Why Mac?

white laptops? sure i can say apple are bad at design and frankly i'm not overly keen on the bubble style stuff they do, the blue g3/g4? was also minging and does anyone remember the cube? that was pants also.
 
at the end of the day, I don't find mac os especially better than windows/linux, they both work fine for me.

however I can get a PC with much better performance than a mac for the same money, or a mac with the same performance as the pc but the PC would be half the price and I'd be able to keep most of it when I upgrade.
 
If you are comparing like for like there isn't all that much difference in price...
 
Wail said:
Yes Windows is more universally accepted, and there are more to offer help and assistance when and if needed.

BUT ...

Show me one virus that can infect a Mac! As long that you don't install Windows on your Mac, there is no way a virus will hit you. It's that simple. This alone made me move over.
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I have not had Virus trouble for a very long time, 5 years or so, and IT was an easy fix !!

Macs are simply sexy as hell though.

Gary.
 
Graham_P_Clarke said:
I have found that the Mac is far quicker to process images than a PC with a greater spec, But I only use the Mac for Photos and use PC's for everything else. I am a Network and Server support engineer.
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That might change with CS4 - apparently its 64 bit compatible with Windows, but not MAC. I have been so close to buying a mac several times in past year. It will happen soon, I want one just for the looks, sure I can learn to love it.

Gary.
 
Wail said:
Show me one virus that can infect a Mac! As long that you don't install Windows on your Mac, there is no way a virus will hit you. It's that simple. This alone made me move over.
Click to expand...

I can guaruntee you that the chance of my XP install getting a virus is the same or less than the chance of any OS X install getting a virus, and I dont run any AV software at all, havent for well over a year. It just not needed if you set up your OS correctly.

OS X is not the security stronghold Apple market it to be. I'll have to find a link, but last year (or my have been early this year) at a computer security conference, they had a competition - they had a MB Air, a Vista based laptop of similar value and a Ubuntu based laptop of similar value, and the guys had to compromise the machines. The person who compromised a machine first won a cash prize and got to take the laptop home with them. And what one was the first to fall? OS X.
 
I find it funny that one of the Mac people always point out the lack of viruses as one of the good points of owning a Mac and running OsX. I was in the Mac store on Friday, and over hurd one of the store people telling a potential buyer how wondows is so crap, and how they don't need to run virus software. I just about hit this idot, but then I remembered that all the latest adds by apple were just about bashing windows users.

There have been a few viruses on OsX over the last year or so, and to their credit most times apple responds quickly with a patch, but with most of their users not running virus softwares, or firewalls in some cases, if there is one really nasty one written to tackle the Mac then it would propergate very quickly I think.

My vista 64 box has been running great, without a single problem. My Macbook Pro running Leopard 10.5.5 has been running great with no problems. But I find it so idiotic for Mac users to be bashing Vista for driver problems and other issues. I mean if you write an operating system that only works on very select group of hardware, and you tell your users what they can do with your operating system, of course your operating system is going to be a little more stable and problem free. I am waiting on the day when the linux guys get together and advertise how they are just as stable, or even more stable then OsX, run on just about any software, is just as secure if not more, and is free......
 
whiteflyer said:
We have to compare like for like, and I'm look at a Mac Pro desktop. I had a quick look at scan for prices, and I could not get a duo Xeon set-up for less than a ready built mac. Also after going into an Apple store I do get the feeling that customer support will be excellent from Apple
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agreed. I checked out the internals of a mac pro; 2x harpertown cpu's, modest gfx card etc and found its actually pretty decent with a mac. and stable. just get your ram elsewhere and you're all good :)
 
FranchiseJuan said:
I find it funny that one of the Mac people always point out the lack of viruses as one of the good points of owning a Mac and running OsX. I was in the Mac store on Friday, and over hurd one of the store people telling a potential buyer how wondows is so crap, and how they don't need to run virus software. I just about hit this idot, but then I remembered that all the latest adds by apple were just about bashing windows users.

There have been a few viruses on OsX over the last year or so, and to their credit most times apple responds quickly with a patch, but with most of their users not running virus softwares, or firewalls in some cases, if there is one really nasty one written to tackle the Mac then it would propergate very quickly I think.

My vista 64 box has been running great, without a single problem. My Macbook Pro running Leopard 10.5.5 has been running great with no problems. But I find it so idiotic for Mac users to be bashing Vista for driver problems and other issues. I mean if you write an operating system that only works on very select group of hardware, and you tell your users what they can do with your operating system, of course your operating system is going to be a little more stable and problem free. I am waiting on the day when the linux guys get together and advertise how they are just as stable, or even more stable then OsX, run on just about any software, is just as secure if not more, and is free......
Click to expand...

Of course you are going to use the advantages over Windows to sell it to people - most people currently use Windows and are going to need reasons to switch.

I think Bill Gates is a frikkin genius. I have been a software developer for 16 years now and one of the greatest things he has achieved is getting people to take windows crashing for granted and not complain about it. I've had clients phone me to complain about software bugs that have turned out to be features they simply didn't want, will then have their computer crash and lose work and they just shrug it off and go 'Oh, its just windows'. I don't know one of them that have phoned Microsoft to complain that their hideously expensive copy of MS Office keeps bombing on them, or that their OS keeps crashing.

Linux more stable than OSX? I dont think so. I run both, Linux is fantastic and I have been using it for a very long time now but it doesnt hold a patch on OSX. OSX is obviously a unix compliant derivative built from FreeBSD. It has the advantages of Linux systems but without having to cater for every piece of hardware under the sun.

In terms of security - it is much much more secure than windows purely down to its architecture. You simply cant go re-writing core system files in the same way windows can. It certainly isn't 100% virus proof the way some people claim, but it just is not as vulnerable as a standard windows system. I've run windows machines for years and have managed to keep them very secure, but I realise I am not a 'standard' windows user. My in-laws just don't have a clue when it comes to computer security and no matter how many times I try and educate them it doesnt seem to sink in. Oddly enough, since I got them to switch to a mac I havent had to go round and reinstall their computer once.

The thing for me is I have had this particular Macbook Pro for over a year now, I install stuff, remove stuff, work on it all day, never have to turn it off (love macs super fast sleep mode), and it still runs just as fast and smoothly as the day I bought it. My windows box that I have, I now have to phone microsoft every time I want to reinstall the sodding thing (every couple of months) because it had decided I have registered my license too many times.

The sooner it gets replaced with a Mac Pro the better.
 
Not being insulting but if you're having to reinstall windows repeatedly then you're doing something wrong.
 
Interesting, there was a hacking contest recently (wish I still had the link) and the Mac was the first to get hacked out of 10 machines,,,the rest being PCs. The reason for low number of viruses is partly due to the fact that virus writers tend to write for the PC due to the number of machines available to infect.
 
alexkidd said:
Not being insulting but if you're having to reinstall windows repeatedly then you're doing something wrong.
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Obviously!

Its more that I need to constantly reconfigure the machine for testing software and different bits of kit. No matter what I do, after a couple of months of installing/uninstalling software I find it gets significantly slower. I have been using PC's day in, day out since the old config.sys/autoexec.bat tweaking DOS days, I have a pretty large amount of experience with the majority of OS's microsoft have chucked out (other than ME, thank god) - believe it or not I have a vague clue in regards to running windows. I could spend my time trying to clear cack out of the registry and tweaking it to get some speed back but quite simply it is faster for me to chuck a disk in the drive, format it, reinstall it and be back to a clean install. I keep nothing of importance on the machine purely for the fact that it means I don't have to worry about reinstalling it and losing anything.

As it happens, my windows machine is now completely redundant as I can do the everything I needed to on a VMWare machine on my mac. It now just sits there running the software for my turbo trainer.
 
i'm not debating your experience, i've also been using computers since <insert reference to old computer and when disks were actually floppy and punch cards etc> i'm just saying that a pc shouldn't fall down so quickly.
 
alexkidd said:
i'm not debating your experience, i've also been using computers since <insert reference to old computer and when disks were actually floppy and punch cards etc> i'm just saying that a pc shouldn't fall down so quickly.
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I quite agree - it shouldn't.

Its not it falls down, it slows down, a lot. Boot up time starts to increase, shutdown time as well. General responsiveness drops off. Random application crashes would increase.

HP Drivers don't help, always a nightmare, but when I last looked I couldnt directly print to an hp ip based printer without them.

It all ends up meaning every couple of months it was easier to spend an hour sorting out a fresh install.
 
Foggy said:
I quite agree - it shouldn't.

Its not it falls down, it slows down, a lot. Boot up time starts to increase, shutdown time as well. General responsiveness drops off. Random application crashes would increase.

HP Drivers don't help, always a nightmare, but when I last looked I couldnt directly print to an hp ip based printer without them.

It all ends up meaning every couple of months it was easier to spend an hour sorting out a fresh install.
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Why do a fresh install??, just create an image with all your apps installed, and keep docs / media on a seperate drive, and redirect them within windows.

Takes 10 mins and its done and back up to full speed ;)
 
Chillimonster said:
Why do a fresh install??, just create an image with all your apps installed, and keep docs / media on a seperate drive, and redirect them within windows.

Takes 10 mins and its done and back up to full speed ;)
Click to expand...

Honestly, it was one of those things I kept meaning to do. We used to ghost and clone drives for the machines we used to send out to clients, I just never got round to doing it for mine. Every time I installed it I would think 'Once sorted, clone it' but would invariably get caught up in something else, go a step further than I wanted to for the cloned drive and think 'Sod it, I'll do it next time'.

Not worth it now - I have a barebones installation with a couple pieces of software on there and dont touch it for anything else. Have found that now I am not ever using it it's fine :)
 
but the fact you actually have to do that and prepare in the knowledge something will go wrong sort of starts you out on the wrong foot first...doesn't it?
 
My two-penneth? It's a personal thing.

1). Macs have, whether you like it or not, a certain cache attached to them. Owning a Mac is rather like owning any other statement brand - it has a set of connotations that go along with ownership. Some people love this, others pay no attention at all.

2). If you enjoy fiddling with your computer, upgrading, benchmarking and generally tweaking, Macs just aren't for you.

3). If you love gaming? Macs aren't for you.

4). If all of your friends, family and work colleagues own PCs? Owning a Mac WILL make life slightly harder for you - yes, most file formats are interchangeable but that's not the point.

5). Macs are low maintenance compared to PCs. Whilst I agree that virus/spyware prevention is much more about the common sense of the user, there is more fiddling required as a PC owner than there is for a mac.

6). As a direct hardware comparison, Macs are more expensive BUT they hold their resale far better (see that machines built around 2002 are still fetching £400-500 on eBay - there are no PC's that do this).

7). Lastly, spend some time with one - you may (or may not) find that Mac OS is the answer to all your prayers. Alternatively, you may find that Windows XP (and to a certain degree, Vista) presents everything in a format that you are used to.

Personally speaking, I use both - my PC's are what do the work, and the Mac is for tarting about on the Interweb. There is space for using both as they both have their strengths, but there is no clear 'winner' and be deeply distrustful of anyone that can answer the 'which one is best' argument with a one-liner.

Cheers,
James
 
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