Why a Mac and not a PC

I suggest that you go to your local Apple store to check them out. I'm running a 2 year old 12" powerbook g4. It is an absolutely great machine. I still use Windows machines but I like the Apple better. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. Don't worry about virus or spyware infections.... yes it could be a problem down the road.

2. Stability - my OS never crashes... ever. I go for probably 6 months without ever shutting down or restarting.

3. Compatibility - no issues anymore. You can share files over a network and edit on either system - Windows or Mac.

4. Size - my powerbook is incredibly small. It has a great battery life and even after 2 years it holds a charge for 3+ hours.

5. That said they are more expensive. If you are going to do heavy graphic editing or expect to do a lot down the road go for the Macbook Pro. The only upgrades I have made on my machine is a 512mb ram upgrade. The next machine I buy will be an Apple as well but I'm waiting for the G5 replacement to be released that will have an Intel processor.

I'm a MAC guy and whenever my PC friends get to play on my powerbook they always fall in love with its ease of use and the way that everything just works. No dumb questions from the hard drive when importing - it just works. Period.

As for software - sure if you're a cubicle drone, limpet mined to some nefarious global corporation then I guess a PC is really a necessity - so buy one. But if you're an artist, a creative photographer then there really isn't a reason to be burdened with inferior software and inferiorly- made hardware. You may find that like millions of other creatives around the world that the MAC just brings something out of you - rather like a Leica used to with many of the Magnum photographers. (And still does in some cases!)

Cheers, Ivan

--
http://www.ivandepetrovsky.com/

...since this thread is degenerating into a typical Mac vs PC mutual venting of prejudices, but as I have about 20 years of experience working on both platforms, I'll throw a couple of thoughts and experiences into the pot.

• I think most of these discussions really amount to people recounting their anecdotal experience with one machine and software configuration or another. Very few people here really have extensive experience with a wide variety of configurations of machines running both Windows and MacOS. I'm probably not an exception, so take what I say (and what you read from others) with a grain of salt. Your experience may vary.

• My desktop machine is a Mac G4. In spite of the comments along the lines that Mac users can't/ don't upgrade their machines, this box has been heavily upgraded, including souping up the processor from 450 MHz to 1.2 GHz, adding lots of RAM, extra internal and external hard drives, new internal optical drives, and putting in a variety of PCI bus cards to support various peripherals such as a SCSI scanner (all Macs used to support SCSI, but the new ones don't), USB2 card readers and printers, etc. The machine runs better now than it did when it was new (originally used OS 9, which was a pig, now using OS 10.3.7, which just runs and runs), and is my main Photoshop machine, running the entire Adobe Creative Suite.

• Until recently, my laptop was a Dell PC, which I acquired about 4 years ago. I got it just because I needed some kind of laptop, and at the time I bought it, the Dell was about 2/3 the price of a comparable Mac laptop. Frankly, the Dell has been terrible. The plastic case has cracked in multiple places (with no particular physical abuse on my part to have caused the cracking). The battery goes through periods of refusing to charge, and then mysteriously begins charging again. I have had many annoying instances of Windows autonomously beginning to update itself when I was in the middle of a time-critical job Bluescreens have been frequent, including a recent episode that was so serious that I was panicked into buying a new machine. Since the Dell experience has been so bad, and I have so much new photo-processing and other software on my Mac, I decided to go for a new MacBook Pro. So far, that decision has worked out delightfully.

• My previous experiences with both platforms have included PC's going all the way back to the original IBM XT and Mac's back to the original all-in-one Mac. I've always felt the Macs gave me a superior user experience, but in the business environment I worked in, the PC's were always a necessary evil. Many of my PC's have been pretty nice, though - in partcular, I had a couple of IBM laptops that I really liked.

• MS Office has been available on Mac OS for years, and files from Office 2004 are 100% compatible with Office on the PC. Mac Mail has some small incompatibilities with Outlook Express in the way it handles attachments. But then Outlook Express and Outlook (both MS products) have some attachment incompatibilities, too.

• Networking between Macs and PC's is no big deal - Ethernet works fine.

• In general, very little commercial-grade software comes with either platform unless you pay for it as an added-cost option. There are lots of neat things that the average user can do with the combination of iLife and .Mac, but iPhoto doesn't compare to Photoshop or Aperture in any way. Most heavy-duty commercial software (e. g., Office, the entire line of Adobe stuff) is available on both platforms and behaves pretty much the same, give or take a version or two here and there as development gets out of sync with operating system and hardware platform changes.

• While it is true that alt-shift-del will normally allow you to quit a single misbehaving program and continue to run XP, I have had numerous experiences in which that mechanism has failed - i. e., the only way to recover was to do a complete system power-down and restart. I have had one or two similar instances on Mac OS 10.3.7, but nowhere near as many problems as on XP.

• I believe part of the source of more frequent problems with PC's is due to the fact that there are so many different manufacturers of both the motherboards and plug-ins. Modern Macs allow third-party plug-in cards, but only Apple makes the motherboard. So there are orders of magnitude fewer combinations of things to test in checking compatibility of new products (hardware and software).

• I'm not fanatical about Macs over PC's but after using both a lot over two decades, I like the Macs better at this point in time. It has nothing whatever to do with a pretentious need to impress others, and it has everything to do with how much time I want to spend taking care of my computer vs. doing things with it.

If your experience varies from mine - well, hey, that's why life is so interesting.

Ray

TrekSF6 said:

I have never had any antivirus software on my PC and haven't had a
problem.

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Hmmm. Very rare. Most people using their PCs for typical internet and email activities who don't have antivirus software will get a virus eventually. And most of these same PCs will be riddled with spyware, with the attendant performance degradation and security exposure.

TrekSF6 said:

I work on Macs way more than PC and I can easily say that I would
never buy a Mac for home use. You can get a more powerful,
compatible machine for MUCH less money.

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Not really true any more, especially for laptops.

TrekSF6 said:

And they are more stable imo.

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Another hmmm. The half-dozen or so Macs I've had since the late 80's have all been absolutely rock-solid, including the Powerbook I'm tgyping this on, which has been up 24/7 for almost all of the last 2 years. Most of the dozens of PCs I've owned over the last 25 years have only been completely reliable if they were used for very narrow purposes (such as file service) or were very new, or running Linux or OS/2. My earliest PCs (running pre-Windows PC DOS) were OK, as were the CP/M machines before that.

Most problems I've had have been due to Windows bugs or security holes.

TrekSF6 said:

I guess I am sort of biased toward PC. Only because it makes sense.
Plus I really like the options for upgrading and building my
system. Mac people just buy a whole new system when they want to
upgrade. PC people, get a new motherboard and cpu.

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How many PC people (nerds aside) actually replace their own motherboards? Get real. Most people replace their PCs every couple of years when their old one either stops working or becomes intolerably slow.

TrekSF6 said:

Also, PC people
have so much more software and hardware to choose from.

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Best-of-breed software choices are really pretty comparable between platforms. What does it matter that there are 100,000 programs, when 90,000 are cr@p? The one significant area where PCs rule is game software. And hardware - I use the same printers, scanners, keyboards, mice, graphics tablets, monitors, hard drives, etc, etc. on my Macs as I do on my PCs.

Bottom line, for me and many others, is that the Mac does everything I need, and does it reliably, with style and panache.

--
http://www.pbase.com/gzillgi

Irwin said:

I see that there is an Office 2004 for Macs. Would I be able to
read Word files from that on a Office 2003 program. Thinking
whether I should change my work computer to a MAC. My home
computer (PC) is new so I wouldn't want to change it but would like
to read my Word and Excel documents on a PC.

Click to expand...

Irwin,

I use Office for Mac on a daily basis and it works very well on PPC processors, but now with the new IntelMacs, Office runs under Rosetta until Microsoft releases a Universal Binary version. It still works reasonably well with Word and Excel but it's somehow slower and can get buggy especially with Power Point. I bought iWork '06 and do my presentations with "keynote" . also "Pages" - part of iWork - reads Office files with no problems and it's not an expensive piece of soft.

Regards

1. People are idiots. There are lots of companies puting out PC clones using various parts. Being idiots they buy the cheapest one thinking there is no difference between them because they have the same CPU and a pretty monitor. So, they buy the Dell instead of the IBM (for example), have major problems with it and conclude that the PC is a POS. Then they buy a Mac, for 30% more than they paid for the cheap PC, get a quality built machine (because no one is selling cheap ones made with inferior parts) and conclude the Mac is wonderful. Had a someone been selling a cheaper Mac clone with sub par parts, they would have bought that instead, and had the same problems as with the PC. No choices = better.

2. They buy a cheap component to add to their PC, because there are too many brands to chose from (like WIFI routers) that either don't work because they are a POS or because they conflict with some other POS component they have on their cheap PC. Whereas with Mac, you have fewer choices to make, the hardware they already have is good, and the new hardware and software for it have less possible things to collide with. So, they conclude the PC is a POS. Limited choices = better.

3. The Mac does have a more user friendly and consistent interface between applications. Just like many of us prefer the ergos of the Nikon over the Canon, the ergos of the Mac do seem to fit many people better. There is less of a learning curve for new users, whereas the PC maintains some of its DOS origins. It has taken years for MS to ween PC users from their old hardware and software, but Win XP is the final break they needed.

4. You do need anti-virus and firewall software for the PC. THe number of Mac user out there does not motivate the hacker/virus writer as much as the pool of PC users they can thrash.

The truth is that if you do your research, buy a quality PC, and stick to quality components, doing your research to find out which is the best of the many available, you will get a computer that works extremely well. I have built my desktops myself from the top components currently available that are certified to work with the OS I intend to use. My PC has functioned every day flawlessly since I built it 2 years ago.

For laptops I owned a Toshiba Satelite 6100 Pro and now own an IBM T43p. Both functioned without any problems.

So, if you are computer illiterate and don't want to spend the time to research it, are actually thinking of getting a Dell, and like the safety that comes with very limited choices, then the Mac is a good idea for you.

I am refering to a subset of the "idiot factor" (a general philosophy I have created that explains just about everything) that is also called computer illiteracy.

with little dusts in their eyes and willing to go beyond their comfort zone to seek greater heights as opposed to those with mud stuck on theirs. You are obviously the former... so here goes:

Nikonsyncro said:

1. Can you network a mac to a pc computer and share files?

Click to expand...

Yes. In fact yu will find working on a mac easier.

Nikonsyncro said:

2. When one does buy a mac how many other programs come with it
like word, outlook ect. or similar.

Click to expand...

Depending ont he model, you might get most "lifestyle" packages in the box. Most will already come with Mail, Address Book, iPhoto, iTunes and some will come with iLife or even iWorks.

Nikonsyncro said:

3. Is a mac of the same value realy faster and better than a pc?

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That depends. If you can save most of your valuable system resources on your work instead of worrying about viruses, would that be a better value?

Nikonsyncro said:

4. If and when comunicating with other people via email or the
internet that have pc is it a problem?

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Huh? What problem? BTW, both the PC and MAC platforms are pretty stnadardised, (i.e. most format can be read by both platforms and shared.) To find out more why a Mac is still better, read on...

Nikonsyncro said:

5.Does this Apeture program convert most raw files on the market?

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Yes. If not, there will be releasing an upgrade the moment a new camera is launched.

Nikonsyncro said:

6. How user friendly is a mac?

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Way more than a PC. The only time a PC is "more" user friendly than a Mac is when a Pc user uses it for the first time. Most dual users are diplomatic as maybe they like the idea of pirated softwares more readily available on a PC. I have never looked back ever sinced I switch to a Mac when they introduced the OSX.

Nikonsyncro said:

8. Can one customise the mac opperating system like I can with
windows?

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You bet!

Most importantly, Mac is based on Unix which makes it more stable. BTW, if you ever make a switch, you can say goodbye to one thing when u use a PC, ststem hang.

check out these ads http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

you have never used a Mac for more than 5-10 minutes in a store before.

Actually, more like 30 minutes. I have NOTHING against Mac. The ONLY reason I would not look at a Mac today is because I am a computer programmer that has used PCs since 1987. So, I know them inside and out.

I kinda wish my parents had gone with a Mac now. Using a PC is very frustrating for them at times, and I have had to help them a lot.

I pointed out the pluses for Mac in that post. I am just saying that a PC is not a POS, anymore than I would say Canon is POS just because I chose Nikon.

Ah... so you had a mac for slightly more than a year only to be pretentious... no wonder you didnt actually used it to appreciate it.... that I can understand.

snapshots said:

hey where is Q7??

Click to expand...

You can't get Q7 on a Mac.

RonAnnArbor said:

Finally - almost everything for the mac costs twice as miuch as
similar items and software for a PC. I just dont understand how
they can charge 2400 dollars for the current macbook pro that has
FEWER features than my 1000 dollar gateway laptop that is already a
year old.

Click to expand...

Hmm...your year-old Gateway has a Intel Core Duo processor? I thought they were introduced in January 2006?

Ray

Anastigmat wrote:

“It is not that Mac OS is virus proof or anything like that, just that those who write malicious software wants to write them for the most popular platforms.”

Completely wrong. Where did you hear this tripe ?

In Mac OSX, Nothing can be added, attached or installed
without your password (administrator permission).
In Mac OSX, all ports are closed.

Beacuse Windoz is 94% of the world....it must be backward-compatible
wth 1000s of software and Hardware vendors, thus

in Windoz, ALL the ports are open, hence viruses, worms & spyware have a field day.
This bogus OS design costs MicroSoft about 1.5 MILLION dollars a day.
(Their words, not mine)
Microsoft is currently offering two seperate quarter million dollar
bounties for the authors of two particularly horrid worm/viruses.
(a Windoz problem, not a Mac OSX problem)

In Mac OSX all the ports are closed.
And the very core of Mac OSX is NOT available for
modification or alteration by ANYONE,
even with administrator access.

There is a distinct difference.
Being the biggest is a disadvantage.

Ummmmm... actually, Apples ARE vulnerable to viruses although perhaps not nearly as much as other platforms. I worry about it daily on the mac, and am still wondering what the best/most comprehensive firewall, etc. program is for the mac.

Don't you remember the virus scare to apple users earlier this year (or late last year) that made the news?? .. where several apples were infected?

I've learned this about computers since I've started working online back in 1983/84... virtually NO computer is virus proof unless its OFFLINE and a standalone closed system where software (or data) is never added or taken away from the system. AKA simple terminal where you can only read data on screen... no drives, no peripherals, no anything.

... other than that (including apple computers) are subject to being infected. Thinking otherwise is foolish?

• Remember when 20/20 watched the hackers paid by Chase, Citi, or Bank of America (I can't remember which) try to break into their brand new highly secured system? They did it in less than 24 hours and had gained access to virtually EVERYTHING....

now.. knowing that... I don't think I'd bet my life that those same hackers/crackers could not remotely plant a virus on my little apple, or some PC running the latest version of McAffe (however you spell it)... honestly, would you?

Teila K. Day

Nikonsyncro said:

Paid a fellow Photographer a visit and he has a new mac pro
something laptop.

As a PC user and never worked on a mac I see he is using a program
called Apeture to convert raw files and do basic editing to his
photos. This seemed easy and good especialy all the archiving and
email feutures built in.

Now I wonder am I missing something? and have the following questions

1. Can you network a mac to a pc computer and share files?

Click to expand...

Yes.

Nikonsyncro said:

2. When one does buy a mac how many other programs come with it
like word, outlook ect. or similar.

Click to expand...

Macs come with a the following software, including a web browser, Safari; iLife suite (iPhoto - image management and RAW processing, iMovie - digital video editing, iDVD - DVD authoring, iWork - like MS Office, Garage Band - music authoring); iCal (Calendar program); Address Book; DVD Player; iTunes; Mail - like MS Outlook; Preview - PDF reader; iChat - an instant messenger.

Nikonsyncro said:

3. Is a mac of the same value realy faster and better than a pc?

Click to expand...

Generally, Macs aren't quite as fast in raw processing speed as PCs at the same price point. However, they are extremely reliable, easy to use and maintain, allowing you to be more productive overall. I have both a PC and a Mac at work, and although the Mac is older and slower than the PC, I prefer it for virtually everything. I only go to the PC for checking email (on a Windows network) and really processor intensive photo editing. When I replace the Mac with a more current model, I will probably not use the PC at all except for email.

Nikonsyncro said:

4. If and when comunicating with other people via email or the
internet that have pc is it a problem?

Click to expand...

Nope.

Nikonsyncro said:

5.Does this Apeture program convert most raw files on the market?

Click to expand...

Yup. More than most because it also converts Adobe DNG files.

Nikonsyncro said:

6. How user friendly is a mac?

Click to expand...

Extremely. Moreso than any PC running windows. Unless, of course, you're accustomed to a PC running Windows, in which case the Mac will seem utterly counterintuitive. It all depends on what you're used to and how determined you are to learn something new. I doubt many folks conversant with both and unbiased will tell you Windows is easier to use.

Nikonsyncro said:

8. Can one customise the mac opperating system like I can with
windows?

Click to expand...

I have no idea the extent to which you've customized windows, so can't address this.

Nikonsyncro said:

A reply from someone who has gone from PC to Mac will be apreciated.

Click to expand...

I'm a Mac user (12 years) who's learned to use Windows (5 years), so keep that in mind when considering my input.

--
Garland Cary

the price dropped with the release of version 1.1
--
Garland Cary

You make 100% sense, and you're telling your age when you mentioned the IBM XT ! I can remember using those dinosaurs as well with their super loud keyboards (I love them). I remember when 8mhz was fast! My first modem was 150 baud.. when I moved up to 2400, I was one of the fastest on our side of the city (excluding banks at 9600)... that was back when 512kilobytes of RAM was gross excess! The Apple III was a favorite of mine waaaaaay back; not many remember that model (or the crazy priced LISA).

I used Apple, but migrated quickly to the Amiga 1000, 2000 and 2500 with video toaster, etc., etc.. due to that platform being the best for graphics at the time.

Using both (apple and OS X / pc and XP Pro) platforms daily.. I agree with you, mac is a smoother operator over all. I not sure how I like the new chip idea... and my guess is that the whole dual operating systems on the newer macs will be a bit slow (only my guess).

Sheesh.. your post reminded me that I'm getting really old (chuckle)... I suppose people who can remember routinely having to configure and match the parity, stop bits, baud rate (modems didn't automatically kick down or match the other modems speed back then), or when email actually took a full second or so to fully scroll from top to bottom before being in full view on the green lettered monitor, etc., etc., then they were obviously computing in the early/mid 80's.

OOooooh man, if my father could see how far computers and cameras have come!

Thanks for the memories

Cordially

Teila K. Day

Teila Day said:

You make 100% sense, and you're telling your age when you mentioned
the IBM XT ! I can remember using those dinosaurs as well with
their super loud keyboards (I love them). I remember when 8mhz was
fast! My first modem was 150 baud.. when I moved up to 2400, I was
one of the fastest on our side of the city (excluding banks at
9600)... that was back when 512kilobytes of RAM was gross excess!
The Apple III was a favorite of mine waaaaaay back; not many
remember that model (or the crazy priced LISA).

Click to expand...

LOL - yeah, I'm admittedly in the "geezer" category now. If I remember correctly, that first XT of mine actually had only 64 kB of memory - and I worked in a research lab environment, where we were more or less encouraged to keep our gear up to state-of-the-art, so it wasn't just a cost issue. I also worked on pre-Mac Apples like the IIe and Apple III - I can remember the technological wonder of my first 5 MB hard drive. Modern OS's do seem pretty easy in some ways, compared to command line language and assembler code.

Teila Day said:

Using both (apple and OS X / pc and XP Pro) platforms daily.. I
agree with you, mac is a smoother operator over all. I not sure
how I like the new chip idea... and my guess is that the whole dual
operating systems on the newer macs will be a bit slow (only my
guess).

Click to expand...

Dunno - my 2GHz/2GB RAM/100 GB HD MacBook Pro seems pretty speedy, even for non-native apps. I'm looking forward to seeing how it does when Adobe finally brings out the Universal Binary code apps next year.

Teila Day said:

Sheesh.. your post reminded me that I'm getting really old
(chuckle)... I suppose people who can remember routinely having to
configure and match the parity, stop bits, baud rate (modems didn't
automatically kick down or match the other modems speed back then),
or when email actually took a full second or so to fully scroll
from top to bottom before being in full view on the green lettered
monitor, etc., etc., then they were obviously computing in the
early/mid 80's.

Click to expand...

When I started using e-mail, it was all UNIX-based. Had to use readmail, vi, etc. And most people, even in the research environment, didn't really get around to reading their e-mail all that often, so you were often better off to just make a phone call or send it by snailmail.

Teila Day said:

OOooooh man, if my father could see how far computers and cameras
have come!

Click to expand...

It's a wonder, all right.

Teila Day said:

Thanks for the memories

Click to expand...

And thanks to you, as well!

Ray

Far from it.

If you're serious about any work on a computer, you want the machine and the operating system to get out of the way.

Mac and OSX do that.

It's not perfect, but when you're chained to a laptop for ten hours a day, Mac makes my life easier. Apple spends more time thinking through things.

When I switched from a PC, there were about 48 hours of discomfort getting used to the new system, then there was comfort and no looking back.

--
Phil Flash
SF, CA USA
'Trust the 'kon!'

Stuff I own in my profile.