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July 31, 2006

huh

SIGGRAPH ‘06: The eternal battle between dark and light

Posted Jul. 31, ’06, 10:50 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Apple » Huh?

Genuine XP?Despite the old chestnut that Macs are superior to PCs for graphic work, there are plenty of the latter at SIGGRAPH. I’d say that the breakdown so far goes somewhere between 50-50 and 60-40, favoring PCs. That includes both the attendees with laptops as well as the computer hardware behind a lot of the presentations. There’s really no doubt that it’s still a Windows world though, especially as I come across the day-to-day realities: a screen in SIGGRAPH’s Guerilla Studio prominently asking if this is a legitimate copy of Windows, for example, or a crash on an otherwise impressive-looking touchscreen interface that yielded the familiar “this program has encountered an error and needs to close” dialog box.

Most surprisingly, though, is that Apple does not have a presence on the show floor. While the exhibition doesn’t open until tomorrow, a quick perusal of exhibitor list shows Microsoft, Google, HP, and others. I wonder if it’s because the use of Macs in this arena is simply a foregone conclusion or if it’s another sign that Apple prefers events in which it’s the big fish.


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