Apple responds to new MS ads

[Dragonos]

Plaupius said:

Dragonos said:

Plaupius said:

Exposé is actually a bit more than that: you can display all open windows in all open applications (except those windows that have been minimized to the Dock), display all open windows in the active application, and display the desktop. And you can assign different functions to "hot corners", for example when I swipe my mouse to the top right corner of the screen, it exposes all open windows in the active application, and bottom right reveals the desktop.

im a fan of being able to assign commands to your touchpad (and with a larger touchpad as you said, it wouldn't be a significant problem doing it by mistake, just takes some getting used to i assume). i'm impressed there.

Spotlight searches through your computer for anything you type, it includes the contents of files (such as Word docs, Excel sheets, emails in Mail, calendar, notes, contacts, applications, JPEG metadata etc.) and it does it on the fly. QuickLook lets you view files without opening any applications, so you can quickly check out Office docs, PDF files, movies etc. You just select the file and press spacebar and it instantly opens the file. And TimeMachine is a backup utility that makes the whole thing easy: when you plug in an external HDD, you can use it for TimeMachine backups. After that, whenever you connect that HDD TimeMachine makes hourly backups of your system, and afterwards you can browse the backup history and restore single files, folders etc. with a simple click. It has saved my butt a couple of times when I've misplaced a file.

i'm going to assume that the windows searchbar in vistas' start menu was lifted from OSX's spotlight feature then. I actually dont like the feature all that much - not that its not useful, far from it - i just dont like that it the cursor is on it natively when i open the start menu, so i no longer can open start menu programs unless i click them from the start menu manually (as opposed to simply pressing "n" to open notepad, it'd type "n" into the search field. i dont like that). i dont understand quicklook though, it doesnt open an application to run the file, but it opens the file? I'm assuming you mean that you dont have to open an application and then load the file but im still confused there. As for Timemachine - very useful feature. the only times i see that on windows lately is when the external harddrive comes with said software already installed.

I've come across this countless times, and these people know how to use their computer: they connect the projector, then press fn-F5 (or whatever) and wait, nothing happens, they press it again, something happens but not what they wanted, press again and repeat until you get the results you want. Still, the big thing is that OS X remembers the display setups: when I go to work and plug in my LCD, it switches the setup so that the LCD is the primary desktop and the laptop screen is an extension of it. When I plug in my projector, it switches to two display setup and uses the laptop as a secondary screen to show me previews of my Keynote presentation slides.

I'm impressed here as well - remembering which display and displaying it correctly is wonderful, even if i have no use for it right now.

Yes, in a way it is a pity that Microsoft has limited itself to making mostly individual things. They can do suites pretty well, Microsoft Office is a good example of well thought out and working integration and interoperability, but as a whole they could be so much more. Then again, I guess the dominant market position and antitrust law suits are at least partially to blame.

agreed. on the one hand, i've come to like the individualistic nature of programs on windows - i dont know if it's because i've been trained to think that way though. But i guess theres the ease of use thing again - having to download a new program (read: finding a freeware program that will do it) whenever you need to handle something new is a drawback, even if it doesnt take much more than a google or cnet search.

These issues with mice must be the most commonly held misconception about Macs. The standard Apple mouse has 4 buttons + the scroll ball. The trackpads support "right click" in numerous ways: press two fingers on the pad and click, tap with two fingers, or you can designate the lower right corner of the trackpad to "right click". That, along with the multitouch features make all PC trackpads quite obsolete. And yeah, Mac trackpads are much bigger than PC trackpads which makes them more useful for actual working. The new, buttonless trackpads are really quite huge :)

well. first off - the macs ive come in contact with either have a standard two-button + wheel mouse, or are the huge clear plastic ones with a scroll ball and only single clicks, so while its a misconception, its true based on personal expirience. as for the track pad info - its interesting, but i think i'd would mess with me more than i'd like. still an interesting evolution of the trackpad though - im just a bit more on the traditional side.

My responses in green.

About bootcamp: I don't use it, but I don't think it is really that convenient because you have to reboot every time you want to change the OS. When I got my Mac, I also got Windows XP so I could install it on bootcamp, but after awhile I realized that I don't need it and I haven't done it. If I would need to run Windows, I'd rather try Parallels or WMWare.

One thing that is often overlooked when discussing the price of Macs is the resale value. There's a site (www.mac2sell.net) which gives you an evaluation of what your Mac is worth, and according to it my MBP is now worth about 700€ so if (and when) I decide to upgrade to the new unibody models, I can sell the old Mac and get about a 3rd of what I paid for it back.

mines are in black this time.

two more things - i fully agree - VMware (or, rather, the freeware that was on the "windows guru tries a mac" link, sun's virtual box) would be superior to dual booting, since having to switch over to play a game and switch back to...do everything else is just an annoying hassle to me - not a big one, but definitely enough to think twice about whether i want to bother with playing TF2 or not.

second - regarding its resale - i can understand why the resale value would be higher than its equivalently powered PC laptop when taking into account build quality, but i would also think its more due to apple's release plan. that is - models stay the same price regardless of how late into the model it is (which also greatly pisses me off, since the last time i checked, a newer model was released ~2 months after the start of the school year, which means that anyone who bought a mac overpaid roughly 500 dollars minimum for the same power. its not because of the premium here, its more because college students who already dont have that much money ended up drastically overpaying for their computer IMO, with the exception of the expirienced mac users that know to wait for a new model launch). Also, i do think its how, since Macs aren't geared towards games (yet), stronger Macs aren't all that neccessary, so buying an old mac is more acceptable than say, buying and old PC - that and like you said, with newer OS's actually making the computer run faster (occasionally), there is less worry about buying an old mac that will run slow. its still there, just not as worrysome as say buying a windows XP PC and then trying to load Vista on it. Still, it's higher resale value is worth noting, even if i'd never resell my computers (i either give them away or i keep them, since my old XP laptop can still run the same older games i run on this thing, and its over 4 years old now).