Re: I hate Linux -- Apple is leading the standards charge on the

["Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 23:50, Mike Connor wrote:
> I'll second MacOS X thought-- if you don't know anything, or you stay on 
> the desktop user side and don't have time for viruses and worms, its 
> probably the best thing out there.  If you want the unix commands and 
> features you're used to, they're all there or can be added.  Uses CUPS 
> for printing if you can believe that-- a shared OS X printer will show up 
> in OpenOffice, etc.  'Course, you'll be paying up for the hardware...

Apple is _leading_ the charge in standards adoption, from a
_well_designed_ expansion bus in IEEE1394 "FireWire" to their IETF
Zeroconf implementation in "Rendevous."  They are adding more
standards-based features to each X version.

Now some have mentioned that the hardware cost is an issue.  First off,
it's simply "economies of scale."  So Apple really isn't charging for
much of a premium over actual production cost.  At least not in
comparison to popular PC OEMs.  Heck, they charge less for upgrades than
some major PC OEMs -- so you have to go to aftermarket with those PC
OEMs anyway.

But Apple really is more on a "level playing field" when it comes to
notebooks.  PC Notebooks are _very_proprietary_ and the major PC OEMs
_love_ to "nickle'n dime" you on peripherials.  Especially on these new
"cheap" notebooks -- almost like printers where they charge an arm'n a
leg for a ink cartridge, only now it's a battery, port replicator,
etc...

My next notebook will be an Apple, although I'll say x86 on the
desktop/server for a long time.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. -- Engineer, Technologist, School Teacher
b.j.smith@ieee.org



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