Pay To Go Slower

So Microsoft is walking on air now that they are legally free and clear to ship Windows 98 next month (though their 500+ lawyers will be working overtime to prepare for the big trial in September). Predictions of Windows 98's sales figures look good, but will that change now that CNET's done some preliminary performance testing of the new OS? They set out to answer the question, "Is Windows 98 faster than Windows 95?" (Never mind that since it's an upgrade, the question shouldn't be "if," but "how much?") The bad news is, Wintel users expecting a speed increase may be sorely disappointed.

According to CNET's initial testing, Windows 98 degrades performance by up to 23 percent on a lower-end system. Performance loss was not as severe on high-end machines--only 6 percent--but that's still a reduction. However, Windows 98 improves performance on systems that are currently running Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 4. (The very fact that installing Internet Explorer 4 on your Windows 95 system slows everything down should form the basis for an excellent Netscape ad--if they ever actually advertised their browser, that is.) Note that Windows 98 apparently includes an admittedly cool dynamic and gradual defragmentation function, which should improve the performance of certain disk-based activities (such as application launching) over time. So it may turn out that, after a few weeks, Windows 98 will be faster after all, but we're not holding our breath.

It never ceases to amaze us that Microsoft continues to ship "upgrades" that actually slow things down. Actually, that's not entirely accurate; what we mean to say is, we're constantly perplexed that people continue to buy these upgrades. In contrast, the Mac OS has improved performance on PowerPC systems in each release since 7.6, and that trend reportedly continues with Allegro (Mac OS 8.5), now expected this fall. Yet another benefit of using a Mac: System upgrades that are actually upgrades. That's not even innovation--that's just common sense.

Further Cloning Aftermath

Man oh man oh man, looks like nobody had any luck with the whole Mac cloning debacle. Power Computing cranked out great boxes that sold like hotcakes, but they weren't making any money, even before Apple put the hurt on them. Motorola got out while the getting was good, relatively speaking. Umax stayed in, and still makes Mac clones today--or rather, they still sell Mac clones today, because once this inventory is gone, they're probably going to pack it in. A Wired article tells how the cloner is losing money hand over fist, has all but ceased production on Mac-compatible computers, and is very unlikely to extend its Mac OS license past the July expiration date.

Umax reports that they have lost a staggering $1.1 billion since they began their Mac cloning operations. Doesn't that sound like a ridiculous amount of money? Well, you're right, it is--that $1.1 billion is actually in Taiwanese dollars; it comes to only about $33 million in U.S. currency. (See, now it doesn't sound so bad, right? We're just trying to make you feel better.) Still, a loss is a loss, and it sure sounds like Umax's finance manager is speaking the gospel when he states that "almost everybody suffered losses from making computers for Apple." Even, you will no doubt recall, Apple.

Ironic, isn't it? The Golden Age of Clones is the one era that seemed so bright to us at the time, what with cheap, fast machines ripe for the plucking. But in retrospect, it's starting to look like one of the darkest periods in Mac history, with all the players maimed or killed, and absolutely no winners at the finish line. Good lord, imagine what might have happened if Steve hadn't killed cloning: The clone companies would've folded or pulled out due to unprofitability, Apple would have been bled to death too, and we'd probably all be using abaci by now. Dodged a bullet on that one, hmmm?

iMac Breathing Room

Debate continues to rage over whether or not Apple is thinking too differently by not including a set of standard Mac ports in this fall's iMac. We're sure you've heard all the arguments: On the one side, you've got the Innovators, who state that Apple is keeping costs down by eliminating outdated ports that consumers don't want or need, while moving to new standards like Universal Serial Bus; on the other are the Pragmatists, who point out the simple market truth that currently there are very few peripherals available for the iMac's new USB ports, which are its only expansion possibility. Yes, there will definitely be some USB peripherals available for the iMac when it ships-- count on Apple to make sure of that--but even though the iMac is targeted at first-time buyers, it's a heck of an attractive purchase for existing Mac users who'd like to upgrade to a new home machine. It's not such an attractive purchase, though, if it means that those existing Mac users have to buy new printers, digital cameras, Zip drives, and scanners since the ones they've got won't connect to the iMac.

But just as the argument over the iMac's missing floppy drive became largely moot after Imation announced their floppy-compatible USB SuperDisk drive (not to mention rumors about an Apple-branded floppy option for under $100), there's an interesting rumor that surfaced over at O'Grady's PowerPage that a "major Macintosh vendor" is working on a product that could potentially dispel many of the complaints about the iMac's incompatibility with older peripherals. That product is allegedly a "hub" that will plug into one of the iMac's USB ports and will give the system two Mac-standard serial ports, an ADB port, and a SCSI interface. If such a thing could be done, you can stop worrying about not being able to connect your existing modems, digital cameras, joysticks, mice, Zip drives, scanners, printers, etc. to the iMac you'd like to buy to replace your aging LCIII.

It's a neat idea, and even though the SCSI port would have to be pretty slow (USB is quite a bit slower than SCSI), it's a good way to provide backward compatibility. The identity of the "major Mac vendor" working on it is unknown, but if the rumor is true, our personal guess would have to be Newer Technologies. Those guys have always come out with some innovative ways to expand on the capabilities of Macs. Perhaps you recall the MiniDocks they had that clipped onto the back of a PowerBook Duo to provide Ethernet or SCSI services? This "hub" sounds right up their alley. We sincerely hope that the whole thing isn't just a rumor.

Of Things To Come

With all the controversy surrounding the iMac, with all the concerns that it might just be "too different," we at AtAT have been anxiously counting down the ninety days until the system is actually shipping, so we can see if those concerns are valid or not. As it turns out, though, we may not have to wait that long to see if the iMac will be a sales winner. A Mac OS Rumors source claims that, according to a senior Apple engineer, CompUSA already has seventy thousand pre-orders for Apple's upcoming consumer machine.

Seventy thousand. Look at that in numerical notation: 70,000. That's seventy thousand pre-orders for a computer that was unveiled a week and a half ago, which has had zero actual advertising, isn't even in production yet, and won't be available for about three months. Is this possible? We can't vouch for the legitimacy of the claim, but if it's true, the possibilities boggle the mind. Could the world be ready (nay, yearning) for a simple computer? Is the world not as married to Microsoft as we all think? And most importantly of all, can the fact that a computer lights up when you turn it on overcome the fact that it has no floppy drive?

Astounding. If these alleged seventy thousand advance orders are any indication of the explosion that'll happen once the iMac becomes available and Apple (hopefully) advertises the bejeezus out of it, the sky's the limit. Best case scenario: Hellooooo, market share. Here's hoping that Apple can build them fast enough to keep up with people buying them.

Spreading the Gospel

Speaking of PowerBooks, we continue to mess with a PowerBook G3/233, and it continues to impress the heck out of us. More importantly, though, it continues to impress PC users--at least, in our experience. In the process of getting this thing set up with the required software, network configurations, etc., we're seeing the sleek new laptop act as a magnet that draw an incredible amount of attention among Mac users and PC users alike. The upshot is this: In addition to being a great laptop, the PowerBook G3 is a portable evangelism machine, especially when Virtual PC is installed.

We tried sticking this thing in front of a few PC users in the office and showing them some of the nicer features, like the extraordinarily crisp 13.3" 1024x768 screen, the full-size and super-comfortable keyboard, the enormous palm rests, the surprisingly good stereo speakers, etc. Everyone agrees that the PowerBook G3 is a marvel of industrial design. When we fired up Virtual PC to show them that even the slowest PowerBook G3 is fast enough to do decent Windows emulation for productivity tasks, things got really interesting. One Wintel laptop user played with it for a bit, then stated that he's now definitely going to get a Mac at home, since the only reason he's still struggling with registry corruption and IRQ conflicts on his PC is because of a single Windows-only program he needs to run, and Virtual PC takes care of that. Another person who bought a Pentium-based system a couple of months ago took a look at Virtual PC on the PowerBook and plainly announced that, had he known that emulation was so fast, he would have bought a Mac instead. Still a third mentioned that the Windows performance in Virtual PC seemed faster than on his Pentium 133 at home, and he was now seriously considering a Mac to replace it--especially once I mentioned that even the $1299 iMac would likely run Virtual PC even faster, due to the backside cache on the processor, and then blew his socks off by showing what the G3 could do with native Mac software by firing up the Myth: The Fallen Lords demo.

If Apple really wants to make a bold move to increase market share, they should come up with some program by which Mac evangelists could have easier access to the new PowerBooks--some kind of price reduction, or a bonus system by which each Mac sale inspired by an evangelist demo would generate points towards free equipment, or something--because in a day of just setting up and testing one of these gorgeous machines, we've gotten three PC users to consider switching platforms. Alas, most Mac users are probably not going to have access to a PowerBook G3 for a while, but at the very least you may want to try one out when Apple's Summer User Group Tour comes to town. Go check out the new PowerBooks and get a sneak preview of the iMac. And remember to drag along a PC-using friend.

We Meant To Do That

Sometimes it's all in the way you spin things, and Microsoft is the uncontested master of shameless positive spin. The most recent example may be the FrontPage 98 bug which allows a user to delete his or her entire hard disk from within the FrontPage program itself; Microsoft has seen fit to describe this behavior as a "feature." CNET has details. [The preceding sentence was a HyperLink. Is it necessary here?]

The specific situation that can cause this behavior involves designating the "web" directory in FrontPage to be an entire hard disk, and then deleting that folder. The reason that FrontPage lets you such a strange thing is because, according to FrontPage program manager Mike Angiulo, users might actually want to use a complete hard disk for nothing but the web site they're developing. Therefore, the ability to designate a hard disk as your web folder (and even to delete it) is a feature and not a bug. Sounds almost plausible, doesn't it? Of course, it doesn't explain why FrontPage will delete files that are obviously not web files without asking twice, but hey, this is Microsoft logic we're dealing with here.

If this sort of careless deletion of files from within a Microsoft application seems familiar, you may be thinking of the recent Microsoft Office 98 problem, in which the Remove Office 98 application blithely assumes that whatever folder containing a specific shared library must be the Office 98 folder--so if that file somehow got moved to the System Folder, running the Remove Office 98 program would trash the system software. That bug was fixed shortly after it was discovered, though we're pretty sure even Microsoft couldn't call that bug a "feature" and keep a straight face. What we want to know is, why can't the world's biggest and most successful software company develop enough attention to detail in their applications to, say, check to make sure that files about to be deleted are not system files? Another puzzler for the ages.

While Channel-Surfing

And now for something completely different... While I was up late last night fighting a bout of insomnia, I was flipping through the channels when, lo and behold, the image of Steve Jobs appeared before my bleary eyes. C-SPAN was showing Steve's speech during some sort of broadcasters' meeting that took place at the end of March, where he discussed Pixar's upcoming feature film, "A Bug's Life," and talked about Pixar's plans for the future. (For those of you who are so focused on the Apple soap opera that you tune out the rest of the world, Pixar is Steve Jobs' animation company, best known for its blockbuster smash "Toy Story;" Pixar is also the primary reason that Steve is still only Apple's "interim" CEO instead of the permanent head honcho.)

Overall, it was an interesting presentation, and I was happy to hear Steve's encapsulation of the plot of "A Bug's Life," and even happier to see a clip from the upcoming film. I'm not sure it'll do as well as "Toy Story," but it certainly looks like it'll be a blast nonetheless. Apparently Pixar spends three hours rendering each frame of these movies. At 24 frames a second, and perhaps ninety minutes per movie, that adds up to about 44 years' worth of solid computing (broken up across multiple computers, obviously--Steve presumably didn't start work on "Toy Story" in the early 50's). According to Steve, Pixar actually spends four years on each movie, though they're going to be releasing one movie a year. Interesting stuff.

Because Steve had, for the moment, completely defined himself solely as the head of Pixar, it was surprisingly easy to forget about his other little job as interim CEO of Apple. Occasionally during the Q&A session at the end of the presentation I was reminded of that fact, however, as several audience members asked questions about Apple that had nothing to do with Pixar. Steve held his ground, and made it clear that he wasn't there to talk about Apple. And in response to a question about whether Pixar would be using Apple computers for their "render farms," he stated in no uncertain terms that Pixar is hardware agnostic--they'll use whatever gets the job done, which, for the moment, appears to be several thousand Sun processors. All in all, I was very impressed to see that Steve Jobs appears to be doing an admirable job of running both Apple and Pixar, and of keeping those two roles separate and distinct. Not an easy task, by any means--we suspect the man sleeps even less than we do.

Jack Miller
jackm@infoXczar.com