[althe3rd]

To be honest I am sure what you still use a modem and pcmcia card slot for any more these days with free wireless almost anywhere, and even if you are in the country, cell phone interenet plans are even becoming affordable, and faster than dialup. And unless you need 4 firewire ports on your mac I am not sure what you would need the pcmcia card for but... well that is a whole other story. But regardless of my opinion, what you are saying makes sense. They do need to make sure their complete hardware/software solution is a good package.
Having said that, no matter what you do hardware wise you aren't affecting microsoft. You are just affecting HP, Dell, Sony, etc. So I still am curious as to see what the OS additions will be to stay ahead of redmond. Thankfully its not that microsoft is even doing something Mac OS 10.4 doesn't already have. And they are barely matching what 10.4 does have let alone not being better. But.... when two OS's do the exact same thing functionality wise, there needs to be more to set them apart than just one does it slightly better... sorta. If you noticed in the links I posted above apple is also including their own version of iCal, iPhoto, iDVD, etc. Now I will say that microsofts version of these apps don't look to be nearly as good as iLife but once again a situation where the average consumer will see them as pretty much the same options.
What will be the feature/addition in 10.5 that will define OS X as visually noting unique OS?

[Millenniumman]

In reply to:

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. I would never buy any computer without a phone modem or a laptop without a PCMCIA/CardBus slot.

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Why not? Expresscard should replace Cardbus. Would you want Apple to always have 2 slots which take up space, or to not ever upgrade to Expresscard at all? Maybe Apple is switching early, but it won't be too long before everyone does. And the USB modem isn't terrible. It's smaller than a phone cord and won't take up any significant room in your luggage.

[sandbag1]

I remember a similar fuss when Apple quit putting floppy drives in their products? By the way, what's a floppy? /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

[Martian]

In reply to:

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To be honest I am sure what you still use a modem and pcmcia card slot for any more these days with free wireless almost anywhere,

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MODEM...(for both desktop and laptop)
1. I receive 100% of my incoming faxes on the computer as super convenient pdfs. I electronically archive the faxes I want no hard copies to file. I laser print only the few I need.
2. When traveling, dialup is an inexpensive option certainly fast enough for e-mail (I dont use a Crackberry). WiFi is hardly everywhere, and free WiFi is even less common.
3. Internet backup. After a massive power blackout, I didnt have broadband for 36 hours but dialup never stopped working.
PCMCIA...
1. When I bought my big camera which takes a CF card and then a pocket camera which takes an SD card, my Dell laptop took them in stride in the form of 2 industry standard slots for which I bought 2 cheap, readily available card readers. The readers stay out of the way in the slots I dont have to fumble for USB readers which would be especially annoying when laptops are used in awkward positions or my computer case isnt handy.

2. After having snapped off two USB flash drives which vulnerably protrude from the laptop, I now use a CF card which I keep securely tucked inside the PCMCIA reader.
3. I believe that all the high speed cell modems are CardBus. This means that the cheapest Celeron laptop can tap into the cellular data networks, but the new "professional" grade Mac portable cannot. Does this make sense to anyone?

In reply to:

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I remember a similar fuss when Apple quit putting floppy drives in their products? By the way, what's a floppy?

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Yes, and I also remember that my wife who was a jr high principal at that time was so [filtered] when she had to buy OVERPRICED, THEFT-PRONE, Mac compatible external floppy drives for the schools new iMacs, that for her next computer purchase she bought only PCs. Some of her students who might have become Mac users will now be off to college eagerly awaiting Vista.
At the time Jobs jumped the gun on floppies, most schools hadnt yet been networked, and there were no USB flash drives so the students carried their files around and home on floppies. You don't turn your back on a legacy market that is cheap and easy to support.
I have never used the 3 legacy ports or the removable floppy drive on my Dell laptop, but I realize that they take little space, cost very little to put on, and I respect Dell for maintaining a few years of backward compatibility during the transition years from obsolescent technologies (compare the words OBSOLESCENT and OBSOLETE)

[Albertr]

Well I mentioned the design as an aside as a step backward in my opinion. As for Vista, Intel processors the sky is falling discussions belonging in this forum, II don't think so particularly since none of the posters know enough about the subjects and get their information sucking their index finger. I usually skip those screwy posts but once in a while I mistakenly click on some.

[Millenniumman]

All of the functions of Cardbus can and will be replaced with Expresscards, with the possible exception of CF card readers (Expresscard slots may not be large enough for a CF card).
You can still use a USB modem. Their are services that convert faxes to email. That seems easier than hooking up a computer to a phone line.
If external floppies are expensive and theft prone, then so are computer mice and keyboards. Deal with the problem in the same way. And any USB floppy reader should be Mac compatible.

[MCJ]

In reply to:

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...none of the posters know enough about the subjects and get their information sucking their index finger.

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In regard to Vista it is hardly fair to be so dismissive if you had actually bothered to follow the links that althe3rd provided. As for Leopard it is not his fault that Apple is being so cagey and that we have to speculate about its feature-set.
And he is right - your point about the ergonomics of the G4 versus those of the G5 is, while interesting, completely irrelevant to the subject at hand.

[moose_n_squirrel]

In reply to:

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All of the functions of Cardbus can and will be replaced with Expresscards, with the possible exception of CF card readers (Expresscard slots may not be large enough for a CF card).

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But not right now, and not soon. Like Intel-native pro software, if you are a pro you will have to wait for your full-speed Photoshop, your ExpressCard/34 cellular data modem, and your FireWire 800 ExpressCard/34, because not all of those are available today. What kind of a message is that? "If you are a pro, buy our pro computer and not enjoy all your pro equipment or cellular data plan for six to eight months." and if you have Compact Flash, there is no doubt you are screwed because Apple picked ExpressCard/34 (34mm), the size that cannot hold a CF card without the adapter sticking out of the computer and possibly blocking the audio out port. If Apple had gone with ExpressCard/54 (54mm), there might have been a chance. Maybe Apple believes CompactFlash is becoming less important as camera makers switch to smaller card formats. (Canon did it in the latest SX0-series which used to be CF.)
It would be pretty sad if all the ports and features dropped from the MacBook (FW800, modem, slower DVD writer) were because Steve wanted to make the case a little bit thinner. Did anyone think the PBG4 was too thick? It might have been the challenge of fitting the Intel hardware in there. The Ars Technica review points out that the MacBook is slightly wider, which doesn't fit in the PBG4 cases as well.

[Albertr]

Vista, schmista! That is irrelevant to X. What Windows does or doesn't do is supreme bordom. Who gives a flying you know what about it? You miss Windows get it and live happy ever after, or not.

[Martian]

Its like Jobs just cant help himself he insists on Macs having non-standard stuff and prematurely ejecting stuff that is not yet obsolete for absolutely no justifiable reason. His perverse think different demons must have agonized him over the moves to an industry standard processor, monitor port, and USB 2 maybe the MacBook is his regressive revenge.
BTW, CompactFlash will continue to be THE standard for SLRs, and other larger digicams for several years more. Thats why even Sony, which shares with Apple the compulsion to be out of step, still uses CF cards in its largest cameras. At any point in time, CF offers 2-4 times the capacity of any other formats.
Like my current laptop, my next laptop must also have at least one PCMCIA/CardBus port. Unfortunately, Jobs has made sure my next laptop will run on Vista, not MacOS. Lets hope he doesnt pull similar crap with the MacIntel Tower Pro (or whatever it's called).
Without the hardware albatross, Mac OS could have buried Windows.

[Albertr]

Bye bye! Why are still here?

[Nobody]

I'll share some observations, my work has me frequently interacting with new Mac users and I'm often troubleshooting their woes. Bear in mind I love the platform, but as with all things of beauty there are a couple of flaws.

The biggest is the Hide Toolbar button on the top right of finder windows, mail has one, Preview has one......what a useless thing to have as a button, buttons usually are for things that you use most frequently. There is a menu item for this under View, that should suffice. It should at least be able to be dragged off with Customize Toolbar or at best, not exist at all.
Column View (<----insert favorite view here). Why is there not a System Preference to open ALL windows in Column View, it has a little Finder Preference that gives the option, but I still get windows that open in icon view (disk images anyone? yes I know they may have a nice little picture in them, but I'm looking at functionality here).
Little things like, why is the preference to choose what application opens when you plug in a camera in Image Captures Preferences? Yeah, sure it asks that when you first launch iPhoto, but a lot of people choose 'No' as a reflex.
Why is the preference to choose default browser in Safari's preferences?? I understand you want people to use Safari (I do and love it) but shouldn't that be considered a 'System Preference'??
The Pictures folder.......I can't tell you how many times I see someone drop their photos in there and wonders why they aren't in iPhoto, also they move photo's around in there, that becomes a real mess. 2 things could and should happen here, maybe a little dialog (which, as with all dialogs can be disabled) saying something like," I see you are dropping photos in here, would you like me to add them to iPhoto for you?" or what about just making iPhoto's folder structure like Apertures, a package.
Same with the Music folder for iTunes.
The maximize button in iTunes is just not right. Just give us a separate option to make it a small player, make the maximize button behave like other maximize buttons do!!
Spring loaded folders, if I drag a file onto the side bar of the finder and use the spring loaded folder feature can it not then highlight the folder I drop it in instead of the folder it came from? Seems a little confusing.
Services menu, come on it's sooo cool and sooo overlooked, can we not just have it as a contextual menu (yes I know 3rd parties can do this).
I know you can do better than just having the Show All button on the System Preferences window, seems completely counter-intuitive to have to go back to Show All every time!!
Safari, tabs should be enabled by default, a little one, but worth having.
The setup assistant, (you know the little dialog we have when a new mac is first turned on?) it is too confusing to have someone check which wireless network they are trying to connect to, there is also a rather confusing button that says "Different Network Setup" that has the option to select no network, but what if the newbie doesn't even have a network?? Come on people, this is their first experience with a brand new OS, as much as most of us take it for granted, networks are confusing and foreign things. I've seen Macs returned and PC's purchased over this tiny little oversight. There could just be a button that just says, "Setup Your Network Now?" Easy!!!
iCal, yes, it's great that Jul 17 was the day it was released into the wild, but get over it and have the dock icon reflect the correct day, geez!!

SImplify an already great thing and folks will continue to leave windows in droves.

[althe3rd]

I am happy to see some interaction on this thread even if the majority of the posts have not been speculating on the possible additions to 10.5.
In regards to a few of the posts....
the unknown: I have to say that although I don't agree with all of your dislikes with 10.4 that you certainly have a few that make sense. As someone who is continually looking for the best os solution I sure hope those little fixes make it into 10.5 if apple regardes them as problems. However, even all those little fixes don't warrant a 10.x release. Or atleast, they need to be accompanied by some massive new user features to be considered a 10.5 release. All of us have little gripes about every OS. Heck, I have a ton of them about windows but those aren't being fixed in Vista becuase not everyone thinks they are bugs.
In regardes to the a few of the posters who say what microsoft does doesn't matter... Keep in mind that Apple has a very faithful following and for that they can get away with a lot and still keep that crowd. However, Apple is always looking to expand its user base and all of us would like to see them expand out of that small market share they currently have. Its for those reasons that you have to realize that in Apples position they have to do a lot more "right" than microsoft with their products to even get noticed. So many windows users that have a legitamte agenda for owning a mac, don't own one because of their "windows is good enough" mentality. Granted their are plenty windows users who don't want or need anything the mac offers but for every one of them there are hundreds more that do, even if they don't know it yet.
What Microsoft does with Vista will directly impact Apple, whether you believe it or not. And how Apple responds to Vista both by marketing and products will dictate how Apple's growth into larger user bases will fare. The main concern I have is that Apple isn't perfect (of course) and if microsoft manages to successfuly copy the ilife suite as well as 10.4 Tigers features as well as have a successful antimalware included software (windows defender) then their isn't a lot of reasons left to use a mac.
Now keep in mind that I will never give up on using my mac just because of microsofts new OS. I have a pc and mac so I will likely run both everyday. On top of that, one of the reaons I love Apple so much is they take care of their customers with new features nearly every year that the users demand. (10.3,10.4,10.x etc) Keep in mind that XP came out in 2001 and they don't have the same OS release strategy, so after vista comes out, it will be a good 5 years if not more before we see another "new feature" in their os.
I just want what every other mac fan here wants, to see Apple be successful. Now lets deliberate on how they are going to do that with their OS.

[d00d]

In reply to:

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The maximize button in iTunes is just not right. Just give us a separate option to make it a small player, make the maximize button behave like other maximize buttons do!!

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It's never been a Maximize button. It's the Zoom button. That said, I agree.

In reply to:

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iCal, yes, it's great that Jul 17 was the day it was released into the wild, but get over it and have the dock icon reflect the correct day, geez!!

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The problem there is that something must be running to update that icon. Well, it can't be iCal itself because you don't seem to want it running. That means it has to be something else. If that's allowed, it's open to massive abuse. You will see virii that will corrupt all dock icons all the time.