Actually Apple stopped using a proprietary OS quite a few years ago. The "MacOS" is now a distant historical footnote. What you get these days is a Linux-based OS with a Mac GUI on top of it.

Since Macs are now basically the same hardware as PCs, what i don't understand is why anyone wants to run the Mac GUI. It's just ... (*shudder*) ... awful. Yeah, it was ahead of Windows 15 to 20 years ago. Windows has evolved and improved in huge strides. The Mac GUI is still annoying and downright primitive in many ways.

Sadly, Microsoft seems to be a bit fearful of all the Mac fervor and it's last few versions of Windows seem to be adopting some of the "bubbly chicklet" styles from the Mac. This is an unfortunate backward step. Thank goodness they still provide classic skins that allow Windows to continue to run sleek and unfettered.

Sony Creative Software seems to be following down this path some too with the new open plugin format. We caught a glimpse of it with Pro-Type Titler at first. There were more functions using it in Vegas 10. I haven't seen 11, but from what i've seen folks say a lot of the interface is going that way. I just don't understand the move from the very sleek, logical, and simple to use interface to something that looks like it's primary concern was modernism (i was about to say prettiness, but it's not even good looking) while ignoring ease of use. This is probably another reason i'll be sticking with version 9 for quite some time.

"What you get these days is a Linux-based OS with a Mac GUI on top of it."

Kelly, could you please cite a source for that? I can't seem to find anything to substantiate it.

Thanks!

I ain't Kelly but OSX is based on FreeBSD

"Thanks to its permissive licensing terms, much of FreeBSD’s code base has become an integral part of other operating systems such as Mac OS X that have subsequently been certified as UNIX-compliant and have formally received UNIX branding."

Bob.

The MAC OS is based on Unix, not Linux, although it's probably more accurate to say that the MAC OS is a UNIX-like OS which is "POSIX compatible." POSIX is a set of standards to maintain compatibility between operating systems, which includes defining the Application Programming Interface (API)

Jay what are you reading?

Analyst Charlie Wolf of Needham & Co. informed investors on Wednesday that Mac shipment growth in the third quarter of calendar 2011 outpaced the PC market for the 22nd straight quarter. Apple's 24.6 percent growth dwarfed the 5.3 percent growth in total PC shipments!!!

Mac shipments significantly outperformed PCs in both the home and business markets. Apple saw 25.6 percent growth in the home market, compared to an overall increase of just 4.0 percent. When comparing dollar share, the Mac took up a 14 percent share of the worldwide home PC market, more than double its current market share.

Mac shipments significantly outperformed PCs in both the home and business markets. Apple saw 25.6 percent growth in the home market, compared to an overall increase of just 4.0 percent. When comparing dollar share, the Mac took up a 14 percent share of the worldwide home PC market, more than double its current market share.

Shipments to the business market were an impressive nine times the market pace: 43.8 percent versus 4.8 percent. Wolf suggested that the past six quarters of strong Mac shipment growth in the business market reflect the beginning of a trend for Apple. He attributes the upward swing to halo effects from the iPad and iPhone, both of which saw quick adoption in the enterprise.

According to one recent report, the business market is more readily adopting Apple products because it has become "easier to work with." CEO Tim Cook is said to be more willing to work with enterprise customers than his predecessor Steve Jobs.

With China going crazy with Apple products... you never, say never!


http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/11/16/macs_worldwide_market_share_reaches_15_year_high_at_5.html

Both statements could be correct. Jay's reference is in shipped units, and Real Name: (hidden) [aka Hypermedia] is referencing percentage of growth in shipments. Apple could enjoy a 100% growth in shipments and the PC market zero, and the PC installed base would still dwarf the installed base of Macs.

You can make that statement in America. That's not what's happening in China and Japan. America market is already saturated with PC's. The market is Asia Pacific.

Asia Pacific represented the fastest-growing geographic region for Apple with 57.2 percent growth for the quarter. Japan saw the second-highest growth of 49.6 percent. The company also achieved impressive growth of 19.5 percent in Europe when compared to the rest of the market's 10.7 percent contraction in the region.

The analyst went on to infer that China was the "key driver of growth" for Asia Pacific. Greater China became Apple's second-largest market last quarter with record sales of $4.5 billion.

"The growth of Apple’s sales in China represents a perfect storm between an iconic brand and a rapidly growing middle class that’s more brand conscious than consumers in most other regions of the globe," said Wolf.

Somewhat ironic after reading those horrific stories of exploitation of cheap labour in China by Apple in the chase for profit. For me that's enough reason to never get involved with that company's products.

edit - links added:

http://micgadget.com/13379/foxconn-worker-died-in-the-bath-after-working-60-hours-a-week/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

I really don't much care about Apple, I have always edited video on a PC using primarily Vegas and occasionally Premiere and Avid Media Composer. If there was any software on a MAC that I needed to use, I'd buy a MAC. It's all about the software, the hardware is just the thing on which it runs.

i think my wife's experience summed it up quite nicely...

sitting in a gallery with a bunch of other artists, all of whom had various macs of one sort or another, and doing a round the table show of pics. when her turn came (old tosh laptop running xp), she simply opened explore in thumbnail view, found the batch of slides she wanted to show, switched to slide show.

no one was interested in the pics they all wanted to know HOW DID YOU DO THAT!?

as i wrote earlier. i have 3 macs simply gathering dust - yes, once were warriors, but now well past their use by date and not replaceable with anything remotely affordable (ie. bang for buck).

"Jay what are you reading?"

Hyper, I posted the same link you did, obviously you didn't read it. You're also attempting to twist information in an effort to make it say something else, as was the article. Come on... when your market share is only 5%, then a growth of 24.6% is no big deal compared to 5.3% of 95% of market share. Do the math (please). PCs are still outselling Macs five to one. (What Steve Mann is correct.)

The fact still remains, as the headline so clearly points out, Mac platform reaches 15-year

Your claim that Apple's market share was 30%-40% is totally bogus.

ushere said:
"No one was interested in the pics they all wanted to know HOW DID YOU DO THAT!?"

That's hilarious!

For an explanation of how she did it she could combine quotes from Steve Jobs and Arthur C. Clarke.

"Apple says they have "magic," but the other PC makers have a "sufficiently advanced technology." ;-)

"Apple could enjoy a 100% growth in shipments and the PC market zero, and the PC installed base would still dwarf the installed base of Macs."

Well said, Steve, and that's the whole point of this particular debate.

Based on the article's numbers, 24.6% growth of 5% is 1.23 units (based on 100) and 5.3% growth of 95% is 5.035 units (based on 100). So whether it's thousands or billions, 5.3% of 95% still out performs 24.6% of 5% regardless.

Yes, 24.6% "dwarfs" 5.3%, but not really, not when you look at it based on the number of units sold.

Even if those numbers were to stay the same, Macs could never catch up to, let alone surpass, PC sales.

It is pretty amazing that the UNIX based software is still lingering around. Those Bell Labs guys were pretty smart.
JJK

Thanks, John. I found that Linux and Apple's OS were both UNIX-like, just as you pointed out in your post.

What's the point of paying a $1000 more for roughly equal hardware and then beg software companies to port their apps to your crappy OS?

Why not just buy the real thing in the first place and install whatever you want?

Think of Vegas as Soup then imagine Sony as that Seinfeld Soup Nazi guy yelling at you:
"You stupid enough to buy a Mac??? No soup for you."

My very limited budget says I cannot afford to buy an Apple computer especially one needed for pro level video editing!

So all of the market share and other arguments do not matter to me.

The ONLY reason I have a computer system capable of pro level editing is because I can over a period of time build it myself to the specs I require.

Is it still not possible to build my own Apple computer? And if I could how much would that cost?

I'd say SCS has their hands full keeping Vegas Pro compatible with Windows.

Getting WAY off-topic here, but Foxconn China is for all practical purposes a city of a half-million people. In a population that large you *will* have the usual demographic of murder, suicides and other urban mayhem. And, this is Apple's fault, how?

Sony should simply recode Vegas entirely in assembly and speak directly to the CPU. It would be so fast there would be no need for GPU acceleration. No installation, it'd just run from the exe. The file would probably be about 3MB. And oh yeah, it would run on a Mac with very few changes. Remember Bob Lentini's SAW?

Yes I'm bringing a little humor to this thread. It would be a Herculean task to code Vegas in Assembly.

- Mark

Vidmus said:
"Is it still not possible to build my own Apple computer? And if I could how much would that cost?"

Yup, you can. Search for the word Hackintosh, you'll find several web sites that give lots of information on what PC hardware is compatible with OS X and how to put together your own. You can spend as much or as little as you like.

You'll have to buy OS X. Avoid a pirated copy. Apple theoretically could sue you for not following their license agreement, but so far they've only gone after companies that sell PC's commercially with OS X installed. IMHO they would have a PR disaster on their hands if they went after an individual.

I found NO compelling reason to use the OS X operating system except for software that exclusively written for it. I bought Final Cut Studio just to see what all the hoopla was about. FCP has some nice features but I thought its limitations far outweigh the positives, especially when compared to the functionality and ease of use of Vegas.

Apparently Apple agrees with my assessment about FCP, they KILLED the old versions of FCP and completely rewrote it, it's now called Final Cut Pro X. Yes, I know that the older versions of FCP had a lot of features for collaboration by multiple editors, not anymore though.

I would speculate that the Asian market for Apple built PC's would be tiny because of the premium Apple charges for their computers. If anything, I think that the Asian markets would be the leader in using Hackintosh's! ;-)

Wow, I was trying hard to stay out of this but… :-D

> [HyperMedia] "Wolf suggested that the past six quarters of strong Mac shipment growth in the business market reflect the beginning of a trend for Apple. He attributes the upward swing to halo effects from the iPad and iPhone, both of which saw quick adoption in the enterprise."

I resemble that remark! ;-) I bought an iPad 2 last summer and was really blown away by how easy it was to use. It asked me for my email address and password and the next screen I saw was my email. Imagine that! Where was the screen that needed to know my SMTP server and POP3 server like Windows needs? Why does windows ask customers questions for which they don't know the answer but the Mac seams to figure it out with much less info? I immediately got rid of my PC laptop and got a MacBook Pro. Soon after I bought a Mac Mini for doing music and an iPhone and Apple TV. The "halo" effect comes from all of their devices giving a "consistent customer experience" where end users are not expected to become systems administrators just to use their computers. Like I said earlier, my last Windows PC exists just to run Vegas Pro. At the end of the day, it's all about the software and I refuse to switch from Vegas (which is why I originally contributed to this thread).

> [PeterWright] "Somewhat ironic after reading those horrific stories of exploitation of cheap labour in China by Apple in the chase for profit. For me that's enough reason to never get involved with that company's products."

I guess you'll never buy another product from Amazon, Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft either because the Kindle, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 are all built at that very same Foxconn plant!!! Apple is just one of the customers there. In fact, some of the people who jumped from the roof were not from the Apple line at all. You should also take into account the culture in other countries. People line up and wait for hours and hours to get those jobs because it's better than what they currently have. So just because their labor is cheap, it doesn't mean they are getting exploited. They are being "employed". We live in a global economy. This isn't going to change.

> [Jay Gladwell] "Yes, 24.6% "dwarfs" 5.3%, but not really, not when you look at it based on the number of units sold. Even if those numbers were to stay the same, Macs could never catch up to, let alone surpass, PC sales."

I think what you're not taking into account is that:

1) There is a "trend" emerging where Mac sales are increasing and PC sales are decreasing. Yea, the install base of PC's is bigger but it's the "trend" that's important to watch because computers get old and need to be replaced and what they are getting replaced with isn't always the same kind of computer.

2) Mobile devices/tablets like the iPad are now replacing laptops (and maybe soon desktops) so the entire market dynamics are changing. Those tablet platforms don't include Windows or Intel !!!. iOS and Android are the predominant OS's and ARM is the predominant chip maker. So the computer landscape and "what is a personal computer" is changing. Companies like Avid who just released Avid Studio for iPad are in the running. Companies like Sony that are betting on Windows and Intel might find themselves on an irrelevant platform in years to come. Only time will tell. (hence the request for Vegas for OS X or iOS)

> [VidMus] "Is it still not possible to build my own Apple computer? And if I could how much would that cost?"

Actually, it is cheaper to buy an Apple Mac Pro than to buy a comparably equiped PC workstation. In fact it's about $1,000 cheaper!!!

I just went through this and I was shocked by what I found. I priced out a 12 core BOXX, HP, and Mac Pro and the Mac Pro was $1,000 cheaper than BOXX and HP for the same configuration. That's what convinced me that my next computer would be the new Mac Pro's that are coming out later this year. The whole "Apple is more expensive" is unfounded when you look at the quality of the parts. Choose the same quality parts for a PC and the cost is the same. can't afford a Mac Pro? The Mac Mini is only $599. I have one for doing music and I love it.

True you can't build your own Apple computer legally (but you can build Hackintosh) but that's why Mac's are so stable. You don't get to pick your parts because they only use parts that are certified to work together. That's the Achilles heal of Windows i.e., Microsoft needs to support every possible parts combination and most of them don't work very well as anyone who builds their own PC's will tell you how hard it is to get good matching components even when the specs say they should work together.

> [Steve Mann] "Getting WAY off-topic here, but Foxconn China is for all practical purposes a city of a half-million people. In a population that large you *will* have the usual demographic of murder, suicides and other urban mayhem. And, this is Apple's fault, how?"

Yea, that's my point. Unless you know what it's like to live in these countries, you can't pass judgement. It's like saying "why can't the middle east just get along?".

I'm not saying that I'm right… I'm only offering a different perspective as a 28 year veteran PC user who has primarily switched to Apple products as my "computing device" of choice over the past year. Call me a fanboy if you'd like and I hate to say it… but the Apple stuff "just works" ;-)

(OMG… JR has gone to the Dark Side… who's next???) lol

~jr