Why Mac/Apple?

[Flo]

I like the commercials

With WinXP, I had nothing but stalls etc...and although I know it's the same innards, the op system is far superior to me anyways. I am thrilled with my Mac.

[TheHoff]

Originally Posted by basroil

Saying "most" is completely without base, but yes, people in "creative" fields have a higher percentage of mac users than "technical" fields.

Agreed. It always surprises me when I see the overall numbers and OS X is still only 5 to 6% of all PC sales when if you look at a coffee shop around here, probably 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 laptops are Macs. Demographic, location, user base, etc... all makes a difference to what seems like a Mac frenzy is really relegated to a certain niche.

[airfrogusmc]

Originally Posted by TheHoff

Agreed. It always surprises me when I see the overall numbers and OS X is still only 5 to 6% of all PC sales when if you look at a coffee shop around here, probably 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 laptops are Macs. Demographic, location, user base, etc... all makes a difference to what seems like a Mac frenzy is really relegated to a certain niche.

I think the % of PCs in the fields I work with everyday is about 10-15% if that. The printers the graphic designers, other photographers, writers, art directors, account managers are almost all mac.

I have had FAR less problems with crashes and hang ups since switching but they are just tools but I feel that for graphic programs like photoshop, illustrator and the entire creative suite and other creative programs in my opinion and from my experience and for me the choice is mac.

[Damian75]

Yeah I also forget about the percentages as my entire IT department and most of the deployed systems are all mac's we moved to all OSX servers and it saved us a ton of money which seems to surprise alot of people but I think most people just look at the initial sticker and while there is very little cost difference between an X-serve and a like configured Dell all the real savings comes from not being nickel and dime by all the MS licensing all the X-serves came with unlimited client license so no per seat charges with open directory like we had with active directory plus built in multicast options for software and system deployment without the per seat Ghost costs and for me I find that things are in a more logical location and it takes me less time to get a new person up to speed.

[MaxxuM]

Originally Posted by Damian75

Yeah I also forget about the percentages as my entire IT department and most of the deployed systems are all mac's we moved to all OSX servers and it saved us a ton of money which seems to surprise alot of people but I think most people just look at the initial sticker and while there is very little cost difference between an X-serve and a like configured Dell all the real savings comes from not being nickel and dime by all the MS licensing all the X-serves came with unlimited client license so no per seat charges with open directory like we had with active directory plus built in multicast options for software and system deployment without the per seat Ghost costs and for me I find that things are in a more logical location and it takes me less time to get a new person up to speed.

Yep, same in our network. The Mac labs end up being less expensive after two years. Most of the licenses from Apple are site based vs being charged yearly for services that should be one time or even included free. A good example is Microsoft user management - it doesn't exist. If you want to do anything significant you'll have to either buy a third party solution or learn to do it via the command prompt.

Originally Posted by TheHoff

I Agree. Benchmarks are only a small part of the story. Responsiveness is important and OS X's memory management is way better than Vistas as far as keeping things in the background and paging seamlessly when needed. Is Win7 an improvement? I won't bother finding out

I'm starting to get a bad feeling about Windows 7. I've been encountering little things already. After a clean install of 64bit Win7 on my home PC (which worked without errors in the logs with Vista after two years of tweeking) I've started to notice problems. I left it on for two days and when I came back I pressed the "Show Hidden Icons" button and it sprang up to take up half the screen and would not resize. I tried to view the managment screen and UAC refused to let me open it saying I didn't have sufficient permissions. Nothing had been done and no updates had been installed in those two days - after a reboot all worked fine again. The second problem is with programs that require elivated permissions to run (like CCleaner) will sometimes loose there icon image. I had to manually change the permission of the shortcuts so they would retain the icon. Vista sometimes had issues with altered permissions with programs that are being updated in place (ex. Firefox and iTunes); in some cases those programs would no longer function properly.

All in all, not a good sign. I'll be submitting a recommendation in a few weeks to increase our Mac footprint for the next round of bids.

[Damian75]

I talked to a couple of friends that have been graphic designers for about 20 years and ask them why they and everyone they new used mac's going back to the OS 9 days and I got a very quick answer that made alot of since and that was Applescript a very easy to learn programming language that let them easily create custom scripts to batch a lot of repetitive jobs.

[Bobster]

Originally Posted by TheHoff

Jon's answer is exactly right. Inertia from the old days when 2D graphics cards WERE important and the best ones were made for Macs. That is why the 2D artists were primarily confined there. Also Photoshop on the PC was pretty well behind the Mac before V6 or so.

it only took a couple of versions before the same graphic and layout apps were available on Windows.. the trouble is that Win 3 sucked so much ass and PC hardware was way behind what Apple offered, stuff you got as standard on a Mac you had to pay extra for on a PC..

i was working for a local college who refused to recognise a Mac as serious computer (mostly because the IT Pros who worked @ the college knew nothing about them), so i was stuck with a 486SX which used to crash 8 or more times a day, i wanted to throw it out the office window on a daily basis!

i remember working on a basic graphic in Freehand and wanting to export it, but it just wouldn't, kept giving me an out of memory error.. so i took the freehand file back home and put it on my Quadra 950, gave Freehand 4MB of RAM (less than on the PC @ college) and it exported it fine..

PS 2.5.1 were identical on Windows and MacOS..

before 1996 the Mac had no competition in the Graphics Arena for the same money..

[René Damkot]

Well, didn't this thread get a lot shorter fast....

back on topic guys, and let's keep it rational and friendly, please?

[Veemac]

For me, the reason for switching was very simple...I hated Windows Vista from the first time I saw it, and wanted nothing to do with it.

I'd been on PCs all the way back to an 8086 with 640K of RAM and a 10MB HD, running MS-DOS 3.3...went through every evolution of Windows from Win286 (2.1) to XP; learned how to build/upgrade my own computers, and spent almost 20 years on PCs. Microsoft's "anti-piracy" hardware hash in XP was a major PITA if you routinely upgraded major components in your computers, and Vista was supposedly even more intrusive, not to mention all the bugs, driver issues with various devices, etc. I also didn't like the "Genuine Microsoft" thing that phoned home every time you updated something, just to make sure you weren't running a pirated copy of Windows. Basically, I just grew increasingly disenchanted with Microsoft, so I decided to give Apple a try. Bought a Macbook and kept my PC (XP) desktop just in case I decided it wasn't for me, but I was amazed right from the start with how easy OS X was to use...the switch was absolutely painless. When my wife's archaic PC desktop finally gave up the ghost, I absolutely refused to replace it with a Vista box - I passed my XP down to her and bought myself an iMac for my desktop, and haven't looked back since.

I'm not a blind fanboy who touts Apple as the be-all and end-all - both platforms have their strong points, as well as their faults and shortcomings. But personally, I like the clean design of Macs and find OS X to be a leaner, faster, hardier, easier-to-use OS than Windows ever was. Networking is an absolute snap, driver "issues"/conflicts are non-existent (at least for me), virus/malware threats are virtually nil, and as their sales pitch goes, "it just works". OS X and Macs have their faults too, but IMO their faults are less onerous and easier to deal with than Windows'. You won't find me sipping latte in a Starbucks wearing a beret and hemp sandals while composing poetry on my Mac, but I'm definitely a 100% convert. Win7 doesn't create even the slightest twinge of temptation for me - in fact, I had the opportunity to try it out on a friend's laptop, and it just reinforced how much I'm "over" Windows.

There's been one other unforeseen advantage to it....I was always the guy my less computer-literate friends called when they needed somebody to fix their screwed-up computers, either because something broke or they were loaded to the gills with Trojans, viruses, worms, etc. Now I just tell them I don't know a thing about Vista or Win7, so I can't help!

[tohara]

Apple has not yet taken off in Australia and majority of computer sales go to PC, this is because people are naive and scared off change. However, they recently opened up an apple store here in Brisbane. It opened on saturday and i went in for the grand opening, i estimated a few hundred people where in there at any one time, most were probably sticky beaking and just having a fiddle. But do you ever see that kind of appeal at a pc store? Everyone beats around the bush about how pc's are better value for money and it is unrealistic to buy a mac. Im not one of those people, im buying a mac because cosmetically and ergonomically they are perfection.

Ill throw in an analogy for you all, your going to buy a new car. You can afford the base model, it makes sense. You intended to spend that much money in the first place. Why then do so many people buy the sports versions or the luxury versions. Is it worth the extra money? No. Could you have got the same car with less bells and whistles for cheaper? Yes.

People want what appeals to them. So as far as this thread goes you can read about the specs all you want. Ultimately what will make up your mind is walking into the store having a fiddle and deciding what you want. I am a mac, others are pc's. Some people are christian, some people are muslin. It doesn't make the other person any better or worse, its a choice. Make yours.

[basroil]

Originally Posted by tohara

Apple has not yet taken off in Australia and majority of computer sales go to PC, this is because people are naive and scared off change. However, they recently opened up an apple store here in Brisbane. It opened on saturday and i went in for the grand opening, i estimated a few hundred people where in there at any one time, most were probably sticky beaking and just having a fiddle. But do you ever see that kind of appeal at a pc store? Everyone beats around the bush about how pc's are better value for money and it is unrealistic to buy a mac. Im not one of those people, im buying a mac because cosmetically and ergonomically they are perfection.

Ill throw in an analogy for you all, your going to buy a new car. You can afford the base model, it makes sense. You intended to spend that much money in the first place. Why then do so many people buy the sports versions or the luxury versions. Is it worth the extra money? No. Could you have got the same car with less bells and whistles for cheaper? Yes.

People want what appeals to them. So as far as this thread goes you can read about the specs all you want. Ultimately what will make up your mind is walking into the store having a fiddle and deciding what you want. I am a mac, others are pc's. Some people are christian, some people are muslin. It doesn't make the other person any better or worse, its a choice. Make yours.

Two main things: there is no such thing as a "pc store" or "mac store" since all stores are owned and operated for a company rather than brand. If you've ever been in a Sony store, you'll see it looks a bit busier and cramped than an Apple store, but only because it's usually better stocked than an Apple store (cameras, tvs, computers, music, movies, ps3/psp, etc). The design is nice though. Most other companies don't have their own stores because people generally don't buy a mass built PC like they would a mac, and building in store would require more workers and parts than are worth it.

As for the car analogy, it's more like saying your honda civic vs a 328i vs a c300. The mac is the c300, a similarly priced non-mac is the 328i, and the civic si is your cheaper, but well performing non-mac. Most people, even if they like to speed around, don't really have any use for the 30 extra HP that the other two give, but if you have the extra money, need that extra 30HP, and want all the extras that come with it, you can get the 328i and be just as happy and have just as few issues with maintenance. Then, there's the few folks that say, "what the hell, get the civic si and change out the engine and add a few things here and here" and get their build to the same price as the other two, but get a much faster thing in the end. You can technically do the same with a c300, but it'll be much more expensive.

And I sure do hope nobody is muslin, that would be as bad as being soylent green

EDIT: Please people, before you come out with your labels, just read everything twice. And no, there are Apple Stores, just like there are Sony stores. There is one where I am right now, and about six back home, all of them are Apple Stores. http://www.apple.com/retail/ in case you have any doubts.

[tohara]

Basroil
i think its hilarious how you feel the need to enter these threads, read all the diplomatic responses such as mine where nothing specifically was said about pcs, and rebut everything, are you infact a 9 yr old? There is such thing as a mac store, thats why its called a 'mac store.' I quote 'welcome to the new mac store brisbane.' Idiot. Sure its owned by apple, but all it sells is macs. Stop trying to prove me wrong for the sake of it, because you are in fact wrong.

Your throwing your own little pc things in the car analagy. First of all, i dont care if a pc is customisable or not, the only thing i was drawing on from the car analagy is the fact that people's wants outweigh their needs, and that is why mac is so sucessful. For example any merc. The base model is nice, but sooooooooooooooooo many people get the avantguarde (luxury). Its got THE SAME ENGINE, but the trimmings are nicer, and it looks nicer. Thats why people get it, because it looks nicer which is exactly what i was saying.

I know you will reply to this trying to prove everything i have said wrong. But it doesn't really matter, if you dont want a mac then so be it. I dont see why you feel so obliged to convert so many people to pc. Are you bill gates? You enter EVERY SINGLE one of these threads and start these little quiffs all because of a hunk of metal. You try to be nice about it all, but its kiniving and pathetic if you ask me.

Oh and p.s you've basically just admitted what you've been arguing against for your whole life

"because people generally don't buy a mass built PC like they would a mac"

[Moppie]

Why do so many Mac users feel the need to personally attack anyone who offers an alternative opinion, or who suggests sound and rational reasons why you might not want a Mac?


This thread has been cleaned up several times already, I'm not going to waste any more of my time cleaning it up again.

It is clear that a small number of Macintologists are determined to create a negative stereotype for Mac users, one that damages the brand by labeling every Mac user as someone so deeply insecure they have to resort to personal attacks, rhetoric and poor analogies to justify their choice of computer.
Unfortunately this small number of fanboys has now ruined a good thread for everyone else and it is closed.


This is not the only thread to have been cleaned up this week so I want everyone to understand that personal attacks are NEVER ok on POTN.
They are grounds for a temporary ban, and could even lead to permanent ban from the forums.

Religious fever, excessive rhetoric and attempts to convert people to your chosen brand are also un-acceptable.
If it continues we will start removing access to the computer sub forum for offending members.
I don't care if your a Mac, Windows, Linux or DOS fanboy. Keep it to yourself, the rest of us don't care, and don't want to know.