I have owned both PCs and Macs. The Macs hands down are much more reliable. I know I will hear from people who say their Windows machines are so good. However in my 25 years of Macs I have found them to not have issues with drivers and things like my PCs have had. Because Apple controls both hardware and software it makes for a machine that just works out of the box. When you make your living at photography you don't have time to play with drivers and fixing software conflicts. Time is money so they little bit extra for the Apple hardware is money well spent. If you are a hobbyist you can build your own machine and save money. However you will spend hours getting everything to work as it needs to. Windows 7 is closing the gap.
A friend of mine used to be Mac for editing, scanning and printing and PC for the business side such as invoicing, calendar, contact management, word processing, etc. He switched about 10 years ago to PC only. Mainly because we were shooting medium format film and having the lab process and scan it. The software to work with the lab was PC only.
I help him maintain his hardware and network. He will tell you if it wouldn't be a complete disruption to work flow, habits and some old PC software he would go to Mac only just for the reliability. We even went so far as to remap his network and workflow on paper. Then we went program by program and came up with alternatives or Mac equivalents. If it wan't such a huge investment of time and money to change over completely he would do it.
Sometimes it's a case of the "grass is always greener..."
IMHO, I think you need to get a well-equipped PC Workstation rather than a diy PC or consumer-based PC for work. I'd rather compare a well-equipped workstation PC to a well-equipped Mac----than a consumer-based PC. Regardless, Mac is definitely the prettier (cleaner profile?) than PC. (Yeah, workstation on steroids in my studio and a few more wires than I'd like...)
Its partly to do with the age of many pros, they were introduced to Macs in the 1990s when PCs were relatively unsuited for imaging. Things have changed alot since then and I wonder if many of the younger pros are more amendable to PCs.
I use both and have settled on PC for my workflow. Apple is certainly user-friendlier. I really hate all the proprietary stuff with Apple though.
I use a Sony solid-state HD laptop with I5 processor and 8gb of ram. Since Windows 7 changed explorer to on-the-fly picture resize it has been a joy to cull images. On my typical event shoots I take around 10-15K images and it's so quick and easy to just plug the CF card in and start quickly pulling out the keepers.
I love my Ipad but that thing is a peripheral cripple. It's pretty nice using an android phone along with Windows 7 desktop and laptop. Just plug things in and upload/download at will without going through all the Apple software.
With that said, if you're doing video then Mac with Final Cut is the only way to go.
Personally, I don't know any pros that use Macs. Most of the people I know that use Macs are amateurs (that's what they think you have to use to be a pro) or video guys because of Final Cut. My Win7 x64 machine is rock solid, screaming fast, virus free, etc. I built it myself. It was my first build and it was ridiculously easy. I'll never buy a pre-built machine again. In an hour I had a machine that was faster than anything Mac had to offer (at the time of build. Things like DDR3 RAM, Velociraptors, etc) at any price. It cost me about $1000. Since then I have made a few upgrades to keep it cutting edge and it's still incredibly inexpensive. Win7 has made a huge impact on PC reliability. When was the last time you saw one of the Mac commercials that bashed Windows Exactly.
I've been using a Mac professionally for 12+ years, but have a few workstations of each n action. Most graphic artists/retouchers I know use Macs. Most photographers use whatever tool they are used to. Personally, in terms of photography it matters not. In terms of productivity, it matters a fair amount. Professional photographers make money shooting - not tinkering with hardware.
Of the 11 professional photographers I know, two of them use PC and one of them works for the airport and has to use whatever the IT dept puts on his desk, and the other one built his own. All the rest use some form of Mac. So maybe it's split between Mac, and build your own. I don't know any who use a $300 out of the box computer from Costco. I don't have any urge to DIY so I have a couple macs...
As a working professional, it sure seems like the roots are in that for a long time it was a Quark Xpress world and it was only available on the Mac in the late '80s. The same for Photoshop, applications like Live Picture, and the most popular Hell scanners and their Linocolor software that only ran on Macs for years. When you saw all your art director friends running Quark on a Mac Quadra, it only made sense that you got one too.
Even though there's little real difference today between the platforms, back then (late 1980s to the early 90's), Colorsync and PostScript fonts were two features that really set the Mac apart.
As some have mentioned, many older pros were using Macs back in the late 90s, when they were better for a lot of imaging tasks. I myself started using them in 2001, because OSX was clearly superior to the Windows alternatives available at the time. Windows 7 has leveled the playing field substantially in the last few years, but I don't find it to be better than the Mac. I also find that, at least among laptops, Apple's trackpads and overall industrial design are far superior to even some of the best Windows machines on the market.
FWIW...if you think Macs are popular among photographers, you should poll web developers and programmers. At a recent conference with about 150 designers and developers during "Dev Day" (make a website in 10 hours). I counted 4 PCs. When I asked around about the abundance of Macs it basically came down to how the OSX experience does not get in the way of getting things done. The teams with PCs had a harder time integrating the PC users into the workflow. For the designer the nice GUI makes it easy to work. The programers have Terminal access and can do everything from the command line.
The reason for their popularity these days is they have made a nice ecosystem that is very seamless for many professions. High resale value and reliability make them a good long term investment or affordable to swap out every 2-3 years (what I do). I can keep my working mac less than 2 years old for less than it would cost to do that with PC thanks to the resale value.
Tom K. wrote:
A cursory look at exif data shows that the vast majority of the worlds best photographers use Macintosh computers for there editing work.
Simple question: Why is that?
Trend. Apple computers have been used in the creative industry for over 2 decades. Apple even gained ground with consumers about a decade ago. So now everyone has them. Creative or not.
1. Video - for a long, long time Final Cut was the industry standard in video editing. With the recent Final Cut X bomb and Adobe's substantial improvements with Premiere and After Effects, this is changing and I no longer consider it a major (if any) advantage.
2. Ease of use - I've seen many people prove that Windows can be made to run pretty stable now (at least with Windows 7), but most of the folks who do this are pretty computer savvy and know which drivers and components to use. Definitely a plus for them as they can typically build a relatively similar (internal) setup for cheaper, but I'd rather not mess around with all that. With Apple there is no guess work since they control both hardware and software. Everything is already optimized to work with each other. I don't know how to go into terminal and plug in my own commands, but with Mac I don't need to. That's worth the extra cashflow for me. Not so much for others.
3. Build - Every Mac I've owned has been built like a tank. I've never seen any PC that comes close in terms of solid build and beat-up-ability (except Panasonic's underpowered and very expensive ToughBooks). Of course, if you just run a desktop or are very careful with your computer, it doesn't matter. But I've been known to beat up my desktops pretty good - not to mention my laptops. I've had drops that would've shattered a typical PC, but my Macs just walk away with a few good dents. And of course, not only are they well built, but they're pretty too. While that isn't particularly helpful in any way, it certainly doesn't help
hondageek wrote:
Personally, I don't know any pros that use Macs. Most of the people I know that use Macs are amateurs (that's what they think you have to use to be a pro)
Hahaha! Come with me to ANY pro sporting event and I will show you any number of PROS working on Macs. In fact the vast majority will be on Macs while the number of PCs can typically be counted on one hand and often on one finger. In fact, the only people I know who edit on PC are AP guys and that's what The AP supplied (that decision, as I understand it, was purely financial.)
I bought my first Mac and started using Photoshop version 2 way back in the early 90's and have stuck with that platform ever since. At that time everyone who was editing images was running a Mac and I assume that PS was only available for Mac. With 20 years experience editing on a Mac I have no reason or desire to switch platforms. That's what I'm comfortable with and wouldn't even consider using a PC. Personally, I find the PC GUI clumsy and uninspired but I'll admit I'm biased.
After I got out of my graphic design classes, I couldn't get away from Macs quickly enough. Admittedly this came during the nadir of the Mac's existence, when Mac clones could be had from companies like Umax. Even if you got a Mac from Mac, the hardware and software were most assuredly not inspiring.
Nothing like suffering an entire afternoon of crashes while trying to beat a deadline to print out a project that's going to be worth half your grade.
The switch to PCs was not painless. As Peter points out, color management (what?) and fonts were not strong suits of Windows to say the least. However, that's all water under the bridge and I've never found myself wanting to go back — which in the early days of the switch was partly due to my rebellious nature, I suppose. I really enjoyed walking into a service bureau and creating a murmur with files that came from a pee cee (eewwww!). Now (ever since XP, really) Windows does everything I need it to do. And it was a sublime form of sweet irony for Windows to have 64 bitness in Photoshop before the Mac crowd got their taste of it.
Not that I'm one to gloat.
My experience with people who muck up their Win machines has been that they could muck up anything they touched with the possible exception of a Mac. As an engineer friend of mine used to say, "If you're too stupid to use a computer, get yourself a Mac." A less incendiary way to put it, as others have said, is: Macs just work (at least nowadays they do). Not much fiddling or driver juggling or detoxing -- and that's all great and, for some, essential.
But I remain firmly planted in the Win camp and that's that.
Ho1972 wrote:
After I got out of my graphic design classes, I couldn't get away from Macs quickly enough. Admittedly this came during the nadir of the Mac's existence, when Mac clones could be had from companies like Umax. Even if you got a Mac from Mac, the hardware and software were most assuredly not inspiring.
There shall be no mention of the Days of Darkness. Although, I do wish I had invested $1000 in Apple stock when they were basically giving the stuff away as several of my coworkers did. Story of my life. Ha!
I put the hardrive from my Dell XPS 16 in my Mac Book Pro and the Mac booted into Windows without any bitching about drivers as the chipsets are almost identical.
Viable color management didn't exist on Wintel until XP which was a complete revamp based on NT. Windows Picture Viewer and IE still are not color managed. ColorSync ICC profile based color management was integrated into the Mac OS in 1992. All Mac applications are profile managed.
Networking was incorporated in the the Mac OS since inception. In 1987 when I bought the first Macs for the US Information Printing Division I had them set-up and networked with a laserprinter by the end of the first day having never seen one before. Until NT networking PC required third-party Novell Netware which was as expensive and required dedicated staff to maintain.
Transition to the Internet was seamless on the Mac because it was already network capable. Gates didn't see the Internet coming and Windows was slow to catch up. Again NT, the brainchild of Dave Cutler who also authored the DEC VAX OS, saved the MicroSloth Bacon.
If you never endured the trials and tribulations of keeping MS-DOS > Win 3.1 > Win95 > Win98 systems running you simply don't have the perspective to realize how badly they sucked compared to Macs in nearly very respect. The differences leveled out with XP in 2001, which was the first WinOS with the same "plug-n'-play" simplicity that the Macs had in 1984. The biggest problem with the Mac OS was the failure of the hardware to live up to the ambitions of the software in areas like voice recognition and text-speech. Just click on your iPhone and ask Siri, she'll explain to you.
As for digital photography? Ever hear of the Apple Quicktake 100? I bought one for our office in 1994. It was actually built by Kodak and only .3MP 640 x 480. Here's a web page I created with photos taken with it: http://super.nova.org/pasko/ The quality is lousy in part because back then most were accessing the "WWW" via 14.4 modems and I reduced the files and used .gif to make them load faster. Apple was ahead of the curve — the OS already had ColorSync profile based management — but the hardware and applications like Photoshop, which didn't add profile based color until V4, had to catch up with it.
Digital photography didn't really become a viable replacement for film until around 2004 when cameras hit 8MP. That's when I jumped into the DSLR money pit and bought my 20D and lenses. By then I was using a Mac G4, but could have done Photoshop as well on the PC on XP. I did in fact use Photoshop on both platforms.
The last computer I bought was a Levono I7 laptop with 32-bit Win7 for the wife to replace her HP running XP. It was the least painful of any of my PC set-up experiences, but not nearly as simple as the 10 minutes it took to unpack, plug-in and configure my iMac. It doesn't look as nice either.
(Yeah, workstation on steroids in my studio and a few more wires than I'd like...)
Exactly.