Why I Went Mac But Still Keep My PC

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I think the one thing that people here are forgetting, and probably because the author here was all over the place, but that Apple is a better integrated solution for what you want to do on the desktop. More so than Windows or linux. Everything works together seamlessly. They all have their drawbacks though. Apple is such a closed OS there aren't nearly as many things that work with it, and the font issue is a real pain in the ass. Linux will require a lot of initial set up time to get it to work. Windows has numerous problems from viruses to DRM, to name a few.

You are going to pay a premium for a Mac, this is true. Apple has no good mid-range product. The mac-mini is crap compared to a similar priced Dell/HP/Sony/Gateway/whitebox machine. On the laptop end they are much superior to anything else however. Reliability, the ability to encrypt the entire OS out of the box, good design, and stability.

If you have the time to tinker with things, linux is for you. However if you want to turn a computer on and have it run the basic applications that you want, you may want to look at a mac. I run XP, OSX Lepoard, Ubuntu, Redhat, and Gentoo in my home environment. Each machine has its own purpose, and I like them all.
 
[citation][nom]Mach5Motorsport[/nom]You enjoy laptop with a propriatary based OS with an intel CPU? Enjoy those sluggish gamming framerates.but you are keeping your desktop PC[/citation]

I don't spend most of my time playing games. When I do, and need the best support, -- and frame rates -- I have my PC.

/ Tuan
 
Great for the consumer, but I like to control and work with my hardware. In my experience, Macs have not done much of anything a PC could not. Macs are almost completely hype, because the fact of the matter is that Mac is still a PC. It's still personal, and it's still a computer. The hardware inside is all the same as any other computer. The only thing that's different is the operating system, and it's as if it's some sort of magical program that will cause your programs to work synchronously the way no other OS can. It's called the Mac Myth. I've used Photoshop and the whole range of Adobe products on both a Mac and a PC, and I see absolutely no difference in how fast it works with comparable hardware and how my work comes out.

If you want to say that the Mac is a great computer for consumers and is geared towards compatibility and ease of use since it's heavily controlled by Apple, by all means, go ahead. But I don't want to hear anything about this bullshit that Macs are somehow magically better than PCs by virtue of the fact that they're made by Apple. Don't buy into the Macintosh Myth.
 
I will never get a mac because it is outrageously priced, twice the price for the same hardware, no os worth that, no matter how good it is.
and i yet to find something xp can't do for me, which is mainly gaming.
i also have ubuntu 8.04, its great but the end-user need to make everything work together which is very annoying to a new comer, but of course every os has its uses.
 
[citation][nom]DXRick[/nom]So, to sum up this article, Macs are cool if you have an iPod and iPhone and use iTunes. Now we just need iCars, iCoffeeMakers, iTVs, and get an iLife.[/citation]

Haha, I actually like your comment.
But oh, Apple does have iLife already. lol.

:)

/ Tuan
 
YOU SICK MAN.
Why on Earth would you have that awesome system in your computer only to not use it at all? If you really haven't used that PC for 6 months, I'll gladly take it off your hands and put it to good use.
 
Whenever I read another one of these articles the only thing I can think about the article is the author saying this: "I'm getting old and am tired of tweaking my hardware...I think i'll get a mac." Then the justifications follow.

BTW...without expose, window management on OS X is a NIGHTMARE!

-T
 
What's the difficulty with Alt + TAB? Or Alt + Windows?
One of Vista's selling features is that flip-3d thing among other
eye-candy benifits...screw Mac & Vista. I ain't paying an arm
and a leg for all this hardware necessary to run eye-candy! I'm running Win XP SP3 on a P4 2.8GHz (overclocked to 3.08GHz), 1 GB Ram, 300 GB HDD, cheap ass Radeon 9200SE, I got 9 windows w/7 apps running + log me in & Norton's AV 2008, & have problems switching between apps, etc. Maybe could use some more horsepower but this thing is 5 yrs old and still pretty damn quick.

Also, "this article really touts Apple's integrated solution - from
personal computer to digital multimedia to cellular phone platforms"
this is not really true . Actually, this article really touts Apple's integrated solution - from a Mac computer to an iPod to an iPhone.
I think that's a much better description. (Someone else above also noted that point.)
 
I am using PCs since my first 386. I still use my current PC:
ASUS P5K Motherboard
Intel E6750 Core2 Duo, 2.66 Ghz
Nvidia 8800 GT 512 MB
OCZ DDR2 1GBx2 RAM 800 MHZ 5-5-5-15
WD RAPTOR 74GB 10000 RPM
WD 500GB
MAXTOR 250GB
WD 120GB
MAXTOR 120GB
Windows XP x64

My system just flies. I don't care about switching windows, because the only application for managing my files and folders I'm using total commander (old habbit of mine from the dos days, didn't really acustomed with windows).
I have all the applications I use working great on windows XP, and I don't know a good reason why to switch. You said it yourself, Windows XP is the greatest windows system of all. I didn't use Ubuntu, so I can't compare it, but I used suse and fedora, and let me tell you, there is no comparison between windows and suse/fedora. Windows is in many factors greater and stable.
I have also a laptop I aquired lately, and it came with vista. I hate the day I bought it. I'd rather had a laptop with XP. I barely use my laptop at all, and it had cost me $1000. Imagine what it would like to me to switch to mac? A disaster which I won't go into, unless the prices of macs would be half of those of PCs :) Yes, I don't even settle for even prices, let alone double prices for macs, as the status is now.
But that me. It is very hard to me do changes. What works - why change?!!

P.S.: Seeing the setup you had, I was just drooling. Swicth all this for a limited hardware mac, just because you liked better it's OS? And you even not doing all you things on it? I think you are some agent of Apple :)
 
[citation][nom]T-Bone[/nom]...I'm running Win XP SP3 on a P4 2.8GHz (overclocked to 3.08GHz), 1 GB Ram, 300 GB HDD, cheap ass Radeon 9200SE, I got 9 windows w/7 apps running + log me in & Norton's AV 2008, & have NO problems switching between apps, etc. Maybe could use some more horsepower but this thing is 5 yrs old and still pretty damn quick.Also, "this article really touts Apple's integrated solution - from personal computer to digital multimedia to cellular phone platforms"this is not really true . Actually, this article really touts Apple's integrated solution - from a Mac computer to an iPod to an iPhone.I think that's a much better description. (Someone else above also noted that point.)[/citation]
Woops!
 
Tuan,

I'm sorry to say it, but I feel this article was misplaced effort. Most readers of THG are downright hostile to Macs.

BTW, for those who are open minded, David Alison writes very well about the Mac experience, coming from a Windows world.
 
[citation][nom]KyleSTL[/nom]Mac + BluRay = does not computeMac + TV Tuner = does not computeMac + any piece of hardware released this calendar year = does not compute[/citation]

You really should look at the releases for Apple before commenting. Mac + bluray = movies on your Mac. They have a bluray decoder and drive. They went Bluray before Microsoft fully supported it. The Radeon TV tuners work just fine for a mac, as well as recent hardware.

If you don't like the platform, that's fine. I'd recommend doing some research before you make uninformed comments.
 
I agree with the author that OSX has a je ne sais quoi quality about it that makes it hard to describe. The cost of hardware is a really and very high barrier to entry and OSX is definitely not worth the price. But if you can afford it, and depending on your usage style, you will enjoy it more than a windows PC. I think if the author will publish a follow up article on what he actually uses his "computer" for, you will clearly see who Macs are marketed towards. I personally built a hackintosh for that very reason. It cost me a total of $300 CDN plus the cost of OSX. I use that machine for everything BUT games. It runs very well and has more than enough power to do what I need it to. It's just a waste of money when you have a high end gaming PC ONLY for games and a hackintosh for everything else.
 
No sale.

There is still so much that the Macintosh OS can not do, and it’s not necessarily a fault on the operating system. This is a windows world, all of my business machines are windows based all of my clients machines are windows based. I would love to see how leopard handles having multiple apps and directories open but, it would be more of tease since all of the work I do is for windows based databases.

For general computing I don’t see the advantage of switching to a Mac. Several web pages support ie/WMPlayer functions that might not function properly on the safari browser. I honestly do not like ITunes at all. The music management system is not as refined as WMPlayers music library which doesn’t really matter since ITunes is available for windows anyway. Searches?... Vista has a similar option, not sure if it works any better or worse than Macs search function. Neither my vista laptop nor my XP desktops have ever crashed, multiple occurrences Macs crashing is unacceptable. Vista seems to handle high memory loads extremely well its unfortunate that there isn’t much to do with it . Calc functions? That’s cool but, how hard is it to type calc in the run box?

Gaming is a big issue as well; I am a gamer and demand not only the latest titles on my machine but the latest hardware to run them. This is something Mac can not do; at least at this point in time (IGN games will not list MAC as a gaming channel :)).
There is always going to be a niche group that will prefer macs or will uses them as their sole computing solution but Windows will remain the dominant OS.

I would assume that Vista sparked this article and Vista does suck in a lot of ways but Microsoft is one of those companies that can afford to make colossal mistakes (Intel would be another). I am sure many PC users will hang on to their trusty XP machines as long as possible. Hopefully Windows 7 addresses the compatibility problems of vista or least give computer users more reasons to leave their XP apps behind instead of just the polished turd that is vista.
 
So, what you are basically saying, is that Macs
- in a closed, one hardware vendor system have finally produced a PC that can compete with MS XP (in an open hardware multi-vendor system) ?

Just imagine the stink people would be kicking up if MS required you to buy MS hardware on which to run their OS.
 
[citation][nom]RAVENWARE[/nom]No sale.There is still so much that the Macintosh OS can not do, and it’s not necessarily a fault on the operating system. This is a windows world, all of my business machines are windows based all of my clients machines are windows based. I would love to see how leopard handles having multiple apps and directories open but, it would be more of tease since all of the work I do is for windows based databases.For general computing I don’t see the advantage of switching to a Mac. Several web pages support ie/WMPlayer functions that might not function properly on the safari browser. I honestly do not like ITunes at all. The music management system is not as refined as WMPlayers music library which doesn’t really matter since ITunes is available for windows anyway. Searches?... Vista has a similar option, not sure if it works any better or worse than Macs search function. Neither my vista laptop nor my XP desktops have ever crashed, multiple occurrences Macs crashing is unacceptable. Vista seems to handle high memory loads extremely well its unfortunate that there isn’t much to do with it . Calc functions? That’s cool but, how hard is it to type calc in the run box?Gaming is a big issue as well; I am a gamer and demand not only the latest titles on my machine but the latest hardware to run them. This is something Mac can not do; at least at this point in time (IGN games will not list MAC as a gaming channel ).There is always going to be a niche group that will prefer macs or will uses them as their sole computing solution but Windows will remain the dominant OS.I would assume that Vista sparked this article and Vista does suck in a lot of ways but Microsoft is one of those companies that can afford to make colossal mistakes (Intel would be another). I am sure many PC users will hang on to their trusty XP machines as long as possible. Hopefully Windows 7 addresses the compatibility problems of vista or least give computer users more reasons to leave their XP apps behind instead of just the polished turd that is vista.[/citation]


See you bring up an interesting point, which is what I talked about in my article. Now with all the Intel Macs, you can do a native Windows install and back to work you go. Software compatibility solved.

(I use VMWare Fusion and it's fast enough that I never find myself rebooting to Boot Camp to do what I need to do -- other users' experiences with their own apps may vary.)
 
You should use Parallels over VMware. It's much faster. You can game pretty nicely with it too over the virtual Windows install. I've fired up Orange Box and UT3 on a dual quad MacPro running an 8800gtx video card. They run great.
 
""XP and Glide never really shared that love windows 9x did, and EA never really made a decent patch for Need for Speed 3 to work with XP properly even.

Dos box gives some relief but in the end, the 9x machine is easier when its native etc.""

That's not true. Fastvoodoo II XP did offer Glide back again in XP. Not official drivers, but more likely hacked ones, but they did their job & a good one too.
 

apple.com -> Store -> Mac Pro -> Configure Now

Where is the BluRay option? And TV Tuner card?
Could you provide a link proving your assertions?

To my [limited] knowledge of Mac you can only buy accessories/upgrades/etc from them to maintain your warranty (and have driver support). Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
I agree with the author that OSX has a je ne sais quoi quality about it that makes it hard to describe.
Click to expand...
Quite possibly the phase in pop culture I hate the most. (I'd venture to say a Windows user would never use it, especially in regards to their operating system.)
 
This is tomshardware.com. From hardware point of view, Mac is a PC.

Check out other articles on this site. What will be conclusion if something has the same hardware power, limited software support and it is way more expensive?
 
Apple is a hardware vendor that separates itself from other hardware vendors with its operating system.
People think it is microsoft vs. apple and the reality it is Apple vs. dell, hp or gateway. Comparing some of the offerings for equivalent machines when I purchased my macbook pro the macbook pro 17" was comparable to a dell with vista ultimate within 50 dollars or so. Same with the mac mini if you include what hardware each has. Simple fact is people on this site enjoy building their own systems and try to compare a homebuilt system to a vendor system. Just remember if you are going to argue your points then make sure you compare like to like.
 
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