Hmm. Good point.
I guess I was lucky enough that the people I tried that with mostly never knew the difference. They didn’t really touch anything except Word, the browser, and some photo app.
And if you explain it to them the right way, it doesn’t have to be about interpersonal trust but about the limitations of computer security. If need be, you can always give them the admin password while simultaneously explaining why they should stick to the limited account as much as possible.
Windows. I need Inventor/Pro E/Solidworks to work properly and that damn penguin tried to rape me.
I guess that’s why every iteration of Windows has become more and more Mac looking.
I’m not sure what your objection to a Mac keyboard is, but you can use any one you want. Same with a mouse. I know a lot of people don’t care for the Mighty Mouse, but it worked OK for me.
On Mac laptops, once you’ve used 2 finger on trackpad to right-click, you’ll find the separate mouse button cumbersome.
I used to use Windows, but switched to OSX at 10.2. I like that it’s a Unix machine, but with a user-friendly interface, and well-supported. Ubuntu is making some big strides in that department, too, and I have an Ubuntu box I play around with a bit (mostly for playing old games: It was actually easier to get them to work under Linux than under any flavor of Windows), but my primary machines are both still Macs.
The only keyboard shortcut I haven’t been able to find yet is when a dialog box pops up, with two or three buttons on it. I haven’t figured out how to press one of those buttons via keyboard, yet.
IBM I series and OS/400. A real platform and OS. 
But if you want to talk stand alone desktops, it has to be Windows. There are several reasons.
Bang for the buck. PC still win here. Easily.
I’m a software developer and my main market has always been IBM and Windows. My main PC development tool won’t run under any Mac OS.
I also support a hundred or so systems for various customers at any given time, both Mac and PC (although the vast majority are PCs). The PCs are vastly easier and cheaper to work on, and I’ve had more repairs per hour used with the Macs.
I own several PC desktops and laptops and one Mac laptop (a 15" Powerbook G4). I prefer the Windows boxes.
I waver all over the map. I LOVE my Unibody MBP. I’m really liking Windows 7. I avoided Vista almost entirely. XP and I are well acquainted friends. If I need to do something serious with logs or serving things, I go Unix. If I’m doing something serious with media, I do it on the Mac. If I have to admin something Cisco, I’ll do it in a Windows VM.
I have OS/2, Be, and ChromeOS VM’s, as well as windows 7 and XP.
People have been saying the Mac’s gonna be the target of a serious nasty something for years. Hasn’t happened yet.
Unix is easily ownable…if you happen to have an affected services running that you never patch. I don’t. And I patch.
I REALLY like my netbook for short periods of time.
But there wasn’t an ‘all of the above’ option, so I picked Mac.
I’ve used Macs for 25 years.
I have several PCs, but I only use them when I have no other choice - I just find Windows to be an affront to decency.
I bought a netbook with Linux on it, and used it for a while before I wiped it to install OS X. I found it to be competent, but really no match for OS X’s depth.
Linux. No viruses, bash makes lots of tasks extremely easy, and lots of custimizability.
Plus, I can buy, like, 17 Dells and put Linux on them for the cost of one Mac
The Mac is a user-friendly Unix workstation. You have the power of the Unix command line (bash, grep, sed, awk, perl, etc.), security features, and so on, with all the mainstream commercial software support that Unix has never had. What more could you want? As of 10.5, OS X is actually POSIX-compliant, which makes it more of a Unix than Linux.
I used to use Linux, but eventually I got sick of computer maintenance as a hobby. Windows just sucks. Other than inertia and a slew of corporate management features (that are admittedly important, and lacking from OS X), it doesn’t have anything going for it.
If you at all value your time, the fact that you pay a $100 premium or so over an equivalent PC is irrelevant.
Just yesterday, I had to view all the differences between all files in a directory structure named “input.txt”, and a template input file. In Mac OS X, it took one command, using solely the software built into the OS. Windows won’t do that at all.
I really know nothing about Windows, but from what I have seen, I’m just stymied as to why anyone would want to fumble around in such a system.
The Mac OS is all about super fast ways to preview documents and files on your machine. Also, orgnization and finding the right file, window, or what have you.
Networking is a dream. Screensharing is built right in. If my wife is on the laptop, and wants to know how to do something, I just click on her computer icon, click screenshare, and boom, I’m seeing and operating her screen remotely. This is also easy to do over iChat across the internet. I was able to help my MIL numerous times this way when she ran into problems.
System wide technologies like Quicklook, Spotlight, and Exposé have become indespensible. I don’t even know if there’s anything like it on Windows. Anyone?
And I find Mac OSX to be zippy as hell, so no complaints about speed from my end, and I work with huge file sizes, and thousands of files and directories.
I’ve used Apples since the Apple ][, PCs since before Windows 1.0, and now Linux on the desktop. I now use Linux at work because that’s what we sell so I’m kinda forced to (but I’m considering going to Win7 as soon as I can get a legal hold of it). I’ve used Mac OS X at home for some years (while still maintaining our home PC with XP) for preference.
There is just no competition IMO. Mac OS X does what I expect, automatically does intermediate steps without me having to tell it to, in general just works. Printing works better, browsing, downloading files, video viewing, iTunes, World of Warcraft … everything just seems to flow seamlessly, it feels neater, cleaner, more right. Going back to a PC always feels clunky.
I’m actually quite shocked by how many Mac users are here. I knew we had quite a few, but it’s been pretty neck and neck to Windows so far. Linux is about where I thought it would be. Sure, the poll is still pretty young at this point, but I figured Windows would be ahead of Mac by at least 200%.
Interesting.
I’ve been using Macs since the mid-80s, and hate anything else. I do graphics, so there’s no alternative.
I only have Linux installed on my laptop (Ubuntu 9.04), now, but until recently, I had a dual boot between Windows Vista and Ubuntu. I found I never actually booted into Windows, so didn’t bother putting it back on, when I replaced my laptop. Any Windows software I need to use (mostly games) works well with the latest version of Wine.
I’ve never used a Mac, and have no desire to.
Last year I finally got fed up with Windows.
I went Mac, and I ain’t goin’ back.
I’ve used Windows at work for at least 17 years, and a Mac at home for about 20. I have always preferred working with the Mac at home. That may have something to do with the fact that at home I’m not doing the stuff I get paid to do; instead I’m doing the fun things that I want to do.
And even nowadays, I find that the Mac has more plug’n’play functionality. I have a digital camera? I plug it into the USB port, and iPhoto automatically starts up and recognizes my camera. I have a new cellphone (motorola RAZR)? I turn on Bluetooth, and iSync automatically recognizes the phone and asks me if I want to synch my address book. etc. In my experience, the Windows XP box we have at home (my wife’s old computer) does not recognize devices that seamlessly - I have to hunt down and install the appropriate driver.
A Mac is just a FreeBSD box with crippled hardware thats cost 2-3 times more than it should. We should get some server and network admins chiming in so they can tell us just how awesome Macs really are when it comes to handy tools like using scripting for remote administration. Oh, and a hardware component died? Have fun picking a replacement from Apple’s gimped list of “supported” hardware!
IAmNotSparticus, words can’t describe how much I disagree with that statement.
OS X is a Un*x with usability testing and QA. They’re what happens with a company says 'Hey, let’s make a product and then see how an end user would use it then make it work.
I’ve spent MORE than enough time cleaning up after windows boxes where the only thing a person did was ‘download a set of Halloween icons’, ending eventually in a reinstall of the OS.
I’ve spent MORE than enough time dealing with ‘Application Foo needs Libperl.h 3.47, you have 3.70’ only to find you can’t GET version 3.47, and Foo is no longer maintained. Or application Foo, needs library Bar, which depends on GTK, but GTK can’t locate Xlib.h
There IS no perfect OS, only what people are most familiar with.
Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it? Why not just install Linux and be done with it? Then you are not locked into Apple’s approved list of hardware and software.
OSX is just as “Unix-like” as FreeBSD.
At least with Windows you can remotely administer computers without pulling your hair out. Good luck with that on an Apple platform.
OSX is not a well-built or thought out OS. How about that ~/Library directory expanding to gigs of data for no good reason?
POSIX means almost nothing in this day and age, I don’t want to hear about that. I can install SFU on my Windows box and it will be POSIX compliant.
IAmNotSparticus is a known anti-Mac troll here, and most of what he says isn’t verifiable, nor does he bother to try.