Apple

Cory5412 wrote: In regards to the Reference Release -- do you mean the initial release of any given "version" of Mac OS X? I'm actually not sure how to parse this article, but I imagine that what it means is that 10.5.0, 10.6.0, 10.7.0, 10.8.0 and 10.9.0 are the "reference releases" of Mac OS X. Not that Mac OS X 10.6.8 is the reference point for the entire Mac OS X family.

By Apple's definition, 10.6.3 is the last reference release of 10.6, since that is the last standalone, bare-metal, generic 10.6 installer that Apple shipped. I think I was clear in my later post that I was using a looser definition of reference release than the official Apple definition. Fine, I regret using the colloquialism.

A whole lot has changed since 2009 when Mac OS X 10.6.0 was released, and Apple's simply not willing to run their platform that way, whether or not it would cater to your particular whims.

Please, spare the condescension. I doubt anyone here expects Apple to cater to their particular whims. Why can't people who are happy with the changes that Apple has made accept that others may have legitimate reasons to be disappointed about the direction that Apple (or any other company one may care about) is taking, and they are not necessarily lazy/stupid/crazy/geriatric/overly conservative/etc if they voice those disappointments on a forum with supposedly sophisticated, experience computer users?

If your whims are a commercially supported desktop operating system that rarely changes, you really should be looking at a commercial UNIX or VMS, and if you think that Apple's "fumbling around with the latest trends in UI design and functionality for the f*ck of it" gets in the way of your productivity, then I suspect you'd find it worth your time, money, and effort to move to another platform.

Except that doesn't seem to work well as a solution for the general workforce. Companies generally don't buy operating systems to run operating systems. They buy operating systems to run applications and to support workflows. A frequently updated OS that breaks applications and workflows, for seemingly arbitrary reasons, especially after being quite serviceable across many years of previous upgrades, is a step backward for most business customers. Apple (and other vendors) are perfectly free to change their OS as they see fit. That doesn't mean that we should stand and applaud when those changes disrupt our businesses, increase our training costs, etc. There is a reason that businesses have been slow to adopt Windows 8. (Actually, Windows 8 is the reason I haven't moved my own business from mostly Mac OS to Win7. Win7 is solid, generally stable, and it has a clear support lifecycle. I guess now I can be called crazy because I don't love Win8.)

XP was crap back in the day. I remember the massive malware problems, got hit hard by them, and the awful performance degradable, which are unexplainably bad. Vista on a newer machine was a massive improvement. Hell, on the same machine, I'm typing this post on Windows 8 - it's still zippy!

Also, VMS is a communist plot to destroy the POSIX standard . Why would you love the KGB computing platform?

edit: And don't expect Windows 7 to be here forever. It's a fine OS (it runs great on my P3, where XP was kinda eh) but it's a matter of time before this XP support ending charade repeats itself with this.

ianj wrote:

commodorejohn wrote: Yeah, and that's great, if you like Unix .

If you don't like Unix, what are you doing here?

(couldn't resist)

As for OS X 10.6 vs. newer versions... I've been through the 10.6 -> 10.7 -> 10.8 upgrade cycle, and I have no idea what people who think something went bad after 10.6 are talking about. Unless you're like the OP and think the smaller window controls look "cheap" (huh?), or you really, really care about having colored sidebar icons, that is. But really, if you're going to obsess over the details of your UI to that level and insist that they never change, you should be using a different platform. As far as I can tell, the actual user experience is the same across all three versions.

This depends on hardware. 10.6 is the zippiest OS for my MBA (2010). 10.7 and 10.8 are rather bloated and slow. 10.7 I had a lot of issues with since I foolishly installed it a day or two after it came out. 10.9 suffers from hiccups a bit, but in general runs almost as well as 10.6 (I think compressed memory has a lot to do with it since there is only 2GB) More bothersome is my MP which needs tiamo's 32bit boot.efi to run. But it runs and can even update fine, from 10.9.2 to 10.9.3, with fingers crossed . I hope it will be able to do the same with 10.10. And, 10.6 isn't going anywhere. 10.4 isn't going anywhere. If that's what you like, nobody is forcing you to upgrade. If you're like me and like to use 10.6 and 10.9 (even on the same machine), it is soooo not difficult at all to change the startup disk preferences.


There certainly seems to be a cultural shift going on. I got into mac during the 10.5 era and that is kind of the "definitive mac edition" for me. The biggest thing that won me over (from linux and irix) was their science marketing page. Which doesn't even exist anymore. Previously for "Markets" they catered to: Creative Pro, Education, Science, Small Business. Now it is just Creative Pro and Mac in Business. They certainly haven't given up on technical computing, but it seems like they don't care for it anymore. I found the facebook/twitter integration with lion (or ML?) annoying, since I use neither and found it a bit insulting at first. I think that was the tipping point for me to become a greybeard geezer even though I don't consider myself that old or having been around all that long. https://web.archive.org/web/20110207204 ... m/science/

commodorejohn wrote: You didn't answer my question. How is it "terrible or dangerous," as opposed to just "not what Microsoft wants?"

It would take developer time to maintain the special, just-for-commodorejohn legacy UI, continue porting it to future versions of Windows, and ensure that future applications are compatible with it, which means Microsoft would either need to pull developers from other projects just to work on it, or hire people for the task. How much are you willing to pay them for the privilege?

guardian452 wrote: found the facebook/twitter integration with lion (or ML?) annoying, since I use neither and found it a bit insulting at first. I think that was the tipping point for me to become a greybeard geezer even though I don't consider myself that old or having been around all that long. https://web.archive.org/web/20110207204 ... m/science/

You have a fair point in that Apple is narrowing the markets it wants to focus on, but I find this particular bit absurd. I don't care for Facebook either, and I have never noticed the Facebook integration in the latest Apple operating systems because I have not gone looking for it. If there is some unavoidable change to the UI that gets in your way, by all means, talk about that, but feeling insulted by an optional feature that you will never see without deliberately deciding to use it is crossing a line into ideological craziness. That's like saying Mac OS 9 is insulting because the Setup Assistant asks you once, on first boot, whether or not you'd like the enable Simple Finder (for those who don't remember, the default is "no").

ianj wrote: It would take developer time to maintain the special, just-for-commodorejohn legacy UI, continue porting it to future versions of Windows, and ensure that future applications are compatible with it, which means Microsoft would either need to pull developers from other projects just to work on it, or hire people for the task. How much are you willing to pay them for the privilege?

Well, first off, it wouldn't be just for me, as the fact that XP still has something like 25% market share nearly thirteen years after its inception and seven years after it was no longer the flagship and now after it's been officially and very publically EOL-ed attests. But let's say that's true, and there literally is nobody else but myself who wants this: all I'm doing is kvetching on a forum, for chrissakes. I'm not staging a commando raid on Redmond and taking Satya Nadella hostage until I get what I want. Ineffectual? Sure, if we discount the catharsis factor. But "terrible or dangerous" is just typical Cory5412-brand ludicrous hyperbole.

You can't adapt, you die.

The new UI takes, like what, 5 minutes or less to get used to - you can even get rid of the Metro apps and use it as a nice fullscreen launcher, keeping some for live tiles - I do this and it works out fine.

Five minutes for you, maybe. I've been using this shit eight hours a day for several months and I still find it pointlessly aggravating.

commodorejohn wrote: You didn't answer my question. How is it "terrible or dangerous," as opposed to just "not what Microsoft wants?"

I guess I am now legitimately confused. At some point, did I write that it would be "terrible or dangerous" for Microsoft to provide a legacy interface, or did I write that running Windows XP beyond 2014-04-08 is terrible and dangerous?

In the interest of expedience, I may have let those two separate issues run together a little bit.

josehill wrote: By Apple's definition, 10.6.3 is the last reference release of 10.6, since that is the last standalone, bare-metal, generic 10.6 installer that Apple shipped.

I'll be totally honest here, I have never heard the term "reference release" pertaining to Macs and Mac OS/X before today, and on the Mac scene, it has always been referred to as a retail release.

Prior to 10.7, Apple did indeed roll up additional retail releases. 10.5 and 10.4 each had retail discs pressed after the initial version.

josehill wrote: legitimate reasons to be disappointed about the direction that Apple

I am familiar with the idea that Apple has changed directions and is suddenly a different company than they were in August 2009 when Mac OS X 10.6.0 was released to the general public. I don't subscribe to this theory, and if anything, Apple has confirmed that they are as committed to the desktop platform as ever. There is a Default Narrative that has been going around for a few years that in subsequent versions of Mac OS X, Apple removes functionality and adds restrictions to the system.

To my knowledge, there is no legitimacy to this claim. No functionality has been removed, and in all cases where iOS-like functionality has been added (such as launchpad) it is totally optional.

There are precious few things I will acknowledge as legitimate changes to Mac OS X that have been annoying over the years. The main one is the changes in Spaces and Expose functionality, although I was away from the platform for a few years (from 2009 to about 2012, so I caught the tail end of 10.7 before upgrading to 10. and as such, didn't follow that development arc very closer.

To be honest, what OP in this thread is complaining about is changes to one of the things that has been one of the worst aspects of Mac OS X since it first shipped, the window resize/maximize button. Its behavior has been very inconsistent the entire time, to the point that I simply gave up on using it well before I left the platform back in 2009, and for users newly switching from Windows or returning from Windows, the green button's new "full screen" functionality may actually make some amount of sense.

Whether or not the "material" of those buttons and their appearance on your screen honestly seems like it would be of relatively low importance, although a number of people then chimed in about their desire for nothing to change ever. (Something even you write Apple is perfectly free to do.)

josehill wrote: A frequently updated OS that breaks applications and workflows, for seemingly arbitrary reasons, especially after being quite serviceable across many years of previous upgrades, is a step backward for most business customers.

This seems like a reason to choose an operating system that gets updated or changed frequently. In terms of applications, Mac OS X and Windows both actually have really good track records. I'll also add that in the past two years, I think there may have been one single application documented that runs on Windows 7 but does not run on Windows 8.

Of course, that's why businesses buy a particular OS -- but we're talking about consumers who want something on which to run whatever applications they use in their home. And, in this thread, we're talking about the operating system for its own sake, rather than as a suitable place to run Microsoft Word, Adobe Lightroom, or Firefox.

josehill wrote: I guess now I can be called crazy because I don't love Win8.

You make it sound like you've made an educated decision, and decided that despite the fact that Windows 7 has five years left on it, you're going to stick with Mac OS, because the interface conventions are much more predictable, and Apple has said over and over again that they don't see Mac OS and iOS merging, the way Microsoft has added a tablet interface to its desktop Windows operating system.

(I actually prefer the phrasing "Windows 7 only has five years left on it" because it better conveys the fact that I think we can expect Microsoft not to extend the support of Windows 7 three additional years like they did for XP.)

I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not you're crazy because you don't love Windows 8. I like it a lot, and I'm not going to tell you I'm not crazy in some way or another. What bothers me is not people who "don't love" Windows 8, but rather, those who are frothing at the mouth with the vehemence for their hate for something they've never used or even taken a look at various sources about.

As I mentioned earlier, Microsoft actually seems to be taking a lot of feedback and integrating it into Windows as a product. It's bringing future releases of Windows closer to Windows 7 in terms of desktop functionality, which is kind of interesting. I'm personally against this particular reneging on the no-compromise promise (as it was) of a full tablet environment and a full windowing desktop environment on the same computer. On one hand, it'll be nice to have a windowed PDF viewer, but on the other hand, I think it's going to muddy the waters of "My computer has both desktop-experience and tablet functionality" even further than Windows 8 already has.

guardian452 wrote: If that's what you like, nobody is forcing you to upgrade.

I mean, ideally they would be. My personal theory is that the terrible and dangerous commentary commodorejohn was talking about is a reference to my attitude to "old unsupported operating systems" on other web sites. Basically, old, unsupported operating systems like Windows XP (in specific contrast, to, say, Windows 95) and Mac OS X (any version, again in specific contrast to Mac OS 9.)

The main thing here is that Windows XP and (I'll go ahead and pick on a specific version) Mac OS X 10.4 are each remotely accessible, complete network operating systems. (I'm sure everybody here is familiar, but it's important that I say the words at least once.) They have mail servers built in, DNS and NTP servers and clients, FTP servers, and so on down the line, and themselves be attacked in a variety of interesting ways, and then further used to compromise other things (on a local LAN, for example.)

It's for this reason that I always advocate that if you "must" run an old OS for some reason, especially something as "robust" and network-faring as Windows XP and/or Mac OS X, that you do so on a darknet, a non-routable subnet, or completely un-networked, just depending on what you need specifically.

The older MacBook Airs with just 2 gigs of ram are definitely an unfortunate edge case, although it's good to hear that Mac OS X 10.9 and its memory compression has actually helped.

It has always been interesting to see how Apple is marketing Mac OS X. They still have an education section, but I do note that there's no science or technical computing area on the site. Apple still acknowledges them from time to time, such as in the 30-years celebration, but I suspect that there's a lot less exciting development. It would actually be interesting to see Apple pay more attention to some technical computing that's possible on the Mac Pro, but given that Apple's probably got their hands full with Final Cut and the other apps they do create for creative purposes, I don't think Apple is in a position to create that software themselves.

OpenCL actually came on board at about that time in 2008/2009 when Leopard was new and Snow Leopard was introduced, and I'll be honest, I don't actually know what scientific applications have come out for it since then. It would be really neat to see Apple showcase this again.

commodorejohn wrote: Five minutes for you, maybe. I've been using this shit eight hours a day for several months and I still find it pointlessly aggravating.

Probably the thing that took me the longest was realizing that it's no skin off Microsoft's or Windows' back if you choose to uninstall almost all of the built-in New Interface applications. I've done this and it has made some amount of difference in my daily use of Windows 8 and 8.1 on my work computer.

I have (new since I last posted about my 8.1 system at work) a pair of 24-inch displays and what's really neat about 8.1 is that the launcher now only shows up on one of them, and I can save my desktop space and taskbar space by making use of the launcher.

commodorejohn wrote: But "terrible or dangerous" is just typical Cory5412-brand ludicrous hyperbole.

I've been writing this post for a while, but where did I write terrible or dangerous? Was it in reference to building a classic UI for Windows 8 ("Windows 7.8" has been a suggested name for a desktop-only fork of Windows, though I think this is a bad idea from a product standpoint.)

Or, was I maybe talking about the security abomination that is Windows XP?

commodorejohn wrote: Well, first off, it wouldn't be just for me, as the fact that XP still has something like 25% market share nearly thirteen years after its inception and seven years after it was no longer the flagship and now after it's been officially and very publically EOL-ed attests. But let's say that's true, and there literally is nobody else but myself who wants this: all I'm doing is kvetching on a forum, for chrissakes. I'm not staging a commando raid on Redmond and taking Satya Nadella hostage until I get what I want. Ineffectual? Sure, if we discount the catharsis factor. But "terrible or dangerous" is just typical Cory5412-brand ludicrous hyperbole.

I believe he said using actually Windows XP on the internet was terrible and dangerous, not the complaining itself.

As for your 25% figure, that's worldwide, isn't it? Most of that is likely accounted for by pirated copies of XP in use in developing countries and by businesses that dropped the ball on the upgrade process, not by people who are refusing to upgrade to Windows 7 because they don't like the interface. Either way, I suspect Microsoft has far more detailed information about whether they would make or lose money on a "legacy interface" option than you do, and they're not doing it.

Yeah, sure, you've kvetching on a forum. One thing about forums is that they are full of other people who might not agree with you.

Cory5412 wrote: I guess I am now legitimately confused. At some point, did I write that it would be "terrible or dangerous" for Microsoft to provide a legacy interface, or did I write that running Windows XP beyond 2014-04-08 is terrible and dangerous?

Cory5412 wrote: I've been writing this post for a while, but where did I write terrible or dangerous? Was it in reference to building a classic UI for Windows 8 ("Windows 7.8" has been a suggested name for a desktop-only fork of Windows, though I think this is a bad idea from a product standpoint.)

Ahem:

Cory5412 wrote: To use a terrible car analogy -- it sounds to me as though we've reached the point where users who have been around for a while believe that the system shouldn't be changed because they know it and they like the particular options it gives you. (See: commodorejohn) Even if those options are terrible and dangerous, not only to yourself and your own data, but to the interconnected networks at large.

You were quite definitely conflating my preference for the 95-style UI and expressed wish that it be included on modern versions of Windows with some kind of hypothetical straw-man argument that nothing should ever change and especially not as regards network security. Because, you know, that was totally what I was talking about when discussing UI.

ianj wrote: As for your 25% figure, that's worldwide, isn't it? Most of that is likely accounted for by pirated copies of XP in use in developing countries and by businesses that dropped the ball on the upgrade process, not by people who are refusing to upgrade to Windows 7 because they don't like it.

Oh, I don't mean to imply that every single one of those millions of users have only the UI holding them back from rushing out to buy the latest version of Windows - but come on, man. Even if it's only one out of five of those, that's how many people?

ianj wrote: Yeah, sure, you've kvetching on a forum. One thing about forums is that they are full of other people who might not agree with you.

And I'm completely cool with that. It's other people who can't seem to come to terms with people expressing opinions they don't like on an Internet forum.

commodorejohn wrote: Oh, I don't mean to imply that every single one of those millions of users have only the UI holding them back from rushing out to buy the latest version of Windows - but come on, man. Even if it's only one out of five of those, that's how many people?

If we assume that one out of five Windows XP users are not upgrading because of the UI (and I think that's being very generous), that's still only 5% of Windows users worldwide. You would have a very hard time convincing Microsoft that it is worth the expense to maintain an entirely separate UI indefinitely for 5% of its userbase, and again, I think the actual figure is much lower.

ianj wrote:

guardian452 wrote: found the facebook/twitter integration with lion (or ML?) annoying, since I use neither and found it a bit insulting at first. I think that was the tipping point for me to become a greybeard geezer even though I don't consider myself that old or having been around all that long. https://web.archive.org/web/20110207204 ... m/science/

You have a fair point in that Apple is narrowing the markets it wants to focus on, but I find this particular bit absurd. I don't care for Facebook either, and I have never noticed the Facebook integration in the latest Apple operating systems because I have not gone looking for it. If there is some unavoidable change to the UI that gets in your way, by all means, talk about that, but feeling insulted by an optional feature that you will never see without deliberately deciding to use it is crossing a line into ideological craziness. That's like saying Mac OS 9 is insulting because the Setup Assistant asks you once, on first boot, whether or not you'd like the enable Simple Finder (for those who don't remember, the default is "no").

Believe it or not, I am, in fact, human. That means I am able to be as trite, fleeting, unreasonable, and ideologically crazy as I like to determine what suits me and what doesn't. So if facebook integration is what toads the wet sprocket here... or the OP doesn't like the skins... well, we're allowed to do that. And it doesn't bother me anymore, since of course I've never used it. But at the time... it was like "wow! my computer is turning into a facebook machine, man!"

Well, I certainly did write that then. I can only attribute it to my having started a post, moved on to a work-related task, and then continued writing it when I was done, and now, mere hours later, I have literally no idea what I was talking about.

Unless I was trying to go for a Windows 3.1 commentary, although it doesn't actually read to me like I was doing that.

I have no real opinion either way on what Microsoft providing an alternate UI to Windows 8 would be like. Presumably, they're Microsoft and they have a lot of man-power to throw at it after all, a different skin on Windows 8 wouldn't be terrible and dangerous. At least you'd be using a patched operating system.

It's possible that I was actually writing about "the option" to just run Mac OS X 10.4 or Windows XP. This option does exist, but running old and outdated software of quite that calibre (compared, again, to Mac OS 9, as one example) is terrible and dangerous, in well-documented ways. This is doubly so if you're running a server edition, but by and large the server bits are there in the desktop versions.

What's even more depressing about the Windows XP installed base figures, which as of March were still close to 33% -- of Internet-connected computers that regularly visit search web sites is that, well, what they're actually measuring is essentially hits to Google/Bing/Yahoo. It doesn't actually count industrial control machines that has never spoken TCP/IP in its life, nor does it count machines sitting on unroutable networks, nor does it count other industrial and vertically integrated machines, such as cash registers and money terminals. That percentage, be it 1/3 or if it has actually gone down to 1/4, 1/5 or 1/6, is desktop computers that have people sitting at them that are trying to use them to accomplish tasks of some sort.

And, although nobody's going to die, using Windows XP on the Internet is a lot like if you were able to buy a Ford Taurus, except it was manufactured in 1920 and nobody has ever changed the oil or otherwise done any sort of upkeep on it except for that one time all four tires blew out at once in 1980, because well, they were old. New tires got put on it, but nobody really fixed the wheels, which naturally got messed up during the tire incident of 1980. So, this car is old, it goes about a half a mile on a gallon of fuel, it can't even get up to more than about 30 miles an hour, and it's dangerous to everybody in and around it.

But, you all already knew that.

Now back to your regularly scheduled commentary about the window decorations in the next version of Mac OS X.

guardian452 wrote: But at the time... it was like "wow! my computer is turning into a facebook machine, man!"

I'm sure this isn't what you meant by it, but there are actually people out there who dislike the fact that any given machine they buy can likely be afforded and used by a much less technical person and used for accessing web sites and viewing videos.

Computers and the Internet are the phones of our era, whether we use them to conduct hard-hitting journalism, serious business, or just staying in touch with friends and playing FarmCrush Saga III.

I don't think the point was ever to make your Mac into a Facebook machine, as much as to simply make that access more convenient, should you want it. That turning point where in 2005 or 2006, Mac laptops began to outsell Mac desktops was also the point at which many Mac laptops were being bought by college students, and it was probably at that point that Macs started being Facebook machines for many people anyway.

I know (hope) nobody here was actually thinking it (that it's bad that computers are usable by non-technical people), but, y'know, just to put it out there I guess. I think it's great that computers are easy to use and that the vendors continue to put effort into researching different form factors and different user experiences, to make computers easier to use as they truly become the telephones of the era, for all your general purpose two-way communication and information needs.

</ramble>

In my opinion on this, MS shot themselves in the foot with Windows 8 and badly at that. The reason simply being that they wanted to abuse their monopoly position with Windows to force their way into the tablet/phone market. They wanted to create a unified and touch-based interface that they would force onto Windows users to make them get used to it. Then they hoped that these same users would see a Windows tablet or Windows phone and think "Hey, looks just like my PC!".

Of course, instead the response from a lot of people has been "this interface looks like an abomination", followed by further frustration when they realise that the Start Menu isn't even a selectable option and are hence avoiding Windows 8 PCs (and developing an infinite dislike of it). As a knock-on effect, a certain chunk of these are then seeing the same interface on a tablet/phone and thinking "urgh, looks like Windows 8" - even though the interface is a lot more usable on a touch device. If anything, by forcing Metro on the PC, they've actually damaged the reputation of it on mobile.

Hence my original point. MS tried to force the market towards their own vision and it has backfired. Now they have no real alternative but to backtrack on the desktop by re-introducing the start menu for Windows 9 along with other such features that they originally dumped. Of course, they've then got to support both the minority group that like Metro, and the group of people who are sufficiently alienated that they'll never use it - no matter how much MS tweaks it around. MS have been left with a real headache here, and it's all of their own doing.

Of course, having used Windows 8 myself, Metro is only part of the problem. I also cannot stand the flat, lifeless and definition-less desktop in it. No shading, no shadows, no rounded corners. It's just a dire and depressing place to be. And as mentioned earlier in the thread, it's a pity as the core of Windows 8 is quite good. It's a far cry from Vista which came out with an average UI and a poor core OS (well, until MS had heavily patched it). Windows 7 proved what could be done by fixing and maturing the core of Vista, tidying up the interface a bit, then adding some genuinely useful tweaks and features. Hence how well received it was.

Edit: And to stop this from being totally off-topic, OSX is getting too flat for my liking, but at least they are still trying to make it look visually appealing.

Cory5412 wrote:

guardian452 wrote: But at the time... it was like "wow! my computer is turning into a facebook machine, man!"

I'm sure this isn't what you meant by it, but there are actually people out there who dislike the fact that any given machine they buy can likely be afforded and used by a much less technical person and used for accessing web sites and viewing videos.

Computers and the Internet are the phones of our era, whether we use them to conduct hard-hitting journalism, serious business, or just staying in touch with friends and playing FarmCrush Saga III.

I don't think the point was ever to make your Mac into a Facebook machine, as much as to simply make that access more convenient, should you want it. That turning point where in 2005 or 2006, Mac laptops began to outsell Mac desktops was also the point at which many Mac laptops were being bought by college students, and it was probably at that point that Macs started being Facebook machines for many people anyway.

I know (hope) nobody here was actually thinking it (that it's bad that computers are usable by non-technical people), but, y'know, just to put it out there I guess. I think it's great that computers are easy to use and that the vendors continue to put effort into researching different form factors and different user experiences, to make computers easier to use as they truly become the telephones of the era, for all your general purpose two-way communication and information needs.

</ramble>

Hey now, don't go thinking I'm some sort of whiz-kid here. I watch movies and do emails and skypes like most people. I do a lot of MS office and 2d cad, which is not breakthrough research or technically intense. I have a windows PC to interface with our development vehicles.

But when you use something other than Facebook or twitter or googleplus or <other mainstream site> it's kind of a slap in the face, cheap advertising every time you do run into it.

Trippynet wrote: They wanted to create a unified and touch-based interface that they would force onto Windows users to make them get used to it.

It'll be interesting to see what Microsoft does with subsequent releases of Windows. 8.1 Update 1 brought some more "desktop-like" functionality to the New Interface ("Metro," though Microsoft isn't allowed to call it that) and either Windows 9, Windows 8.2 or Windows 8.1 Update 2 (whatever it gets called) is already slated to bring back the start menu, and they're making it worse (from my perspective, at least) by introducing windowed New Interface applications.

That and the start menu as you knew it in Windows 7 is literally never coming back. What's going to be in Windows 9 is a small rectangle that shows up at the bottom of the screen and shows Start screen tiles. You're not getting the Control Panel link back (though you can add control panel, run, et al as links on the Start Screen) and I'm going to lose my giant 1920x1200 launcher that shows every program my computer <i>has</i> in a single go.

We'll see what configuration options, etc it has, however. This all may be enough to win over the new "Windows 7 forever, and it's not even really better than XP" crowd, which seems to make itself so very well known on some web sites.

For the better part of a year or so, on all of my computers (The Surface RT all the way up to my big work desktop with dual 24-inch monitors, with various other desktops and traditional laptops on the way) I used Windows 8 in the perceived Microsoft way. Metro-based PDF reader alongside desktop Firefox/Chrome/IE, PuTTY, with some Metro Zune thrown in for good measure. I don't actually think that's what Microsoft wants. In fact, it took one of Microsoft's UX developers posting about this issue to make me re-consider my own thoughts on it, and realizing that I'd been causing some of my own "problems." (i.e. switching between the PDF reader and whatever I was working on, on smaller-screened computers.)

Of course, whether or not "content creators and content consumers don't need to exist in the same space" works out has yet to be seen. I vaguely suspect that the new responsive Microsoft will throw out the whole idea and completely cede the tablet market before the idea has an opportunity to take hold. (Which I also consider unfortunate, because the Surface RT/2 and any potential successors therein are the most portable ways to run Word/Excel/OneNote for Windows.)

guardian452 wrote: But when you use something other than Facebook or twitter or googleplus or <other mainstream site> it's kind of a slap in the face, cheap advertising every time you do run into it.

There is that aspect. Fortunately, the Mac has long been a development playground and basically anybody is free to add any kind of addition to it. One of the other neat things in iOS 8 is that being able to add third party add-ons with that kind of functionality is on the docket, so the folks at app.net or Pinterest or Tumblr or whatever can add that functionality to their app, or build a new app for the iPhone that has that functionality -- much in the same way it's been possible to add System Services on the Mac and add things like menu bar icons to write posts this whole time.

particularly funny is the way it's advertised on the apple site:

Every bit as powerful as it looks.

going by the looks i'd assume that an amiga would beat the crap out of it

An elegant design that feels entirely fresh

no clue who came up with that but they must be smoking the hard stuff

One of the more 'interesting' features of Yosemite is that it defaults to only loading signed kexts.

Not a problem for my MacBook Pro, but I hackintoshed my dual hexacore HP Z600 into a wannabe MacPro. Of course, like any hackintosh, this requires FakeSMC which is a 3rd party unsigned kext. So far all I've seen is how to work around this using a boot option but is a weak proposal: it's not said this option will be present in the GM release.

It'll be interesting to see how this evolves.

If it's not an option, I'm sure the hackintosh people will figure out a way to disable it at install time.

OR, you can do what I did when I got fed up with trying to get my hackintosh to work, which is just buy a mac pro