Mac OSX LION the Vista release of Apple?!

Vista is an absolutely beautiful word. If you look at the first definition you get this precious definition to behold!

A pleasing view, esp. one seen through a long, narrow opening:

Isn’t that stunning… beautiful. If a word could describe something so sincere, so true, so… Elegant.   Unfortunately, THAT was not the definition that Mac OSX LION resembles.  Instead it describes the recently more appropriate and updated definition of Vista.

A software release leaving you to WTF how Performance and Operational considerations from your audience are thrown in the gutter.  One clearly defined and described by how much better performance you will get on the SAME hardware with a future bulkier version, restoring functionality you stripped from our cold dead hands.

Whoa! Why all the hatred?! THIS IS THE BEST RELEASE AND VERSION OF OSX EVER, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, IT MAKES MY MACBOOK JUST LIKE MY IPHONE. Yea. Thanks. Really wanted THAT functionality.    Do you know why I have an iPhone? It’s portable and I use it on the GO.  Do you know why I use my MacBook in Pre-LION terms? Because it lets me do things like THIS:

Spaces how I miss thee!

I had just come back from a reboot so I clearly didn’t have ALL 16 of my windows activated.  Oh and for you Forum Douches who say “WHY DO YOU NEED 16 WINDOWS”. It’s not my fault you can barely find a use for a single window.   I did find the adoption of 16 separate isolated instances a lot more efficient to having DEDICATED machines to do my work [What I would have to do previously]  So Apple first of all I want to thank you for taking this Primitive concept of 3D-ish worlds aligned to matrices and replacing it with this clearly ‘evolutionary’ serial mode.

"Mission Control" Houston, we HAVE a problem!

I’m not even getting into how various members of us have.  Performance problems like cited in the fine Louis Gray’s article Lion’s Big Bite Took the Air Out of My Sails. Nor how when you scroll from side to side you get this weird visual redraw rendering problem which for some of us has been causing severe headaches.   Yea, really.  Thanks for that.   I do miss my FAN turning off when I’m doing a lot of things, vs right now where it’s on with LITTLE application running time… thanks for that too!   You know what’s great about Mission Control though? the clear ability to disseminate between what is going on in ONE window vs ANOTHER window.  Yea I’m glad we got rid of Spaces because the clarity it brought to my productivity made me work too well and get too much done.

I know there are a lot of Great Write-ups about how LION is Amazing and how Mission Control is great. Usually written up by people who clearly use ONE window at a time and at best will run 3 applications simultaneously.   For those of us with on average 12 of our 16 windows busy, and find that we’ll hit the memory wall WAY before the CPU wall, LION is a serious piece of crap.

Here’s to hoping we get numerous Patch Tuesdays to resolve this Vista-like experience. Thanks. WTF. SERIOUSLY. WTF.

Oh and feel free to hate. Or even encourage suggestive ways how I can resolve issues and experiences I have had here.  I’m game to resolve these things.  However I know I’m not alone. :(

Browser Comparison or browser fail?

I am constantly torn back and forth by the infinite question of “Which browser should I use?!” Yea I know you’re saying “Well, duh, ofcourse you should use browser ‘x’” because you lack any bias ofcourse.. ;)  Though seriously, I give each browser my 100% commitment and see how long it lasts, but most importantly how well it scales.     Scalability is huge for me, because while I may only use 7-30 tabs at any given point, at the drop of a hat that number may scale into hundreds, over the course of days and not just minutes.

Here is the fundamental breakdown of what I was able to determine based upon currently released browsers and my utilization habits.  Feel free to call me out on any of this, but I’ll reference and cite as much as I possibly can – if you want to reproduce it, go ahead!

Using the following browsers: Firefox v3.5.5 Internet Explorer 8 v8.0.7600.16385 Google Chrome v4.0.223.16 Safari v4.0.4 (531.21.10)

I opened up tabs to the following locations:

http://blogs.msdn.com/angelab
http://borntolearn.mslearn.net
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie
https://pkguild.com
http://youtube.com
http://bbc.co.uk
http://mail.google.com

And in short order the results I obtained from a memory, and cputime perspective were:

Browser Memory Usage CPUtime CPUtime Growth Memory/CPUtime Value
Google Chrome 157,380K 26 seconds semi-stable 6053
Firefox 141,468K 51 seconds semi-stable 2773
Internet Explorer 459,938K 107 seconds Stable 4298
Apple Safari 232,832K 369 seconds Constantly growing 630

So, looking at this by face value alone, you might rate these by various chunking orders such as memory usage, CPUtime usage, or even a combination of the two – Though face value does not determine scalability over the long term usage of the application in question.   Given the figures above, the order I’d place them in would be Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

I’ve been using Safari full-time since the release of Safari 4.0, and it’s been a great trip, it works very nicely, has an ‘alright’ rendering quality, and has a great UI experience for a number of activities.  It’s short-comings are pretty obvious above, it uses a fair amount of memory but it’s CPUtime utilization is through the roof and this app alone can bring a machine to its knees from inactive browsing activities, let alone regular active time spent on the browser.  Today will by my last day of using Safari full-time.

The recent tests like this one alone here has been encouraged by the preview of IE9 in it’s ultra alpha/beta state, and I would absolutely love to use IE8 as my active browser today (even took steps to do that recently!) As you can see it’s ability to leverage CPUtime and level it off is rather stable albeit higher than some of the others.  IE8 does allow one to scale though not without suffering a memory window to account for, and not to mention when tabs crash they only crash within the crash and not the entire browser as the other 3 browsers suffer from.   Unfortunately the memory consumption is too high for my average use, and I’ll have to put myself in the place of a beta instead of a stable release as this is.   Though don’t get me wrong, When IE9 hits a beta I can get my hands on, it’s rendering engine alone will shatter that of the other browsers and likely will be what I switch to then :)

I used Google Chrome pretty actively for 2 full years, and it looks like it is the champion in a number of ways – almost lowest memory, definitely lowest CPUtime, though one of the things people don’t know about Google Chrome is the fact that it doesn’t scale, the more you use it.  Infact, the longer you use Chrome the more often it just ‘forgets’ your credentials forcing you to retype them, or when you click from tab to tab and wait and wait and wait for it to render the current tab, like it decided to forget the ‘state’ of it and have to reference it entirely.   Not to mention one other little thing whereby I’m no longer able to login to ONE of my gmail accounts using Chrome because it’s trying to “protect me from myself”.  So, the longevity and scalability challenges of Chrome which I know so well will be yet another set of reasons I’ll be unable to use it.

Leaving me with falling back on Firefox.  Yes, I know you FF Zealots who will say “We told you so!@!@!” I already get a flood of those on my facebook ;)   For what it’s worth, I’d much rather use one of the other browsers, because while Firefox is nice and does scale extremely well, not to mention taking advantage of the memory and somewhat decently in the CPUtime space, there are just some fundamental challenges with Firefox which leave me wanting for more.   (A number of IE, Chrome and even Safari features would make Firefox a greater champion) but unfortunately the Firefox stable is to ‘go get yourself a million plugins, kthxbye’ instead of building a far better browser out the gate (Perhaps that is an excuse for scalability issues in the others, though that’s not the cause for Chrome’s problems :))

 

So, there is no doubt about just how fickle I am when it comes to browsers and my ability to do my work, personal and interactive activities in a constant motion – Feel free to call me out on any of this, and your thoughts on any and all of this, not to mention your preferred plug-ins across the board.   I’m game, and I’m not entirely biased which is why I explain just how I feel about these bits and pieces intimately here :)   See you at the next browser launch :)

Is Safari 4 a viable browser replacement? (Maybe?)

Wow, you should have read my original ‘”Safari 3 a viable replacement” or my “Will IE8 replace Chrome for me” post, which I never published.  It sat in drafts as both of those browsers crashed and burned under the slightest hint of pressure.   To sum it up: Safari 3 crashed after I opened 2 tabs, and IE8 never ‘suggested’ anything for me, let alone not remembering even 5% of my passwords.  But the story is slightly different with Safari 4!

Let’s start with one feature which has been there for awhile

Top Sites!

Top Sites!

It looks cool and all, and it’s very similar to the Chrome version of a similar feature, but for what it’s worth.. it looks fine and is editable to allow you to remove sites you don’t think are ‘top’ sites, like pictures of kittens in rainboots or something.  Nonetheless, a ‘usable’ feature.

The next lovely feature is support for Tab-Preview that is available in Win7 (chrome doesn’t support Tab Preview :)) So you get a view similar to this below.  Once you exceed 15 tabs though, it turns into the devil and looks like the second image.

Tab Preview

Not so Tab Preview

But there is more to Safari than simply pretty looks and colors.  It also has some functionality! (Similar to Chrome).  One of those features is URL completion.   Which translates into ‘I type part of the site I want to visit and it suggests it as the default one, so I can simply hit enter’ not the IE world of things by “Do you mean this, and scroll down to find it?” Which I say ‘hellz no!” I visit the same sites hundreds of times a day, and I don’t want to have to press down, that’s two key strokes too many!

The fact that it hasn’t crashed yet, is very pleasing considering I’ve switched to a full on ‘use it for everything’ model.  And by everything I mean “Not for NetFlix because the bastards don’t support it even though they claim to”.  I still need to check it for WebEx support as well as Oracle support so I can do the rest of my work using it…. :)

Memory and CPU usage have been kind of suckish, but considering I would have 3million chrome processes before, it’s not too bad.

Safari Memory and CPU usage

Grammar/Spelling checking seems pretty cool!

Spelling and Grammars!

One function which doesn’t work at the moment.. typing searches into the URL bar results in… not a search, but instead trying to open whatever ridiculous search term you had entered!

That results in me having to hit enter ‘twice’ in order to get my search term searched!

WTF? Safari doesn't know how to search

That’s all I’ll say about it for now! We’ll see how it lasts, considering I’ve used Chrome almost exclusively for the past… since it was released in early beta.. it will be an interesting trial and experience.  One I won’t be shy to throw away if it’s not meeting my particular needs :)   So, look forward to future ‘raving’ or ‘destroying’ of this particular browser, depending upon how it is seen fit.  Oh, and it doesn’t let you view saved passwords like Chrome, which is a major negative in my book. It knows they’re there, so expose them to me, kthxbye!

Apple to AT&T “Hey, tell your subscribers to cancel and renew service, kthxbye!”

WTF? Apple wouldn’t seriously say that to AT&T would they?!

I’m sure you’ve all seen this chart by now!

iPhone 3G S iPhone 3G New and Qualified Customers $199 (16GB) $299 (32GB) $99 (8GB) $149 (16GB) Early Upgrade	$399 (16GB) $499 (32GB)	$299 (8GB) $349 (16GB) No Commitment	$599 (16GB) $699 (32GB)	$499 (8GB) $549 (16GB)

What they don’t share with you though, is this particular version of the Chart

iPhone 3G S iPhone 3G New and Qualified Customers $199 (16GB) $299 (32GB) $99 (8GB) $149 (16GB) Early Upgrade	$399 (16GB) $499 (32GB)	$299 (8GB) $349 (16GB) No Commitment	$599 (16GB) $699 (32GB)	$499 (8GB) $549 (16GB) Cancel and obtain new service	$175 Cancel + New Cost (374, 474)	$175 Cancel + New Cost (274, 324)

Wait a minute, I don’t agree with that chart at all! It’s not $175 to cancel if you have existing service, it can’t be cheaper than it is to “Upgrade” as Apple has supplied pricing, can it be?

You’re right, I’m absolutely sorry for misleading you.  You are correct, AT&T recently introduced Prorating Cancellation Fees! “AT&T to prorate cancellation fees” So yes, for me at the moment it only costs $150 to cancel which means I have even GREATER Incentive to cancel and obtain new service.

All of this assumes you’d be willing to go so far as to cancel your service in order to obtain the latest and greatest at a lower price.  Yes, that is absolutely correct.  Because I don’t feel I should be penalized to upgrade to the latest hardware by being not only an early adopter/innovator but also by having brand loyalty to Apple and AT&T.

Furthermore, to have ‘paths’ which exist such as making it cheaper to cancel or to have you ‘transfer of service’ to someone else are just ridiculous.

Allow me to elaborate on your “other option”

I recently spoke with the AT&T Retention team and they said that Apple really put the screws to them, putting them in this position whereby it IS in fact cheaper to cancel and get new service than it is to simply provide an honorable upgrade path, so they do have as a semi-out the “Transfer of Service” plan as detailed below. (Taken from Pg13 of Reference Guide)

5.2.
Transfer of Service
Under certain circumstances you can transfer the billing responsibility on an account from the business customer to an End User and vice versa. This transfer of service usually requires that the line move to a new BAN# and a new FAN#.
Key Contacts call the Key Contact Center at:
866-ATT-SMBZ or
866-288-7629
Mon-Fri 7 am – 12 am Eastern
Sat: 9 am – 8 pm Eastern

And all of the naysayers who say that I shouldn’t go so far as to waste AT&T’s resources well beyond the extra $$ so as while the ‘front-end’ cost appears lower, in the long-term as person after person would opt to cancel instead of pony up the $200, that AT&T’s operational costs would well exceed the $200? Well, I say “suck it up, and allow me the upgrade as a Qualified Customer” because frankly I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops, and neither should AT&T.

So to sum it up, what I’m seeing is very clearly this.   Apple (not AT&T) is making me cancel my service in the effort to upgrade to the new Apple 3GS iPhone.  Infact, the incentives to cancel are clearly far better than the reasons to perform an “Early” upgrade.  I’m sorry, but the “Qualified” customers option should include people who are loyal to the brand, to the solution and to the industry; instead of simply saying “Hey you guy who buys our products? Suck on this and pay an extra $200, kthxbye!”