Mac or PC?

[Gihgehls]

Mac OS would already be on top if Apple made it a teensy bit less painful to get it running on commodity hardware. As it is now, if you want the best OS, you have to sacrifice on hardware or buy a $Texas Mac Pro.

[Oct]

Mac here, I am a developer and like the Unix environment and Mac has the best Unix GUI for the more mundane tasks, I quite like Ubuntu, after Unix, Linux feels familiar.

[FrostyEOD]

HP laptop running XP Pro
Compaq laptop w/ Vista (soon to be upgraded to Win7)
13" Mac book pro w/ snow leopard
and new iMac 21.5" shows up Tuesday (W00t!)

I am an amateur photographer and love the Mac for that sort of stuff, windows machines are for games, trips to really dirty dusty places or guests.

You pay the "Apple tax" but you save in other ways like no viruses, better reliability, easier crash recovery, etc.

Different horses for different courses

[gbrandwood]

Originally Posted by Rocknail

Mac will come out on top over windows soon. I had a hp pavilion that was the worst, the power supply didnt work and it would shut off at random times. I just bought a used ibook g4 and it works great, it has never frozen, even after I was using four programs and transferring 400 songs to Itunes, and the mac was just a fast. The wifi is amazing as well, it stays connected all the time and I can download super fast over wifi. Mac all the way, if you cant get a mac go for Ubuntu on a PC. It does take a little while to get used to a mac and how it works but it is way better then PCs any day.

Care to define your definition of soon?

There's a lot of love on here for Macs and iphones etc. and I'm fine with that (not that my opinion, or the opinions of users on this board constitutes the correct assessment of the actual situation - which varies for everyone). But it does seem to strike me that there is a theme amongst pro Apple people surrounding just how much better they say or think their stuff is. Maybe it is better. Maybe us Microsoft users are just too shy to say how great we think our OSs are, or how wonderful open PC architecture is... maybe we daren't say these things for fear of being wrong and out coolified by Apple fans? I really can't say. Maybe we don't feel the need to assert our choices of IT in such a way. We do what we do. If all Windows users so actively voiced their opinions then it would be quite a deafening noise.

One of these days I might have to try a Mac for more than 5 mins and see if anything sticks. But I'm much more likely to try Windows 7 because overall the move will cost less, the software will run on my existing hardware and its what I know (more or less). I guess some people will look at things this way and is why I wonder "how soon" it will be before all Windows users realise they have been going wrong for all of these years and Macs do come out on top.

[florin]

Originally Posted by gbrandwood

Care to define your definition of soon?

I'm afraid that it will take a long time, companies still like to see the Mac as an expensive device for graphic artists.

The first things I have seen of a Mac were the ease of use of Finder, the volume control buttons on the keyboard and some other small things, combined with an enthusiastic story of the owner were enough to convince me. But I'm sure that the majority of the Windows users need some more time/reasons to get convinced to switch to a Mac.

Our IT manager can't see that the Mac is after 3 years cheaper than a PC, simply because the cost of reinstalling Windows Vista every year and the involved down-time are going from another budget and aren't clearly visible.

I can only hope that the PC users on this forum will have some serious time to take a closer look to a Mac. My MacBook Pro (from early 2006) still works fine, got it out of the box, started working with it, did twice a OS upgrade, and funny enough everything remains working, no incompatible driver issues or what so ever. Combine that with no worries about viruses, and I have enough reasons to only hope that the PC users will find out that there is a life beyond Windows and it is actually cheaper than a PC and almost worry-free.

[gbrandwood]

Originally Posted by florin

My MacBook Pro (from early 2006) still works fine, got it out of the box, started working with it, did twice a OS upgrade, and funny enough everything remains working, no incompatible driver issues or what so ever. Combine that with no worries about viruses, and I have enough reasons to only hope that the PC users will find out that there is a life beyond Windows and it is actually cheaper than a PC and almost worry-free.

Our personal experiences are largely what influences our opinions and your anecdote about your laptop is a good illustration about why you see it your way. But, I see it another way.

I expect the laptops I bought in 2006 to continue to work. The majority of the ones we use in work (the ones which are now out of warranty and support) do continue to work and, whilst they're not everyone's first choice, I wouldn't be surprised if they continue to work for another 2 years. Nothing to write home about. They run XP (released in 2001). I think they came with SP1 and have since moved to SP2 and SP3. Rather large upgrades. No driver issues there. The key to longevity is a mixture of hardware, software and levels of use/abuse!

Viruses. Well, I don't worry about viruses. I have suitable anti-virus software and good practices. It's good that Mac users say they don't need to worry about viruses - but I don't worry because I know I am protected. If someone did create a nasty virus on a Mac (I've not researched this so I'm assuming none exist), well you'd be pretty much left wide open. And, if as some Mac users are suggesting, eventually Macs do become dominant - or even approach the kind of numbers of "PCs" out in the wild, I imagine the virus threat situation would be different. Perhaps by that time - however soon or far off it may be -or even if it ever does occur, whenever/if ever, if Macs become a bigger target for virus programmers and glory zealots, you won't start having to worry pretty quickly! You certainly have your share of security alerts.

"I'm a skoda driver. I don't have to worry about people stealing my car as they're all busy stealing Audi's. So I won't bother with an alarm or immobilser."

You say you hope PC users open their eyes to the virtues of Macs (not meaning to put words in your mouth) - I say that as a PC user I have my eyes wide open. IT departments will choose PCs because they suit their requirements, their environment, skills, SLAs etc. Apple will have to go a long way to change that - and I don't know if they want to do this, if they're big enough to achieve this, and in the mean time, their competitors aren't equally innovative and forthright in ensuring it doesn't happen.

[florin]

Originally Posted by gbrandwood

I expect the laptops I bought in 2006 to continue to work. The majority of the ones we use in work (the ones which are now out of warranty and support) do continue to work and, whilst they're not everyone's first choice, I wouldn't be surprised if they continue to work for another 2 years. Nothing to write home about. They run XP (released in 2001). I think they came with SP1 and have since moved to SP2 and SP3. Rather large upgrades. No driver issues there. The key to longevity is a mixture of hardware, software and levels of use/abuse!

You should expect that, that where they were intended for. As long as you stay on XP, you won't have problems. Stay away from Vista and wait with upgrading to Windows 7. When you want to upgrade, first check if the software you are using is compatible with Windows 7, or that you need a newer version. If your using the standard/regular software, this shouldn't be a problem.

I'm sure you're right, Windows can work pretty well, I guess. As long as you don't want to upgrade right away when it's released and don't have an IT department that forces you to use old versions of drivers.

You say you hope PC users open their eyes to the virtues of Macs (not meaning to put words in your mouth) - I say that as a PC user I have my eyes wide open. IT departments will choose PCs because they suit their requirements, their environment, skills, SLAs etc. Apple will have to go a long way to change that - and I don't know if they want to do this, if they're big enough to achieve this, and in the mean time, their competitors aren't equally innovative and forthright in ensuring it doesn't happen.

I think they are further with that than you expect, one of the Dutch Mac-related podcasts visited a school last year. The school had decided to switch 100% to Mac, probably with a lot of help from Apple. The IT manager was proud that they could give the kids admin rights and didn't have to restrict them,he was saying that it would be a good learning process for the kids when they messed up their Mac. When it would happen they could bring their Macbook to the IT department and 15 minutes later they got their Macbook back with everything working again and with all the software they had installed back on their Macbook. Believe me, I would love to have our IT department to have a system like that, in our case they need something like half a day to get Windows back on it again and than I need a whole day to get all my software back up and running again

So I really believe you are right, a PC can probably work fine, if you have a good IT department.

[gbrandwood]

Originally Posted by florin

When you want to upgrade, first check if the software you are using is compatible with Windows 7, or that you need a newer version. If your using the standard/regular software, this shouldn't be a problem.

I'm sure you're right, Windows can work pretty well, I guess. As long as you don't want to upgrade right away when it's released and don't have an IT department that forces you to use old versions of drivers.

Microsoft released for both Vista and Windows 7, a system readiness tool which assess your existing hardware and software (they may have done one for XP too, can't remember). So, if we did plan to move on those machines, we would know in advance whether we would have any driver or performance related issues. The thing about the PC environment is, you don't have a standard hardware set so you can come across some weird and wonderful issues if you have some funky hardware. But that has caused a proliferation of PC hardware and add-ons which I would say has brought about more advantages than disadvantages. There are plenty of ways to verify whether the drivers have been approved by Microsoft so as to reduce the likelihood of any issues.

Originally Posted by florin

I think they are further with that than you expect, one of the Dutch Mac-related podcasts visited a school last year. The school had decided to switch 100% to Mac, probably with a lot of help from Apple.

If Macs work best for them - great. But was that the only school? How many schools are set up like that? In my experience, schools tend to have Macs for music/video work and then PCs for everyone else, including the staff. But, that's just my experience, and not necessarily indicative of the whole primary education sector. I work in the higher education sector at a large University and we support PCs. My previous employers have all been large public sector bodies (NHS, local government) and it has always been the same there. My employer recognises a few people will want to use a Mac in the work environment so they offer what they can and those users receive limited support.

Originally Posted by florin

The IT manager was proud that they could give the kids admin rights and didn't have to restrict them,he was saying that it would be a good learning process for the kids when they messed up their Mac. When it would happen they could bring their Macbook to the IT department and 15 minutes later they got their Macbook back with everything working again and with all the software they had installed back on their Macbook.

All of our users have Admin rights. Each and every one (students have a slightly lower level but over 4000 staff are all admin users). Lots of organisations lock things down to the nth degree and there are pros and cons either way. We find it works well for us. And, if we have a situation that requires a system restoration, we have an equally effective imaging routine which restores the desktop to exactly how it was prior to the incident. It probably takes about 20-25 mins to be honest - but we do have a highly customised version of Windows pre-loaded with tons of software.

I wish I could justify purchasing a MacBook just to try one out - but I simply can't afford to take the gamble - and even if I did and found Macs were the answer to all my PC problems, I'd then be frustrated at not having total interoperability with the mainstream systems in use with my employers.

[Gihgehls]

Plenty of viruses on Mac, but there aren't enough Mac's out there to make them suitable members of a bot net. Darwin, due to its heritage, has really nice security features, but to say that viruses are nonexistent on Macs is to be painfully ignorant of today's computing landscape.

[Oct]

You could always run VMware on a partition.