I am currently a PC guy for my photography business. I build my own PC's. Currently have a Core2Duo 6700 with 4g of ram. I am mostly doing photoshop CS3 and some business apps like Quickbooks pro. I am thinking of going to an imac. Can anyone share any experiences, either positive or negative? I guess my biggest drawback is the investment in software that I currently own in PC.
Thanks
mac for me, but then, I got my first one in 1987 and have been on them ever since. My first job in graphic design/art direction at an ad agency in 1992 macs were all they used and still mostly do. I love aperture, use quickbooks and adobe CS3 premium.
Leopard, the current Mac operating system, has a built-in utility called bootcamp, which will allow you to install XP on a separate partition on you hard drive. You can then run your windows-specific software in a native windows environment on your Mac.
From a PC guy going to an IMac. Would I do it again? Answer, in hindsight, I should have gone to a Mac Pro. The switch? of course. Life is a lot easier.
No need to worry about viruses or adware.
Nice suite of integrated applications (iLife).
Nicely designed hardware.
Shareware applications tend to be better designed.
An intelligently designed OS (adding a network laser printer is a breeze).
PCs:
They're cheap. But you know what they say: "You get what you pay for."
Vista has been an absolute disaster across the board and XP is not any good, either. The viruses are horrendous, adding software can be impossible, NOT user-friendly and the best PC will only last a few years.
Ben Horne wrote:
I would have a hard time spending ANY money on a PC. Yuck.
Macs are a joy to use.
Here's a word of wisdom about the what you hear from the fanboys out there on either side (Yes, I'm a mac fanboy).
1) Those who vocally support Mac computers have almost always used both PCs as well as Macs, and chose to buy a Mac.
Exactly. I used PCs all my life (I'm 20) and switched to Mac after I got into journalism in high school (and my brother had a lot to do with it, as well) (we had 2 labs with 25 Macs, 24" monitors, the whole deal...)
bdickers wrote:
Leopard, the current Mac operating system, has a built-in utility called bootcamp, which will allow you to install XP on a separate partition on you hard drive. You can then run your windows-specific software in a native windows environment on your Mac.
I do this for a few PC specific games and software for my classes. It's great!
No need to worry about viruses or adware.
Nice suite of integrated applications (iLife).
Nicely designed hardware.
Shareware applications tend to be better designed.
An intelligently designed OS (adding a network laser printer is a breeze).
PCs:
They're cheap. But you know what they say: "You get what you pay for."
Vista has been an absolute disaster across the board and XP is not any good, either. The viruses are horrendous, adding software can be impossible, NOT user-friendly and the best PC will only last a few years.
I've used Macs before and I am a PC user. Mind, I consider myself an advance user.
I don't have any stability issues, adware issues,virus issues and my pc is just as fast as a Mac.
I don't use shareware and adding a network laser printer takes seconds...
Most users who praise Macs don't know much about computers. I do agree that Macs are more user friendly ,and that seems to be the reason why lots of people like them.
I can do lots of other things on my pc that you can't do on Mac and that's the reason I am with it.
Oh and if you are mainly use your computer for Web and Photoshop I see no single reason to switch.
DmitriM wrote:
Most users who praise Macs don't know much about computers.
Ha. You're funny.
Speaking for myself: I am an advanced user who has done web design, extensive gaming, golf course design, photo editing, page layouts. I will always use a Mac (except gaming....)
DmitriM, you said:
"I can do lots of other things on my pc that you can't do on Mac and that's the reason I am with it." Uh, I thought you said "there are no differences".
jmphotography: It is possible to switch your CS3 license from Windows to Mac. Adobe customer service: 800-833-6687. If you do go with an iMac, the 24" screens are noticeably better than the 20 inch (especially when comparing the lower one-third of the screen). The only thing that worries me about the iMac is that RAM maxes out at 4GB; in a couple years that won't be enough. But so far so good. The Leopard interface is a pleasure to use, Time Machine is fabulous, CS3 and LR run great.
DmitriM wrote:
Most users who praise Macs don't know much about computers. I do agree that Macs are more user friendly ,and that seems to be the reason why lots of people like them.
I can do lots of other things on my pc that you can't do on Mac and that's the reason I am with it.
Mac OSX is for serious computer geeks too if they know their UNIX commands. The Terminal app gives them unprecedented control over their system. It's pretty amazing given Apple's history of keeping users out of their system's guts, but only the tech savvy users would even go poking around for this stuff. Pretty cool to have UNIX native stuff running on a Mac, for the uber-geeks. Not that Windows can't do this stuff too, but fact is, Mac is as much for geeks as it is for people who don't want to mess with the nuts and bolts.
Re: software investment, like it was already mentioned above, you can get your existing licenses transferred to Mac versions to use on the new machine. If adding another computer to your office desktop and keeping the old computer for use as well, you'd have to purchase new software licenses anyway regardless of Mac or PC... unless one of those systems was a laptop for use when away from the office, when only one copy of the license would be used at any particular time.
Hmm..this argument is still rearing it's ugly head?
I'm an I.T. professional for a local school district. No, not a pro-photographer but I do have some oppinions on the matter.
In the I.T. field Macs are cost prohibitive, at least for us. Even for our students desktops. That includes multiple 3D design (Cad and such) labs, two A/V labs that broadcast their work around two high schools and countless other typing and application labs. The A/V labs do have a couple of Macs, but this is mainly so students can get used to both systems since the reason for taking this class is obvious. They want to go into this field.
That being said, Macs are fine machines. They now (for several years) have integrated linux/unix into their opperating system and it's all smooth and pretty. It's easy to use and that's all great.
But, Vista is pretty easy to use as well. Microsoft has always had a habbit of releasing software early and using us as beta testers. usually after SP1 or SP2 everything is ironed out and working fine. This is a crappy way to do business, but it's usually the brand new desktops that people purchase on the home consumer market that fill this need. Most professionals (including our department) hold off until things are stable and known problems are fixed.
Vista is a fine opperating system. I've been doing this gig since Windows 3.11 and I'm no Microsoft fanboy. But I feel that the software and hardware freedom that PC gives a user is far superior than that of Mac.
"You get what you pay for" is a useless and meaningless phrase. It doesn't apply 100% of the time and is a snooty way of calling someone "cheap". I personally would rather have the freedoms that come with the PC platform than the expense and restrictions (that's right, restrictions) that comes with the Mac platform. And let us not forget that viruses do exsist for Mac, just not as many. Why? Because a hacker can't get famous designing viruses for an opperating system with only a fraction of the user base. They want massive damage and you go for the most visible guy on the block for that.
It's pretty cool that Mac can run Windows on a seperate partition or using other software. Windows could do the same as well if users really felt the need to use the Mac OS. I mean, what can you do with an expensive shiny Mac that you can't with a PC? Game, oh wait...that's the other way around. On average it's like 6 months later for major game releases on Mac and most hardware (sound and video) manufactures treat Mac like a red headed step child.
You might think I don't like Macs, but I do. I just think they are stupidly over priced. They offer absolutely no benifit over PC with the acception of the user interface, and I wouldn't really call it a benifit but more of a preference. If a user is used to the Mac's user interface of the PC's, then it would be a benifit for them to use the Mac.
When it all boils down, you are buying a PC with a Mac OS on it. For years everyone was tooting their horns about how awesome Mac/Apple hardware and software was and PC sucked and was only used because people couldn't afford a Mac. But wait a minute, Mac's use hardware pioneerd for the PC/Windows market, right? Same Processor, slots, ram, sound and video bus and so forth? What happened to SCSI and Risc processors? What happened to what made a Mac unique? Oh, it's just the OS now. In fact, you can even run OSx on a PC.
If Mac/Apple were so great, why don't they just build a version for PC users and make money off of the (apparently) millions wanting to jump ship from Windows?
Instead we have hackers that do this job for Mr. Jobs.
Like I said, Mac OS is nice and I like it. I like Macs too, but for the money they do not excite me in the least.
I actually will be building one of the Hackintoshes to familiarize myself with the Mac OS even more. We have no one in our district (In our department) that knows anything about Macs. So I guess I'll be a step up, even though I think we have maybe 15 district wide.
I am a Graphic Designer as well as a Photographer. Mac is a necessity in my field. The Mac is used in every higher educational institution that offer degrees in Graphic Design as well as Photography. Most creative professionals use Apple computers. They are well designed with form and function in mind. It is not a coincidence that the Mac operating system and Apple computers are built and supported by the same company. Apple offers the best support in the industry and the fact that can run Windows just adds to their usability.
Ben Horne wrote:
1) Those who vocally support Mac computers have almost always used both PCs as well as Macs, and chose to buy a Mac.
2) Those who vocally support PC computers usually have not used a Mac.
There's absolutely no truth to these statements -- if anything, vocal supporters of Windows (PC is an archaic way to denote a Windows computer) have tended to use a variety of systems including Mac, Windows, and perhaps an open source option such as Linux.
People who are NOT vocal supporters of either system have tended to use Windows computers exclusively.
ghouston13 wrote:
If Mac/Apple were so great, why don't they just build a version for PC users and make money off of the (apparently) millions wanting to jump ship from Windows?
There is a lot of money to be made in proprietarily linking Apple software with hardware. It also decreases compatibility issues as developers only have to write code for a specific hardware set.
Not to mention that the cache of owning a Mac is not in using Mac OS but having physical possession of the branded machines.
Not that Windows can't do this stuff too, but fact is, Mac is as much for geeks as it is for people who don't want to mess with the nuts and bolts.