No, but it does seem to work out that way, though, doesn’t it? 
The point remains that smooth edges notwithstanding, Apple makes far, far more of an effort to design and produce high-quality, user-friendly products than anyone else. They put the customer first and rely on that to make their profit, rather than churning out utilitarian equipment that does what it has to and little more.
If it weren’t for Apple, we’d probably all still be laboring along under a command-line interface.
Cheers.
So cheap clone PC’s suck [Hopson the butler]I’ll alert the media[/HtB]. Throw out the baby with the bathwater much?
Unclviny
If it weren’t for Xerox, we’d probably all still be laboring along under a command-line interface.
They charge exorbitant prices in order to make their profit, and whenever possible they make absolutely sure you can only buy from Apple.
Apple recognized its potential the day it visited Xerox Parc and developed it further into a useful interface. It was only rudimentary and experimental at the time Apple discovered it.
Gates, on the other hand, resisted the GUI as long as he could. So did most of the PC’s existing users, who considered the GUI, with its icons and mouse, as childish and toy like.
They charge what they do for two reasons:
One, the price is justified due to the simplicity and quality that is built into their products.
Two, their customers will pay it in order to enjoy the benefits of a more simple, well-designed and higher-quality product.
Oh, I forgot! The problem with this is…what, exactly?
Does Mercedes take pains to assure you can buy identical cars and parts from other manufacturers who are using their design specs so they can sell cars that are pretty much the same as Mercedes but at a much lower price?
Does Coca-Cola make its formula available to anyone who wants to duplicate it in order to offer it at a lower price?
As I said earlier, Apple may have shot itself in the foot by not allowing clones, but the flip side to that is that while its OS and interface may have become much more common, its in-house sales would have plummeted. How much has an open architecture helped IBM’s PC computer business? I’ve never known anyone who owns an IBM computer.
As I"ve mentioned earlier, IBM did not “allow” clones either; Compaq reverse-engineered the IBM PC without permission or help from IBM which wasn’t happy about it when it happened.
I’ve been using Macs since the SE, but I have to agree that Apple really should’ve gone to a two-buttom mouse years & years ago. It’s one of two things about the Mac that drives me crazy (the other being the tiny amount of RAM that’s standard in their computers). It’s a fair criticism.
The fundamental problem with Windows is that it has some serious security flaws in its coding that make it very vulnerable to hackers, and its dominance in the marketplace makes it very attractive to hackers. And the arrogant way Microsoft behaves as a corporation only adds to that attractiveness for hackers.
Macs, in addition to having better software and hardware interfaces, are not as easily hacked and not nearly so attractive to hackers, hence have virtually no problem with spyware, adware, malware, viruses, worms and Trojans like Macss do.
I have a PC as well as a Mac. I do most of my grpahics and web design on the Mac. I surf the Web on the PC because it’s faster, but I don’t use IE, I use Mozilla. I used to use IE, but I was constantly fighting popups and malware. Since I switched to Mozilla, that problem has gone by bye, and of course there’s the lovely tabbed browsing, too.
Speaking striclty on a performance basis (in terms of usefulness, not clock speed or any other such pointless stuff, Macs outperforms Wintel boxes, and Mozilla outperforms IE. Wintel boxes are still better for games, just because more are made for them, but I don’t play many games.
Should read, “Like Wintel boxes do.” :smack:
Based on what?
Speed per dollar? I don’t think so.
I’m perfectly willing to concede that Apple makes fine computers, and if i had unlimited cash to spend i’d definitely consider a dual-processor G5. But on a speed-for-your-buck level, PCs generally have it over Macs. Hell, half the moral superiority demonstrated by so many Mac people often involves the argument, “Sure, you pay more for the same level of power and speed, but you’re getting better quality.” I believe that there is much truth to this argument, but it’s a bit disingenuous to then turn round and say that Macs outperform PCs, without taking cost into account.
It also depends exactly what you want to do with your computer. The general consensus seems to be that Macs are far superior for intensive work with graphics of any kind, whether 2D or 3D. But even in this area, some tests tend to show that the actual performance of the Macs is not as superior as the reputation would suggest.
This test compared two Macs and two PCs on intensive processing of RAW digital camera images. The computers in question (this is about a year ago) were:[ul][li] Dell Precision 450: Dual 3.06GHz Xeon processors, 2GB RAM and twin 120GB hard drives[/li][li] Apple Power Mac G5: Dual 2.0GHz G5 processors, 2GB RAM and 160GB hard drive[/li][li] Dell Precision 360: 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processor, 2GB RAM and twin 120GB hard drives[/li][li] Apple Power Mac G5: 1.8GHz G5 processor, 2GB RAM and 160GB hard drive[/ul] In the conclusion, we learn[/li][quote]
For Mac users, this report is a lot less gloomy than the January 2003 version. The greater computational horsepower of the G5 Power Macs allows them to complete all of the tests in this report much faster than the G4 machines they replace.
Mac OS X 10.3 plays a role here too. For the first time since we began measuring card-to-computer transfer rates, the Mac is able to match or exceed the throughput of a computer running Windows. For years, the Mac operating system’s ho-hum code for handling FAT-formatted removable media - including CompactFlash cards - has meant comparatively pokey transfer rates, even on the fastest Mac computers. The all-new FAT plumbing in OS X 10.3 finally puts an end to the slowness.
Software developers also appear to be heeding the call from Mac users for better RAW file processing performance on their chosen platform. For example, the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in for Photoshop, C1 Pro and MacBibble all take advantage of the dual processors in Mac computers that are so-equipped. The result is processing times for MacBibble and Photoshop Camera Raw on the Mac that are competitive with a fast dual-processor PC. In fact, MacBibble handily outpaces Bibble for Windows in batch conversion of Nikon D1X NEFs.
But the Mac isn’t out of the woods yet. The PC is still quicker at a variety of batch processing tasks in Photoshop. Nikon users wedded to Capture will find a top-flight PC is not only a lot quicker than a Mac at opening, saving and batch processing NEF files, it also feels more responsive when stepping through basic operations such as changing WB or zooming. Even on a G5, Nikon Capture still acts a bit like it’s stuck in molasses.
Photographers who shoot with the 14n or DCS 760 are still able to work more quickly and process files faster on a PC than on a Mac. Even C1 Pro, despite being optimized for the Mac, is still measurably faster on a PC.
[/quote]
Also, as the author notes, this test was done on desktop computers.
Of course, the results of a test like this should not make any Mac owners run out to buy a PC, and i’d never suggest they should (although Mac owners never have trouble making the reverse suggestion).
For one thing, at the top end of the performance scale, either platform is likely to do just about any digital picture processing tasks as quickly as you will need. Secondly, as the author of the report points out,
Furthermore, as anyone who uses a computer knows, some people just prefer the layout, the interface, and the overall “feel” of one type of computer or operating system over another, and such preferences are not always amenable to being changed by reference to processing speeds alone. If the Mac owners who constantly dive-bomb PC threads with pointless “Get a Mac” comments would just realize this and accept it, maybe they’d seem a little less patronising and smug.
Yes, I believe you’re right. I thought I remembered something about IBM having made the decision to allow its operating system to be released for all and sundry, but now that I think about it, I believe this was based on IBM’s decision to license its operating system from Microsoft rather than developing one in-house which it would own.
I believe Gates had in mind all the time that he could ride IBM’s coattails all the way to the bank by also licensing the OS to competitors who also wanted to ride IBM’s coattails to the bank by manufacturing and selling less expensive and/or higher quality machines.
I misspoke myself, but still, if IBM had not made the decision to use an OS that was available to anyone who wanted it, they would not have been done in by clones.
Having spent countless hours tearing my hair out trying to explain to computer newbies the difference between left-click and right-click (sure, it’s easy for us tech folks, but you wouldn’t believe how many people get hung up on something this simple), I’ll simply say you must have had things easy.
And one nice side-effect of Apple’s insistence on a one-button design is that it prevents developers from shoving commands into context menus, where they can be easily overlooked. Just another thing annoying about Windows… 
Excellent point. So why do PC users keep trotting out prices to Mac users, as if that’s all there is to it? “But it’s cheaper.” “But for that amount of money I could get XXX PC with XXX blah blah blah” as if both systems are interchangable. SPOOFE asked in this thread whether saving “7 minutes” (the time it took to install some utility on the PC) was worth the extra price of the Mac. Well, as I’ve said, yeah, it is worth it, because we like the interface and “feel” on the Mac better.
It works both ways, all the damn time. It works both ways, as we’ve seen on this thread. Macs are smugly called “toys,” “doorstops,” and much more. Give me a break.
I,ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
You Mac people are funny!.
Unclviny
Oh, yeah?
Oh, yeah?
Well, your punctuation is funny!
So there!
[Bronx Cheer]PBPBPTTT!!![/BC].
Unclviny
You’re right, it’s pointless.
All i would say in their defense is that, every time i’ve seen a PC user do this, it’s been in response to something like the OP.
Again, every time i see this, the mudslinging has been started by a Mac user, exactly like in this thread.
This rant is pretty funny, he mostly seems to be complaining about OS 9, but sneaks in a couple of jabs against OS X.
I’ve got to go to my mom’s today and ::shudder:: work on her HP Pavillion. Windows Update ate her FreeCell, can’t have that! I can’t wait for her to buy a new machine, any new machine; if it’s Win XP, I can say ‘Sorry,I don’t know how to fix that, call tech support’, or if it’s a Mac, there won’t be as many problems (as with '98, not XP). I might have to sabotage the old PC to get her to buy something new anyway, “I don’t want to have to learn something new, I’m used to this one”. Sigh. At least I still know how to un-clusterfuck '98, had lots of practice. 
Well, a lot of the times I’ve seen it, it’s been right after I happen to mention that I have a Mac. ("But you could get a PC for so much cheaper . . . " “iFruit,” and so forth.) On some of the Mac boards I frequent, PC users will come to troll. This certainly isn’t a one-way sort of thing.