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Italo Campilii
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p.4 #1 · PC or Mac????

APERTURE MAKES MY LIFE EASIER.

WENT FOR MAC, NEVER GO BACK.

Jul 16, 2008 at 10:32 PM

digipete
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p.4 #2 · PC or Mac????

I praise the Mac and use it at home.
And as far as pc's I am a MCSE have been since NT was at version 3.5.

I support pc's all day, my 12 year old daughter has a Mac and never once in 5 years have I had to do anything other then upgrade the OS.

Yes both platforms run applications equally well.
But for peace of mind, less grief get the Mac.

Edited on Jul 16, 2008 at 10:39 PM

Jul 16, 2008 at 10:38 PM

zuiu
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p.4 #3 · PC or Mac????

People going from Mac to PC or PC to Mac as a cause as to why one or the other is better, is irrelevant.

When something isn't working for you (the reason why is debatable) obviously you're going to like whatever you're changing to. You like it simply because it's not what you were previously using. In that, you overlook any flaws that may or may not exist with the new system simply because it's not the old system.

Another gripe I have with Mac is the way they advertise. Their advertisements make PC users look like idiotic tool bags.

Jul 16, 2008 at 11:33 PM

sbay
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p.4 #4 · PC or Mac????

Having used both mac & pc's, I would say that the design of the mac os and helper programs is much better thought out than windows in ways that result in substantial time savings. For example, consider what happens when you get a new computer. On the mac -- just plug in the time machine backup and run migration assistant. Total time, a few minutes. On the pc -- find all your cd's for your software and reinstall them one at a time. Figure out where all your preference files are for your programs and copy them over manually or go into the program and redo them. Total time, several hours.

Jul 17, 2008 at 03:50 AM

butchM
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p.4 #5 · PC or Mac????

zuiu wrote:

Another gripe I have with Mac is the way they advertise. Their advertisements make PC users look like idiotic tool bags.

Art imitating life?

Just joking of course ....

Jul 17, 2008 at 05:14 AM

sino408
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p.4 #6 · PC or Mac????

mdude85 wrote:
sino408 wrote:

My MacBook is plastic while virtually every PC laptop manufacturer has a magnesium alloy model.

The very popular Dell Latitude and Precision laptop models have a full magnesium alloy chasses while the Dell XPS and Vostro laptops have plastic chasses.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/notebooks?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&~tab=2

I never said Macbook have metal chasses, I said Macbook Pro has them. Additionally, while a good portion of chasses in laptops have magnesium alloy, many are sticking to plastics. And with rising prices on metal commodities, you will see some major manufacturers either raising prices or moving back to rigid plastic (perhaps made from derivatives of HDPE)

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20080521PD212.html

You have missed the point, completely. What I was addressing is the fact that both PC manufacturers and Mac laptops have low-end and high-end models. So buying one type of OS based on the availability of alloy chassis is a moot point. Use what you are familiar with and don't use what you are not...

Jul 17, 2008 at 07:47 AM

Kyle Yates
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p.4 #7 · PC or Mac????

Ad Nauseam.

Same type of argument -- BMW / Ferrari / Mercedes / Generic Truck Pick up.

Use what you like.

Performance wise you won't see a huge amount of difference in a Mac or PC these days for typical applications.

You'll probably get a larger software selection to run on a PC than a mac but for 99% of people out there performance won't be hugely different.

This is due to the fact that most "Human" interaction with a computer is via a keyboard (even when using Photoshop this is true). Even an old fashioned 8-bit CPU will wait on keyboard I/O.

A keyboard is probably the slowest I/O device ever invented (although a necessary one). So you really won't notice any difference on typically keyboard intensive applications.

For most users running essentially Office type apps (Spreadsheet, Word Processing, Power point / presentation type of stuff) you won't notice ANY DIFFERENCE.

Just go these days for the PC / MAC you like to use and select it on for example user Interface, design of the computer, software / applications available etc etc.

Note if you are an XP user Windows will only see 3GB of RAM however much you've installed -- not a real problem for most users.

VISTA is a total dog -- I wouldn't recommend you to use this OS on ANY equipment.

- Slow, disks spinning all over the place doing goodness knows what even if you aren't actually running anything, and if you have the 64 bit version you won't be able to use / load any legacy / 32 bit drivers / network 32 bit drivers --so your nice network / shared printers won't work. Loads of the Epson Photo stylus stuff only have 32 bit drivers so you are stymied here again if you are using windows vista -ANY 64 bit version).

I think the Windows / Mac confrontation is a dead issue these days --just pick the machine you are confortable with and use it.

Now that you can run Windows on Intel MACS you can always create a Virtual machine running Windows XP on a Mac to run the Windows software you want.

Cheers

-K

Edited on Jul 17, 2008 at 08:10 PM

Jul 17, 2008 at 08:02 PM

mauriceramirez
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p.4 #8 · PC or Mac????

Here's one difference...

AAPL $174/share.
MSFT $28/share.

-m

Edited on Jul 18, 2008 at 01:41 AM

Jul 18, 2008 at 01:40 AM

butchM
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p.4 #9 · PC or Mac????

Apple now third largest PC vendor in the U.S.
According to a Gartner survey, Apple has toppled Acer after recording a 38.1 percent growth rate in U.S. PC shipments

Source = Info World

Apple may have shipped record 2.54 million Macs in third quarter

Source = Apple Insider

Sure Apple still only has a small share of the market, but their growth rate is much healthier than the competition.
Seems as though more and more customers are not buying the reasons not to buy a Mac.

Edited by butchM on Jul 17, 2008 at 10:13 PM GMT

Edited on Jul 18, 2008 at 02:13 AM

Jul 18, 2008 at 02:11 AM

dan727
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p.4 #10 · PC or Mac????

mauriceramirez wrote:
Here's one difference...

AAPL $174/share.
MSFT $28/share.

-m

But whats the P/E ratio of AAPL versus MSFT?

Jul 18, 2008 at 02:12 AM

zuiu
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p.4 #11 · PC or Mac????

butchM wrote:
Apple now third largest PC vendor in the U.S.
According to a Gartner survey, Apple has toppled Acer after recording a 38.1 percent growth rate in U.S. PC shipments

Source = Info World

Apple may have shipped record 2.54 million Macs in third quarter

Source = Apple Insider

Sure Apple still only has a small share of the market, but their growth rate is much healthier than the competition.
Seems as though more and more customers are not buying the reasons not to buy a Mac.

Edited by butchM on Jul 17, 2008 at 10:13 PM GMT

And with the way Mac does it's advertising, most are buying into Mac for the wrong reasons.

Jul 18, 2008 at 02:19 AM

zuiu
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p.4 #12 · PC or Mac????

Also, Apple owes it's stock prices to the iPod and iPhone. Not their PC's.

Not trying to say Mac isn't a good product. But a spade's a spade.

Jul 18, 2008 at 02:20 AM

butchM
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p.4 #13 · PC or Mac????

zuiu wrote:
And with the way Mac does it's advertising, most are buying into Mac for the wrong reasons.

If that were true, why is their customer satisfaction rating at or near the top of the industry? If their ads were indeed misleading ... wouldn't there be a lot of unhappy customers? Wouldn't their PC sales be dwindling instead of growing?

As far as the iPod and iPhone go ..... tell me Dell or HP or even Bill Gates wouldn't want that slice of the pie. Sure those items have certainly helped out the bottom line but their computer sales growth is around twice that of the competition for the past two quarters. How ironic that a satisfied iPod or iPhone user would want to make the jump to a Mac for their computing needs. Sounds like sound marketing to me. I mean a million iPhones in three days ... running OS X ... betcha that will influence even more computer sales for Apple in the coming months.

I don't see Apple catching up to the masses, but the current growth they are experiencing sure does contradict what many of the nay sayers would like us to believe.

Jul 18, 2008 at 02:44 AM

zuiu
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p.4 #14 · PC or Mac????

I'm sure they would love a slice of the pie, but in regards to macs, they have had a small effect on the share prices. So when share prices of Apple are posted in a thread about their computers... it's irrelevant.

As for customer satisfaction, I'm sure it is high. However when an ad depicts a system as "virus proof" like Mac commercials do, that is misleading. Macs aren't virus proof, it's just that nobody cares to make viruses for Macs. Mac commercials depend on sheep to believe what's crammed down their throat. They can't say Macs are good computers because no one cares, so are PC's. So Apple has to say something else to get people to buy them.

Apple is doing good due to the ipod. If it weren't for the ipod, macs would hardly exist today.

Jul 18, 2008 at 03:52 AM

butchM
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p.4 #15 · PC or Mac????

zuiu wrote:Apple is doing good due to the ipod. If it weren't for the ipod, macs would hardly exist today.

Guess you missed this fact in my earlier post:

According to a Gartner survey, Apple has toppled Acer after recording a 38.1 percent growth rate in U.S. PC shipments

That was 38.1% increase in computer sales .... not iPod sales. During the same period, Dell only had a 11.9% increase ...... read the linked article, (or a number of other sources on the net about this report).

Jul 18, 2008 at 04:20 AM

lordarka
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p.4 #16 · PC or Mac????

zuiu wrote:
Being a systems analyst, I can't comment on Macs as I've never used them.

Isn't that what you're doing in the following?

To say "Macs don't get virii" "Vista is a crap shoot"

Is wrong.

Mac's don't have virii because malicious people who make virii want the most for their dollar. Therefore they make virii for PC's. If everyone bought a mac, trust me, you'd have virii problems quickly.

If there are no virii out there for the Mac, then they don't get virii.. at least at the moment. While it may be true that Mac market share needs to increase to some threshold before they become more viable targets, they don't have that market share now; quite frankly, I hope they never do. Either way, if there are no virii for the Mac, they don't get them... how is the prior statement wrong?

Complaints about Vista. I'll say this to anyone who says Vista is a crap shoot, whether you're pro-PC, pro-Mac, or don't give a hoot. You get out of Vista/XP what you put into Vista/XP. If you don't know what you're doing, it will suck and you will jack it up with downloads, spyware, malware.

The nice thing about MacOS is that you can make the same mistakes that would get you spyware, downloads, and malware on a Vista PC, and not get spyware, downloads and Malware. Similarly, if you know do know what you are doing on a MacOS computer, there's no sunk cost in learning "what you're doing" to avoid things that most users simply should not have to avoid.

However I have noticed with Mac users is they tend to have the same smugness that Hybrid owners have. A lot of them think they are superior simply because they have a Mac. So if anything, I like Macs, but a lot of their fans are irritating.

Carry on.

One could say about Windows users as well, though to be fair, some of us do tend to irritate. Not a real problem for me, provided that such irritation carries with it accurate information.

Arka C.

Jul 18, 2008 at 07:22 AM

lordarka
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p.4 #17 · PC or Mac????

zuiu wrote:
Also, Apple owes it's stock prices to the iPod and iPhone. Not their PC's.

Not trying to say Mac isn't a good product. But a spade's a spade.

Mac is where Apple's profits are, and stocks rise on profits and potentiality. iPods are a low margin product, and iPhone is a relatively low margin product. And the truth of the matter is that Apple's stock was in the $160 range before iPhone was even announced.

As a person who by his own admission does not use Apple products, own AAPL stock, or follow the company's financials, you sure have a lot of pseudo-educated commentary to make. Despite your antipathy toward Mac users or Apple advertising, neither the community nor the commercials define the usefulness or appeal of the platform, or the soundness of the company. On the soundness of massive Mac profits and expanding growth in Mac sales, Apple has accumulated a cash reserve almost as large as Microsoft's. Yet you have more to say about what kind of product the Mac is, or so it seems...

In keeping with your supposedly unbiased commentary, I love this zinger of a comment:

zuiu wrote:
People going from Mac to PC or PC to Mac as a cause as to why one or the other is better, is irrelevant.

When something isn't working for you (the reason why is debatable) obviously you're going to like whatever you're changing to. You like it simply because it's not what you were previously using. In that, you overlook any flaws that may or may not exist with the new system simply because it's not the old system.

Your remarks indicate that no one who makes a switch could be doing it because another platform is actually better. You also indicate that they would embrace the latter system's flaws, and that their "debatable" reason for switching might not be driven by real platform advantages.

It is pure speculation and utter nonsense to presume that everyone who makes the decision to choose a new system over an older one cannot be moving to a system that is superior to what they were using before. That's fallacious, and rests on the questionable assumption that no two computers sharing common components could nonetheless be different in measurable ways.

Arka C.

Edited by lordarka on Jul 18, 2008 at 03:44 PM GMT

Edited on Jul 18, 2008 at 07:44 AM

Jul 18, 2008 at 07:40 AM

globalkiwi
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p.4 #18 · PC or Mac????

Boy, a lot of vitriol here! People obviously get very attached to their chosen technology. I am an IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad fan - have had about 7 now - who has also owned & used several Macs (& recommended them to friends & family). Both are good, both have their strengths & weaknesses - it really depends on your specific usage patterns & preferences. Unfortunately, you are going to get more heat than light with that question here. My advice is to is to borrow or rent a Mac & give it a whirl, you will relatively soon know if it's for you - or not.

Jul 18, 2008 at 07:43 AM

ShutterLover
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p.4 #19 · PC or Mac????

I've used Macs for personal use since the 90s and Mac or PCs at work. Before Mac OS X it was a case of the mac GUI being nicer to use but other than that the PC was okay and overtaking in many areas.Apple as a company looked like it was slowly fading away -so much so that some big publishing users were migrating to PCs simply to avoid being caught out by a supposed Apple demise.

Since Mac OS X (aka neXtstep revamped) the Mac just makes the PC look years out of date, just like footage of neXtstep now looks late-90s, not early 90s. Mac OS X is just the best OS around - a solid-as-a-rock mainstream granny-can-use it everyday OS that runs all the open source and unix software you're ever likely to want. Saying XP or Vista's as good as Mac OS X because of this or that feature is like saying a Kia's as good as a Merc because they both have a sunroof, cd player and electric windows.

That said, there's plnety about Apple that I don't like. The range just doesn't have enough models and they are too wedded to the iMac concept.

Want your own monitor and you need an underpowered Mini or a brutally powerful and brutally expensive Mac Pro.

Also, the MacBook should probably be a bit cheaper and have a proper graphics card. A premium for a Mac OS X computer's worth paying, but not when that premium's excessive.

The Mac Book Pro's nice but ever since the titanium Powerbook, Apple's pro line of laptops have been the flimsiest around. Style over build.

Still, Mac OS X is so darned good you only shoot yourself in the foot my using a PC instead.

Jul 18, 2008 at 10:47 AM

mdude85
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p.4 #20 · PC or Mac????

lordarka wrote:

The nice thing about MacOS is that you can make the same mistakes that would get you spyware, downloads, and malware on a Vista PC, and not get spyware, downloads and Malware. Similarly, if you know do know what you are doing on a MacOS computer, there's no sunk cost in learning "what you're doing" to avoid things that most users simply should not have to avoid.

It is not as if Apple has created some sort of gatekeeper making Macs immune to spyware, malware, trojans, etc. The truth of the matter is that no malware junkie is going to spend hours writing a bot for a system having less than 10% market share when he can spend the same amount of time writing a bot that will exploit a system with 90% market share.

I believe you said almost this exact same comment yourself, further noting that when Mac's market share rises, it's vulnerabilities will be exposed. And it is true. Apple has conducted its own internal studies, some having been published, citing many security loopholes that have not been exploited simply because no one has bothered to exploit them.

There are a lot of reasons to buy a Mac, but I don't really see this as one of them unless your logic hinges on the notion that Apple computers will never become popular enough to be exploited.

Also, margins on the iPod and iPhone -- especially on the old $400 iPhone -- are quite high, tending toward 50%. I believe I read somewhere that a $249 iPod nano costs around $120 to make. Perhaps you are thinking of Apple TV, which has a fairly low margin anywhere from 10%-30%.

Jul 18, 2008 at 03:04 PM

zuiu
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p.4 #21 · PC or Mac????

lorddarka, look at apple stock prices prior to the ipod release.

The ipod created momentum (huge momentum) for Apple to create a counter culture for Mac. Many people switched to the Mac simply because they didn't like PC's (which is fine, everyone has preferences) however many people (I never said all, as you're suggesting) have gone to Mac for false reasons. The biggest is the security threats to the system, and as someone has pointed out... they aren't exploited because it's not worth someone's time to do so. Their advertising exploits this fallacy and does so to great advantage because a lot of consumers are sheep.

I've yet to say one thing bad about Macs. I've said many times they are good computers. I've said many times they are no different than PC's. Only problems I have is with their advertising. Their selling point is a fallacy.

Jul 18, 2008 at 03:35 PM

Kyle Yates
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p.4 #22 · PC or Mac????

This type of discussion probably has run its course - BMW / Merc / Jaguar / Audi -- all great cars just choose the one which you prefer (and can afford).

Arguments about screen colours / monitor sizes etc etc are really irrelevant these days as certainly with Windows (not a system I like BTW) you can fit almost any piece of hardware on this planet to it and the system will (eventually) work.

Graphic cards and Monitors are just SUPERB these days (if you buy the correct hardware) so switching to a Mac just because of potentially better colour etc is a false reason. At a price you can always get specialist graphic cards etc etc.

Software and hardware ergonomics should be the primary criteria here. Combine this with your own preferred workflow and then make your choice.

Note however Windows XP (and earlier) 32 bit will only see a max of 3GB RAM however much you've installed and I think OS X will see up to 4GB.

I tend to run Windows Virtual machines under a 64 bit Linux (Suse 11.0) on an 8GB quad machine --the Virtual machines run at a speed I can't discern from normal native speed (i.e Windows running on a REAL machine and not booted up as a Virtual Guest operating system) and the SUSE 64 bit operating system CAN use the entire 8GB RAM.

Incidentally MAC users CAN run windows on their machines (Intel based) if they use BOOTCAMP or some type of vm software (parallels, vmware etc) so in theory they could have the best of BOTH worlds.

The MAC vs PC discussion regularly crops up and is really 100% irrelevant these days.

so use WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT and ENJOY.

Cheers

-K

Edited on Jul 18, 2008 at 08:33 PM

Jul 18, 2008 at 08:30 PM

butchM
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p.4 #23 · PC or Mac????

Kyle Yates wrote:
The MAC vs PC discussion regularly crops up and is really 100% irrelevant these days.

If that were true ... how did you find the time or inclination to respond with 9 paragraphs on the subject??

zuiu wrote:

The ipod created momentum (huge momentum) for Apple to create a counter culture for Mac.

Of course the iPod has had an impact on the technology world we live in, HOWEVER, the iPod is NOT the sole reason for Apple's current market share ... hence the 30%+ increase in computer sales ..... NUMBERS don't lie ... they are .... what they are ...

Jul 19, 2008 at 04:09 AM

Kyle Yates
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p.4 #24 · PC or Mac????

butchM wrote:
Kyle Yates wrote:
The MAC vs PC discussion regularly crops up and is really 100% irrelevant these days.

If that were true ... how did you find the time or inclination to respond with 9 paragraphs on the subject??

Was doing some photoshop work and sitting in front of the computer with thumbs twidlling waiting for batch workflow processes to finish.

Also there are some people out there today who just don't realize how much cheaper and better ALL hardware has got in the last 2 years -- a single relatively cheap laptop today contains far more computing power than ALL the combatants had at their disposal during the entire period of WWII (and including some years after it) combined.

Believe me I'm only on the Net when I am actually doing some proper work on the computer -- I've got far better things to do when I don't need to be on a computer -- Like taking photos for example.
Cheers

-K

Edited on Jul 19, 2008 at 07:58 AM

Jul 19, 2008 at 07:57 AM

sbay
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p.4 #25 · PC or Mac????

Kyle Yates wrote:
Performance wise you won't see a huge amount of difference in a Mac or PC these days for typical applications.

If you define performance by the application, for example applying a filter to an image in photoshop, then yes there is not going to be much of a difference in performance between PC and Mac especially if using the same software.

If you define performance on an overall basis, like how much time you spend doing crap to maintain the computer, etc. versus actually doing work I think you'd see substantial differences that make it worthwhile for many people to get a mac. Consider how you'd accomplish simple tasks such as finding a file, changing windows, updating software, backing up file, migrating to a new computer, etc. in both mac/windows environment and I'd think you'd find os X more efficient.

Jul 19, 2008 at 07:52 PM


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