Talk:Mac (computer)/Archive 5

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Spyware

"The design of the Macintosh operating system and the vigilance of Macintosh users[29] has contributed to the near-absence of the types of malware and spyware that plague Microsoft Windows users."

The preceding is not accurate. Malware/viruses are written for the masses. Whoever has the largest market share will have the most malware. --DJBryson 06:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

"Whoever has the largest market share will have the most malware." Prove this and provide accurate statistics to back it up. Now having said that I think OS X would have SOME spyware etc if it had XP's marketshare. But nowhere near the amount XP has now. A lot of the reason XP has the spyware it does isn't because it's popularity, but how it comes setup by default. And that is on the fault of MS. MS wants people to believe that running virus scanners and malware and spyware scanners on a CONSUMER device is normal behavioral practice. IT IS NOT. MS is trying to fix things now with Vista by using the permission system like OS X and other *NIX oss do. This should help a lot with the virus and spyware issues. 66.76.193.162 17:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I always thought that it was because no-one made them, since they arn't used much by buisnesses and suchlike. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.72.50.20 (talk • contribs) 14:14, 17 November 2006 (UTC).

Come again? Hippo X 15:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

One presumes 70.72.50.20 meant that the main reason there isn't as much malware (a term that I think includes spyware) for the Mac as for Windows is that, given that fewer personal computers run Mac OS than run Windows, releasing malware for Windows lets you get your malware on a much larger number of machines. If the Mac's market share grows, it could become a more popular platform for developers, which is, in general, a Good Thing, but it's not such a Good Thing when the developers are developing the type of software you really don't want running on your computer. Guy Harris 20:58, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Some claim that Unix is fundamentally more secure than the design of Windows so even if Mac OS X got huge market share it would never host as many viruses as Windows. For one article, read here

--Jason C.K. 03:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

"Whoever has the largest market share will have the most malware." This contention is easily refuted. Not only does Mac OS X have *zero* malware in the face of it's growing marketshare, there exists an example outside of the Mac platform that does an even better job of dispelling this myth: The Apache web server and it's at times three to one dominance over Microsoft solutions for web serving. When at 60%, the Apache web server had, for all intents and purposes, no worms, trojans or remote exploitations to speak of. This in comparison to the daily assaults that Windows users faced (and still face) on all versions of Microsoft's operating system. If indeed market share had anything to do with it, Apache's 50% plus market share would have guaranteed attacks and exploits of all shapes and sizes. It did not, and does not have such problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.149.38.168 (talk) 04:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Unix may be more secure, but it would have plenty of viruses if it had the market share that Windows systems have. Apache may have the majority of web servers, but people don't write viruses for web servers most of the time. Most people write malware for PC's, and guess who has the majority of the PC market? Microsoft Windows. The reason that Windows servers have virus issues is that the viruses written for the PC version of Windows work on Windows server OS's. I have a friend who was dealing with virus issues on his Windows based server. He found out the server got the virus form a Windows based PC.

On another note, when a Mac gets a virus (yes they are rare, but there are viruses for Macs) they are totaly screwed. I have seen a computer lab full of Macs that where new at the time(50 or more) go down for a week from a small piece of malware. The virus spread like wild fire. Now on the other hand I've seen a whole network of PC's get exposed to a virus (it was much more robust, and there were 250 PCs) and only three went down. Thet were back up by the end of the day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.164.238.17 (talk) 20:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

MacBook Pro Error

The caption for the "MacBook Pro" states "The MacBook Pro is the first Macintosh notebook to use an Intel processor. It was released at Macworld 2006." The first two notebooks had about 80% Intels and on the next two it was an option. Let alone that many people, like those at Pixar changed to Intels on the newer models. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 139.62.181.199 (talk • contribs) 13:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

What do you mean by "had about 80% Intels"? 100% of the MacBook Pros had Intel processors (unless you're implying Apple snuck AMD processors into some of them :-)); the Apple aluminum notebooks with PowerPC processors in them were called PowerBooks, not MacBooks. Guy Harris 20:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Missing Four Sections

The First Four Sections had been removed. I reverted this change. Camhusmj38 01:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Featured article status

With this being a featured article I cringe at reading grammar like this: "Apple didn't use Pentium 4 or Pentium D CPUs because of there power consumption and heating. Also, it didn't use AMD CPUs because Intel's roadmap in 2005, its large factories and because it was capable to offer a complete platform (as AMD can offer after buying ATI)." (BTW, I removed this)

There are also blatant POV issues like: "The design of the Macintosh operating system and the vigilance of Macintosh users[29] has contributed to the near-absence of the types of malware and spyware that plague Microsoft Windows users." (This fact is clearly disputed, IOW POV - The counter argument being marked share and such, and there is no proof that Mac users are any more vigilant than anyone else.)

This is a featured article people; try to not make Wikipedia look bad :-) --Anss123 16:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

You are more than welcome to fix it. That's the great thin about Wikipedia.--HereToHelp 00:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

My point is not that it needs to be fixed, but that it needs to be fixed for this to remain a featured article. POV and poor grammar is not the stuff most FAs on this site is made of.--Anss123 01:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

If you feel that the article really doesn't live up to current FA standards, you can list it at WP:FAR. If it only requires minor fixes, however, it's better to just make them yourself and move on. -- mattb @ 2006-12-19T01:46Z

I never said that I'm not willing to make those changes, but with this article having featured status I thought to give people a chance to argue down my points. There is also the problem that I know I’m a biased editor, biased away from the Mac, and that will color my perception of what is POV and original research (there seem to be a bit of that too). I would therefore prefer if someone agreed to my assessment that this article has problems.--Anss123 02:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree - even Mac users think that bad grammar is a bad thing. I've cut the reference to "the vigilance of Macintosh users" too. The marketshare counterargument is rather weak, because it doesn't explain why there is no surreptitiously-installed malware for the Mac, but add it if you feel the article needs some balance (though I think that'd just be apparent balance, and would start an edit war, so is best avoided...) Thomas Ash 11:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Implementing a root-kit is non-trivial, quite expensive actually - so targeting the Mac is simply pointless as long as spammers gets all the bots they need from the PC marked, this is, however, irrelevant for Wikipedia. Arguing that the Mac platform is more or less affected by rootkits because of <insert reason here> falls under either original research or POV, less you find a source that a large number people agree to (because this is very much a contested issue). BTW, the whole 'rootkit' situation is overrated by the media (surprised?). The majority of BOTs are spread through social engineering (i.e. they send you an executable and ask you to execute it.) The Mac platform is no more 'safe' from these attacks, but where the Mac has an advantage is that users are by default logged in with low privileges, this means that it is much easier to get a rootkit going on Windows (assuming the user logged in with high privileges). This, of course, does not change the fact that Mac OS X is an unstable POS that crash more than Win95 IMHE :-)

--Anss123 12:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• "This fact is clearly disputed, IOW POV" If this fact is clearly disputed, please find us some appropriate, neutral sources weighing-in with the point of view that Unix and/or Mac is fundamentally engineered less-securely than Windows. "targeting the Mac is simply pointless as long as spammers gets all the bots they need from the PC" It would be major bragging rights to the writer. But it's difficult to score that win because few Mac exploits survive long (they're patched), and there are rarely any actual viruses "out in the wild" (as opposed to built in a virus-researcher's lab). MS meanwhile will try to hide that any vulnerability exists rather than fixing the bugs. There's even a known vulnerability in Vista left-over from previous versions of Windows! Read here. "Arguing that the Mac platform is more or less affected by rootkits because of <insert reason here> falls under either original research or POV, less you find a source" If it mattered to talk about rootkits in the article, it shouldn't be too hard to find a lot of material about the fundamental secure engineering of Unix. See a few links at the end of this post. "where the Mac has an advantage is that users are by default logged in with low privileges" And so you've just countered your own point, a Mac is safer from social engineering. What's more, even if you are logged-in with high-privs, unlike in Windows where when some process wants to affect your system it'll just say "Do you want to do this <insert incomprehensible 'info'>" and you can just click "ok", on a Mac it will tell you what application is requesting what privilege and require an admin username & password. Also, unlike long-time MS practice of having a freshly-installed OS default-configured with the system pretty wide-open, OS X does, for one, ship with root disabled by default, and in general locked-down. And since the average user has no interest in Unix, the command line, or root accounts, they never enable it and so it isn't available on most running Macs. Read more here and here.

--Jason C.K. 05:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

You should try to space out your replies. A large block of text is difficult to read.

Anyway, I never stated that the Unix platform is less secure than anything. You must have confused my rootkit argument, and re-reading it now I can see why. What I meant was arguments like "the mac platform is less affected by rootkits because Mac users are smarter than windows users, or because there are less Macs then Windows machines, etc...."

You're argument about how Macs are patched and how there's security vulnerabilities in Windows Vista confuse me. Both were known facts before Vista was released, and there's numerous vulnerabilities waiting to be discovered in both operation systems. Are you arguing that MS don't patch known security vulnerabilities? Then you might have something, but I know for a fact that pre-SP2 machines still get patches every now and then (My P133 laptop can't take Win XP-SP2 for some reason).

Note that the admin account on Windows XP is not equivalent with the root account on Mac OS X, but we're getting of topic here. I've not read the entire Macintosh article, but last time I glanced on it I saw POV, unsourced statements and grammar issues. I'm not sure if this still is the case, but for a featured article that is not acceptable. A featured article is suppose to represent the best Wikipedia has to offer, keep that in mind every time you press the edit button on this article.

--Anss123 13:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

On that note, also a bit misleading to say Windows users are plagued by them - obviously it's a problem for many, but many such as myself have never had a problem with them. Maybe change it to "many", rather than implying all? Mdwh 11:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

and Mac fan boys keep deleting all thing derogatory (but true) said about Macs that are true, if you compare the criticism section, Macs' consists of about 3 paragraphs. Windows has an entire long article about spyware, viruses, etc.

You could at least provide an example of what "true" derogatory facts have been deleted. And the article about Windows flaws WRT viruses? That would be because the entire history of spyware, malware, trojans and viruses that affect users to this very day requires a PC running Microsoft Windows OS with Intenet Explorer and Outlook installed. That's it. No other platform in the history of computing has had the problems that the Microsoft OS has had and still has. And it is a direct result of Microsoft's poor or non-existent security practices. Active X and related technologies that allow applications to automatically and without oversight execute system level code are the reason that Windows and it's users are so afflicted with over 150000 threats of various kinds. Market share may make Windows the desired target but market share did not create the horrific security practices such as system level unsupervised scripting, open ports and every-body-runs-as-admin attitude. In light of the fact that these problems are, for all intents and purposes, non-existent on ANY other platform, never mind the Macintosh, whining about the fact that Microsoft's legacy includes spyware, trajons and whatnot is just whining. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.206.61.241 (talk) 16:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Macintosh PC???

As Apple's website actually speaks of Macs and compares them to PCs, are Macs PCs? If they are, they are--but I can use a server with two Intel quad-core cpus in it and use it for personal use, so is that a PC too? Only saying because it seems Apple is marketing against PCs and for Macintoshes--and PC originated from IBM PC, making Apple different. Any thoughts? Bourgeoisdude 16:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Macs are certainly PCs. Apple marketing and users just like to avoid using that term due to the general association of "PC" with "IBM PC compatible". -- mattb @ 2007-01-18T17:00Z

I.e., a Macintosh is a Personal Computer ("a microcomputer whose price, size, and capabilities make it suitable for personal usage"), even if it's not an IBM PC compatible. Guy Harris 18:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Archives updated

I've archived old discussions to a new archive page. Also, I've moved all the archives, as they were linked under Talk:Apple Macintosh instead of here. The archives now have a navigation template, making it easier to read from one page to the next. Hope folks find this helpful. -- Kesh 20:31, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Much too Biased

This article is very biased. It constantly talks about how great the macintosh is/was and how it is so surprising Mac's have not taken over the world. One example in particular is the article states as a fact that MS Windows' UI was written to be a copy of MacOS'. But hidden later in the article it says that Apple sued microsoft over this and lost. Clearly the first statement is subjective and the second is objective. But the first one is strongly supported in the article. Where the second statement is downplayed and even hinted that Bil Gates used dirty tactics to stop Apple's legal appeal. Now I am not a huge fan of MS or Apple but reading this article was painful because of the slant. The article should be written much more factually. All the subjectiveness of the author should be removed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by The Goat (talk • contribs) 21:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

There is no "author" whose subjectiveness can be removed. Look at the history of this article and convince me that there is an author who can be credited with it.

I didn't mean that there was one person who was biased. By "author" I meant the collective group of people who contributed to the article.The Goat 20:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I.e., this is a Wiki; if you don't like the article, be bold and change it. Guy Harris 08:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I might do just that. However I am not an "expert" on the subject. Second I wanted to bring the problem to the attention of the community so that the reason behind any changes would be understood.The Goat 20:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I suspect many of the people to whose contributions you're objecting aren't "experts", either; don't let that keep you from contributing.

Also, when you make a change, put the reason behind the change in the edit summary. Guy Harris 20:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Gotta agree with you on that one. It would be more neutral to state that Apple believed Microsoft copied the UI, which led to the lawsuit. -- Kesh 23:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• If something doesn't sound right to you, either re-word it to be more neutral & accurate ("believed", "alledged", etc), AND you might also want to flag it if it's a claim that ought to be substantiated, put a {{fact}} or {{verify source}} or some other tag on it in the article text. Guidelines here.

--Jason C.K. 06:02, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me clear this one up for you guys. The first windowed operating system was created by XEROX, not APPLE. So saying Windows stole the idea from Apple is not accurate. The truth is out there. --DJBryson 06:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean "Stanford University." See: NLS. Xerox "stole" the idea from Stanford, just as Apple "stole" the idea from Xerox, and Microsoft "stole" the idea from Apple. 68.218.39.60 03:28, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The fact is that it was Apple that took the commercial risk of bringing the GUI to consumer computers and showed it could work. And it wasn't just Apple that believed that Microsoft copied the Macintosh GUI: this is still a very widespread perception amongst the digerati (at least those old enough, or historically-inclined enough, to be aware of the issue). AussieBoy 04:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Apple Actually didn't STEAL anything from PARC. It was payed well for ideas that Apple itself was already working on. The PARC OS really didn't work or behave like Apple's OS. However, Windows's OS did act like Apple's OS.

Now who copied who? 66.76.193.162 17:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"This article is very biased. It constantly talks about how great the macintosh is/was" I don't think that word (biased) means what you think it means. The simple fact is that almost every single aspect of the modern PC was either pioneered or improved on the Macintosh platform. The mouse, the GUI, CDROM and built in networking, colour graphics, sound... on top of the fact that the article is, oddly enough, all about Apple and the Macintosh. Microsoft clearly and consciously took as much of the look and feel of Apple's GUI and incorporated into Windows because Apple was ruling the computing world with it's GUI design. The idea that Microsoft developed the Windows GUI in a vacuum is not credible, and Microsoft's underhanded tactics are a matter of public record. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.149.38.168 (talk) 05:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

If you don't think this article is biased you have to be practicaly drowning in the Koolaid. This article is biased. Though when something, such as Macs, have a huge cult-like fan base it will be very hard not to make an biased article. The problem is that many times I have tried to edit the article to remove biase and my changes have been reverted. This is the one thing about Wikipedia that I hate. The admins are often not able to over ocme thier biased views to produce an unbiased Wikipedia article.

Please point out the relevant reverted edits so that we can review them. Thanks.--Anss123 16:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Rosetta Inacuracy

"Many analysts have stated that certain high-profile programs, such as those from Adobe Systems, should not be used under Rosetta until native versions are released."

This is first unnecessary information. Information such as this should be stated on the Rosetta & OS X pages rather than the Macintosh page. Second this is incorrect information with a citation that states nothing even close to what the sentence states. Very few analysts have said that they should not be used under Rosetta, and the supplied citation says nothing about any analyst either. It just gives a list of products that haven't been released as universal applications. Creative professionals have stated that Photoshop and other graphics programs would run slower through Rosetta. The people stating not to do so are people hoping for a miracle that Apple has defied the laws of computing and found a way to translate from one processor architecture to another without a performance dip. Rosetta was designed closely with Adobe to work near-flawless with their applications. The first public test of Rosetta was done with Adobe Photoshop. I've used it on an almost daily basis on my Intel Mac without any problems. Khadgar

• Khadgar is right...the reference has nothing to do with the claim. Was a mistake made? Or did someone make a claim and add a random reference so it would look sourced? Anyway, I'll delete the irrelevant reference, stick in a "fact" tag, and someone will either have to substantiate that claim or we'll delete that claim in a week or so.

--Jason C.K. 06:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Questionable statement about marketing

"Macintosh systems are mainly targeted at the home, education, and creative professional markets." Perhaps most sales are in these markets (though some hard data would be nice), but is it really certain that they are "targeted" at these markets? Numberp 02:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, that statement is clearly incomplete. Since the switch to Unix, Apple has also done some marketing targeting the scientific computing marketplace with two-page spreads in magazines such as New Scientist where they stressed the ease of moving existing scientific codes from big Unix servers to your Mac laptop. They also advertised specifically using the success off the University of Virginia (?) supercomputer built out of PowerMacs.

Atlant 14:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I remember the early days of the Mac and how Apple was quite aggressive in placing them in universities and pursuing the academic market before other computer hardware and software manufacturers followed suit. During my freshman year in college, the engineering college at my university installed a lab filled with dozens of Lisas, which were quickly converted to Mac XLs when the Lisa failed to pan out. These early Macs were great not so much for use in engineering work (all they had on them were MacWrite, MacDraw, MacPaint, etc.) but for the fact that I no longer needed a typewriter. I could actually write a paper for the first time, save it, edit it as often as I wanted to without running out of correction fluid and have it look professional when printed on a LaserWriter, far better and easier than similar work done on PCs at the time, no small feat in 1984! Even today, most (liberal arts) academics I know are Mac users, and the academic community gets good deals on them. If anyone finds documentation of Apple's focus on the academic market and its impact on the subsequent success of the Mac, please by all means include it! SpanishCastleMagic 02:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Neither Dell nor HP/Compaq are OEMs. Like Appple, they sub-contract out to Chinese companies like Asus. Frequently, both Dell and MacBook machines roll off the same assembly lines. The section on manufacturing here is a little naive.

Superdrive

This sentence has long confused me: "The Power Macintosh G4 with its SuperDrive introduced the first relatively affordable DVD-R drive in 2001" - so presumably with the "relatively affordable" qualifier, this wasn't the first computer to come with DVD-R as standard, in which case, I'm wondering in what sense this is innovative? Was there some dramatic breakthrough in price thanks to some innovation by Apple, or does this just mean cheaper than before? In what way did the Superdrive effect the computer industry?

There's now a reference for it [1] but that just confirms that it existed, it doesn't explain why it's notable, or provide a reference for an effect on the rest of the computer industry.

Thanks for any explanation. Mdwh 03:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

No comments, so I'm deleting. Sure the Superdrive existed, but no evidence why it was more affordable, or that it was innovative or had an effect on the rest of the computer industry (which is what this section is about). Mdwh 19:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with the deletion. After all the 2001 SuperDrive isn't the first SuperDrive - the Mac drives that were able to read both Mac-formatted and PC-formatted disks in the mid-90s were also called a "SuperDrive" and at the time were innovative too. Jpp42 06:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Virtual memory

First computer with virtual memory? That's disputed by the Wikipedia article for virtual memory. Mdwh 03:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Heck i think even the Altair 8800 had some virtual memory.

The article says "first personal computer to have virtual memory", not "first computer". A claim that the Mac was the first computer to have virtual memory would, of course, be complete rubbish. Guy Harris 04:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, but it's highly misleading, and not the way I read it. At the least, it would be better to specifically state that other computers had virtual memory earlier to ensure that the reader is not misled, and that the Mac was the first ... something. "Personal computer" is a very vague classification, what definition is being used here? Also a reference that this influenced other OSs to have virtual memory would be useful - I'd have thought that introduction of virtual memory had more to do with the availibility of the necessary hardware, than a 3rd party product for the Mac. Mdwh 05:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

How is it misleading, and how could one read "first personal computer" as meaning "first computer" (absent a glitch causing the word "personal" to disappear)?

As for the definition, the definition in the Wikipedia page for personal computer might work here. Guy Harris 10:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly not misleading, this is just Mdwh who needs to read sentences more carefully. — Wackymacs 10:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I know what the common usage is, but personal computer is still not a strict well-defined category. At the least, Windows on PCs had virtual memory since 1990, so the bit about "then two years later implemented into System 7 by Apple" isn't part of the first, the first was with Connectix's product. I shall fix this. Mdwh 19:33, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Peripherals?

Should there be an article for Mac peripherals (modems, printers, tape drives, storage, et. al.)? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.191.19.42 (talk) 17:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC).

Under "Storage" the statement is made: "All Macs have one optical drive. The Mac Pro has room for either one or two." Excuse me? My Mac 128 didn't. Perhaps a little qualification is in order? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.215.188.244 (talk) 18:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

"The" Macintosh

Why is does the article begin with "The" Macintosh? The article for iPod doesn't and it should be a similar situation here...

Dolbinau 11:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)