Mac more popular than ever

[Ou grote]

Let him embarrass himself the way he did with the iPhone.

Always enjoyable seeing a mac fanboy struggle to come out the closet not that we would welcome him into our club anyway

Yeah shame, poor unemployed kid.

 

[d0b33]

Guys - so far I have only heard wise cracks and excuses. I still do not know what it is that a mac does and a PC does not. I am inviting you to convince me otherwise, as you have seen with the iPhone, I am a reasonable man.

You can install Windows and OSX on one PC(a PC can't do that officially) to me the Mac pro is just too expensive and only justifiable if your Business needs a dedicated graphics, video editing system(most studios) or music production studio(Once again most professional studios use Macs)

You are guaranteed stability and flawless updating, a PC can do this to a degree but Windows updates or drivers can break a PC occasionally, OSX also does not have to worry about viruses.

 

[vodacom3g]

OK, I'm gonna leave the wise cracks you make and wait for someone to respond with something meaningful. Tell me what it is you can do on a mac that you cannot do on a PC ?

Let me try and answer this, but firstly; I'm not a MAC fanatic. Never owned a iPod, MAC or even an Apple II !

Some relevant points (read with emotions on ice):

1) No-one will seriously argue that Unix is not the best OS around. It's 30 years old, stable and supported by all the big players and nowadays it's well established on Intel platforms.

2) No-one will seriously argue against the fact that the biggest make or break factor for any OS is it's application support. Apple II, the ZX-family and then the IBM PC DOS / Windows systems proved this point. And the less painful the applications install and work, the more accepted they become.

3) Furthermore, the better the interface between man and machine, the more usable it becomes for the vast majority of users. The early GUI OS's clearly showed this when we switched from DOS to Windows, for example.

So the ultimate Personal Computer today would look like this:

1) Unix as the OS
2) Strong application support
3) Kick-ass GUI

And today the best candidate for this setup is OSX. It's Unix with a better GUI than anyone else and has strong application support.

So why is it not running on everyone's desktop and why don't we see more apps for it than for Windows PC's?

Simple, Apple's insistence to control the hardware. And up to recently the policy made sense. Control the hardware to control the quality. But not anymore, we now get strongly standardised hardware from reputable vendors such as Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, HP, Dell, etc.

As a test recently I took a single system and installed both Vista and OSX on it. The OSX installation scored a 100% success in getting all the hardware correctly configured (without any user intervention) while the Vista system missed a few critical components (display card, monitors, web-cam, etc.) and had to be helped along. XP required a huge amount of work.

So (as the Open-OSX group showed), there are no more technical reasons for Apple to limit the OS to its own hardware.

But even if you have the better OS with the better GUI, without strong application support it's going to stay a niche market. And again, the answer is to open the OS up to the wider community so more people will install it and thus more apps will be developed for it. Economies of scale.

And that means we could all use the best OS/GUI/App setup, with no need to develop the required 'pray-to-the-gleaming-white-god' / holier-than-thou attitude.

So, to answer your question, what did the OSX installation do better than Windows?

On EXACTLY the same hardware:

1) it's faster (much faster, Word and other apps work 3 to 20 times faster (I timed it)),
2) extremely reliable (no crashes and the system does not wander off every now and then leaving you stranded while it's busy doing something you've got no clue about),
3) gives a much slicker interaction with the user. Vista is still clunky compared to OSX.

OSX users often speak about this "It just works" factor and until you've worked with OSX for a while, it's difficult to comprehend exactly what they mean. But try it yourself (don't just kick the tires) and you'll quickly see it as well.

But this is not an 'Apple' thing per se, it's the logical result of running an intuitive X-Server on a Unix kernel. A lesson Microsoft should really learn and it seems the Ubuntu crowd is beginning to realise.

 

[Rouxenator]

Thanks for the reply v3g, at least and attempt to logically outline things. But still I fail to see the point here. I have a PC with windows XP SP3, 4GB RAM, onboard everything and 750GB hard drive space (single drive). It cost a fraction of any apple product yet there is nothing I can see that is a reason to ditch it and go apple. My computer also "just works" it has never crashed (touch wood) and I really do a lot of demanding taskings on it (like HD Video editing).

While you say the ultimate computer will have a unix OS, strong support and a kick ass gui I have to disagree. Sure that could be AN ultimate machine but it is not THEE ultimate machine.

My point still remains, why should people use a mac when I PC can do it all at a cheaper price (including just working) ?

 

[d0b33]

My point still remains, why should people use a mac when I PC can do it all at a cheaper price (including just working) ?

If you are not willing to pay for a professional system then sure a normal PC will work for everybody else.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Haha I think this sums up the average Mac user

 

[Rouxenator]

If you are not willing to pay for a professional system then sure a normal PC will work for everybody else.

Finally we are getting somewhere. So the one is a professional system and the other just ordinary. What does the professional option do that the normal cannot ?

 

[Pooky]

Everyone who voted no is jealous that they don't own macs.

 

[d0b33]

Haha I think this sums up the average Mac user

Sounds like something Roux might ask...

What does the professional option do that the normal cannot ?

 

[PeterCH]

Finally we are getting somewhere. So the one is a professional system and the other just ordinary. What does the professional option do that the normal cannot ?

I use both. For me Mac provides a much nicer editing program - Final Cut Pro as well as a more stable operating system. Irrespective of other peoples' opinions I have worked with Adobe Premiere Pro and it sucks compared to FCP. On a Win XP Pro machine with premium components it would freeze up
on me often while Mac OS just works on the Mac. I had a lot of Kernel Panics (BSODS on Mac) recently but that was due to faulty RAM now that I replaced that it works 100% again. PC on the other hand, I could test the RAM till I was blue with custom boot disks, have the latest drivers and the
safest BIOS defaults and even a clean Windows install and after a while
Adobe Premiere AND/OR Windows would crash. Plus there is the whole Microsoft thing, you have to install stuff, it loads itself into the registry,
it competes for file extensions etc. Most software in Mac OS you just
copy into your Applications folder at it works, ok bigger packages like
Final Cut Studio, MS Office or Adobe CS3 need installers but virtually everything else is drag and drop and the installers for the former are just simpler.

Typing this on a Windows XP Sp2 C2D 1.6GHz Panasonic Toughbook which is probably one the best built laptops I have ever experienced. Pity it can't run Mac OS.

 

[vodacom3g]

Thanks for the reply v3g, at least and attempt to logically outline things. But still I fail to see the point here. I have a PC with windows XP SP3, 4GB RAM, onboard everything and 750GB hard drive space (single drive). It cost a fraction of any apple product yet there is nothing I can see that is a reason to ditch it and go apple. My computer also "just works" it has never crashed (touch wood) and I really do a lot of demanding taskings on it (like HD Video editing).

While you say the ultimate computer will have a unix OS, strong support and a kick ass gui I have to disagree. Sure that could be AN ultimate machine but it is not THEE ultimate machine.

My point still remains, why should people use a mac when I PC can do it all at a cheaper price (including just working) ?

Of course you have to decide for yourself what would be your personal 'ultimate' system but I'm interested to hear how your view differs from my own 'Unix/best GUI/best app support' statement?

Maybe elaborate? What are the killer parameters of the 'ultimate' system (note we're assuming same hardware)

One thing you might find interesting is the MAC pricing on the non-Pro systems. It's pretty close to PC pricing.

But as someone who like to build and upgrade my own systems, I'm also not going to buy Apple's hardware. Purely because I cannot chop and change as I desire. For many people who don't fiddle like we do, buying a MAC (at PC-like pricing) is not a bad option. But it's not for me.

I still believe if Apple allow the OS to be legally installed on non-Apple hardware (the EULA prohibits this), the quicker we'll see more application support.

 

[icyrus]

Thanks for the reply v3g, at least and attempt to logically outline things. But still I fail to see the point here. I have a PC with windows XP SP3, 4GB RAM, onboard everything and 750GB hard drive space (single drive). It cost a fraction of any apple product yet there is nothing I can see that is a reason to ditch it and go apple. My computer also "just works" it has never crashed (touch wood) and I really do a lot of demanding taskings on it (like HD Video editing).

While you say the ultimate computer will have a unix OS, strong support and a kick ass gui I have to disagree. Sure that could be AN ultimate machine but it is not THEE ultimate machine.

My point still remains, why should people use a mac when I PC can do it all at a cheaper price (including just working) ?

At the risk of encouraging the mentally damaged:

Some of us have real work to do on a UNIX environment and OS X is easily the best choice for that.

If you don't need it don't buy it, but there is no point regaling us with your ignorant rants about how you don't need it so it must be pointless. However if you wish to continue with this line of argument, I eagerly look forward to your diatribe on tampons.

 

[vodacom3g]

I have a PC with windows XP SP3, 4GB RAM, onboard everything and 750GB hard drive space (single drive).

BTW, forgot to ask, how much of that 4GB is available?

 

[boramk]

With people becoming genetically more and more ugly in each generation I think having a good looking computer is a sensible move.

Lol really?
Send me the link lol I wanna read this

 

[Pooky]

With 4gig will you notice an improvement over 2gig?

 

[km2]

I think it's very hard to quantify the "just works" factor. For me it's not so much about the hardware, because I've had very few problems with driver issues under Windows. Maybe I've just been lucky.

For me it comes down to the software. I have far fewer everyday annoyances with Mac software than I do with most Windows software.

Adium (a chat client) just works. It supports multiple GTalk accounts simultaneously. It's fast. It doesn't take up that much room when keeping the contact list always on my screen. The GTalk for Windows client has random freezes, especially when there's heavy disk activity. I have no idea why it matters what's going on with the disk for a chat client. This happens on various computers, from beefy ones to slower ones. I have two GTalk accounts, and I can't run two clients without stuffing around.

Windows apps like to steal focus. You're typing your password or something and suddenly it appears in some other window. Bugs me.

Windows XP (haven't tried it on Vista) had a limit on how many windows you could open at the same time. Yes, it doesn't effect most people but I use a LOT of windows. No limit like this in Mac OS.

Macs RELIABLY wake from sleep. Windows has seemed to have a 20% chance that it isn't going to come back. I like to be able to keep what I was working on open, put my computer to sleep, come back and still have my work there.

I do work on Linux servers. It helps having a "real" UNIX environment to test stuff on, and a reasonable package system. Cygwin can't touch that.

I like the editor BBEdit. I've used jEdit, UltraEdit, EditPlus etc on Windows and didn't like them. Again for me it comes down to the applications. BBEdit is fast and has a good interface for working with lots of files.

Networking is good. If I put my laptop to sleep and wake it up, my SSH connections actually can remain active. Windows kills them. If there are network problems when browsing shares it doesn't hang the machine with the little flashlight going back and forward while it trues to search, it handles it gracefully.

Spotlight is good for searching, and has good support across Mac apps. It's another one of those techs where Windows might have something comparable, but Microsoft just can't get people to write stuff to use it. Same as Windows Presentation Frameworks, could be great for making nice interfaces, but nowadays no one jumps when MS says jump.

So it's not one thing that makes me like Macs. And it's not the hardware. It's Mac OS, and the apps which it supports, which sells Macs for me.

 

[///MoH]

Mac for work and media, Pc for my tweaking and fiddling desire

 

[PeterCH]

One thing you might find interesting is the MAC pricing on the non-Pro systems. It's pretty close to PC pricing.

The Mac Pros are not ordinary run of the mill PCs. Since they have dual quad core (I've still got the old dual dual core) xeons, on a dual CPU intel mobo
with support for buffered ECC ram, a great case which just works (change HD's, cards and memory very easily) and a 1 MegaWatt PSU the systems are not needed for ordinary use. You'll need to equip a similar workstation from
Dell to compare and at the time I was buying a comparable Dell cost a good
few dollars more than my 3GHz quad core Mac. Secondly you get the operating system as a bonus - no stupid Windows Vista. The nice thing is that now that quad core Xeons are cheaper the mobo is pin compatible with them and I can upgrade the machine which is impossible with the iMac.
On the Mac Pro you can change the CPUs, upgrade the RAM, upgrade the HDs, add PCIe cards, change the graphics card and so do a lot of what you can do in a PC. So a price comparison with ordinary PCs is unfair as you're getting more in a Mac and comparing a newly released Mac Pro to
a similar spec'ed Dell will not give you a price surcharge for the Mac.

 

[vodacom3g]

The Mac Pros are not ordinary run of the mill PCs. Since they have dual quad core (I've still got the old dual dual core) xeons, on a dual CPU intel mobo
with support for buffered ECC ram, a great case which just works (change HD's, cards and memory very easily) and a 1 MegaWatt PSU the systems are not needed for ordinary use. You'll need to equip a similar workstation from
Dell to compare and at the time I was buying a comparable Dell cost a good
few dollars more than my 3GHz quad core Mac. Secondly you get the operating system as a bonus - no stupid Windows Vista. The nice thing is that now that quad core Xeons are cheaper the mobo is pin compatible with them and I can upgrade the machine which is impossible with the iMac.
On the Mac Pro you can change the CPUs, upgrade the RAM, upgrade the HDs, add PCIe cards, change the graphics card and so do a lot of what you can do in a PC. So a price comparison with ordinary PCs is unfair as you're getting more in a Mac and comparing a newly released Mac Pro to
a similar spec'ed Dell will not give you a price surcharge for the Mac.

Agree, that's why I focussed on the non-Pro platforms. Easier to compare apples with apples (o ****, pardon the pun...)

 

[burntproduce]

I hate getting into the PC vs Mac flame war so consider my 2c merely for the benefit of anybody who's interested. About this so called: "macs just work" thing you hear all time - it's a lie, a lie based on semi-truth and great marketing spin. What gives me the authority to say this? I work in a recording studio/production house with no less than 6 macs and i'm the go to guy when one of them stops working (*which basically means i'm better at searching google than anybody else in the building*). Bottom line is macs are still pc's. Add enough variables into the mix and eventually things will fall over. I find this all the time when third party audio plug-ins refuse to play nicely with Logic (Mac's professional recording application).

Now time to contradict myself: Macs probably work most of the time for your average user - precisely because the variables are limited. Most people use their macs for dedicated purposes like video editing through out the lifespan of the machine, or least stick in large to apple software applications. That helps cut down on the plethora of bloatware and various apps that finds it way onto a home pc, not to mention the fact macs are pretty much spyware proof. Futhermore Apple maintains tight control over which hardware components are used and sticks to a unified operating system with a clear update structure (which frankly annoys the crap out of me, the updates are always freaking huge - i suppose they reckon if you can afford a mac you'd have proper broadband ). I guess an analogy would be something along the lines of a bloated firefox (my home pc) with tons of extensions versus a stripped down browser like chrome (my macs at work). Chrome might be much better at gmail (say macs running hd editing software - although in this particular case that software [final cut] is only available on mac, which weighs considerably into the equation) but firefox does so much of what i need from a browser (like a pc with games and lets be honest - warez and all the other crap under the sun i use my pc for). At the end of the day decide what you need your computer for and choose your flavour... for me its windows xp at home all the way. Macs at work because firstly i'm not paying for them and secondly because Logic Pro and Final Cut are great programs.