Why I went Mac

cablemonkey said:
When will people learn to not switch to a new MS OS until at least the 2nd service pack... *sigh*
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Leopard, 2 "service packs" within 3 months of initial release.
Vista, no service packs (AFAIK) 1 year after release.

So who's on the ball here?
 
I hope you have success with your Mac. My only experience with Apple is having an Ipod , which looks great, works well, and until a few months ago I thought that Apple was the best.

Then a strange thing happened, my 4GB Ipod Nano died after about 16 months of moderate use, mainly in the Bose Sound system. After a few days of trying to restore it, without success, I thought, well thats okay, take it to the local Apple agent "Core" and get it fixed.

To summarise, the response I got was that "it is out of the warranty period and they do not fix Nano's, so they only thing I must do is buy a new one."

Apparently, after doing some research on internet, an Ipod has a life span of a few years.

Now, I find this unacceptable, and if this is correct then the public at large should know about this, because to buy an Ipod and write it off over a few years turns out to be an expensive exercise. In my case it has cost me R125 per month. And if I do not buy another one to use in my Bose, then it will have cost me R375 per month over the 16 month period. To me, that is expensive and never mind that I did the stupid thing of converting all my music into Apple format. Should have stuck to MP3.

I have told "Core" (Apple) that I am considering taking them to the small claims court as they are selling a product that either has a limited life span, and if so, they should disclose that when selling, or there is a latent defect.

All I wanted was for them to repair it, and I was prepaired to pay for the repair, so the least they should do is provide a facility to do repairs to Ipods.

So, the question is : Is Apple rotten to the "Core" ? no pun intended

It looks like I posted this in the wrong thread and topic, so I will create a thread elswhere on the forum
 
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bwana said:
Sure - I got that but I'm trying to figure out how it ties in with the thread. :o

I'll figure it out eventually. It's early and I'm still on my first cup of coffee :)
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was referring to Vice calling MS a one-stop shop
 
neio said:
Leopard, 2 "service packs" within 3 months of initial release.
Vista, no service packs (AFAIK) 1 year after release.

So who's on the ball here?
Click to expand...

So Apple are a bit more prompt with their SP's. Your point?
 
neio said:
Leopard, 2 "service packs" within 3 months of initial release.
Vista, no service packs (AFAIK) 1 year after release.
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Ah.. but you forgot:
Linux, patches and updates every other hour.. :p

If you care for compiling that is.. ;)

Personally I'm quite happy with Fedora Core ... an entire new version every 6 months.. :)
 
OS wars always such interesting things. It really all boils down to cost versus ease of doing what you need to do.

As great as I think Linux, there are things which it can't do that the mac and windows can provide from a professional pov. gaming for instance is the domain for windows. for simple home users that need office type functionality, browsing and viewing video/pictures, linux should be more than enough.

if i had the spare cash i would buy myself a mac to really play with it and see what it does. as it stands my cost/benefit analysis means that that day is still far away. but i have to say that it looks bloody great. hence why my linux installs now look mac-ish.
 
Still too expensive for what you get, although very pretty ;)

On Vista, it's gotten a deservedly bad rep, but there's actually a heck of a lot of good in it. Voice control? Full Media Centre capabilities? Pity they didn't take the high road on performance.
 
The service packs can't really be used as a argument because one can argue them either way: Either "they are asleep" or "the original was good enough to not need massive fixing every X months".
 
HavocXphere said:
The service packs can't really be used as a argument because one can argue them either way: Either "they are asleep" or "the original was good enough to not need massive fixing every X months".
Click to expand...

Oh right. Except that only one of those statements applies to Vista.
 
Turtle said:
In the US, around 30% of home computer purchases are now Macs, and customer satisfaction surveys that over 80% of Mac owners are "very satisfied" with their systems - compared with only 61% for PCs.
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Good point and very true. They do make good systems, use good components. Everything Apple puts their name to, they do well. Most people just want a computer that works out the box and looks good, without having to get their fingers dirty. And are willing to pay a bit more for this luxury. No wonder sales are increasing. For those whom do like to delve in deeper, get more hands-on with assembly, considerations for future upgrade routes, custom install an OS etc, I really can't see why the Apple is worth paying for and relevant to my case.
 
Most people on this forum are pretty IT literate, so PC / Linux is a good route, as you have the knowledge to maintain / diagnose / fix issues that occur. But as to your average Joe whom either has no knowledge, or no inclination, a Mac is probably a better route to go (than vs XP anyway - I'll not comment on Linux as I have no experience). More reliable. You must also remember that this is largely not to do with the OS, but that a lot of people buy PC's using cheap components and willingly choosing to go the cheap route (hell, some even get a copy of XP pre-installed when they've not paid for and thefore cannot apply updates / patches - further leading to the risk of issues and dissatisfaction). Point is, you get what you pay for!!
 
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Mac OS X

Did anyone mention that the reason why Apple is able to make such significant advancements in the first place - is that in just about everything they do they rely on open source software. Mac OS X is nothing more than Berkley Unix with a fancy GUI slapped on it. Lets face it - Apple is more of a marketing company these days than an engineering company... and a good job of it they are doing!
 
Turtle said:
Hate to break it to you, but there's a lot more to the increasing success of the Mac than just marketing hype ... seems you're a bit behind the curve, but I guess you'll eventually realise once it becomes blindingly obvious and their success too commonplace to ignore. In the US, around 30% of home computer purchases are now Macs, and customer satisfaction surveys that over 80% of Mac owners are "very satisfied" with their systems - compared with only 61% for PCs. I guess you'll assume that every one of those people has just fallen for hype, and that they're all idiots unable to evaluate their own real-world day-to-day experiences on their systems. Whatever. I'm afraid the cliches and stereotypes about Mac users back when they represented a miniscule percentage of the market are now hopelessly out of date, you'll have to get some new cliches. Amazing what a marketing company can make you believe, i.e. Microsoft's marketing team have manipulated so many people into believing anyone who defends a Mac should be derided for drinking Steve's 'Kool-Aid' - how childish. They did very well at that, and yet in SPITE of these ignorant artificial obstacles, Mac is succeeding.

Anyway, Macs are certainly a bit more expensive in terms of upfront purchase price, but I worked out the other day that, based on the amount of time I've WASTED trying to get even *basic* things to work on my Vista system, in terms of opportunity costs, it would've been much cheaper to go for a Mac back when I bought my current system. In other words, as they used to say about Linux, PCs are only cheaper if your time has no value. Sorry, but my time does.
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lol, you fell for it :D

You obviously don't know how i like to make fun now and again with the mac crowd (see apple forum)

just btw, apple only has 5% marketshare of the computing world (well, according to Leo Laporte)
 
jamieb said:
Did anyone mention that the reason why Apple is able to make such significant advancements in the first place - is that in just about everything they do they rely on open source software. Mac OS X is nothing more than Berkley Unix with a fancy GUI slapped on it. Lets face it - Apple is more of a marketing company these days than an engineering company... and a good job of it they are doing!
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Actually, DARWIN(the core) is open source, all the apps that you get with you Mac are not seeing as they are developed in house.

Dont forget that Linus Torvalds developed Linux simply because he was not aware that BSD existed.
 
In other words you can run the core, DARWIN on any PC you want to(not sure bout SPARC or other)
 
jamieb said:
Did anyone mention that the reason why Apple is able to make such significant advancements in the first place - is that in just about everything they do they rely on open source software. Mac OS X is nothing more than Berkley Unix with a fancy GUI slapped on it. Lets face it - Apple is more of a marketing company these days than an engineering company... and a good job of it they are doing!
Click to expand...

The heart of Mac OS X is the Mach kernel - from Nextstep, the object-oriented operating system that made the NeXT (that other visionary company that Steve Jobs founded, and then bought when he returned to Apple) so far ahead of its time. The BSD Unix compatibility is in line with Apple's philosophy of using standards (unlike M$) but there's plenty of real development behind Mac OS X, and you are really missing the point if you describe everything that came from Nextstep as "nothing more than BSD Unix". The Mach kernel is also used on the iPhone - which should give you some idea of how solid and reliable a platform it is. (Imagine an iPhone with Vista - the speed and stability alone would make it unusable.)

It's very easy just to write off the real software engineering and design that's gone into making Apple what it is today as "Unix with a fancy GUI". That's a bit like suggesting that one can slap a Ferrari together if you can find a big enough engine and a fancy fibre glass chassis.

Just to make my point, I am typing this on an iMac, running Leopard (Mac OS 10.5), with a few virtual machines running in on the same machine under VMWare (two versions of MS Windows, Solaris, Ubuntu Linux), and networked to a real live NeXT, dating from 1990, still running what is very clearly the ancestor of Mac OS X (Nextstep). Remember what MS Windows looked like in 1990 (Windows 3.0, which was, at the time, a fancy GUI slapped on top of MS-DO - the first real OS under Windows came with Windows NT in the late 1990s) and then think about what Apple has really done.
 
cablemonkey said:
When will people learn to not switch to a new MS OS until at least the 2nd service pack... *sigh*
Click to expand...
Uh, cablemonkey, I develop and sell software - I *HAVE TO* get it working on Vista.

So you're blaming the users now, not Microsoft, for Microsoft's crap? That's lame.
 
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