Talk:MacOS/Archive 12

"Common" criticism section
The added text is this:


 * In comparison to Microsoft Windows, some critics point to the lack of upgrade pricing on Mac OS X; users of previous versions have to pay full price for a new version. This is in part a semantic argument, depending on whether a retail Mac OS X package is considered an "upgrade" or not. On one hand, it can only be used on a Mac, all of which were sold with some version of the Mac OS, so it is arguably an upgrade. On the other hand, no price distinction is made between upgrading version 9.0 or version 10.3 to version 10.4, suggesting that consumers are buying a full license in either case, or at least receiving no credit for intervening upgrades. Furthermore, customers who purchase a Macintosh between the time a new version of Mac OS X is announced and the time it starts shipping preinstalled on new machines have typically been given upgrades at a much smaller cost (9.95-19.95 USD).


 * The Open Group has criticized Apple for use of the term "Unix" in advertisements for Mac OS X as Apple has not had the OS officially certified, and their use of the term could constitute a violation of trademark. Apple claims that they use the term as a genericized trademark and that the cost of certification would make the OS prohibitively expensive, although The Open Group has stated that there is a 110,000 USD upper limit on the cost of certification for one company. Though Mac OS X is "Unix-based" and features a BSD Unix compatibility layer, it is not compliant with the Single UNIX Specification. The reason for Apple not seeking "official" Unix branding may simply be that compliance is not a near- or medium-term goal for Apple instead of the potentially misleading cost claim.

In my opinion, the second part is obviously false, and the first part is hardly "common" criticism. I wouldn't mind deleting it altogether again, but that might lead to another edit placing it back in yet again. Dravick (talk) 20:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The first argument is flawed since Mac OS X can ONLY be used to upgrade an existing copy of Mac OS. And nowadays, who's upgrading from version 9? Either way, everyone should be happy since it costs far less than Windows. The fact that Microsoft has various pricing schemes doesn't mean it's bad for Apple not to.
 * The second argument is simply untrue. Aside from being based on UNIX all along from its FreeBSD foundation, Mac OS X v10.5 is officially UNIX.
 * For both arguments, they are not even targeted at the operating system itself (either pricing or branding) and are hardly significant enough to dedicate a section to in an encyclopedia article. The section should not be re-introduced. Althepal (talk) 23:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think that there should be a a page that does list some of Mac OS X's shortcoming, and possible criticisms (if any), because that makes the page much more objective to wikipedia users, which I think is a goal of this website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sysrqx (talk • contribs) 02:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * There already _is_ some criticisms of Mac OS X in the article (as of now, only those about "permissions" were retained, but there was some about the Dock, the Finder, and so on that were moved to their respective page). If you want to add some, find a reliable source, and quote it in the article. Also, one source is not enough to be "common". Dravick (talk) 01:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it's worth mentioning that there's a criticism section for just about every Microsoft product. The wiki seems to have a whole lot of unfair heat towards Microsoft. The lack of a shortcomings section for Mac OSX is inconsistent. And Mac OSX most certainly has shortcomings. Belugaperson (Talk|Contribs) 01:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * How is it inconsistent to follow Wikipedia guidelines and lean towards in-text criticism? Althepal (talk) 03:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * it is inconsistent to lay out explicit criticisms of Windows and other systems in their main articles, and then to bury all Mac OS criticisms in secondary articles. also, there are extensive problems with Mac OS, such as: compatibility issues and enforcing proprietary standards, a whole variety of things you can't do (changing certain fonts, colors, window decors, visually distinguishing between tasks and dock icons etc..), lacking interactivity and gaming APIs, imposing objective-C and its widely criticized models on developers, being tied to proprietary hardware, apple's NDAs and restrictive licenses in all corners of the OSX ecosystem, apple's refusal to provide 64 bit carbon, widespread backlash against "look and feel" restrictiveness, lack of drivers for certain hardware, criticism about closing the darwin kernel "to prevent piracy," stability and security issues (yes, they exist and have been well documented), criticism related to repeatedly breaking old software where windows can still run many exe files and even drivers from 1995, some discussion of the many good and well documented reasons why osx server really isn't useful as a commercial server, etc.. 70.55.42.238 (talk) 21:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The way it's been done on these articles is completely consistent with Wikipedia's manual of style. Nja 247 06:53, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * For an operating system that is "lacking interactivity and gaming APIs" it sure has a lot of games available for it. Here's an idea, instead of whining on the talk page, how about actually trying to contribute some good edits to the article. If all these alleged problems are "well documented" how about you add them to the article, with reliable sources. Please note I said "good edits", anything that is badly sourced, or badly written will be removed promptly. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 01:35, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Good article...
As you may know, the article recently failed a GA nomination by me. A problem was, I didn't plan really well, and after the nomination I did not have that much time to dedicate to wikipedia. Mainly, the suggestions of the reviewer were really helpful, but concerning the part where he wanted to add a lot of comparisons with windows, I disagreed. I don't think that the article needs any mention of windows.

Now, if we look at the reasons the article was delisted in the first place here, I'm pretty sure all of those problems are resolved. The article didn't meet the expectations of the new reviewer, but it is still my opinion that the article is good enough to be GA.

So I don't really know what to do now. I'm pretty sure we could have been "luckier" and gotten a reviewer that liked it as it is, but I don't feel like renominating it so soon is the way to go. I would like to know what you guys think. Dravick (talk) 03:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that the suggestion about Windows isn't very productive and should not have meant the article to fail on that alone. The other issues seem covered and we should re-nominate for review. I'll work with you to try to get it passed, as will most of the regulars I'm sure. Nja 247 20:02, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section needed
Well, nobody is perfect, regardless of what fanboys are saying. So, there should be criticism section to represent balanced point of view, which is neither advertising nor blaming. From my user's point of view, I can see the following disadvantages:
 * Runs only on very limited and over-priced hardware which is only sold by Apple. This awfully reduces choice of hardware.
 * DRM and similar limits are in effect. For example this OS prohibits debugging it's own components, etc.
 * Non-standard windowing and widgets APIs which are not compatible with any other OS (even on source level). So there is very few applications with native look and feel for Mac OS X.
 * Security issues. There were numerous security issues with Mac OS X and supplied software (like Safari). There is also several viruses and trojans were discovered in the wild.
 * Artificial limits. Recently Apple has imposed some artificial limits on look and feel customizations. This believed to be unfair practice and requires users who want to customize look and feel of their OS to resort to some questionable forms of hacking.

In total, as for me, it looks like Apple practices vendor lock-ins some of them even worse than those imposed by Microsoft. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.210.145.118 (talk) 19:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, but Wikipedia does not publish original research or thought. So, if you have some articles or books on these points we can take a look. MFNickster (talk) 19:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Criticism sections are discouraged on Wikipedia, see WP:Criticism_sections, Criticism_sections_and_articles, Template:Criticism-section. If you have reliable sources for your claims (WP:RS), then feel free to incorporate them into the text at a relevant point. Dravick (talk) 00:56, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * "Criticism section needed"? Criticism sections are generally discouraged, so I do not think the lack of a section makes an article biased. Microsoft Windows, which overall (I don't care about what your personal opinion happens to be) is considered to have far more woes than OS X, doesn't have a Criticism section, either. Granted, there is a dedicated article on the matter, but that's accordingly because so much more has been said on the topic for Windows. In any event, what you have listed is original research, and the points are weak at that. Althepal (talk) 00:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Screenshot
Why is the main screenshot a low-quality pre-release image? Althepal (talk) 00:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Fixed. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 02:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Mac OS X Snow Leopard's new box/release date
If you notice, Apple.com has been updated with a new Snow Leopard box cover and the release date has been changed to August 28th, 2009. :P —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.169.215.79 (talk) 17:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Version Images
I know this was sort-of already discussed, but I was just thinking about the past images of various versions of OS X in the article. A few months ago (going back a long time), there were thumbnail images for screenshots of all the major versions of OS X. Until someone removed them. They were removed because, as fair use, the images are already used in their version pages so they're not needed here. However, I beg to differ. OS X is not just the most recent version, and the major versions (and their changes over time) are both very significant to Mac OS X, as well as nearly imperative to the navigation of that section in the article. Since they are all different stages of OS X, they all apply to this article and are accepted as fair use. They should be re-added to the article, and all will be right with the world. Althepal (talk) 02:19, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. Without the images, the version section is a big wall of text that's hard to understand. Words can't describe everything. Kevin chen2003 (talk) 18:23, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I concur. It would be helpful to add them again so that it is possible to see the changes in the GUI, not only the technical details. --HeffeQue (talk) 21:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC)