Yeah, if they'd implement the Ink->Text functionality in the Metro version, it would suck a lot less. That's my only real gripe with it.

Apple Newton-style drawing touch-up would be nice too.... like turning crappy circles into nice ones, etc. I miss my Newton :-( It spanked OneNote in terms of functionality.

Correct. We have several Lenovo ThinkPad 2 tablets running Win8.1 and the input panel is right on the taskbar. These came with Wacom touch/pen digitizer screens. My only complaint is that the digitizer needs recalibration every so often.

The newer dual-core atoms are no power house but I wouldn't say they are useless. Stuff like OneNote works great. Basic stuff in GIMP it does ok with. Haven't tried Photoshop. It runs Office quite nicely. For a cheap business tablet with good battery life they do the job well. They are nice and responsive but they are certainly not "workstation-class". If you want performance, get an i5/i7 based tablet and enjoy the heat and poor battery life.

We handed them out to district supervisors for our retail stores and gave them docking stations here at the office. It's worked out well. They spend most of their time in Desktop mode vs. running Metro apps. The only metro app they use is the fairly crippled metro version of onenote for taking quick notes.

The atom tablets are a good compromise if you need x86 software but want power efficiency and cheap solid state storage more like ARM tablets. If you have folks that aren't doing real CPU-intensive work, they are fine. Most administrative staff usually are not. The Lenovo TPT2 is cheaper than an iPad these days and far more useful in a business environment.

Ummm..... Windows 3.0 was a 16-bit DOS shell that was horribly buggy and lacked a lot of functionality most take for granted with a GUI OS. MacOS System 7 was out by then. A real 32-bit GUI OS that was easy to manage, lightweight and simple. It did its fair share of crashing but was a MUCH better OS than DOS/Win3.x. I was more of an Atari ST user in 1991 still... we converted to Macs a little later after we realized the TT030 was pretty much vaporware and underperforming when a few units finally did ship.

It wasn't until Win95 that the classic MacOS had a serious competitor from MS. It wasn't until WinNT4 that MS had something better. The Mac's real competition in 1991 was the Amiga and Atari ST. All of which were kick-ass machines that were less costly than a nice Mac.

NeXT machines were around as well then and they were SWEET but far too expensive for most folks. Lucky for us, NeXT/OpenStep became MacOS X.

That's a WINE issue, not really an XQuartz issue. Really only an issue with full-screen stuff. To be fair, I've had this happen a lot on Linux/BSD machines as well.

I never use the old "Cmd-Opt-Esc" Force Quit method. Easier to hold opt and rightclick dock icon and hit force quit there. If that's not an option I usually have a terminal window open and I can just kill it from the CLI. TotalTerminal is awesome and should be part of the base OS. I haven't had a situation where it didn't pop up over whatever was running. X apps included.

Mac hardware isn't really overpriced. Just stick to the base config and add your own RAM and bigger drive. The thing is that Apple doesn't have crappy budget machines aside from the Mac Mini and even the Mini is no slouch. Look at similar PC's with the same config, in the same form factor with nice sturdy all-metal chassis. You'll find the Mac is often cheaper.

Where Apple is unappealing to a lot of "enthusiasts" is the lack of low-end or mid-range expandable machines with slots. People shouldn't have to spend $3,000 for expandability. But most of that crowd knows how to build a hackintosh if they want one anyway. I run it on cheap non-Apple hardware very successfully for home use with full hardware support. I let my employer buy the newer Apple-branded hardware except maybe my little used 2009 MacBook at home which runs 10.9 quite well also.

Even if the mythical "Apple Tax" were true, I'd pay it to get a nice stable UNIX workstation with support from major commercial desktop software vendors and no Linux dependency hell. It's worth it to me to NOT be stuck running Windows. Linux and BSD on the desktop are fun if you like being an isolated leper.

Yeah.... if I want to deal with TSA Gestapo bullshit, I'll just fly. The cost is comparable to flying if you buy a soda or two on the train. And you get there slower.

If taking the rails were less hassle, the trains were better maintained and slightly faster, I'd choose them every time for domestic travel over flying.

The TSA is KILLING commercial mass transit IMHO.

Maybe I'm tired.... thought you trying to bash XQuartz for some reason.

I don't think anyone has compiled real statistics but I wouldn't be surprised if the number exceeds the number of FreeBSD desktop users by a large margin. It's certainly not an insignificant number but probably a fairly small percentage of OSX users. Most Mac users I know have Fink or Macports installed along with XQuartz but my numbers are likely skewed because I'm an IT monkey. Most of the "average" mac users I know only ended up using it to play with older versions of GIMP or OpenOffice.

It's enough that it sees active development and a lot of use where old RISC-based UNIX boxes were once king.

In terms of installed base, there's FAR more headless Linux servers than desktops, so X11 users in general are "next to no one" right?

Generally it gets used when some "gotta-have-it" FOSS app lacks a proper mac port. X11 apps are less desirable because generally they suck compared to proper mac applications. And it's not XQuartz that's the problem, it's X in general. X11 on the mac is a last resort even if it works well because Apple's windowing system is THAT MUCH BETTER.

And how many desktop Linux users do you know outside of the IT department besides a simple web-browsing box some guy set up for his Grandma?

Because pre-installed Linux desktops just fly off the shelves. Please. The only widely successful end-user Linux environment for daily use has been Android.

Both Linux and FreeBSD desktop users are a minority that few care about. Though if you count the Sony PS4 as desktop FreeBSD usage then it will soon trump Linux. Market share is a lame argument, FreeBSD is a great OS that is better documented than Linux and has several advantages as well as Linux binary compatibility with native performance.

Oh, and in fact, if you try to run an X11 app without XQuartz installed on 10.9, it will ask you if you want some help installing XQuartz and will direct you to a site to download it.

ML removed the old stale obsolete Apple-branded X11.app. It did not uninstall XQuartz. And XQuartz is quite actively maintained. Does the average kid running GarageBand need it? No.

It's been an optional install from the beginning because most folks don't need X11 apps. Native mac ports of apps are much nicer most of the time and pretty easy to find. Running legacy X11 apps is not something most people need. But if the need arises, you can, and it works REALLY well. LOTS of people run command-line FOSS tools under OSX though.

Apple solved the crappy UNIX desktop environment problem. They just didn't give away the source. I don't care if software is FOSS or not however. If it's good, I'll use it. If the price is too high, there's plenty of ways around that issue that any 14-yr-old kid with a web browser can find.

I'm still a little confused as to why the Linux crowd didn't just adopt launchd from Apple. It's open-source as well and while "different" it's launch scripts are readable and it does its job quite well. Personally, I prefer the old BSD rc scripts but I can tolerate launchd. Systemd looks like a far bigger mess and will end up fragmenting quite a few projects. I imagine GNOME functionality under FreeBSD will take a nosedive. systemd seems very "Un-UNIXy".

As long as systemd support remains OPTIONAL in X.Org I'll be a happy man. It's times like these I'm glad I'm a BSD guy.

Funny until you consider the amount of OSX users running XQuartz. Most desktop BSD users migrated to Macs. All the FOSS goodies you can shake a stick at *AND* a native commercial desktop productivity/graphics/audio software base that isn't a joke. Not having to jump through hoops to exchange data with the rest of the world is nice.

Nah, they'll do their best to bury this tech so they can justify giving their pet video streaming services priority and throttling others in the name of fighting network congestion even though their network was largely built with public funds.

"Normal humans are effectively excluded from developing software. The real injustice of developer inequality is that it doesn't have to be this way."

Yeah, it kinda does. Face it, computers are the most complex machines ever designed and implemented by mankind. There is no way to make them much simpler without losing functionality and breaking a lot of things we take for granted.

I'm excluded from practicing law and medicine.... OH THE INJUSTICE. I should be able to take a 2 week course and read some picture books and perform surgery, right? IT and development are professional fields that require extensive training. Get over it.

We tried making programming accessible to the common man. These efforts were called things like BASIC, HyperCard and Applescript. And you know what? Common people couldn't even hack it with those. And they were braindead easy to develop in. They were fairly slow but novices could go from blank slate to working program quickly. And still..... most "normal humans" were confused.

"Normal humans" don't see how complex even basic tasks are to the computer itself. They think programmers just punch keys and click all day and it all comes "naturally". They think the job is easy. Computers are insanely complex. GUI's have just made the problem worse because the common misconception is that computers are "simpler" now.

The "normal human" computing skillset consists of opening Word or double clicking the blue E to get to facebook. Sorry, I don't want these people writing software. Most of them have no interest in writing software, either.

The biggest "injustice" is that IT/development folks are generally excluded from any other field after dealing with IT/development for a few years unless we can pull an MBA out of our ass. We are "excluded" far more than most others. And the common line of thought is "this stuff should be simpler so we don't need those weird IT people". The reality is "simpler for end users" means insane complexity under the hood.