Text 4613, 79 rader
Skriven 2005-06-05 11:33:28 av Mike '/m' (1:379/45)
Ärende: A MCSE evaluates a Mac Mini
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From: Mike '/m' <mike@barkto.com>


http://www.divisiontwo.com/articles/MacMini2.html

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Apple is a master at hype, everyone knows this.  Its founder, Steve Jobs, is
well-known throughout the industry for possessing a “reality distortion fieldö
which makes people crave Apple computers and one-button mice despite their
exorbitant price and in the face of all rational logic.  Both the Apple hype
machine and Jobs' reality distortion field have kicked into overdrive this year
with the recent release of the bold, innovative and affordable G4 Cube...oops I
mean the Mac mini.

I’ll admit, we were excited at first to get one in the lab to put through its
paces.  I had heard about the machine and seen a few clips on G4 of Steve Jobs'
keynote at Macworld San Francisco in January.  My curiosity piqued by the
pronouncement of a $499 computer from Apple, I checked out Apple.com to look up
its specs.  While the hardware is about roughly equivalent to a Windows PC
circa 1995, what got me interested were Apple’s claims about its size, weight
and footprint....

Back in the lab, we were able to borrow a USB keyboard and mouse from a
Tangerine iMac collecting dust in the closet and get the darn Mini booted up at
last.  This is where the first noticeable problem with Apple design arises. 
While there is a Mac-style “donnnngggggö when the Mini is first turned on,
during normal operation the unit makes no sound whatsoever.  This could make it
very difficult for a novice user to know whether or not the computer is on.  In
fact, it took our techs about fifteen minutes before we realized the unit
itself was operating normally and it was the monitor that was not plugged in
properly....

The Mini boots up into a stripped-down operating system which Apple calls OS X,
similar to the stripped-down WindowsCE OS found on many handhelds.  The mini OS
is going to be a significant hurdle for many buyers who are used to Windows or
have favorite Windows software packages they need to use. ...

The Mini has got some built-in software for basic computer functions, but it
can’t do many common things as well as its grown-up brothers in the Windows
world can.  The little things can add up to big frustration for someone who
might accidentally buy a Mini expecting it to be just like Windows.  For
example, there is no Outlook Express for email, but Apple includes a program
called Mail, which is like a stripped-down email client that can’t execute
scripts or open attachments without user intervention. ...

To see how much industry support the Mac platform has these days, I did a
google to see if there were Mac versions of any of my favorite applications;
unfortunately I ended up disappointed every time.  There are very few
first-person shooters for OSX.  There is no Mac version of WeatherBug to check
the temperature anywhere in the world.  Nor is there a Mac version of helpful
web and email enhancers like Hotbar. Or any equivalent of the DealHelper
software I use to keep track of my passwords.  My Office 2003 CD would not
install, despite claims I had heard from Mac fanboys that OS X is compatible
with Office.  Heck, the Internet Explorer icon isn’t even out on the taskbar by
default, it’s buried in the c:\applications folder. ...

So is the mini a maxi value?  For me, clearly, no.  When I consider that a good
deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk,
Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware--none of which are available for the Mac
platform--it doesn't make sense for me to "switch" to a Mac at this time.  But
will Apple's famous marketing team be able to sell the the emperor an invisible
computer anyway and turn the mini into a maxi hit?  That’s the question that
remains to be answered....
===


Only a Microsoft MCSE could turn a silent computer that does not auto-execute
email viruses and trojans into a negative.


"...When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications
like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware-..."



 /m<I'm thinking the article has to be a joke...>

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