Now that Apple is Windows-compatible, to switch or not to switch to Mac? - Page 5

One thing you have to realize is that computer enthusiasts like you and me are an extreme minority in this business. 95% of computer users could care less about whether you can upgrade the motherboard or not, because they don't even know what a motherboard is to begin with. This average user's application profile will largely be tailored toward business applications, though Mac use is somewhat skewed toward graphic design.

The other aspect to keep in mind deals specifically with laptops. Any issue with a disparity in upgrading potential disappears when you're talking about a laptop. With the exception of Alienware's interchangable graphics modules, the only internal components readily accessible on a laptop are RAM and the hard drive. In this genre, a MacBook Pro is just as versatile as a Dell laptop. Add to that the new ability for the MBP to run both OSX and Windows XP, all on the exact same processor and bus speed that the Dell would have, and it's not even a close competition.

Its a 1920 x 1440 CRT actually. And we weren't talking about a 20" iMac, we were talking about a 17" for price point comparison.

My media center is running on a 24" LCD 1920x1200 widescreen, its pretty decent, but I could always go bigger...

I wonder how Vista is going to be when it comes out...

Jon.

And I bet any Mac gets out of sleep faster than your PC.

Judging by the feature list, it should be a good competitor to OSX. In terms of comparison to Win 9x/2k/XP, it should be a night/day difference. XP is 2000 with eye candy and hacked in multimedia features, which in turn was an adaptation of the NT core, which spawned from the 9x. Vista is essentially a complete re-write of the OS from the ground up.

9x and NT are completely different. NT was written from the ground up by Dave Cutler (architect of VMS) and his team. 9x evolved from Windows 3.x. They started merging at NT 4.

--Andre

Vista's most recent delays are, as usual, due to the immense complexity of trying to maintain backwards compatibility with damn near every windows program ever written.

I predict it will be a day late and a dollar short.

Jobs is a visionary and was unafraid to throw out the floppy drive (G3, first gen iMac) and backwards compatibility (OS X). Gates is a businessman and is more interested in protecting his business than building revolutionary products.

You can't have everything. I will continue to use both, because I want to and because I have to.

Just curious, what's the footprint of that thing? About 4 square feet, with about 20" of depth? Also, it seems be "too small" what you really mean is "too low in pixel density", because 1920pixels across a screen width of ~15" (assuming 18" visible screen and a 4:3 aspect ratio) is really packing 'em in there. Smaller than I for one would be comfortable using. Do you type all your Word docs in 20pt text and then condense for printing or are your eyes so good that you can see standard 12-point Garamond at that resolution? For me, even the 1440 pixels scretched across ~13" of horizontal screen (15.4" 16:10) on the MacBook Pro is a little tight for my eyes. (And OSX gives you much more options as far as icon and text size than 'Dose does.) The same resolution on a 17" iMac screen (~14.5" wide) is much more comfortable for me to view. Also, just as an aside I'm not a blind Apple booster. It's just that from about 1998 (the original iMac) to the present they've sounded kicked everybody else's ass. That can change, and quickly, as the 350Z thread with the pictures of the new TT reminded me. Five years ago it looked like from a design standpoint VW could do no wrong. Everything they sold, from the Polo to the A8, was at the very top of its class in terms of interior and exterior design. Fast forward to 2006, and it's clear they're in for a rough ride because every car they're now selling is uglier inside and out than the ones they've replaced. The analogy doesn't completely hold, because year 2001 VW/Audis weren't better built than everything else or more fun to drive, but it is fairly close.

What's the point of revolution if it leads your company hanging in the balance while the businessman had to come and save your ass? Microsoft's infusion helped Apple.

And no, you can't have everything. If you could, I would have a SGI supercomputer running a customized version of Unix at my house with a T-1 connection.

Jon.

I am no Jobs fanboy (see my earlier posts in this thread for evidence), but I do admire his audacity and I give him credit for being a defining force in the development of personal computing, for better and for worse.

The point of revolution is always freedom, is it not?

Tokyo, dude, just give up. You cant make people hate computers they love. You can call them ignorant, incompetent, lazy, conformists, whatever. We think macs are better. They're gorgeous, fast, run quiet, the keyboards are quiet, smooth and comfortable, the OS is amazing and yes, they are pretty free of virii. That makes people conformists? Please dude, stop with that argument because thats just an ad hominem attack with no relevence. Maybe 5% or less of mac users buy it because they want to be trendy and/or conformists or seen as hip, the others just realize that they dont want a computer that takes fixing every god damn time you want to try something new.

And with the Mac OS X, you dont need peripherals designed for the Mac. iPhoto and other integrated tools have handled everything I've ever tried, from cameras to scanners to printers, perfectly. Besides, every serious peripheral maker focuses on Mac compatibility in the first place, because photographers, designers, etc. all use Macs.

I have a PC that I built, and upgrade it from time to time. I use it very minimally (storing and playing music, mostly, I dont want to clog up my precious Powerbook's hard drive with my 400 + Gigs of music). I'd say 40% of my hardware has had issues, straight out of the box. And I'm also very, very careful about downloading, and virii, spyware, etc., but even with that, every once in awhile something extremely annoying comes up thats difficult to get rid of. This has *never, ever* happened with my Mac.

I remember times when I popped blood veins in my eyes because my WinXp machine was randomly restarting (blue screens), and I was so frustrated that I couldnt find the cause - I replaced nearly every part to no avail, until I found out it was the video card, with whom the replacement time-table was 1-2 months. Still, my RAM has gone bad, even though I buy only reliable, tested brands, my Maxtor and Western Digital HDs have had trouble, my CD and DVD writers have had retarded problems. SGladwell is absolutely right. I had to sit in my room, sweating in the summer heat, with a burning eye, talking to people from the manufacturers who didnt listen to me, didn't speak english well enough to communicate effectively, and all blamed the problem on another part, or me.

With a Mac, that trouble is gone.

I'm a very computer-savvy person and nowadays I avoid PCs at all cost, because I realized that there's something where you dont have to fucking click a hundred dialog boxes to change your font size. When you get down to it, I enjoy using my Mac. I've upgraded my PowerBook's RAM with 0 problems, also. I know exactly what to expect, every time I boot it up and install something, and I know if it stalls for a couple seconds its still not going to crash (to this day, OS X has never crashed for me, I've had my PowerBook almost two years).

Exposé is such a kickass tool. Language integration is perfect. The option + letterkey makes putting in symbols a cinch.

Ultimately it comes to this: doing, designing or writing anything on a Mac OS X feels like I have a blank canvas in front of me to paint on. With Windows, it feels like a sheet of graph paper.

Is this an official moderator ruling, or you just frustrated that I have a completely different opinion than you and am not afraid to discuss it? How is my opinion irrelevant? Let me know, because as far as I can tell, I have not made any ad hominem attacks in this thread. Nobody (besides you) has taken any offense to our discussion to the best of my knowledge. I would assume that they would have confronted me about it and we would have resolved it like grown ups. Macintosh forces you to conform to their vision of what a computer should look like, operate like, and cost. The lack of diversity in their product line is apparent when compared to the gamut of PC parts, options, stylistic choices, sizes, and prices. As far as I can tell, you cannot go to Fry's, gather parts, and assemble a Mac. You might be able to build something that will run OSX, but would you consider that to be a Mac or a PC that runs OSX? The REAL problem here is that Macintosh isn't just a computer for many people, its a lifestyle choice, an "ideal", and one that I happen to vigorously object to. There are good reasons to own a PC, and good reasons to own a Mac (though none of them make any sense to me). Everyone wants a machine that "just works", but the same machine doesn't "work" for everyone. For me PC's "just work" and I don't see any reason to limit myself to an Apple. They may start up Photoshop slightly faster, but they also suck for gaming. I don't like OSX (or OS9) And their peripherals (monitors, mice, keyboards) are horrifying in multitudes of ways. Price, design, and functionality being the top three in my mind. Yeah, I don't have to buy them... but guess what, they make their computers these disgusting white and silver colors and unless you want a mismatched computer, you are kind of stuck with it. Any time people's identity is tied so closely to a marketed product, I can't help but feel unsettled by it. When I voice my displeasure with the product, these people can't help but feel under attack. This is not my fault. I think I've said my peice, so as per Brians "suggestion" I will now self-censor my opinions. Continue the Mac love-fest without me.

Hint: technical items are designed on graph paper, and computers are technical items.

Jon.

Dude, you must think everyone here is blind if we can't see the blatant negative generalizations you make about mac users. In fact, you are the only one to have made arguments on a personal level, calling people conformists, ad naseum. The fact that you march into every thread where the word "Apple" is mentioned and make your little plug about how Macs suck and Mac buyers are drones is getting annoying. People don't buy Macs for customization (of which, however, you do have a small list of options). You gotta understand that before you can argue about it. Everyone has choices. No one is forced to buy a Mac. Some people choose Macintosh. Yes, they're all pretty similar. ALL pre-built PCs are. Macintosh is one choice, of many. You have a choice. You can buy an Alienware PC, a Dell PC, make your own PC, a million other pre-built PCs, or you can buy a Mac. Do you flame Dell saying "I WANT CHOICES!" because all their computers are black with silver accents? I see a Mac as being a pretty PC that runs OS X. If there were other companies out there that made computers than run OS X, I would absolutely consider them. I'm sorry dude, but you don't just voice your complaint about the product. You voice your complaints about the people. If I had the time I could go through and find every quote where you made a sweeping generalization about Mac users and pull them up to you. Oh here's one (one not true), I just bolded it above. And that "disgusting" silver and white thing - get over it. Why are you so offended by the use of metallic and futuristic colors for the computer? Apple has a style. It's Apple's style and you dont have to subscribe to it. Fine, but that doesn't mean that everyone, including important artists, is wrong for thinking their designs are beautiful. No. Macs don't "just work." In fact, I just typed out an entire long-winded response about why they're good. It's more than Photoshop starting up faster. It's more than "just working." If your PC just works for YOU, that's great for you. I wish I had such ease with my PC. I still use mine for gaming and listening to music, but I wouldn't dare make it my main computer because I don't trust it. if "just works is 0, my PC is about a -1 and my Mac is about a 7. You say that there are pros and cons of both, but that a Mac just isn't for you - yet it seems your argument is completely different - that everything sucks about them and there are no pros other than Photoshop starting up faster (which it does a lot more than, just in PS). Nice martyrism. Self-censor isn't the word for your continued vehement Apple everything (design, customers, OS)-bashing - restraint is. BTW, I'd like to apologize at this point. I dont know what is going on with my crusade to piss everyone off today but I got pretty inflammatory. I'll leave my post as is because it might be entertainment value, but I retract the hate. RL I really wouldn't care, but thats what forums, and anonymity, do to you.

So a computer is a technical item, therefore it should be confined only to tasks which you deem "technical?"

No, Jon, the computer is not a "technical item." It's a social item, an artist item, and a musical item, and much more. Graph paper is appropriate for AutoCAD, but not for Illustrator.