Many applications are not designed to thread their tasks enough to really saturate the resources that modern multi-core systems offer. So software developers are encouraged to make use of technologies like Grand Central which takes a lot of work out of the multi-core software design process.

There are two arguments that justify buying multi-core especially quad-core systems today. Why you ask? Because benchmarking never shows reality, even real world application benchmarks only measure the performance of a single application on a multi-core system. But this is not how most peoples systems get used. We are not only running a word processor and do nothing else. We use a lot of applications at the same time, be it iTunes running with some encoding or playback in the background, be it your favorite browser with a dozen of tabs each with quite some Flash content and Javascript applications each taking CPU cycles in the background. Then there is Skype, a development LAMP-stack running in the background, Time Machine doing a backup and so on. So there are quite a few applications which hopefully do not take up all of your system resources but all of these running concurrently will make use of a multi-core system.

The second argument, we are at a point in time where multi-core systems have become a standard. So it makes much more sense for developers to take their time to re-engineer their software to make use of this extra power. The advantage is not always that things go faster but also that applications become more responsive while working on tasks in the background. This change will accelerate rapidly now that multi-core support in development tools and operating systems is broadly available.

According to the release notes there is a 20% – 40% speed increase, this is all while managing a library of 13k items. The software feels snappier too, which is also an improvement over previous versions which sometimes felt like Quicksilver was processing something in the background without reacting. The speed improvements are due to Clang. Clang is an Apple sponsored compiler front end project for C, C++, and Objective-C.

At the moment you only can get the latest version via Macupdate – Quicksilver 1.0b57 Download.

It is not the first time Apple has used customized CPUs, so there’s always a chance that the default specs do not match Apple’s implementation. Brave folks went out on a limb and tried if the iMac is able to use more than the standard spec ram.

The answer is, yes, it is possible though you have to be careful. The DDR3-1066 RAM Apple is delivering has a CAS Latency (CL) of 7. CAS Latency is the time it takes from the moment the memory controller accesses the memory to the time the requested data in the memory gets delivered at the output pins. But if you want to use DDR3-1333 RAM you have to keep an eye on the CAS Latency of the RAM. The higher the memory can be clocked the bigger CAS Latency gets. Usually DDR3-1333 RAM has a CL of 9. DDR3-1333 with CL9 does NOT work with the iMac Core i5-750 and Core i7-860!

Testing shows that you can use DDR3-1333 RAM with CL7 (SODIMM, 204pin). This is highspeed RAM which will cost a bit more than the average DDR-1333 CL9 RAM. Kingston for example offers CL7 RAM with their HyperX DDR3 RAM.

Now let us put this into perspective. First you have to swap out all of the stock ram for the DDR3-1333 to get any perfomance gains, second DDR3-1333 CL7 RAM costs quite a bit more than the DDR3-1066 CL7 RAM. How much performance gain will you get for all this?

As you can see there is is little to gain from this investment, especially when you keep in mind that the iMac stock configuration is able to keep up with the current Mac Pro Quad-Core. So while it is possible your money is probably spent better on more RAM instead of faster RAM. Also keep in mind that DDR3-1333 RAM is out of the specs that Apple has outlined for their system.

Results are taken from Macrumors forums user i7QuadCoreMania. Benchmark values are averaged over 5 benchmark runs.

I’ve updated the chart to correct a small error because the Core i5 result wasn’t taken with the same Geekbench version as the others. Now all results are taken with Geekbench 2 version 2.1.4 and with OS X 10.6.2. I’ve also added the latest Mac Pro models (early 2009) so that you can better compare the results.

Update: Bare Feats now also has benchmark results for the Core i7, Core i5 compared to the early 2009 Mac Pro’s.

Here are the results:

results taken from Geekbench website: iMac Core i5 2.66Ghz, iMac Core i7 2.8Ghz, iMac Core 2 Duo 3.33Ghz, iMac Core 2 Duo 3.06Ghz, Mac Pro 2.93Ghz (1 CPU), Mac Pro 2.93Ghz (2 CPUs)

Other than that he also has a nice list of his favorite software he uses on his Mac.

When I got my Mac, I was not sure what to use and if it was necessary. There are so many different opinions that you really do not know whom to trust. Let us face it, the most important reason to buy such a utility is that you somehow feel the need for it. This is how marketing works, to create need and to bring the solution. Applications with words attached like optimization, automatic detection, improved performance make us feel warm and cozy when we buy and use them.

But we do not want to shell out money just to make us feel better. We want facts and figures and figures is what they give us. Have you noticed that visualization is a key part of every defragmentation software? The better the visualization and stats the software gives the more satisfied you feel. You see nasty red colored blocks, huge gaps and all kinds of color changing and sorting activities. Before your drive looked like a mess and after defragmentation did its job everything feels nicely ordered. It leaves a feeling of relieve like you would have cleaned up your office and now you can be more productive.

With all that said, file fragmentation can cause major performance problems. This a well known fact and that is why you should care about it. File systems like FAT32 and NTFS really need such optimization software for best perfomance. Tools like O&O Defrag v8 for Windows and Diskeeper work and they are worth the money.

Is there something similar for OS X? Well times have changed a lot since Mac OS 9 and even in the OS X releases significant changes have been made. The HFS file system has evolved over the years. Three major improvements to prevent file fragmentation were made. One came with Mac OS X 10.2 where file allocations were delayed. Small allocations were combined into one large allocation in one disk area. The other improvement came with Mac OS X 10.3 which addressed the issue that files grow in size over time. This is a problem because there might not be enough free space at the end of the file to append the data in a continuos stream, that is another reason why file fragmentation occurs. OS X 10.3 can automatically defragment such files while you are working.

OS X 10.3 also introduced a technology called Hot Band. Before we learn about this technology we need to look at the physics of a harddrive. Harddisks rotate with a constant angular velocity for example of 7200 rpm. The data closer to the center of the disk becomes more compressed in terms of physical space and thus the data rate increases. This would be the perfect place for files that need to be accessed very often. Exactly this is what Apple introduced with their Hot Band technology. OS X 10.3+ moves files in and out of this hot zone depending on how frequently the file gets accessed.

Another reason that file fragmentation has become less of a performance issue comes from the read-ahead and write-behind caching. This minimizes data access times which is usually the reason why file fragmentation becomes a problem over time. One thing we also should remind ourselves is that on each system there are lots of small files, for example HTML help files. Even if a disk defragmentation tool shows such files as fragmented there is practically no reason to defragment such files. Such files are rarely accessed and because of their size they can easily be kept in the system cache once they are read.

Altogether OS X 10.3+ has some decent functions to prevent disk performance degradation. This is also the reason why you should never use any OS 9 defragmentation tools even if it is possible because the general file structure of the HFS file system remains the same. But there are some additions that could be damaged if you are using them in conjunction with OS X. So please do not even think of it. But even disk defragmentation tools for OS X are not all equal. For example some applications do not recognize the hot zone that OS X 10.3+ uses, such tools would degrade your file system performance.

To really answer the question “Do you need disk defragmentation tools for OS X?” I even went further in my research. There is only one tool I know of that claims to respect all of the optimizations used in OS X 10.3+. The software is called iDefrag by Coriolis Systems. Their demo version just allows to defrag volumes up to the size of 100 MB. Personally I think this is a bad product demonstration, a 30 day evaluation version would have served better as a demonstration of their software. Instead of 30 days I spent $30 and bought the software to give it a spin.

I have bought my Powermac G5 in November 2005 with a 150 GB harddrive and OS X 10.4. I use my Mac around 10 hours a day, there are over 600,000 files on my disk and there is around 35 GB of free space remaining. The applications I use range from iTunes over the Adobe Creative Suite 2 to Final Cut Studio. If this was a windows machine my usual file fragmentation would range from 6% to 15%. These are just rough estimates, I know of people with much higher file fragmentation on Windows machines. So there should be around 60,000 fragmented files.

What would be your guess for my Powermac with OS X 10.4? Well it was around 1800 files that is 0.3%. Pretty amazing number for a system that has over 10 hours of daily use for over half a year. I make also heavy use of my web browser, at the moment I have 24 open browser tabs. It seems such things do not have much impact on file system performance.

But still iDefrag does such things as disk compaction and metadata optimization. Since most of these optimizations can not be done with your boot drive you need to create a boot cd with iDefrag on it. This process is really painless since Coriolis Systems offers a nice utility that creates a boot cd with the click of a button. I must admit iDefrag has some really nice visualizations and is the only tool I know of that is able to place files on the disk by parameters that you can define yourself. The time defragmentation takes depends on many parameters. I checked most of the options that had the word performance somewhere in the context help. So my optimization probably took longer than usual, roughly around 4 hours. So it is really recommended to do such things while you are watching a movie or can do something that is not related to your Mac.

So was it worth it? Well, yes and no. My files look really well sorted now. My fragmented file count went down to around 120 files. iDefrag does what it claims and it does it well. But were there any noticeable improvements? Not really, boot up time was the same as always and the start up after the user login did not speed up by any noticeable amount. My applications did not start any faster, so there was really nothing that would have convinced me to buy iDefrag if there had been a 30 day demo version.

Is this the fault of iDefrag? No. The only time they even mention the word performance on their product page is in conjunction with optimizing disk images before they are burnt onto a CD or DVD. Which probably will bring some performance gains. The one thing they mention which the HFS+ file system is unable to do, is that it does not defrag large files; which iDefrag does. That is it about the claims they are making. The rest of the page is mostly about how they color coded all the information and how you can access all of the file fragmentation information.

I guess after this it is safe to say that for most people disk defragmentation tools for OS X are not needed. OS X 10.3+ does an amazing job in handling file fragmentation and you can rely on these optimizations. If you are using an older version of OS X you really should consider to buy an upgrade because there a major improvements in the latest version not only within the file system. Ars Technica has written an in depth review of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

One general hint to minimize file fragmentation on every OS is to use at least two drives. Always try to swap data from one drive to the other. For example if you are editing a large video file you should put the source files on one disk and render the output to the second disk. If you want to install a large application from a downloaded archive, make sure that the archive is not on the same disk that you want to install it on. This way you help the system to get a continuos stream of data that can be written in a continuos stream to the second disk. Also this improves disk performance a lot since the harddrive does not need to seek back and forth between source and target files.

The article is inspired by a blog entry on lifehacker.com – How I work. It is interesting to read and maybe you like to add your own thoughts about this. For example Merlin Mann made some interesting suggestions on some Mail.app extensions that I did not know about. Just read his article it is well worth the time.

So here are my Top 5 applications I use on a daily basis: Opera, Adium, NetNewsWire, Mail.app and YummyFTP.

To understand why this will happen we should take a short look at the company’s history.

First it seemed that Apple has lost its “Think different” appeal because they had lost their “difference” namely the PowerPC processor from IBM. But if we think about it for a second it’s clear that Apple’s reputation never came from the hardware they used. Apple’s “difference” has always been the molded user experience. The “Think different” tag line isn’t only marketing, in reality it’s a statement that drives the company. Raw processing power doesn’t make the use of a computer feel different. It’s what you see everyday that makes it special, the visual effects of the OS, the streamlined product design. Apple is a design company, in a certain way they’re about fashion and they’re the most fashionable brand in the computer market that’s ever existed. What other company has annually design awards for Apple related products? Apple knows how to market their products, to make you feel different about their product, they market with style not with features. It’s not about the number of options you get, it’s about how well they integrate, how it makes you feel to use them. When you start using an Apple product it’s most often a design experience, you feel lightened and everything feels sleek and elegant. It’s like getting dressed for a dance party, and Apple makes you sway to the rhythm.

So why isn’t Apple leading in terms of market share we ask? Well because people live in herds, lets think about it. The IBM PC market including clones has gained its market share over the price. In the perception of people Apple has always been more costly, this isn’t always true and Apple was still worth its money if someone feels that design respectively art is worth money. But most people look at the price when it comes to technology. Another hurdle of technology is how to use it and when there are 2 friends of you who already own a certain piece of technology what would you do if you’re an unexperienced user that probably needs more than one hour of help? You stick with what’s been widely used and known within your acquaintances. If you don’t than you’re already thinking different and are a potential target for Apple’s product marketing. You see people are always flocking this can be good but often this has been bad because it’s not leading to innovation.

So was it wise from Apple to focus on design and user experience instead of gaining market share with whatever might be necessary? If Apple would have done so we wouldn’t have the most innovative brand in the computer market. Apple might have lost a lot of market share but they sure haven’t lost their spirit of innovation. This doesn’t always lead to immediate success but it keeps their people motivated. If share holder value would be the motivation Steve Jobs wouldn’t have started NeXT. He lost a lot of money with this company but in the end it helped him get Apple back into the race. The technology he developed with NeXT is used in Apple products. Apple sure needs a rising share holder value and they perform well in this but it hasn’t lead their decisions in the first place when they developed new products.

Apple’s products didn’t always get accepted by the public. The Apple III was a commercial failure, Apple’s Lisa a commercial failure, the Macintosh Portable a failure. The Apple Cube was pulled out because it wasn’t selling. Did this lead to extinction? No, Apple learned from their failures they’ve tried a lot and they failed a lot and this leads to experience you can’t buy for money. Apple always tried to thrive in terms of innovation.

Apple also had a lot of successful products that have been ahead of their time. If you’re ahead of your time you often don’t get the recognition you deserve. But here are some of Apple’s innovations that have sustained for decades. The Apple II was of high quality and had a lot of technical advantages at his time. The Apple Macintosh gained huge acceptance in the desktop publishing market due to its advanced graphics capabilities. This was in conjunction with the introduction of the LaserWriter and Pagemaker all at a reasonable price point. It’s only in the last few years that the Windows based market could make a dent in the DTP market. But many designers still feel more comfortable with the Mac. Apple’s Powerbook series was also a huge success. Apple missed this market for some time and failed with the Macintosh Portable. But they learned, tried again and they sure did it right. One of the reasons that helped Apple to succeed is that they gained a reputation as a quality manufacturer. What they manufactured was of high quality and that is what sticked over the years. Even if you open the case of a Mac, the interior work is also well laid out. Overall Apple’s products are very reliable compared to the PC market as a whole.

So now we’ve gained some insight on the history of the company and its corporate philosophy. Now let’s take a look at why this time they even will shake the solidified PC market with an over 90 percent share of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The switch to Intel was for sure one to stay competitive. Intel’s product line is widely used and their roadmap looks promising. But the switch from PowerPC to Intel processors also changed the public perception. Before Apple had an innovative OS but due to their processors it wasn’t compatible with a lot of things. From the outside buying a Mac has always had the feel of being somewhat out of the loop and maybe you might be missing something. People who know why a Mac was superior for them didn’t need think much about this. With OS X the choice of applications has been much wider. But OS X was introduced in 2001 in a time where there was already a Windows dominated market. Windows can do a lot of things and Windows XP is for sure a stable OS. The problem was if you already owned a Windows based PC you are in the upgrading loop. You could upgrade your copy of Windows even with the same machine, you can use all the software you’ve bought over the years. There are a lot of reasons to stick to Windows and they’re good reasons.

But still you can’t ignore that the user experience is by far better with OS X especially in combination with iLife. But people living in herds don’t like to change that radical. Now that Apple is using the same compatible hardware it doesn’t feel that much of a change to buy a Mac. The perception has changed, the “difference” that held back a lot of people namely the PowerPC processor is now gone. It’s the same hardware, nothing strange or unknown to most is now working in a Mac. This already helped a lot to change the people’s mind about an Apple computer. On top of it Apple has become a known brand with the introduction of the iPod and iTunes, which can be used with Windows. Apple has lost its alienated status and still has kept their identity, their “think different” spirit. Apple has truly evolved in a good way.

And here comes the reason why they will shake the market. Apple has always had stylish and admirable hardware and software. But until recently the change to a Macintosh felt more like a hard switch than a smooth and painless transition. With the introduction of BootCamp Apple has done themselves a huge favor. It’s now possible to keep old habits for a transitional period and still be able to taste the fruits of an innovative brand. Now Apple is competing head to head with all PC brands like HP, Dell, Acer and others. Apple innovates on their ground and competes with ease. Over the last two years they’ve gained a lot of attention by the media. Five years ago Apple wouldn’t be mentioned very often in PC centric magazines that mostly filled their pages with Windows or maybe even Linux related software and hardware. Now in some weeks they get mentioned on a daily basis in these magazines. With Intel processors and BootCamp it’s obvious that everyone wants to compare if Apple is superior like they always claimed. Now that the PowerPC processor difference is out of the way it shows that Apple is still innovative even in their way to apply common x86 technology. Sure Apple can’t market speed comparisons like they did with the PowerPC processor. But like we’ve seen at the beginning, Apple has never been about the hardware alone, it’s how they combine cutting edge technology with stylish design and a streamlined user experience, that is what makes the difference. Even with the same processors as are available for usual PC’s Apple shines in the media and hardware comparisons. It isn’t mainly benchmarking why Apple gets good reviews it’s the overall product design and the experience that gets the recognition and respect of the media.

Apple has gained great momentum in the media and the minds of the flock. Now even conservative people are looking at Apple Macs as an alternative because they can buy a new Mac, still use their old software as needed with BootCamp, but also enjoy the ease of use of OS X combined with cutting edge technology. Apple knows how to mold the latest available technology with superior design. Apple is the first brand that used mobile processors in their complete product line up. Sure there were products with the Pentium M in desktop casings but these products stayed in a niche market. But Apple has done it with their complete product line and with huge success. Right from the start Apple used EFI instead of the decades old BIOS to boot their computers. Apple has always dropped legacy technologies to push the envelope of innovation and it didn’t hurt them. Intel must be more than happy to have a customer that is able to build successful products with their latest products and to fully put them to use. New technologies are adapted at a fast pace by Apple compared to the rest of the PC manufacturers. This will obviously swing the market to Apple’s favor. With each new product line Apple can take full advantage of the latest technology, there are no legacy features that need to be kept that slow down the acceptance of cutting edge technology. “Never change a running system” is a guideline that’s often cited and sparsely followed. The more you change the more likely it is things break. Apple knows this, helps to bridge the gap but doesn’t compromise their goals. No one would think of upgrading their TV set or their refrigerator, they just work and that’s what they’re supposed to. Computers shouldn’t be any different, overclocking and casemodding has its market but it will never be the same market that Apple now fills the gap for. Apple’s product have an out of the box experience that is unmatched by any other PC on the market. Even the software feels sleek and OS X comes with iLife a package that makes a Mac user really productive from the start.

This doesn’t mean Apple will swing the whole market in favor of them but Apple now clearly shows why they always strived for the difference and this time they’ll get the recognition they deserve. And one thing is for sure the PC market will be much more exciting with Apple than without them.

It felt strange to me that such a well designed Mouse should cause RSI symptoms. It had to be me, Apple wouldn’t design a mouse that could cause such problems. So I did some research on the web to see if there were other users just like me.

And little did I know, Apple did some pretty bad design in case of this mouse. Here are some of the quotes I found which prove I’m not the only person suffering from bad ergonomics.

“I had high hopes for Apple’s first effort beyond the single button, but find their design favors form over ergonomics. I have RSI (repetition strain injury) problems in my right arm/hand from years of computer use, so mouse selection is a serious thing for me, and I am cognizant of the design errors that make constantly used devices dangerous.
….
I realize that my particular RSI problems may be unique, but I cannot recommend this mouse to anyone with existing RSI injuries or a concern over developing them. While it may not be stylish to use little switches that click when gently pressed, or larger rolling wheels, I’ll gladly pass on the clean lines of the Mighty Mouse to protect my health.”
Scott K

“After using the mouse for 3 days now, the report isn’t positive overall. The ball is wonderful. However, the single clicker means that an operation that I do at least daily with my Intellimouse: Expose desktop (button 4), get file, Expose all windows (Middle scroll wheel button), drop into document, is impossible, due to the button being depressed and accepting no more clicks.
This is a minor complaint, compared to the thing giving me RSI in 3 days! The way the mouse forces you to raise your left finger, combined with the angle and position of the scrollball causes my finger tension. After adjusting the hand position, it was still uncomfortable. I have never experienced this before with any mouse, and I can only attribute it to the ‘Mighty Mouse’.”
Alastair Jardine

“The problem with keeping your left finger in the air is that it requires you to constantly keep one of the tendons in your arm under stress, this eventually will lead to RSI or some other issue with your wrist or arm.”
Rory Prior

“The first time I used it for a length of time I had bad RSI type pains in my forearm just below the elbow! So sadly it had to go.
I love the design and had no problems with the buttons which are deeply cool, I just couldn’t take the pain.”
David Hughes

“Mighty Mouse gave me RSI within 48 hours. And it has stuck.”
low-fi, arstechnica forum

“Since Apple’s Mighty Mouse requires your index finger to not be touching the mouse to perform a right click, my index finger was not able to rest naturally (and yes, I was holding it correctly). I must tell you, I have been an opponent of the Mighty Mouse for this very reason since I first got it in early August on an impulse buy. As I further ventured into the game not paying much attention to my hand, that usual “I need a rest” feeling turned painful. I then quit the game and took a break to go stretch my hands. Much to my dismay, my hand was still hurting. It is now Sunday and the pain has not gone away.”
Trent Lapinski

These are just some of the quotes I found when searching for RSI related problems and Apple’s Mighty Mouse. I’m now using my Logitech Pilot Wheel Mouse Optical again, which served me fine for years now without any pain involved using it.