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Calvin writes: Dear Mr Charles Moore, A little story to share I am the webmaster of Macfreewares. First of all, thank you very much for the flattering article on Macfreewares. I used a PC, and I still remember the first sentence that I said when I saw my friend's Mac. I said "Apple's expensive". Only after the first public showcase of the iMac computer, did i get to know "Apple and MacOS." I was really into "Mac", and I think I "get it" (why MacOS is better). I am quite vocal about my support, and will try to convince anyone who wants to buy a computer, to buy a Mac. But today, i said nothing. I know four friends who want to buy a computer. All of them want to buy a notebook. I suggested I Book, and guess what the first reply was: it is too big! (prefers a Sony Vaio). what can I say, iBook is big! Then the processor speed gap was brought up. How do I explain the difference between Power PC and Intel a long time ago, especially when you can get a 800MHz Athlon for 100k yen (about USD 1000). The only saving grace for Apple now is MacOS X. Try telling them about MacOS X, and the first question that arose was is it out yet? duh! To Apple, "you gotta work harder than this. You gotta fight like this is your last fight. Because if others think like my friends, it just might be your last fight". Ganbare Apple ('persevere' in Japanese) Thanks for listening. I really hope things turn out well for Macs. Yours sincerely, calvin Note: Calvin's Macfreewares is a catalog datadase website that lists freeware for the MacOS... no shareware, no crippleware, no demos, only free stuff -- or maybe a few postcardware. Check it out. From Chris Benham: Dear Charles, Having used the OSX beta and having read endless reviews and discussions over the long gestation period of OSX I honestly cannot understand some of the interface decisions by Apple. There is no denying the need for Apple to bring it's OS up to date. Mac OS9 shows its heritage in its instability and network security problems. But in many ways OSX is a retrograde step for users because of its awful interface. For seasoned Mac users the clumsiness and inflexibility are appalling. Whilst individual ideas such as the file browser and the dock are nice they are badly implemented and full of silly clutter. The sheer simplicity and elegance of the classic Mac Finder (which we now know Steve Jobs disliked from the days of the Lisa) have been replaced by a disastrous mishmash of icons and controls. The power of the new OS is being ruined by the idiocies of the interface. What is worse is that the problems have been discussed by users and testers from day one and Apple seems to be incapable and hostile and unwilling to rectifying them. Whilst small changes have occurred over the various iterations of the OS they seem unwilling to concede that there are basic flaws in the interface and that at the very least users should have the option of a classic Finder style desktop as well as the ghastly Aqua. The in depth review at the site below goes through the problems almost excessively but I can only agree with almost every point. http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/4q00/macosx-pb1/macos-x-beta-1.html As someone who uses Mac, NT, Win 9x and Unix/LInux I really appreciate the new Os for its Unix underpinnings but if Apple thinks that the users will accept such a radically flawed interface I fear they they are very mistaken. In reality I can see OSX servers being a success but on the desktop for ordinary users there are huge problems especially as "carbonised" apps are some time away and even Microsoft Office 2001 is a long way from going "carbon". Chris Benham PS: has anyone asked Apple why my 233mhz Pentium with 64mb of RAM can run Linux brilliantly but I need a G4 PPC with 128 MB min and really 256 MB or more to get even adequate performance under OSX?
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