Snacking with Adel

(First published 0n 09/09/2009 12:11 AM; http://abs-cbnnews.com)

In our country, buying a computer system is a weird concept—it means buying hardware. Period.

Yes, I can imagine you agreeing and nodding your head. So why is that weird again? It’s weird because that’s just half the purchase. A computer system is hardware and software. One doesn’t work without the other. And the last time I checked, most software isn’t free.  It isn’t?

The conflict is rooted in the old-fashioned belief that if it isn’t tangible, if it isn’t a material thing, it’s hard to ascribe any financial value to it. It’s the whole crux of the concept of intellectual property. Pay for software? Really pay for it, not get pirated copies in the basement of Makati Cinema Square for P90 each? Why? It’s not like they’re processors, or RAM, or hard disks, or flat-screen monitors or gaming video cards or anything real like that. It’s just …software! Pakopya na lang!

People in most third-world countries have this deep-set idea that software is an afterthought, an accessory for the computer, and consequently should come “free” with the hardware. (Sure, open source is nice, but face it, the good stuff is in the commercial apps.) With branded computers it’s factored into the cost. But that makes the whole package expensive so we just assemble our own and get the software from MCS, or borrow installers from the office geek.

Fact is, hardware and software are often separate commercial enterprises, and hence separate purchases, with software often costing more. And to a lot of people the idea of “one copy, one install” is patently ridiculous and impossible to swallow. What? Whaddaya mean one per computer? I bought one already! Ok na yan for the whole company!

I can’t even begin to imagine the number of successful and otherwise honest and respectable enterprises running multi-million-peso businesses with “illegally obtained” or reused software here. And that most of them don’t even give the matter much thought. To be sure, there are deeper issues at play here – developers should use democratized and tiered pricing for third world markets, for one, to spur growth and level the playing field.

But hey, I’m rambling. I had meant to write about Apple’s update to their Mac OS X operating system, Snow Leopard 10.6, released last week a month ahead of schedule. And why, aside from being a great, inexpensive product, it’s also a step in the right direction for the industry. We’ll get to that a little later. Let’s talk briefly about Snow Leopard first.

It’s for Intel-chipped Macs only, of course. Officially called Mac OS 10.6, it retails for P1690 (US$29) only. Users looking for bells and whistles in Snow Leopard will be disappointed, because there’s not much new, really, and it looks and works the same as before.

So what’s the fuss? The fuss is, it’s been improved and tweaked to be a even better operating system, so it runs faster, more efficiently and more reliably than the already fast, efficient and reliable previous version Leopard—more than any modern-day OS has any right to, actually. Most of the changes are all under the hood, an improved Leopard. (I guess that’s why it was just named Snow Leopard, as opposed to something different, like Lion.)

So as not to bore you, let’s run through the new features quickly and just pretend we all understand them: the OS upgrade maximizes use of the existing hardware – it’s fully 64-bit now, and can address almost any amount of RAM you can throw at it; it uses multiple cores more efficiently, and even deputizes the usually idle but powerful graphic processors to do work with something called OpenCL; code has been optimized, streamlined and tweaked even more and routed more efficiently with GCD; homegrown apps like Safari, Finder, Mail, Address Book, iCal and others are now natively 64-bit apps; it supports Microsoft Exchange out of the box (even Microsoft itself charges extra for that); there’s an all-new, full-featured version of Quicktime in it; it’s easier and faster to install; it frees up an additional 6-10GB of hard drive space after installation; and it has small improvements too many to mention here.

Detractors call Snow Leopard a service pack rather than an upgrade, since there’s nothing earthshakingly new, but the fundamental bedrock improvements say otherwise. There’s actually precious little than can even use 10.6’s changes yet. Developers are still creating the apps that will take advantage of Snow Leopard, but they are encouraged to do them, and do them well, because there is an actual user base now waiting out there. Upgrading is an investment in the future. For the moment, Snow Leopard is basically an operating system that’s all dressed up with nowhere to go. But more than anything, it’s forward-looking and future-proof, while others are just barely living in the now.

The bottom line is that Mac OS X 10.6 runs better and faster than before, while actually shrinking in size, getting cheaper than ever, with reasonable hardware requirements and released ahead of schedule. Seems almost surreally different from everything else out there, which are invariably slow and confused, bloated, expensive, needy—and late to the game.

There’s only one version of Snow Leopard, for both 32- and 64-bit versions, plus truckloads of free useful apps, all on one disc. It’s so sanely priced, actually paying for it becomes a realistic option. As opposed to the forthcoming 32-bit Windows 7, which comes in six different varieties so far – Starter/ Home Basic/ Home Premium/ Professional/ Enterprise/ Ultimate – all with different pricing (as much as US$320 for Ultimate.)

While Snow Leopard’s supposedly just an upgrade for Leopard (10.5) users, it’s an open secret that you can upgrade even from Tiger (10.4), or, surprisingly, even do a fresh, clean install on a new, empty hard disk (as long as your Mac runs on an Intel chip, of course). There are no activation hoops you have to go through time and again, or even serial numbers to install. Longtime Mac users will tell you there never have been. WTH?

Apple’s insistence not to treat all users as thieves and criminals by default is refreshing, as is the way they are literally, “thinking different” with where they’re taking the industry.

God forbid this catches on.