MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Aug 11, 08 - 01:49 pm Comment from: Scot Murphy

Monopoly? Nahh.

It's NBC, what do you expect? I mean at least there is Mac support..

Considering Apple itself is not going to support PPC based Macs with it's next major OS release, you can hardly blame Microsoft for not providing legacy PPC support..

Aug 11, 08 - 01:51 pm Comment from: Demon

Boycott the crappy Microsoft Silverlight.

Hmm.... nbc.com is that way but nbcolympics.com works just fine on my mac. Been watching the US relay team f'up the Frenchy's all day.

Not for nothing it's called MSNBC.

"Boycott the crappy Microsoft Silverlight."

I have up until this point.. I downloaded it the other day because I missed the opening ceremony and the only way to watch it was through http://www.nbcolympics.com

Aug 11, 08 - 01:56 pm Comment from: Mac-nugget

I rather watch this stuff on TV then to subject my Mac to Silverlight.

Aug 11, 08 - 01:57 pm Comment from: Jim

Wow MDN. You've been rolling on your Takes today. Bravo! They're awesome!

Aug 11, 08 - 02:00 pm Comment from: Macromancer

I tried looking at this earlier and suddenly lost my appetite for watching any more of the coverage.

Good work NBC.!!!

There are minimum system requirements for Windows users as well. And trust me there many more millions of users who are on a pre XP SP2 OS than there are Mac users on PPC.

Get over it already MDN.

The Mac users that are better educated and make more money bought Intel Macs and are watching the Olympics if they feel like it.

The Mac users without Intel Macs are cheap, lazy, welfare recipients, students, or bums who bought on craigslist the PowerPC macs the better educated, wealthier Mac owners got rid of when they got their Intel Macs.

(Only slightly in jest...sorry folks, except for a few of the highest-end dual G5 PowerMacs the PowerPC-based Macintosh is a relic. I have my share--an iBook, a Powerbook G4, a G5 tower, a MDD G4, and what they make is good iTunes servers--the towers--and good carry along laptops when all I'm doing is word processing--the iBook and Powerbook.)

Aug 11, 08 - 02:06 pm Comment from: jjjj

I have been using Silverlight for MLB and now the Olympics. When it doesn't drop/reset my Apple Express wi-fi connection, which is often, Silverlight actually looks pretty good.

Of course, NBC and MSFT are bed buddies on that MSNBC cable channel thinggy, so would you expect any less?

FWIW, the MSN team seems to run (and very badly at that) nbcolympics.com

Pity the Win 95 and Win 98 users, too. heh.

Aug 11, 08 - 02:09 pm Comment from: Hm...

Interesting that NBC would chose a beta product — I wonder if their advertisers realize this. It might be fun passing the word on to those advertisers...

Hmm. Will have to try this when I get home. I know I've used Silverlight very successfully on my PowerPC-based Mac before. Is it the specific version that's required that's causing a problem?

Just want to make sure this is not a case of Mac users jumping to the conclusion that we're getting screwed over based on some weird technical detail of a small number of systems. I work at a Web site that we try to keep very Mac-friendly, and we periodically see livid e-mails from Mac users who encounter a problem and assume it's because we're cutting Macs out (tends to be ISP-related issues). So just want to make sure that's not the case here.

Also, I have seen some problems related to not Silverlight per se but a combination of Silverlight, PowerPC and OS X earlier than version 10.5. Could that be the specific issue here? I know MDN has, in the past, mentioned that sooner or later, we all have to catch up to the present, and updating to 10.5 is a relatively easy way to partially do that...

RyanAir also uses Silverlight for its overview map.

Aug 11, 08 - 02:15 pm Comment from: MikeK

Tiger, Leopard and Intel Macs are all supported so there is not much to gripe about.

As someone already mentioned, even Apple will not be supporting PPC with the upcoming Snow Leopard. We need to get used to the fact that there is going to be less and less PPC support going forward.

Since Snow Job Leopard, Steve's master plan to obsolete PPC Macs and get the last hold outs in the user base to upgrade will not be ready for a year, Steve obviously paid NBC to make sure they did this now to keep new Mac sales rolling.

Goddammit, I just spent $75 on a G4 card for my beige G3! It is current hardware and ought to be properly supported.

This sucks.

Wasn't it Apple who dropped Classic support? Doesn't Snow Leopard require an Intel Mac? Why should Microsoft or NBC worry about them when even Apple wants to ignore their existence and force everyone to upgrade?

" let's exclude a major portion of the Mac user base since they're better educated and make more money than the Windows schlubs, "

Actually you're excluding the ones who haven't brought a new PC in 2-4 years. They're probably also living in single wide trailers and driving those '83 Crown Victorias you see with those disintegrating vinyl roofs. Most probably it's a conscious choice to improve the demographics for advertisers.

NBC, and most other media outfits (i.e. misfits) want to peddle their influence (not news), to "sheep" as to lead them to the slaughter, rather than intelligent human beings whom make their own decisions after weighing the facts.

This has only been going on for the past 40 years.

Have to agree with MZeus on this one. Apple hasn't sold a PPC Mac in over 2 years? And with streaming video, MDN expects PPC Macs to be supported with new technology?

Sorry, but that's a little extreme. MDN bashes MS all the time for holding onto its legacy crap, and now bashes MS (via NBC) for not supporting Apple's legacy hardware. Be consistent, MDN.

"... since they're better educated and make more money"




Then they should be smart enough to choose, and able to afford a modern Mac.

Do not forget all the linux users
I know this is a mac site and I'm mac fan, but we are not alone.

I gotta say that there seems to be a lot of breast-beating going on here about nothing. First, it appears that while the tech spec says Intel-only, there are PPC users of Silverlight who are reporting they can watch the coverage. So, it is just a question of what is officially supported (I have for many years used Safari to access my bank account, even though the only officially supported browsers are Explorer and Netscape - yeah, Netscape).

Second, welcome to the world of personal technology. If you haven't noticed, things change. It is one of the reasons why Mac OSX is a far better operating system than any flavor or Windows. Get used to it.

Finally, virtually all samplings of website traffic indicate that Mac PPC usage is now in the minority - far less than 50%. I am not going to blame MSNBC (which certainly makes its share of stupid decisions) for not supporting a submarket of a niche market. Hell, I am excited to learn that they even know the Mac exists (but less excited by the idea of putting Silverlight on my MBP).

Nothing to see here... move along.

"intelligent human beings whom make their own decisions after weighing the facts."

An intelligent human being would have known that Apple, as they had done so frequently in their history would sooner or later change the processor or operating system and make their hardware obsolete. They have been expecting this and have already brought Intel Macs.

It's just the ignorant customers who don't understand how Apple does business who would be upset.

Aug 11, 08 - 02:44 pm Comment from: amyhre

@Kirk

Yes, it is specific to the version. They require 2.0b2 but only 1.0 is compatible with PowerPC Macs. I happen to have one and was sorta disappointed. Got mine the August before the Macworld where they announced the switch to Intel and as I'm still paying back student loans, upgrading right now is not in the cards. But by the time I can upgrade, the Macbook Pro will be that much better than they are now =)

@ OpJ
"The Mac users without Intel Macs are cheap, lazy, welfare recipients, students, or bums who bought on craigslist the PowerPC macs the better educated, wealthier Mac owners got rid of when they got their Intel Macs."


So what if I am a welfare recipient? Why would that make one cheap, lazy, a student, or a bum on Craigslist? LOL...


"(Only slightly in jest...sorry folks, except for a few of the highest-end dual G5 PowerMacs the PowerPC-based Macintosh is a relic. I have my share--an iBook, a Powerbook G4, a G5 tower, a MDD G4, and what they make is good iTunes servers--the towers--and good carry along laptops when all I'm doing is word processing--the iBook and Powerbook.)"


I have 13 computers in my house 2 Window's boxes and 11 Macs (1 G5 Power Mac, 9 G4 eMacs, and 1 G3 iMac). Silverlight is supported on 10 of my 11 Macs. So why did NBC choose not to support all of Silverlight's users?

PS...I don't let my PC's on the internet...

Aug 11, 08 - 02:45 pm Comment from: It's About Time

On an Intel machine, Silverlight 2 works fine. However, Safari 3.1.2 only shows a partial video screen (bottom is cut-off). Works with no problem using Firefox 3 in small or full screen mode (full screen is HD and enlarged, but not to "full screen" proportions.

Aug 11, 08 - 02:46 pm Comment from: HMCIV

A dumber demographic means you will convert a higher percentage of viewers with stupid ads. Excluding intelligent (and handsome) Mac users makes good business sense!

Remember, it's ALL about the numbers you want to measure, not why you measure them.

Aug 11, 08 - 02:48 pm Comment from: JadisOne

I bit my tongue and installed the darn software because I wanted to see some coverage I missed. Low and behold after Silverlight was installed, the only thing that played was commercials. I kept getting some "This error has been reported to our team" error and the video never loaded. Just infuriating - that is exactly why I do not buy or use Microsoft products any more.

I know nothing about Silverlight and care nothing about the Olympics...I turn on the TV and there's as much Olympics as I'd ever be interested in seeing...

That said, there are going to be a lot of complaints present and future about PowerPC support ending. I think what a lot of people...I guess pretty much all the PowerPC-clingers--forget is that the gap in computational power between PowerPC and modern Intel processors is staggering. I think the best example is that the 1.6 Ghz Mac mini I have--the least powerful Intel Mac other than the Air and the core solo mini--has a higher Geekbench score than all but two G5 Power Mac towers, and one of those is the G5 Quad. Meanwhile, my G5 tower, bought less than a year and half before the mini, and for more than double the price, has less than half the score of the Intel mini.

Unfortunately for buyers of late-model PowerPC macs, particularly consumer-grade ones, the stark differences in processor power make the time and effort required to make everything back-compatible with G4 and G5 processors may not be worthwhile. Who knows, Apple might include G5 support in Snow Leopard. But it is just as likely that Apple has found that performance of some of the things they want to do is so degraded on G5 machines that all G5 support would get is complaints from G5 owners.

It is just as likely that Apple is making a lot of changes to the base underpinnings of OS X that take advantage of features included in Intel processors that don't exist in the G5, or that again would be unacceptably slow on a G5.

Take a look at:

http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/2008/02/mac-performance-february-2008/

The disparity between PowerPC and Intel macs is pretty obvious, with even the slowest original Macbook blowing past all but the G5 quad.

I will never in my life install Silverlight on my computer. I see no reason to prop up this useless format. Flash is bad enough. No thanks.

Aug 11, 08 - 03:05 pm Comment from: Chuck U Farley

NBC and their Olympic "coverage" is a freaking JOKE!

There is no 'AAPLNBC'. Just an 'MSNBC'.

Aug 11, 08 - 03:16 pm Comment from: cptnkirk

Watch it all here: http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/ondemand/

It's Adobe Flash video. Looks good too.

And just because it's the CBC don't go thinking that it's all Canada and the time. They show the best in every sport.

Aug 11, 08 - 03:18 pm Comment from: alansky

"Hey, let's exclude a major portion of the Mac user base since they're better educated and make more money than the Windows schlubs, to whom, of course, we'll cater like the whores that we are — our advertisers will love it!"

You do have a way with words, MDN!

Silverlight excludes Mac users?

That's funny, because I have Silverlight on my Mac. I just Googled "Silverlight for Mac" and here's one of the hits I got:

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Microsoft_Silverlight_for_Mac_OS_X/1165253904/2

Hey, I'm not really a Microsoft fan, but Silverlight seems to work fine.

DeltaNick

THE NERVE!

I know at least 10 VERY SMART and VERY RICH people running OS9!

Actually, all you really need is Flash! I was watching this morning at work. So quit your whinning. Silverlight is only necessary for the "enhanced experience".

Aug 11, 08 - 03:55 pm Comment from: BiZarRo BaLlmEr

Upgrade to a MacBook, problem solved.

Aug 11, 08 - 03:55 pm Comment from: obtusegoose

Thanks for posting that link, cptnkirk :o)

I missed the opening ceremonies and went to the NBC site, only to be disappointed. I said "I have the latest Flash player, what is the problem?" I should have known it was Microsoft's crappy Silverlight plug-in.

Aug 11, 08 - 03:59 pm Comment from: KingMel

Compared with the mid- to late-1990s, this is a step forward (only *some* Macs are excluded).

Aug 11, 08 - 04:03 pm Comment from: binarypackrat

I think the MND title of this is misleading... It DOES offer support for Mac users just PPC users are left out. Most people will just read the title and assume No Mac support.

I have a Mac Pro and a Macbook, both are Intel, and I can't even get Silverlight to download on either of them. I get the screen that says it's checking my system for compatibility and that's it. It just hangs on that screen.

As a happy PowerPC Macintosh user, I can tell you that I have not had any opportunity to miss the absence of this feature or the olympics. Plus the fact that NBC, USA, Telemundo, and CNBC are covering the olympics. I'm not exactly running out of options.

Everyone is so busy having fits over the lack of silverlight support on PPC macs... did anyone else think, "Gee, this was a perfect opportunity for Microsoft to roll out this turd to the masses, just so in a month they can tout what a widely installed media format it is?!"

Aug 11, 08 - 05:07 pm Comment from: TowerTone

Meanwhile, over at CNBC...

http://blogs.computerworld.com/why_cnbc_chose_apple_for_its_primary_storage

yes, let's force all the zombies to download silverlight. And they do. Great. A free and open internet is too good for these people. Bring it on MS.

MW: gone....

What's an Olympics?