# Quartz Extreme - is Apple on Crack?



## Gedankenspiel (May 30, 2002)

I have been reading about the Quartz Extreme controversy on Mac related sites but haven't really seem much talk about it here so I am posting this thread. My question is if Apple is simply on crack and is working in a wrong direction. 

For those who haven't heard: Quartz Extreme will yet again up the ante of desktop wizardry by introducing new gee-wiz effects.  Quartz Extreme in version 10.2 will need the support of GPU in form of a graphics cards which is currently not installed in any system (except the latest PB and high end G4's).

The obvious upside:
- a cooler user desktop with effects never seen before
- enhanced performance and better user experience browsing the desktop

The obvious downside:
- Needs 32MB of VRAM
- Runs best with the use of a new generation video card for graphics processing not contained in 99% of all systems currently
- better desktop visual effects have a reverse effect on productivity

Is Apple on Crack? I have been using MAC OSX since pretty much it came out. I have to say that I am STILL not used to it over a year later. My productivity using OSX has certainly dropped. Culprits are the clumsy file management, the inability to sort by creation date etc. from the file save / load box and many other details. The desktop effects in OSX are nice but before Apple goes down the road of releasing more useless crap, how about working on what is there, like eliminating the hated beach ball which I stare at for at least 10 minutes per day?

I am running the Developer release 10.2 and I don't see any usability issues addressed at all. Am I the only one here who thinks that Apple is becoming a toy-like operating system far removed form the objectives of being a highly productive work environment?


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## BBenve (May 30, 2002)

Well.. about quartz extreme.. why don't we first wait for the official release and then complain?? i have no complain at all even on my second computer..(ibook 600) where it isrunning as a charm.. very awesomely...



 "Is Apple on Crack? I have been using MAC OSX since pretty much it came out. I have to say that I am STILL not used to it over a year later. My productivity using OSX has certainly dropped. Culprits are the clumsy file management, the inability to sort by creation date etc. from the file save / load box and many other details. The desktop effects in OSX are nice but before Apple goes down the road of releasing more useless crap, how about working on what is there, like eliminating the hated beach ball which I stare at for at least 10 minutes per day? "

1st... have you tryed Windows XP?? (toylike OS)
2nd You don't like ..that makes it crap??
3rd Why are you using a beta...to complain??
4th I don't see no beach ball.. i see an HD plate sinning
5th Your productivity went bad... claim apple for it )) yep that is what everyone does...   he he..


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## Gedankenspiel (May 30, 2002)

<b>1st... have you tryed Windows XP?? (toylike OS) </b>
I never compared the two because I have been an Apple user for 12 years. I am just concerned that Apple is making a bad decision here.

<b>2nd You don't like ..that makes it crap?? </b>
www.macintouch.com has pages and pages of post form people just as disturbed about this topic.

<b>3rd Why are you using a beta...to complain?? </b>
I am not basing my opinion on the beta. My concern comes from official releases from Apple about the requried 32MB VRAM. The beta and the planned release for Septembe rof Jaguar is a bit disappointing in itself if they don't fix the productivity issues that - btw - I am not the only one have noted.

<b>4th I don't see no beach ball.. i see an HD plate sinning </b>
Hey, seeing a beach ball for 10 minutes on my screen or seeing a sprinning HD plate with pretty rainbow colors is the same damn thing to me. It bot results in staring at a frozen screen.

<b>5th Your productivity went bad... claim apple for it )) yep that is what everyone does... he he..</b>
And are you trying to tell me that you are more efficient navigating OS X than you were in 9? I understand the grave fundamental changes in OSX but come on: you expect people to understand that now you have a user desktop, a general desktop, and that when you try to save files from within an application you have to navigate through the whole system (Macintosh HD/Users/myname/desktop/myfolder/)? PUHLEASE!!!! I might as well use the terminal window.
And how often have you accidentally clicked on an application on the app bar that you did not want to open. 15 seconds late (Illustrator) you finally get to quick the app again.

I am not griping about Apple in general. I am just worried that OSX in general has much to be left desired. It all looks great and sounds good - but in reality I miss OS 9 and am worried that the truly important issues won't be addressed until waaay later.


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## fryke (May 30, 2002)

32 MB are recommended, but 16 MB are sufficient. *AND* you get decent performance without QE on Jaguar. It's just that you even get MORE when you have a newer machine. This is exactly what Apple *should* do in my opinion. Make the OS fast on all systems, and even faster on better machines. Yes, they should USE the hardware they sell. And all recent machines have a good enough graphics card for QE. If you now say that whatever computer you have is only so and so old, well, pity. But Jaguar won't appear until late summer, so even a machine you buy today will be a quarter year old by then. Nothing to bash Apple about. Finally they're making progress, I say. (And I'm 'left behind' with my TiBook 500.)


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## ElDiabloConCaca (May 30, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Gedankenspiel _
> *For those who haven't heard: Quartz Extreme will yet again up the ante of desktop wizardry by introducing new gee-wiz effects.  Quartz Extreme in version 10.2 will need the support of GPU in form of a graphics cards which is currently not installed in any system (except the latest PB and high end G4's).*



Quartz Extreme is supported on EVERY consumer machine Apple sells right now.  The iMac supports it (NVidia card).  The iBook supports it (Radeon Mobility).  The PowerMac G4, in ALL configurations, supports it (NVidia/Radeon).  The TiBook supports it (Radeon Mobility).

The one one that DOESN'T support it is the low-low end egg-shaped iMac that is only available to educational customers, and that's being phased out by the eMac, which, incidentally, supports it (NVidia card).

So which system were you talking about that DOESN'T support Quartz Extreme?


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## simX (May 30, 2002)

Gedankenspiel, maybe you don't understand the concept of Quartz Extreme.

What it does is it allows the GUI to be displayed and calculated by the graphics card, rather than letting the CPU do all the work.  This way, you'll have a faster GUI, plus you'll have more CPU available to do background tasks and other things.

Apple is not adding any more "whiz-bang" effects... it's just speeding them up.

Furthermore, Quartz Extreme does not up the requirements of OS X.  It has it's own set of requirements.  If you do not have a supported graphics card for Quartz Extreme, you can still use Jaguar using the regular Quartz, which calculates the GUI stuff using the CPU still.

And like fryke said, all computers that Apple currently sells has a compatible video card for Quartz Extreme.  This includes the iBook, because 32 MB of VRAM is not REQUIRED, just recommended.  The only requirement is the graphics card, and any ATI Radeon graphics card is supported.

It's a GOOD thing that Apple is doing this.

Oh, and if you had the Jaguar beta, you'd notice there are numerous improvements in the Finder and other things.  Like the new Get Info window and Inspector window (yes, both are in Jaguar).  That's very handy, and I'd say that Apple really is improving the operating system, not just making it "a toy".


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## roger (May 30, 2002)

> Needs 32MB of VRAM



Not true. 32MB recommended for optimum performance. Works with less. The type of graphics card is important.



> Runs *best* with the use of a new generation video card for graphics processing not contained in 99% of all systems currently



Yes (even if 99% is true), but runs OK with with current technology out there. OSX runs great on the new rack mounted server (I assume), but runs fine on my iBook. It wouldn't make sense to run the other way around. I don't understand your argument. If they didn't create their software to take advantage of future hardware advancements then their OS would not have much shelf life. MS-DOS was a great example of that.



> better desktop visual effects have a reverse effect on productivity



Not necessarily true. Yes, enhanced visual effects take up clock cycles that were available for other processes, but they may help you work better, and so productivity may increase. e.g. The bouncing icon in the Dock when an appl needs your attention. The bouncing icon takes up some processor power so your other apps may run 0.1% slower, BUT that is more than made up for by the timely alert to the user. Needless effects will take up processing time, but if that processing time is then shoved onto a graphics cards rather than the main processor then there will be an overall gain in speed.

R.


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## fryke (May 30, 2002)

perfectly right, roger. apart from the DOS part. 

DOS had an incredibly long shelf life indeed. Even Windows ME was basically still DOS with patches and toppings.


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## edX (May 30, 2002)

> And are you trying to tell me that you are more efficient navigating OS X than you were in 9?



YES!!! but only if you start to think like osx and not keep trying to make it be os 9!! of course adding a few haxies like ASM and Default Folder X help a lot and give you back a little of the os 9 familiarity.  And i have been a mac os user for closer to 20 yrs, so i had those old habits as firmly ingrained as you, if not more so. 

In truth, osx is far simpler to navigate and understand once you stop thinking it should be like os 9. I loved os 9, but osx is the future for a lot of good reasons. Frankly, i can't believe you don't see more productivity just in less reboot time.


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## Valrus (May 30, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Gedankenspiel _
> *
> Hey, seeing a beach ball for 10 minutes on my screen or seeing a sprinning HD plate with pretty rainbow colors is the same damn thing to me. It bot results in staring at a frozen screen.*



What is up with all these people with computers way better than mine complaining about OS X running so slowly for them? Are you doing something wrong, or am I doing something very right? The only things I have problems with are live window resizing. I see the HD plate/beachball/whatever the hell it is very infrequently even on my G3 400MHz iMac, and even when I do see it it's hardly ever for more than a couple seconds. Is it really a lot worse for you (despite that your machine has a clock speed almost twice mine)? Or are you just more of a whiner than me?



> *And are you trying to tell me that you are more efficient navigating OS X than you were in 9? I understand the grave fundamental changes in OSX but come on: you expect people to understand that now you have a user desktop, a general desktop, and that when you try to save files from within an application you have to navigate through the whole system (Macintosh HD/Users/myname/desktop/myfolder/)? PUHLEASE!!!! I might as well use the terminal window.*



Hit Apple-Option-H to go to your home folder. Or you could use a folder OTHER than one on your desktop. In the words of Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe from _Cryptonomicon_ (which you all should read), display some ****ing adaptability.

Sorry to be scathing, but these don't seem like very well-thought-out complaints.

-the valrus


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## yoshi (May 31, 2002)

Alright let me clear up this Quartz Extreme thing:

I have 3 Macs:

iMac DV Special Edition
400Mhz G3, 128MB of RAM, 13GB HDD, 8MB Rage 128vr AGP

iBook
500Mhz G3, 128MB of RAM, 10GB HDD, 8MB Rage 128 AGP

Power Macintosh G4
800Mhz G4, 768MB of RAM, Dual 40GB HDDs, 32MB Radeon 7500 AGP

of these three macs the only officially supported one would be my G4, but when I tested all three of these macs, the first two only have 8MB of VRAM but they were accelerated by Quartz extreme and it was shown big time. It seems apple is being a bit optimistic with its requirements and I think everyone is overreacting, remember this is only a beta and the final requirements will most likely be a 16MB AGP Card because as of right now it looks like the AGP part of the equation is the part that will not change. So as of right now if your box has at least an 8MB AGP Video subsystem then quit griping you will be accelerated somewhat but probably not as well as a 16MB or 32MB box. Remember it also is dependant on the screen resolution you use.

~Yoshi


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## phatsharpie (May 31, 2002)

> _Originally posted by yoshi _
> *Alright let me clear up this Quartz Extreme thing:
> 
> I have 3 Macs:
> ...



Hey Yoshi, how do you know the first two were also accelerated via QE? Was there a control panel or info pane that told you? Just wonder...


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## fryke (May 31, 2002)

he DOESN'T know. but it doesn't matter, either. my tibook 500 has 8 megs of vram in an unsupported card and the things that would use QE are fast enough for me. EVERYONE should stop whining and wait for Jaguar to arrive. it'll be cool, really.


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## roger (May 31, 2002)

fryke - agreed with the DOS. I was just thinking about the problem that it had around DOS 5 with largest HDDs. There was a big leap in MSDOS around that time - almost a different product it was such a re-vamp.

R.


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## Dekatophil (May 31, 2002)

> And are you trying to tell me that you are more efficient navigating OS X than you were in 9



Are you trying to tell me you're not ?
Navigation is *so* much more efficient in X ! Getting to a file in X (Column view) is so much faster. I used file browsers in 9 that were but a poor excuse compared to the Finder in X. Granted, the Finder needs refinements but is a whole leap forward as compared to 9.
Holy cr... Who wants to use the DESKTOP (???)
Get real, you can browse folders, entire HDs from the Dock etc. Seriously, my file navigation productivity has sky rocketed since I use X !
No more folder drilling !
Really, I think *you* are on crack...
Perhaps you should Deine Gedanken spielen lassen und Dich mit dem *neuen* System etwas vertraut machen...


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## yoshi (May 31, 2002)

Excuse me? I don't know?

I do know, and it was. I had the developer tools installed number one and before with 128MB of RAM and a 400Mhz CPU I could not drag around a playing DVD window and watch it at the same time. of course it wasn't perfect but it was watchable while I was moving the window. Before the wasn't even an option.


Now don't tell ME what I know and don't.

~Yoshi


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## tismey (May 31, 2002)

So what tells you it's Quartz Extreme speeding it up and not just other Jaguar enhancements?


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## yoshi (May 31, 2002)

I know because quartz is part of the window manager (for lack of a better term ). And before I couldn't even do that and now I can. It has to be video card related because that machine is not speed demon but it does have AGP. The other Jaguar enhancements have little to do with this if anything (besides xtreme & Quicktime 6).


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## edX (May 31, 2002)

> What is up with all these people with computers way better than mine complaining about OS X running so slowly for them? Are you doing something wrong, or am I doing something very right? The only things I have problems with are live window resizing. I see the HD plate/beachball/whatever the hell it is very infrequently even on my G3 400MHz iMac, and even when I do see it it's hardly ever for more than a couple seconds. Is it really a lot worse for you (despite that your machine has a clock speed almost twice mine)? Or are you just more of a whiner than me?



Valrus, that was so well said that i must congratulate you on it. I have tried to say this over and over, but never quite as eloquently and succenctly as you just did. kudos my friend.

i mean, do people try to compare speeds to the computers they see on TV that do everything before the user even thinks about it?


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## Valrus (May 31, 2002)

Wow, thanks Ed. And here I thought I was just complaining.

Must be that we have the same kind of computer - same color, even. Same amount of RAM, even. Great minds think alike, I tell you. 

-the valrus


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## toast (May 31, 2002)

I've been using my Mac for DTP (desktop publishing), which means using Photoshop, Illustrator and Quark XPress / InDesign all day, as well as scanner/printer+PDF.

Much software was missing for OSX, which I started using a month ago (X.1.4).

<b>File browsing</b> is fine, I'm helped by the preview functions (browsing images and getting the preview is great !) though not perfect ones (I often get some garbled previews of TIFF with LZW for instance).

<b>General productivity</b> is, in my opinion, lower in OSX itself but higher in the software you can use with it. In my case, Photoshop 7 and Illustrator X, as well as Office vX and InDesign 2, brought so much to DTP that productivity has stayed the same. Not increased, note, because I think OSX has something childish in it too.

<b>General speed</b> is disappointing in many cases: Quake, games, drivers (scanners) <b>Errors</b> with the rainbow cursor: iTunes 2 gets stucked, the Java Runtime gets LimeWire to crash, the force-quit won't solve everything I've got a lot to complain at, though I like OSX in general. And I still think multitasking coud get faster. I've seen better on Windows platforms with Photoshop / InDesign for example.

There's a toy in OSX: you can't get rid of the childish animations, even though you can reduce them in a way. But the system wasn't really built aiming at 100% productivity: the Aqua + the design is meant for families, not for industry workstations.

So I get back to OS9 to work + Unreal T., and OSX to have fun


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## Valrus (May 31, 2002)

If you're not as productive in OS X, you might need to stop thinking like it's OS 9. It isn't. It's better. If you try to use OS X like OS 9 it will _slow you down_. I agree that some of the animations and things in OS X aren't necessary, but are they really _that_ time consuming? It seems like you guys are just itching to complain about something.

I am more productive in OS X than I ever was under OS 9, because I can have upwards of 10 applications running simultaneously with no appreciable slowdown. I don't care what anyone says; that fact _alone_ more than makes up for anything else that seems to be slower under OS X. And then there's the fact that I crash at most two times a month anymore!

OS X needs improvement, sure. If it was as zippy as OS 9 was, that would be great. But I really think you people are selling it short by not taking the time to figure out how to use it to its full potential.

-the valrus


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## edX (Jun 1, 2002)

yea, what valrus said 

seems like the last time we went thru this speed/productivity thing we spent nearly 200 or more posts til we discovered the guy was using a ufs disk for his sytem which is known to be dog slow.

this site is filled with tips and solutions to many of the common problems that people have when just getting started. searches and just plain going back and reading the old threads will teach you alot. Perhpas the reason Valrus and i have been able to make so much of our simplier machines is because we have been reading them and following the directions.  for instance, there are several threads on how to get rid of the problems with itunes.

no one is likely to give you a personal tutorial for the things we have spent months going over and getting the little things straightened out, but most of it is here in the past threads. Toast - glad you picked up on one of the first clues and started asking about defragging. believe me, it will bring a slowing system back to life. moving your swap files to a seperate drive with lots of space will help as well.


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## ex2bot (Jun 1, 2002)

I have to say that I love OS X, too. I recommend David Pogue's _Mac OS X: The Missing Manual for anyone adjusting to OS X. Pogue writes about lots and lots of good shortcuts. I also agree with Valrus that it's best not to think of OS X as OS 9, but instead something unique and powerful.

I do, though, take exception to people brushing aside criticisms of the dreaded spinning beach ball. Occasionally, I get a beachball that spins for a good 30 seconds. Now, that's not awful in itself, but when it happens three or four times in a row. . . 

It seems to be Finder that's the culprit, waiting for something. . . Samba file sharing or something. Whatever. . . I haven't nailed it down exactly yet.

By the way, I have defragged my drive (speedier!), am not running UFS, and I haven't done anything obviously bizarre to my iBook (2001 500mHz).  **Edit: I forgot to mention: 320 megs.**

Again, I love my Mac and OS X. But, even though it happens rarely, watching the spinning beach ball while using Finder is frustrating.

Doug


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## rdhazrd (Jun 1, 2002)

I run OS X.1.4 on an iMac DV+(450Mhz) with 384 MB of RAM. I have seen the spinning wheel, ball, disk, rainbow thing of few times now and then, but as far as productivity goes, X beets 9 hands down. I can give a few reasons. 1. File browsing is much faster, once you are used to it. 2. If you click the wrong app in the dock, right click it and force quit it, unlike in 9, you don't have to wait for it to boot up to quit. 3. If I have to force quit an app, I don't lock up the system, like it did in 9. 4. My iMac has been up and running since Decemberwhen I moved it, the only restarts have been due to updates that require it. Being able to put my system to sleep and then only having to click the mouse to wake it saves me 3 or 4 minutes each time compared to booting 9. I know I could put 9 to sleep, but it only would run for a while after a wake up before it would lock up. Not having to reboot every few hours(or minutes sometimes) is a HUGE time saver. And for every one b*tching about X running so slow on your machine if it's above 450Mhz with 384 MB of RAM or more, send me a message and I'll trade you. I have no speed complates about X on my Mac.
Just my nickel of thought, where's my change?


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## Zeal (Jun 2, 2002)

I'm currently running a PowerBook G3 Pismo (AGP 8MB VRAM) hooked up to a 21inch monitor @ 1600x1200 (millions of colours - that's how we spell "color" in my neck of the woods). I don't have the PB screen going (startup with lid closed). Will Jaguar mean better, the same, or worse screen performance, zappiness etc given my set-up?

I hardly ever see the spinning cursor (how's that for generic, non-specific interpretation of the beach ball, hard disk platter thingymebob), but maybe because I don't have much software for OS X yet - only running Office v.X - and so can't really do much more than spreadsheets, charts, word docs, powerpoint presentations. 

I've been using Macs (also played with Apple ]['s at school) since my 512K E and like Ed  have been pretty much entrenched with the OS9 look and feel until I bit the bullet and bought OSX at Xmas. But I've moved on and I generally enjoy the new scenery that the Aqua GUI is giving me even if it is a bit slower.

My biggest problems were all solved when I upgraded my 6GB hard drive with a beautiful 30GB harddrive (IBM with fluid dynamic bearing 2 weeks ago - sooo quiet now and much more zippier) and when I used SpeedDisk to optimise my OSX partition. Let's face it - my PB is never going to be a speed demon.

And my navigating thru the folder hierarchy got much better since I dragged my mostly used folders to the Dock and set them up to use the real estate afforded to my by my large monitor. Good luck to those who get to play with prerelease software - I mean, it's just a taster/tester of what's to come anyway.  Zeal


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## edX (Jun 2, 2002)

hey Zeal - let's hear it for the 512kE!!  my first computer - it worked hard and earned it's keep. I still have my carrying bag for it - i used to pack it up and take it on road trips to my publisher. That was long before the day of laptops 

Did you have the add on fan hood? and i'm guessing you printed from either an imagewriter or a dot matrix - both of which make a thrashing HD sound like near silence (i had the sound muffling cover for my imagewriter and you could still hear it 2 rooms away. )


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## Zeal (Jun 2, 2002)

Ed,

I didn't have the fan hood, but I did have the wide version of the imagewriter DM printer, AND a Summagraphics (spelling?) digitised graphics tablet that I must admit, apart from the pen being lassoed by a cable to the tablet, is still pretty modern looking after all of these (14) years. Also have an internal FDD and external FDD - both 400K single sided. I knew I was into something special back then. Went to a Classic (4MB Ram, 20 MB HDD) then onto a Performa 5200CD and now my pride and joy (still) PB G3 400mHz Pismo.


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## fryke (Jun 2, 2002)

> I'm currently running a PowerBook G3 Pismo (AGP 8MB VRAM) hooked up to a 21inch monitor @ 1600x1200 (millions of colours - that's how we spell "color" in my neck of the woods). I don't have the PB screen going (startup with lid closed). Will Jaguar mean better, the same, or worse screen performance, zappiness etc given my set-up?



My TiBook 500 - which has the same video card as your Pismo - sees some speed improvement in Jaguar 6C35. I don't know how to decide whether Quartz Extreme is turned on or off at all, I'm guessing it's off from the specs of QE.

Perhaps the G4's AltiVec adds to the performance, but from what I've seen, Jaguar will show more speed on all machines. It's not your general 'better but needs more RAM' upgrade: It's a refinement of 10.1. Plus, it adds more to its applications like Mail.app, Address Book and the like. Those aren't memory hogs, either. Also the new (like System 7) Find File in the Finder speeds finding files up very much. Same for the Finder itself: Much faster plus spring loaded folders (still quirky in 6C35).

You can also turn off some things like previews in Column View etc.

All machine that can run 10.1 pretty well will be even better with Jaguar.


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## Gedankenspiel (Jun 2, 2002)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File browsing is fine, I'm helped by the preview functions (browsing images and getting the preview is great !) though not perfect ones (I often get some garbled previews of TIFF with LZW for instance). 

General productivity is, in my opinion, lower in OSX itself but higher in the software you can use with it. In my case, Photoshop 7 and Illustrator X, as well as Office vX and InDesign 2, brought so much to DTP that productivity has stayed the same. Not increased, note, because I think OSX has something childish in it too. 

General speed is disappointing in many cases: Quake, games, drivers (scanners) Errors with the rainbow cursor: iTunes 2 gets stucked, the Java Runtime gets LimeWire to crash, the force-quit won't solve everything I've got a lot to complain at, though I like OSX in general. And I still think multitasking coud get faster. I've seen better on Windows platforms with Photoshop / InDesign for example. 

There's a toy in OSX: you can't get rid of the childish animations, even though you can reduce them in a way. But the system wasn't really built aiming at 100% productivity: the Aqua + the design is meant for families, not for industry workstations. 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well said, Toast. Finally someone with a rational mind to agree. Productivity is down. Noone can tell me that when you compare running Photoshop 6 in OS 9 isn't significantly faster than the PS7 in OSX. Never since my PowerMac 7100 have I had to wait that long for the color pallette to come up, files to open, etc.

Toast made a good point. The availability of DTP software such as InDesign have the mac platform much more competitive (in this case it is also kicking Quark's butt which is a very good thing). 

Whoever made the post on the file system being vastly improved:
When I have 100-200 files in a folder and I need to quickly find the last saved file - it just isn't possible. I have to remember the name - which is not even much of a help if the file name is too long and the window can't be widened much. It's just crap to navigate. The fact that you can reach files 10 different ways does not make it more user friendly. 

Another gripe of mine is the fact that OSX now behaves much like the Windows 2000 Server that I am running in that the computer _SEEMS_ to be fully booted but is really still loading a bunch of stuff for another 20 seconds. When you open an application to show a Windows friend how fast your mac is you'll get nothing but laughs.....

G


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## fryke (Jun 2, 2002)

> Noone can tell me that when you compare running Photoshop 6 in OS 9 isn't significantly faster than the PS7 in OSX.



1. It's not significantly faster. Not on all the machines that I've tested, anyway. (PM G4/400 AGP, TiBook 500, PM G3/333 beige.)

2. While Photoshop is applying a filter on a 80 MB file in OS 9, I had to go out of the office, smoke a cigarette, make some coffee, drink some coffee and then sit down in front of my machine to wait a minute longer for the task to succeed. In OS X, I can check my mail, look up information on the web about health risks of smoking and the consumption of coffee, smoke a cigarette, drink a cuppa coffee and write a post to this thread while Photoshop 7 is happily applying the filter on the same 80 MB file. And I even see the progress of it in the Dock, because PS7's icon has an aqua-style bar that gives me that information. Ever thought about what productivity really is, Gedankenspiel?

Btw.: This all is only going to get better over time. Jaguar won't be here for our production systems in late summer.


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## mindbend (Jun 2, 2002)

Since this thread started with a Quartz Extreme focus, I'll respond to that first.

1. QE is a response to make the GUI faster. AFAIK, there are no new whiz-bang effects, just increased speed. This is, by definition, better. I actually hope Apple are on crack so they can work even faster.

2. Speed in general. I've been *****ing about OS X's graphics layer speed for a year. But that's the only issue with speed I have found worth noting. Productivity issues are a clear winner in X. Finder navigation in X is inarguably better in X because you can do it just like OS 9 if you want, plus you have other options.

My prediction:
When QE hits, those of us who have a machine capable of really taking advantage of it will finally quit our whining forever. X will have everything 9 ever had and more.


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## pnx_8x (Nov 19, 2002)

Figure I would add my two cents:

Productivity: up up up

Complainers in Forums: up up up

Beachball: saw it a few times but not for too long

OS X time saved over 8 hours of use:
05 minutes: Waking up instead of booting up
15 minutes: Restarting 3 times a day due to various memory leaks
20 minutes: Restarting individual applications in between restarts
05 minutes: cleaning up desktop after a half day of work (too easy to save stuff here in os 9)
~1 hour: attributed to multi-task management (may be more)
20 minutes: opening preview instead (compared to acrobat and graphics apps)
30 minutes: better networking (faster downloads, fewer standstills)
10 minutes: fixing control panel settings (includes chooser)
10 minutes for good measure

= ~2.5 hours of time better spent on tasks instead of dealing with crap

Compare all this junk with 10 minutes of watching the beachball worst case?

..and yes, multi-tasking does save me lots of time...bryce, photoshop, downloading, uploading, and editing documents all at the same time....it's huge.  Flipping between programs takes no effort at all.

Dunno what all the complaining is about


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## mindbend (Nov 19, 2002)

Now that I've had Jaguar for a couple of months, I have to say that Quartz Extreme is a bust. I see virtually no benefit at all after testing on three machines. Yeah, maybe it's a tiny bit faster overall, but "Extreme" is a joke word.

Having said that, MP in X is a joy. Multiple apps not fighting with each other, burning, rendering, downloading, all at once is now a reality. X is easily more efficient and productive for me than 9.


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