5 Reasons Why New Macs and iPhone are Lacking

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Well Tuan, in response to that article while keeping the one you did before I must say that you are an hypocrite, I am not trying to insult you in any way, I just calls them as I sees them...take it like a man and accept it.

But for you to come out an write this article, you must be commended. I agree and I've been saying the same thing for years. I don't hate Apple per say, I just hate their ideology when it comes to hardware...and me being a technician who specializes in hardware I find it insulting when someone tries to convince me that Apple hardware is worth the extra price.

Kudos Tuan, kudos!
 
Apples choice of hardware for their current mac pro was very strange.

The dual i7 core cpu's and memory are impressive, and make for a very good station.

But then limit it to only 1 4870 card? the 4 card nvidia option is basically the same as 2 4870's. I can see it being useful for someone using cuda, but the cards for nvidia are low end...

It's basically a workstation with crappy options for video, designed for people who need the video punch as much or more then the cpu power.

It's a system with very strange upgrade options.
 
I dont think you guys really get it. Not everyone who buys an apple is interested in pushing 150fps on the latest uber-shooter game.

Sure, apple doesn't provide 'competitive' video card options. I'll give you that. And traditionally, the hardware has always been overpriced.

But you know what, I have a house full of apple products, which rarely require my attention. My kids cant kill them. I turn them on, they WORK every time.

I got off the 'driver upgrade' train a long time ago.... I just want my computer to work for ME... not the other way around.
 
[citation][nom]midnightgun[/nom]The dual i7 core cpu's and memory are impressive, and make for a very good station.[/citation]

You mean dual Xeons. The QPI makes dual processor motherboards for the i7 impossible.
 
[citation][nom]stevementzer[/nom]I got off the 'driver upgrade' train a long time ago.... I just want my computer to work for ME... not the other way around.[/citation]

Really, if you're not into performance computing, you don't really need to upgrade drivers for PCs. For probably 85% of PC users, the stock drivers with the machine are just fine, and will work flawlessly for their simple computing needs. So, in the same situation, a PC requires just as much attention as a Mac...which is almost none.
 
[citation][nom]San Pedro[/nom]It's funny that the Iphone is so popular in the states, and I think Europe too. While I think it's a pretty cool phone, most people here in Japan don't like them at all. They think they're slow on the net, and that they are missing features that many other phones have. . . Then again I think Japan is like the leading place for cell phone technology.[/citation]

Yes I think you're right. I was just in Japan and I was checking out Sony and KDDI phones. They HAVE TV!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even better there are some that have 12.1 Mega pixel cammeras. I think that 8MP was the standard for most.
I agree Japan has some nice phones and the features are things that I find useful. The Flip style with a huge screen beats any iphone that I can ever imagine coming from Apple. Come on apple or anyone for that matter bring us some EXCITING cell-phones!
 
"You mean dual Xeons. The QPI makes dual processor motherboards for the i7 impossible."

The Xeons in the mac pro are based on the Nehilum architecture.

They are the multi-core versions of nehilum.
 
[citation][nom]stevementzer[/nom]I dont think you guys really get it. Not everyone who buys an apple is interested in pushing 150fps on the latest uber-shooter game.Sure, apple doesn't provide 'competitive' video card options. I'll give you that. And traditionally, the hardware has always been overpriced.But you know what, I have a house full of apple products, which rarely require my attention. My kids cant kill them. I turn them on, they WORK every time. I got off the 'driver upgrade' train a long time ago.... I just want my computer to work for ME... not the other way around.[/citation]
The problem in your logic is that you don't see what we are all saying. No one here is saying that apple products are bad but the prices don't reflect the value of the product, 2500 dollars for a 17 inch laptop with the 9600m gt and no blu ray or hdmmi....when a 1200 dollars could get me a laptop with blu ray and at least the gt130 in many other places? heck the latest alienware laptop costs 1799 and it comes with better ram and the gtx260m, and then the mac pro is even worse, well over 2500 dollars for a system that only comes with the gt120 and a single hard drive? really? and then on top of that we have to deal with fan boys telling us their macs are a better product when in fact they aren't?that's here the problem lies
 
It's simple. A PC with OS X is not a MAC like a Mac with Windows not perform like Windows PC. This because apple OS X don't support natively all the hardware pc market may have and it's hardware not work natively for Windows even with Bootcamp (but Bootcamp work very well). This is for the painless drivers issues that Apple don't want to support like M$.

For example, a fiend build a PC who have componantes which are like Mac Pro 2009 have: Core i7 920 2.66 (xeon), ATi HD 4870 512, 6Gb of Ddr3 ram and a motherboard with X58 chipset. And then he have spent past 30+ hours to have a "retail" install of OS X on it without to have to mod the kext files in system/library/extensions/ (this to enable full apple system update). Now on 10.5.6 he got his system stable and fast like true Mac Pro 2009 but without the painless the true apple support. But, if he install the combo update, he try the chance of affecting negatively the stability of his system by the modification of the plist,kext and for sure the kernel. On a true Mac you don't have to have this on mind. Many Osx86 users know issues and they don't know how many time they will spend to resolve it.

Why xi1inx, all those Osx86 user run OS 10.5 on a PC when you can affort a used Mac Pro or high end used Imac for the price of a high end i7 pc rig? Because they try to have the best of both world for the less money possible. But they have to spend many hours to make OS X "retail" running stable on a high end pc. And they have fun to do this.

When these peoples will be tired to work insanely on there false Mac, they will perhaps spend premium on a true Mac. Perhaps!

I love windows just for the lack of game on the Mac platefrom. Other than that, I prefer to work on OS X seriously.

The moral of my story is if you love the OS X os with all is efficient feature like Expose and it's painless support, try to buy a true Mac. If you like Windows OS to do every things like decent gaming, buy a pc. Don't try to diminish Mac hardware because of is price... because you can allways found reasons to see negative on something you don't like or don't know truely. I've own three macs on the last 3 years and never I've been satisfied of it. Apple offer hardware of quality and just take a look inside the Mac Pro to see the quality of build and conception. I say quality of build and conception, not the quality of choise of the video cards.

If you see Apple like a religion, it's a matter of see things. Apple make good product like pc builder make there one. You love it or you don't love it.

A funny thing: Imac 24" + xbox360 premium is a combo like the pc with OS X and windows is a trio! Welcome to the MacDoAChoise!
 
We as consumers,or those who buy mac's are the ones who are promoting and keeping this rediculous trend of not delivering hardware thats up to snuff.Those features should have been on the phone in the first place, and the memory upgrade is a who woopty doo kind of thing.
 
I will never buy a Mac. Buying a proprietary computer that has little hardware support, costs to much, is a bit to much for me.. Mac can only be made by Macintosh.. I like to build my own computer at home.
 
I have to disagree on point 4.

The cut, copy, paste and other such features were about OS 3.0, they have nothing to do with the 3Gs. That's a free upgrade that all iPhones will have. The 3Gs is about "same on the outside, completely new in the inside". Although yeah - I don't see people upgrading because of faster load times and video support. I think a lot of people will be buying the $99 iPhone 3G, not the 3Gs (or something else altogether). And Apple has said that they purposefully won't include background apps, because of they're impact on performance and battery life - that's what they're trying to solve with push notifications.

But everything else - I'm with you. Awesome software, really lacking hardware.
 
This site does not like apple yet so much news about apple and macs. I personally started using OSX on my dell laptop when Vista came out, it is a far more superior piece of software then vista and I wanted something a bit more up to date and reliable. Leopard works great. It would be a while before I ever bought an actual mac because I can make a hack that is much faster and much cheaper.

As far as the iPhone, I have no complaints with mine. I like that the features it has it does them reliably, I really don't need to do much more, but more features that are stable are welcome. I don't even remember the last time I rebooted the thing...
 
xi1inx - You said "quality of build and conception", can your macbook survive a bike running over it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taTbJi3Yhto

Comparing a similarly price PC and Mac, a PC simply offers much more capability and options. I don't game much these days but it's nice to know that my com can handle them when I feel like playing or when my cousins come around. Although I don't utilize all the functions my PC is capable of, things may change and it's assuring to know that someday when I need to do an odd task I don't usually do, I know that my trusty PC is up to the job and I don't need to pay a huge premium for additional hardware.

On the issue of reliability, it is a simple tradeoff between compatibility and reliability. Make an open ended system with support for all kinds of software/hardware, you open up chances for flaws/bugs to happen because not all software goes through robust testing. It's simple mathematics, the combination of software/hardware increases exponentially as support goes up thus room for error increase proportionally too. Make a system with limited support (much like consoles xbox, playstation), you almost never see bugs occurring.

However, with better understanding of your system, crashes and errors can be reduced significantly. Things like using programs from reliable companies, reading hardware/software reviews before purchase helps a lot. Lastly, an article to share to everyone on the "reliability" of macs.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/securi...under-30-minutes/0,130061744,139241748,00.htm
 
I think it's all about market approach... Apple clearly wants to sell less products but at a higher price, and keep that aura of being exclusive. Apple wants each product be more than the product itself.
It's like buying a Porsche Boxster instead of a cheaper but faster alternative.
I agree Apple is not really a true HW company. It's a Software company that uses Design and Price to sell it's products.
 
The new Macbooks Pro 13" are really nice. But they screwed up again by not dropping nVidia, and getting with Radeon Mobility 4670/4650. I would jump on it right away!!!. Now I'm trying to decide between Macbook Pro 13" and Asus N81VP-C1. I'll probably get Asus. But it's pretty tough choice.
 
@norbs I think you're wrong. The authors on Toms Hardware have had quite a positive look on Apple products, often more than the majority of the site users have liked.
Tuan Nguyen, the author of the above article, have praised several Apple launches and even tried to justify why Macs cost more.
Alan Dang went all out when he got himself a MacBook and made a two part review where he tried to explain why he switched from a PC to MAC.
So saying Toms Hardware is anti Apple is quite wrong, although the majority of it's readers still consider a PC more value for money and Apples a waste for most uses.

In the above news item Tuan Nguyen brings out a valid point, that innovation at Apple isn't what it has been and the Apple Tax is starting to show due to lack in hardware upgrades especially on the graphics side.

I actually read arstechnicas live blog from WWDC, and was surprised to find that there was nothing that hadn't been done by others before. I had hoped to see some future trends, as it has happened in the future, but was left with a was speeding up application launch really all they had to offer?

About the iPhone I believe the few hardware innovations on the S to be useless. Sure it's nice of Tom Tom to make an application that used the digital compass, but apart from that I don't see many application developers making anything that can't run on 3G hardware, as that's where most users will be.
 
Sadly as long as Apple gets a free pass from it's worshipers these things are unlikely to change.

Why people believe a company is beyond question or critisism is beyond me. I'm a PC user for life but I question MS on different things as well as the hardware companies. Its how we get better products.
 
God help these Mac users if virus/malware makers ever start seriously targeting the Apple platform. Sticking your head in the sand of Apple land will only delay the inevitable. In most cases (not all) being a smart and responsible computer user will yield little to no issues.
 
[citation][nom]bakaneko[/nom]remember, apple is a religion.[/citation]

Actually, it's not. It's a company. You can draw all the similarities you want, but that doesn't make it so. Call it a fad, sure. But a religion? Why? Because they have fans? If that were so, then baseball, football and music would all be religions. But they're not. And I would argue that sports fanatics are far more aggressive and adamant about their passion than apple fanatics. But that doesn't make it a religion. Get some new vocabulary.
 
[citation][nom]Titanius[/nom]Well Tuan, in response to that article while keeping the one you did before I must say that you are an hypocrite, I am not trying to insult you in any way, I just calls them as I sees them...take it like a man and accept it.But for you to come out an write this article, you must be commended. I agree and I've been saying the same thing for years. I don't hate Apple per say, I just hate their ideology when it comes to hardware...and me being a technician who specializes in hardware I find it insulting when someone tries to convince me that Apple hardware is worth the extra price.Kudos Tuan, kudos![/citation]

Titanius -

Thanks for the comment. But I don't think I'm being a hypocrite. The reason being, I still feel Apple has some great stuff, but I pointed out that this mainly lies within the company's software department, and not so much in its hardware department.

In the last year, it's clear that innovation in Apple's software department is strong, while on the hardware side, not so much. Apple's been making some very odd hardware decisions as of late.

I can sincerely say that moving to Intel was a good move. There's no arguing that Apple is strong in terms of industrial design, particularly in its notebooks. However, its specs give something to be desired given the price.

I did mention that when Apple releases a particularly new line of something, whatever it is, is actually reasonably priced. But because the company tends not to slash prices and instead upgrades specs over time, it lends itself the "overpriced" image for two reasons:

1. no real price drops.
2. the hardware upgrades don't align with what's changed in hardware industry, particularly when compared to competitors.

So okay, Apple can choose to keep say its MacBook Pro at $1799 for example for 1 year. But at least keep the specs up to date. Apple doesn't quite do this, and thus the product that was once initially fairly priced, because a price-victim of its own aging specs.

That's what I was getting at. :)

/ Tuan
 
I agree with everything you said, yet for some reason i still want them all!

I'm considering building a new hackintosh when the new skulltrail 2 comes out, then I can have a dual nehalem with SLi. I wonder its 3DMark score will be =D
 
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