http://blogs.macobserver.com/userfriend
To be totally honest, I really do think that Mac has reached critical mass in terms of applications and ease of use, and have delivered a superior product. I think that if you sat down the average PC user and asked them what their common problems are, you'd get something like this:
"It crashes a lot. I have to reboot often."
"My data gets erased all the time. It's hard to make backups."
"Things don't work the way I expect. I don't understand the behavior of the PC."
"I can't find what I'm looking for."
"The computer doesn't have the software I really need - or it's some kind of pre-installed trial version and I have to pay more for it."
Apple has addressed all these issues with the stable Unix-based OS, Time Machine one-button backups and restores, maintaining intuitive user interface standards, Spotlight search integration with all files regardless of type (also integrated with Time Machine for searching DELETED items saved in your backups), and totally free iLife software that does 80% of what most home users care about (iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, Garageband)... how can Apple lose here? This isn't even counting the tight and clean ecosystem-like integration with the most popular mobile devices in the world (iPod and iPhone).
I suppose one argument against Macs is always going to be price. Well, frankly, you get what you pay for! People would never argue that it doesn't make sense to pay more for the advantages of an Audi versus a Kia, or for a BOSE sound system over a Wal-Mart brand. People I think are just used to the commoditization of computers and PC clone computer parts, and expect everything to be cheap and interchangeable, as if that somehow gives them "control" over their computer or something. This to me makes about as much sense as picking McDonald's over filet mignon for dinner - McDonald's is cheap and commoditized, sure, but it has a bad aftertaste and is extremely bad for you.
I truly believe the only things propping Microsoft up now are momentum and monopoly. They'll have to completely gut themselves and radically transform to get anywhere near where Apple is going.
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mikecap- Mike Caprio
- Welcome To My Head
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the flip side is that as Macs get more popular, hackers will start taking a harder look at it. Macs sort of got a free ride for a long time because no one cared enough to screw with it. But I bet that'll change.
later
Tom
But design programs just run so much smoother and more nicely on Macs, I couldn't do it.
That, and getting a PC would effectively brick my iPod unless I felt like never adding to it ever again, or reformatting it for PC.
So happy birthday, to me!
Honestly, I don't see hardware being an issue with my laptop for at least three more years. Game software eats up more disk space than any other resources these days, since graphics and CPUs are such monsters now.
I know I couldn't get my games to run the way I wanted without using Boot Camp. Emulators just didn't cut it. But I think also that game companies are going to start waking up and realizing there's untapped potential in the Mac market too; hell, look at where Bungie started, right?
The big differentiator nowadays really is just software.
My general feelings on the big three OSes:
- Apple - for people who want it to "just work"
- Linux - for people who want it to work flexibly and don't mind tinkering
- Windows - for people who have to use Windows-only software
The fact that I can only recommend Windows to people who need Windows because it *is* Windows is a pretty sad statement.
Also agreed on the OS perspectives... though I'm going to start venturing more into Fink to get more open source code stuffed back into my Mac OS. I think Mac OS has a lot of potential to be more flexible; at the very least, there seem to be a lot of hooks in terms of automation and scripting that one can tinker with. And honestly the GUI is way better than any GUI that's available from any Linux distro.
I'll tell you what, the weird thing about iLife and Mac is the distinct lack of a "paint" program. You'd figure with everything else that's bundled in, they'd put in a little more image manipulation software. I use GIMP now, and am not sure if I'll ever go back to Photoshop for personal stuff...
I've been frustrated with little things, like a lot of menu options being named weird things that aren't intuitive to me, like "Get info," the mystery meat navigation, and that I can't shut down unless every imaginable program and window is closed, and you have to close a program and a window separately.
I don't know how much of this is because I'm still adapting, or that I'm so used to fighting with my computer to do stuff that I'm trying too hard or something.
I'm also annoyed that using things cross-platform is such a PITA. Seriously, we should be so past that by now... I also expected that the "mac" and "PC" versions of the same software would behave mostly the same but they don't.
Now my learning process consists of "click on everything and drag it all around every which way and see what happens" and 95% of the time I find new functionality that way and it makes perfect sense after I discover it. It's amazing that I've never really had to go into Help menus once (though I really should to figure out some of the advanced features in the iLife apps).
I disagree that the software for Macs is limited. And even if there is somehow an "abundance" of software that only runs on Windows, that will change as the base of Mac users grows. And it is growing pretty rapidly, despite economic slowdown/recession.
And frankly, it's not about evil empires or revolutions for me... I only care about who's got the best product, and that's who I'll give my money to. Apple clearly beats Microsoft on functionality and ease of use, and that's all that matters.
And your software is limited or you wouldn't need to make excuses about the user base. I'm not going to adopt so that maybe there will be more Mac users and then I can get just what I'm getting now. When Macs actually offer me something, rather than just offering the potential to be just as good as what I have for less money and effort, then I'll think about switching.
Has your PC NEVER crashed once since you bought it? Have you ever owned a PC that never crashed? Because if you read my comment, the word I used was "never". I've never, ever, ever owned a PC with Windows on it, all the way back to 3.1, that never crashed and never had to be rebooted as a result. If the flaws of PCs aren't part of the core experience, why the hell does everyone I know with a PC describe the same experiences to me? Why are there so many exactly similar anecdotes? Are you really going to start telling me that Windows is more stable than Unix? I'll grant that I've only had my laptop for 8 months, but that's still a fucking no-crash record for me in nearly 20 years of PC usage.
I love the fact that I can code in python or perl or compile with gnu tools by clicking on a terminal window. Can a Windows PC do that out of the box? Hm, sounds like limited software to me.
Look, really, I know I can't convert people anyway. Hell, I couldn't be converted until I actually decided on my own to see whether my experience would really be better on a Mac. People convert themselves. As Macs continue to get more market share, the numbers will speak for themselves too.
If your Windows experience was really that bad you either had a very crappy computer or were a crappy user. Macs are good for people who don't know shit about computers.
And limited software isn't some dumbass comparison of what comes in the box. I'm not stupid enough that I need a company to feed me my software suite, but no amount of intelligence is going to let me use a PC-only program on a Mac without crappy performance or buying Windows anyway. And if I'm just going to be using Windows to run my software, why the fuck did I pay for a different OS?
Macs are good for people who don't know shit about compters
Wow... biased/prejudiced/religious/elitist much?
So you're basically saying that Macs are good for the majority of people? People who, unlike you and me, don't have CS degrees and work as software engineers?
Thanks for making my case for me!
Gee, funny that, being called religious by an Apple zealot. Who would imagine someone would think the other side was really just biased in an internet argument. I really don't care if you think my opinion is elitist though, despite what Fox news tells you, being elite is not really an insult.
And yes, if you're bad at computers you should consider a Mac, but you've still got the price and limited options to judge against its sole-source ease.
I don't have any of the issues you list on my PC. I reboot about once a month, and that is usually due to the fact that my apartment has dicey power and my PC is 5 years old. The caveat here is that I have avoided Vista (aka the new WinMe) like the plague. XP is excpetionally stable, and I've never had any trouble with data loss or difficulties with backups. Finding what I'm looking for is a breeze, and there is far, far more software available for this platform than any other, so that's never been a problem.
I don't exactly agree with the hardware-is-hardware argument, either. The far more democratic PC hardware platform has allowed me to maintain a viable box by performing simple upgrades for years. Sure, I can use cheaper parts and keep the price down, but I can also upgrade to superior parts relatively cheaply and easily.
My choice of MP3 devices is a good microcosm of why I prefer the PC platform. A while back, I wanted a flash MP3 player that had good battery life. The first one I looked at was the 8gb Nano, which is one very slick, sweet device (this was prior to the current generation, mind you). However, the 8gb Sansa player had over twice the battery life, an FM radio, supported more audio formats, allowed for microSD expansion, and had a replacable battery, and all of this for approximately 60% of the price of the Nano. The Nano's interface was MUCH slicker and it worked better with iTunes, of course. But...feature for feature, it really wasn't a tough decision. The Sansa even worked better with Windows (which you'd expect, since all they really do is make flash drives).
That said, I do like Macs and a lot of my favourite people are Mac users. It just isn't an attractive option for me.
It just comes down to having a cleaner, more sensible user experience overall.
I really don't have any way to quantify the overhead, but I know what you mean about that. I already know so much about PC behavior and am probably making so many allowances for it ahead of time that I'm not even consciously aware of. No way of knowing, really, without switching.
I will say this, though: as a former VW (aka Audi) owner and current Kia owner, I'll take the Kia every freakin' time. The "German" (aka Mexican) car was all flash, but unbelievably bad to maintain and not built especially well. The Kia is boring and has zero sex appeal, but everything works and it costs approximately nothing to maintain ;-)
I really love that I can manage my photos and videos with ease (I've got something like 40 gigs of photos and video on it now), and create cool multimedia stuff right out of the box. And the integration between the calendar, address book, and mail programs is so well done that I've just about moved everything off Gmail onto my local machine.