Mac, Windows, Linux...

In My Humble Opinion
61

Can you link me to the thread? I was also part of a recent thread regarding desktops and I don’t recall anyone taking me up on my challenge of building a cheaper desktop. The box I built blew away the Mac desktop at about 35% lower cost. I will be happy to comparison shop and I have no doubt I can find a better laptop for less money than anything Mac has to offer.

Um, yeah, if it wasn’t evident before let me unequivocally that I have used and managed macs on a network before and am speaking from personal experience. I will take a Linux box over a Mac box any day of the week.

62

I’m a gamer, so Windows for me. With OSX I have more respect for Macs than I used to, but the hardware is still way too expensive. And judging by my gf’s MacBook, Macs have glitches just like Windoze does.

63

Market share is not the same thing as installed base. Four years ago 16% of folks using computers were using Macs. The market share of the Mac was nowhere near 16%. The market share is considerably higher & healthier for the Mac now than it was in 2005, and I suspect the installed base is above the 16% mark these days as well.

64

Um, try a little over 8% if you believe Apple and a little over 7% if you believe IDC.

65

Checking my history, I performed that analysis on Aug 31st with a 17" Lenovo. Since then their entire product line has changed. It was $200 more than the Apple laptop.

Store.apple.com, today:

17" Mac Book Pro
2.8 Ghz Core 2 Duo
4 Gb DDR3 Ram
500 Gb Drive
Backlit Keyboard
Firewire 800
Bluetooth
Applecare 3 year warrantee $300

$2900

Lenovo, today
The Lenovo doesn’t have the same size disk (closest is a single 320 Gb drive), doesn’t have the battery, doesn’t have a lower draw secondary graphics card, no mag-safe, doesn’t have an aluminum chassis, and weighs 2 lbs more. I gave it the benefit for the doubt by going with the cheaper video card. If I wanted to stack the deck, I coulda added $700 to it’s price.

It’s $2500 with a similar 3 year warrantee.

The dollar spread changes from month to month. How else can you explain the Lenovo changing in value by $600 in 30 days?

Can you find a Core 2 Duo 17" laptop running Vista Home for $750? Absolutely.

Will it be the same machine? Will it still be running in 5 years? Will it have a decent resale? Did you include the additional cost for the unexpected software? (CD burning, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam, etc.)
The point is this:
When you’re comparing the Mac with laptops in it’s price range, the differences aren’t all that great. Can you make a faster Lenovo? Sure. And it’ll cost_more. And it’ll affect battery life. And it’ll be heavy.
And it won’t have a pretty damned kickass OS with some really cool add-in software.

Now. Here’s where things get sticky:
Windows 7 is GREAT. And it makes these value proposition arguments much harder to make.

You’ve heard about being penny wise and pound foolish? Do you ever wonder why Apple engenders such rabid loyalty?

I’ll tell you one thing, though. I sure get tired of justifying it. Three or four times a year I’m minding my own business and somebody slaps me upside the head with ‘Dur hur you’re so stewpid for spending all that money on a Fruit.’

And stupid me keeps rising to the occasion.

It’s like you’re rootin’ for the wrong Football team or something. Now isn’t THAT a stupid waste of time?

Tell you what. How bout I say ‘you’re right. Apples are dumb.’ And you go away with a smug sense of satisfaction? I want to close the lid on my laptop and go home. (Power management on this thing is and has always been stellar.)

66

That’s market share.

Did you read my post?

67

Yes, you claimed Apple’s market share is currently “considerably higher” than the time of that article, my post was meant to correct that erroneous and baseless assertion.

Apple’s current market share is 7-8%. Apple’s market share in 2005 was about 6.6%.

Let’s go with Apple’s liberal numbers, we are looking at a 33% increase over 4 years (or 2.2% in total numbers) if we rely on Apple’s numbers. That is about what, 8% per year increase?

Hardly significant. Even less so with IDC’s numbers.

I’m also guessing you missed the little drop in market share from 2008 to 2009 according to IDC, as well. That can’t be good for expansion.

It’s worth noting that 2005 was the year that Apple started using Intel processors and began offering the ability to run Windows programs in their OS environment.

68

Let me predict that this will not be the thread to resolve this and can we just move on?

I know I’m not convincing you and you’re most certainly not convincing me.

69

Oh, sorry. Carry on.

70

I wouldn’t worry about Apple’s expansion - they have 91% percent of the high-end of the market.

Apple has followed an absolutely brilliant strategy - sell an excellent premium product, and let everyone else fight over the cut-rate, low-profit-margin, crapware-infested commodity PC market. No wonder their Market Cap is higher than GE and Google…

71

Damn, from the sound of IAmNotSpartacus, I can’t do shit on my machines.

Remotely administer computers?

Approved list of hardware?

Command lines and Script functions?

Who the fuck needs that shit? I sure don’t. I work in the media/creative industry and just want my applications to run. So none of your gripes matter to me — at all. Which is why you prefer what you prefer, and I prefer what I prefer.

Although, my Contempt-O-Meter is redlining when I read your posts.

72

The funny thing is, Macs can do all of that, and more…

73

(Shhhh! We don’t want IANS to find out! I’m enjoying the self-induced ignorance… it’s quite laughable.)

74

That, along with the fact that Apple makes nice laptops, is exactly why I switched from linux back to a Mac in 2003.

75

Now this is just bizarre. On the one hand, you claim that PC owners are “penny wise and pound foolish” because we’re not willing to pay a 50-100% (or more) markup for the same hardware. On the other hand, Mac users are smart with their money. The evidence? They’re willing to pay top-dollar for 5 year old machines!

Just to add some data: I have a Dell laptop (running Ubuntu) that’s a couple years old. I checked Apple’s website, and the computer that is most similar cost $1700. A new Dell, with the same hardware (almost) as the Mac, costs $850.

76

Whether or not it makes logical sense, Macs DO retain their value longer.

I think I’m getting railroaded into defending something like it’s the only true way. I love my Mac. I’ve been astounded with what my Debian/Ubuntu boxes can do. I’m astounded at what Badaboom can do with a DVD and my video card. I have a hard time fathoming the fact that a ONE TERABYTE hard disk is $120.

The time where one platform could do something the others couldn’t is LONG gone.

I still LOVE my MAC. I think it’s quality kit. That doesn’t detract from the other cheapass hardware I’ve got running for me. Frankly, there’s nothing the vast majority of people need that can’t be done with a three year old machine and Ubuntu.

A point I’d considered earlier today was this: The detractors have a problem with a Mac that costs $2000. That they can get SO much more computer for SO much less money. Does the same hold true for $2000 PC’s? Because they’re not particularly rare. Is a $750 17" Acer better than a $2500 Lenovo?

77

Macs cannot handle automated remote management. Not a big deal to your average yuppie, big deal to your average sysadmin.

Macs do handle the approved list of hardware quite nicely. Hence it being called an approved list of hardware.

Command lines and script functions…yeah, if you think Macs handle those just fine, you don’t use command lines or script functions for anything interesting.

The last paragraph you quoted does hold it pretty well. “I am a creative person … blah blah blah blah”

78

The numbers in your article imply that I can get 2 PCs for $1000. What is the justification for that Apple price premium, again? Is it the fancy logo you get?

79

I strongly prefer Windows and Linux because OS X feels like it was designed by a sycophant control freak to me. By design you can’t use it on third party computers, even though there’s no technical reason for this. The proof of this is the OSX86 project which has made bootloaders that simulate EFI and boot OS suX on standard x86 hardware. Invisible files and folders are hidden with no apparent way to make finder view them, the finder is a piece of trash. Whoever designed finder should have their testicles/ovaries whittled away with an onion peeler. What incompetence. Want to put a path into finder directly, or copy the current path? Fuck you, cause you can’t. Where the fuck is the cut menu option? It has copy, but no cut, why the fuck did those idiots leave out cut? This means if you want to move a file you first have to copy it then go back and delete it. Why? A cut option does this automatically, but being useful isn’t thinking different, I guess.
The thing that truly amazed me was Apple somehow managed to make a file search way less useful then Vista’s. For some reason it locked up the computer (which says to me horrid internal design) while it searched, then it more often then not didn’t find what I was looking for. Especially if it was on an NTFS partition. There just wasn’t a way to search those. Windows and Linux if you can mount a partition you can search the fucker.

That said, I can’t answer the poll because I’m really conflicted. I love Linux for all the cool things you can do, it’s free as in beer and speech nature, and all the options it gives you. However I also seem to break it alot and fixing it can be a bear. Also a lot of my day to day stuff I end up doing in windows, and I love window’s easy of configuration, and use, but I despise M$ business practices, so yeah.

80

But it’s NOT 50-100%. Not for similar hardware. And it’s easy to neglect the software if it doesn’t suit your argument. And the support. And the case.

And to think, We paid $2500 for my XT with 640k of RAM and a 30 meg hard disk in 1988. And boy was that Macintosh pricey a few years later. Oh yeah, there’s always been some kind of differential.