Ok, but you forgot to mention there is a benefit/cost assessment of real PC’s vs Mac’s. It is obvious that in the U.S. it is over 25 to 1 and 40 to 1 worldwide. These figures are almost approaching lottery odds …
I believe it’s been several weeks since we had that discussion about Garageband. Anyway, I tried the demo. I wasn’t that impressed. It was okay, but not as user-friendly as Garageband.
And you know, even if I didn’t try the demo (which I did), I asked for an inexpensive music app that had over a thousand loops. Not a free music app that had no loops.
What is your point? So Apple has a small market share. Some people consider Macs to be worth it to them for whatever reason.
Macs, it can be argued, hold their value well. (An old G4 500 will get more on eBay than a similarly configured Pentium 500 MHz.) There are cites, even, that in the end you get more bang for your buck with a Mac. These cites may be debatable, granted, (and this is not a place for a debate, is it?) but there are such claims made and some people (who have a level of credibility) do stand by them. Mac enthusiasts like rjung know much more about the cost-effectiveness of computers and if he swings by, he can tell you all about it.
:shrug: If someone sees the prices of two products and they are willing to pay a higher price for something that they prefer, and this thing does all the stuff they need it to do, then why is that a problem for anyone else?
I can’t figure out why my PC-enthusiast friend tried to warn me away from Macs so vehemently. It was almost like he was saying, “You’ll be DOOMED! DOOMED!” Sheesh, folks, they’re just computers. All this is a tempest in a teapot, I say.
Great! Then, why can’t I find a real PC’er saying Apple PC’s suck? You 3% “percenters” always bring this up in order to try to justify what you spent on a wanna be “PC” is ok …
-There is an entire community of people online devoted to hacking each and every peice of software available for the PC, I’m not saying this is respectable, but it is affordable:cool:. (When I really like something, I pay for it though)
-Similiar to the above point, there is entire community of people dedicated to making each others’ lives easier buy programming an unfathomable amount of quaility freeware, the amount of people doing this for Mac’s is not even on the same scale. From game emulators, to alarm clocks, to experimental filesharing programs, no matter what you want, someone has made it and its out there for free
-When you buy a PC, you are buying pure performance for your money (if you know what you are doing). When you buy a Macintosh, you are buying 80% performance, 20% apple logo. This is a fact.
On a side rant, I hate it when people have this idea that if you are an artist, you have to use a Macintosh. As if PC’s just CANNOT handle Adobe Photoshop, film editing, or music creation.
THIS IS A STUPID, STUPID, MYTH, and that is all that it is.
This is fine for people who care; however, many people just run Word, get on the Internet, and do email. The fact that there are a kajillion freeware apps out there is meaningless to them, 'cause they’ll never try them out. (Who has TIME to try them out?) In fact, I don’t have time to try out all the Mac freeware apps. Mac OS X can run some of the Unix stuff, since it is Unix-based. I’m too lazy to try that out either.
Just saying it is a “fact” does not make it one, and it does not mean that everyone will agree with you. Some people have decided that the Mac is worth it to them. Perhaps they like the G5 processor. Perhaps they are in love with Garageband (I know I am) or with FinalCutPro, both which only run on Macs. Perhaps they are crazy about OS X. (I love it.) For whatever reason, it is worth it to them.
Oh, no one is saying that you must use a Mac for graphics. But some people like the way the Mac handles color. (Our own spectrum can wax rhapsodic about the benefits of a Mac at his graphics workplace.) And if you want to run FinalCut, you must use a Mac. (And apparently some people feel they must run FinalCut.) If you want to use iDVD, then it’s a Mac for you. And so on. I read on some Mac message boards about people who are switching to Mac specifically for a Mac-only app. Are these people very commonplace? No. But they do exist.
What? Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Are you claiming that no PC geeks slam Macs? What are you saying?
I’ll note once again, I didn’t think this was going to be a debate. I’ll also note that I am not the one slamming the “other” computer platform.
Well, there is also all that Web freeware for Windows. I run
an AMD 1800Xp with Win 2K and I’ve got at least 95 freeware apps in my prog folder. Nice ones, too.
I don’t know because I’ve never run a search for Mac freeware, but my impression is that there isn’t as much. But maybe there isn’t as much need, as well.
Then why do you 3% Mac’ers always bring this issue up, real PC’s vs Apple PC’s?
[nitpick]
ahem Wine Is Not an Emulator. 
[/nitpick]
What? Once again, could you elaborate? I am not following you. And what’s this “real” PCs business? They are both computers. Personal Computers = “PC.”
Regarding freeware: I don’t know much about this (I’ve only tinkered with it) but OS X can run X11, which apparently opens up the Mac to a lot of open source software.
It looks like X11 makes it easier than over to port apps over to the Mac. But, I really am not up to speed on the whole thing. But it’s got some geeks excited.
I’ll elaborate, where does the term “Windoze” come from? This is a 3% Mac Crap vs 97% Real PC issue, you lose!
I’m coming to the end of my rope with you. I first heard the term “Windoze” (a term I don’t use myself, by the way) from Windows people. There are plenty of Microsoft-haters on the Windows/Linux side.
Anyway, I think you’ve shot any credibility you might have in this issue. You are obviously a Mac-basher and are a little hysterical as well.
I use both computers and I am not slamming PCs here, only trying to illustrate why some people prefer Macs, why Macs are not automatically a bad choice, and that Mac users are not DOOMED for their choice in computers.
I think that some PC die-hards (which you obviously are) do all computer buyers a great disservice with your bias. Some people do prefer Macs and are happier with a Mac. If I hadn’t been browbeaten into buying a PC as my first computer, I would have bought a Mac and I would have been happy with it. As it is now, I don’t regret using a PC and I like my PC just fine. But I am exceedingly fond of OS X and I’m glad I ignored the dire warnings of my PC friends who seemed to have some irrational interest in keeping me away from the Mac. My computer choice is just as valid as the next person’s and my choice in computers takes NOTHING away from anyone else.
What he said.
Regarding the O.P., I don’t think “best” or “worst” are suitable for the discussion. I think it has to do with what you want to use it for. Go to the store, play around with both and see what you prefer. As to what “I would use,” it’s a Mac because my I love the attention to design and interface that Macs have. I’m a designer-type. I have found all the software I’ve needed to do my thing with no problem.
But let’s get our priorities straight:
Both allow you to post to the SDMB.
Ringo:
MacOS X is a flavor of Unix. It utilizes a proprietary GUI shell called “Aqua”, in which commercial Macintosh applications run, but the OS itself is a variant on BSD with a Mach kernel called “Darwin”, which is, like Linux, an open source OS.
I have NEdit, the GIMP, mozilla, BasiliskII, xearth, and a handful of other classic Unix apps compiled from source code. Admittedly, I cheat (I use Fink, an automated system for compiling any of a list of Unix apps without having to know very much; and the apps on the list have had Darwin porting already done so they know how to “bake” properly in this specific Unix environment. But more knowledgable people are known to do their own porting. Which explains how Fink can exist in the first place, I guess)
nano:
I never knew there was PC shareware and freeware until relatively recently. I suppose there’s even a network of helpful & friendly PC users to help you learn your way around and so forth, too, but as a Mac user I wasn’t aware of it. I guess I always thought PC users were scared to download and install lots of noncommercial stuff because they were so worried about viruses, and because they were scared of hosing their operating system and having to install from scratch and lose all their settings (maybe even all their documents) if they did.
I cut my Mac teeth in the Info-Mac Digest era, and downloaded shareware and freeware beginning in the System 4 days. Every Info-Mac Digest was 50% shareware and freeware offerings, and the Ziffnet-Mac collection was the most robust competitor to it, with the Umich Archives coming in third. I think by the time I was running System 6.0.8, the parade of third-party extensions and control panels alone ran for two full lines’ worth!
Yeah, we have, and have always had, very good freeware and shareware.
Just for your information, PC stands for Personal Computer, which was coined because it’s more, eh, personal than microcomputer. The term itself is not limted to IBM PC and clones.
Thank you for your attention.
Citing “percentage of people using” as proof of quality is like citing McDonalds as Earth’s best cultinary experience.
Just a public service reminder. 
There is not a Macintosh in the world that can do what I demand from my little old PC.
But then I realized that there are very few people with the specific, admittedly strange, requirements that I have.
I realized that probably 97% of computer users don’t really care about anything that I care about, and for these people I can see how a Mac (or a PC) would be a fine choice.
After all, a Macintosh is objectively a well-built machine, with good software. Always has been.
/can’t beleive I said the things I said in this post
I use a Mac running Panther at home and a PC running Windows 2000 at work. They’re both really stable machines. I have to turn my work computer off every day when I leave, but I can go WEEKS without turning my home computer off, and its performance only improves the longer it stays on.
That said, I prefer the Mac. By a lot. I find the GUI more intuitive and easy to use. I think it looks a lot better than Windows XP. I absolutely love iTunes and iPhoto, and they’re better than the comparable PC apps I’ve tried (except for the PC version of iTunes, obviously). While the PC has better software in some categories, in terms of “digital lifestyle” apps, I think the Mac wins hands-down.
As for freeware and shareware, VersionTracker has quite a bit listed for OS X. And, yes, having to virtually never worry about viruses and spyware brings a lot of peace of mind.
If you do get a Mac, one recommendation: Buy a two-button mouse. This is the only thing I wish Apple would change about their computers.
Enter the Mac intelligentsia … the 97% of PC users who don’t use Macs are all just common folk with no taste.
SwingWing, while rjung may not have couched his commentary in the most tactful terms, I think you can at least agree with his core statement: Popularity does not equate to quality. Anyone using the “my computer’s user base is bigger than yours” argument for why one platform is better than another is doing nothing to advance their cause.
There are plenty of products in plenty of areas where the higher quality is used by a small percentage of people, just as there are times when a bad product is used by a small percentage of people. As for most products, popularity means absolutely nothing in determining which platform is better.
Putting words in rjung’s mouth, eh? He made a vaild comment: McDonald’s is the world’s largest restaurant chain.
Damn right. Even I didn’t have a problem with rjung’s popularity comparison.