked.

I'll tell you the truth... I'm gonna be VERY hard pressed not to get something like a U-71 when my powerbook breathes its last if apple hasn't come up with something at least as good.

[devolve]

[MeekOneGOP]

bump!

[SlowBoat407]

Don't even think about going there.

[antiRepublicrat]

How do you know what I adapted to? I'm sorry ... have we met? Do you know me personally or are you just generalizing?

A big part of my job is HCI, as that's one of my specialties. HCI operates on how people's brains work when dealing with any kind of machine interface. Yes, I'm generalizing, just like the First Law of Thermodynamics is generalizing, just like Fitt's Law is generalizing (and something often ignored in Microsoft land).

[antiRepublicrat]

Run an application with full handwriting recognition (TabletPC)

Very true. Apple doesn't have a tablet. OTOH, I hate tablets.

Create a professional, data-driven web site with user authentication, caching, sophisticated themes and menus, etc. - in less than an hour

Basically you've described a site builder using templates. There are lots out there. But .NET 2.0 looks to be pretty good when it finally arrives.

Easily develop smart client programs that can run on a large majority of the desktops out there with a high degree of usability, yet get their data via Web Services from anywhere on the Internet.

Java, which has been doing remoting and Web services for a long time. It's security model while remoting is actually far better than .NET's, as even a Microsoft rep has admitted.

Plug in just about anything that one can buy at CompUSA or Office Max, and know that the device drivers are available for XP

I bought my scanner, printer, Palm, video digitizer, mouse, keyboard, external hard drive and USB key from places like that. They are all even more plug-and-play on a Mac than on my PC. And I originally bought them for my PC.

[antiRepublicrat]

We are the only ones who could make a Jehova's Witness say "Well, I gotta get going now ..."

My wife, a Windows hater through experience, did exactly that just last week.

[numberonepal]

I'd gladly trade stability and security for features in the Longhorn release. But, it seems to be all about bells and whistles. Yet again MS will release buggy/security compromised software. It's a good thing I don't release software with bugs or there'd be a lot of folks across the Southeast very upset.

[rlmorel]

One of my favorite all time stupid movies...my wife rolls her eyes when I quote from it. Must be a guy thing...:)

[r5boston]

post # 103 was really great, I found out some things I never knew.

[frgoff]

That's just the surface. Go to www.macosxhints.com. It's amazing what you can do with Apple computers and OS X.

Rush Limbaugh called PCs the dark ages of computing, and he's right.

[ThinkDifferent]

I did a Free Republic search for both "Windows" and "Microsoft" and read the first 18 threads I found dealing with Windows' security and OS issues. I then did a similar search for "Macintosh" and "Apple" as well as "OSX" and read the first 18 threads also dealing with Macintosh's security and OS issues.

Wow. Very well done.

[ThinkDifferent]

Apple releases Tiger and MS releases XP64. Which is a tweak and which is the future?

Is this a trick question? You know that Tiger supports 64-bit apps in addition to its dozens of other improvements, right?

[ThinkDifferent]

I guess what most Mac enthusiasts don't realize is that I don't care to have an "experience" with my PC. I don't want to spend that much time or thought on it. It's a computer not a sexual partner. I just want to plug it in, do what I want and then turn it off again.

Which is an advantage for the Mac. If you don't spend a lot of time and thought on a Windows box you're likely to end up with a spyware-infested spam zombie.