Now I hate APPLE, too!!! (Not just Dell)

[techweenie]

I see a lot of emotional -- but not logical -- defense of the Wintel mess.

I have to say, having worked with major PC-industry clients, they make huge money solving problems for Wintel platform users. There's an industry approaching a billion dollars just keeping the things running & communicating. A couple of my clients were literally baffled that people would choose Windows over the Mac OS -- and these were huge companies in the PC world.

In my experience, people who really know what's going on in the IT world indicate that Mac-centric offices need 1/4 to 1/5th the support of Wintel-based offices. Needless to say, the IT industry looks at the potential for revenue and pushes Wintel solutions. Sometimes, the users even buy into that -- those folks, in my mind are the real Kool-Aid drinkers.

I've been around the industry long enough to have seen the Wintel people laugh off the mouse as a device for beginners. There's always a tendency to trash the other guy's stuff in defense of your own decision.

I have a P4 box sitting next to my PowerBook, but only because I like to play some games that are onlywritten for the PC. And I've been in a few company environments where I've had to use a networked Wintel machine. But most people who've really used both environments would choose the Mac if they were able to choose for themselves -- more so now that there's OSX.

id10t: I looked at FreeBSD when I heard it was the basis for OSX. I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I am impressed with how OSX is evolving...

[SLO-BOB]

This is a test...............

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Sebring, you need to breathe for a minute and read my old Dell thread.

Apple is solid platinum in comparison.

Dell Laptops suck...I want a Mac ;)

[StevoRocket]

Compac XP home edition, 1gig ram , 2 x120gig drives, adsl 1meg, bluetooth, etc etc, and more - fine thanks.

Apple - asked about Ipod at the huge store in Southampton - "dont bother - power batteries are a problem but the ipod looks nice"

Choose a small supplier struggling to maintain a foothold in an industry thats moved on.........

[techweenie]

Sebring:

Too bad you had a smoking iBook. As you probably know Apple hardware is far more reliable than IBM, Dell, HP, Compaq & Gateway, but it's not perfect.

The point you missed about support is that for a given number of units, Macs require a fraction of the support.

Not sure what your point was about software. if games are the most important thing to you, then by all means, go Wintel or PS2. If you create anything, you'll be better off with a Mac.

[stomachmonkey]

Sebring,

I gotta admit that if I had a box that fried 5-6 logic boards I'd have a very strong opinion about that manufacturer and it would most certainly not be positive.

It sucks that you got a lemon.

I'm not advocating that one is better than the other and think that people should get what they like and why they like it is personal preference.

I can't tell you how many people look at me strangely because I drive a car that leaks oil, has a notoriously tempramental shifting mechanism, has a pathetic excuse for a back seat, is certainly not as cheap to fix as a Honda or Chevy, is less fuel efficient than my Tahoe, sounds like a sewing machine once a year, has a unique bolt pattern limiting my wheel options, etc....., you get my point.

At the end of the day it does the same thing as a $10,000 Hyundai or a $100,000 Benz, gets me from point A to point B.

How I choose to get there and what I decide to put up with during the journey is a matter of preference.

Macs vs PC's is the same futile argument, there really is no need for it.

BTW, I am a veteren of the video game industry, it's how I make my living.

Mac users don't play games. There certainly is a large enough installed base of Macs to justify "porting" a game to the platform, it's the Mac consumer that generally does not want games.


Scott

[SLO-BOB]

This is a test...............

[SLO-BOB]

This is a test...............

[JavaBrewer]

Originally posted by techweenie
If you create anything, you'll be better off with a Mac.

Uhh, maybe for a home movie, but for creating computer applications that statement is total crap. Mac, PC, and Unix are all great development platforms. The bottom line, as already stated, do you want to develop for 10 people, or 100? Rule #1 in software development is to develop on the same box as the intended customer. Many $M have been wasted (that I've seen) not following that simple rule. Thus to support our customers (90% PC, 10% Unix) I enforce that my entire development team use PCs and Sun boxes. The argument about Mac vs. PC vs. Unix is very very tired and pointless. Run what makes you happy - unless you work for me

[stomachmonkey]

Yeah I gotta go shovel some snow.

Enjoy the cookie.

Scott

[techweenie]

Originally posted by Sebring77
Re: Dell. I have one-it works great. I had a Dell laptop-I didn't like it so I returned it-no questions asked. That was more than Apple was willing to do. Every brand has it's supporters and critics. No need to guess which camp I'm in.

Have a nice day guys! I'm doing office work and watching the snow fall. Maybe I'll have a cookie!

FYI, with an industry-wide base, the major IT magazines have consistently rated Apple quality and support at the top -- or in the top three -- for the past 10+ years of annual surveys. FWIW, Consumer Reports says the same for personal-use boxes.

Personally, I'm lucky enough to have a nearby Apple Store with free walk-up tech support, but luckier still not to need it much.

I remember a short conversation years ago that summed it all up for me:

--------------
Consultant: Macs are toys.

Me: Howso?

Consultant: I can get in and tinker with Windows and make it do anything I want it to. And I can mess around at the command line level.

Me: All the utilities that do that are avaiable for Macs, as well, but they typically don't have most of the issues you're trying to solve on a PC.

Consultant: Well, I just wouldn't be comfortable with an OS I couldn't tweak.

Me: What car do you drive?

Consultant: Thurderbird Turbo Coupe. Why?

Me: Do you tweak with your car's engine management system?

Consultant: Why would I want to do that?

Me: My point, exactly. Some of us prefer to put the total focus on doing things *with* our computers -- not *to* our computers.

[MichiganMat]

Bad memory will really eff with an Apple Computer.

The people who build the BigMac super computer at Virginia Tech used cheap memory and they had a node (a working CPU) crash every 1 second. Sorry your AlBook had so many problems, that sucks.

My other $0.02: The software development tools on Mac make the rest of the world like dinosaurs. Sure, there aren't many customers, but you'll get your product done in less time, with less hassle, to give to people who will appreciated it much much more than avg. Winblows users.

[nostatic]

Apple isn't perfect. We've had some bad boxes float through our shop. But still preferable for a number of reasons to our Dell or IBM or HP stuff.

Any Sebring, why were you so worried about "justifying" your Mac to other people? Do you really can what the think about the computer you're using?

Tech's "create" language likely concerns the activity of making media. There is *no* equivalent to iMovie in the wintel world, and not much that is as good as iTunes either (or any of the iApps). I'm sure there are people who will point out, "but what about xxx? It blows away iXXX." You are entitle to your opinion but we are in the business of dealing with a wide spectrum of people creating digital media. And it really isn't much of a contest when it comes to picking the tools.

[stomachmonkey]

nostatic,

Have you used DVD Studio Pro3? What a great app.

I love the way the GUI for it, Final Cut and Soundtrack are shaping up.

Very linux like KDE feel to them but cleaner and more polished.

The professional grade versions of the iApps are awesome.

Scott

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally posted by MichiganMat
Bad memory will really eff with an Apple Computer.

The people who build the BigMac super computer at Virginia Tech used cheap memory and they had a node (a working CPU) crash every 1 second.

I'm not disputing your claim, but this just doesn't make any sense. I guaran-damn-tee we exercise the hell out of our lab's worth of boxes (most of them average 95% CPU utilization over the course of the week, and with 1 GB of memory in each there's even sometimes as much as 100 MB available!) and we just put "whatever" RAM is in stock in them. Usually at 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of Apple RAM in similar capacities.

These things never crash, unless we're installing the next MSFT "oh *****" update.

Apple must be doing something frightfully wrong with their architecture if they can't handle a few bad transistors in a memory module containing billions of transistors...

[stomachmonkey]

Is it neccesarily bad RAM or non-matched RAM.

Remeber the days when you had to buy paired RAM.

Basically you bought RAM that had been tested and then paired based on speed. Kinda like cylinder compression #'s, they don't all have to be exactly the same but should be close to each other.

Same thing used to happen with RAM, you could buy 2 seperate sticks both rated for the same speed but one was at the low end of the scale and the other at the high end. Even though they were considered to be the same speed they were too far apart and could cause problems.

Just a thought.


Scott

[SLO-BOB]

This is a test...............

[nostatic]

naw, 'cause I would never buy an iBook...I need more hp