Besides, I like Mac OSX. Truly. I’m not a coder, and have no interest in working with scripts or command lines. Never once have I missed any of that in what I do, for work or pleasure. It’s an amazing OS for a great sum of people; professional or non.
Newegg.com, today: SONY Laptop VAIO AW Series Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 (2.53GHz) 4GB Memory 320GB HDD NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 18.4" Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit VGN-AW335J/H - Newegg.com
Everything about this laptop except its weight is either simply better than (HDD, memory, port selection) or completely destroys (processor, video card, BluRay drive) the specs on the Macbook. Not bad for $700 less. Even with the 3 year warranty that covers all accidental damage you’re still $400 ahead. You save another $150 going with the comparable warranty that doesn’t cover accidental damage. That’s a 20% difference.
I even built a quick POS on Dell.com for less than $1900 with 2.8GHz Core DUo, 8GB RAM, Vista Ultimate, 500GB HDD, 512MB Radeon 4570, BluRay Burner, 85WHr battery, HD audio, Bluetooth, and 15.6" 1080p display, and 3 year comprehensive warranty. The only deficiency is the display, but every other spec is either comparable or better. And it’s a full grand less.
Because I dare “Think different” than you about it’s quality?
I’m just supposedly to divinely know this? Was it mentioned in any of the documentation that comes with OS X?
You don’t see why that’s incredibly mind numbingly stupid? You’re saying Apple can charge you $4,000 for a laptop, but can’t be assed to throw in a noncrippled file manager, or the ability to view hidden files without some obscure command line code?
For record even Vista comes with a file manager light years ahead of finder, for no additional charge, and Linux has Nautilus, and Dolphin for free.
As much I’ve griped about Vista’s file manager, if I had to choose between using Vista’s file manager and receiving a savage beating, followed by being force fed licorice, or using finder beating and licorice free, I’d take the savage beating and licorice with a smile knowing how much worse it could have been.
Also spotlight fails to index NTFS partitions, even with NTFS file system drivers. Windows seems able to happily index anything you throw at it, as long as a FS driver is provided.
Just a couple points:
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$4000 for a laptop?! In what universe?!
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The Finder isn’t perfect, I’ll concede that. But neither is Windows. Yet, Mac OSX does have some NICE features. I mean, I-wouldn’t-want-to-live-without-it-now-NICE. (Again, Quicklook, Screensharing, Time Machine, Bonjour and Exposé are all fantastic)
Now that’s funny. I think you’ve given Apple a new slogan:
“If you don’t think $1000 is a trivial amount of money, then, let’s be honest, this computer probably isn’t for you.”
So that’s why Apple has a supported printer list and encourages customers to check the list before they buy printers?
Cool. How do I upgrade the HDD? Processor? Better video card? USB2.0 port? [del]Add an HDD?[/del]
Disk drive - trivial. As a matter of fact, far, far easier than most PCs
Video card - trivial.
USB port - trivial
Processor - not so trivial.
The iMac? Really? Do elaborate.
I didn’t even know Apple had this Hardware list you keep bringing up. All I do before I make a purchase is make sure it’s got a little Mac Compatible logo on it. Most major hardware manufacturers support the Mac. It’s really not a big deal. Honestly.
You’d might be able to buy a new HDD for an iMac, but the processor and vid card I think you’re stuck with… not sure though. I believe all Macs come with USB 2.0 standard.
If you’re interested in upgrading as such, the iMac isn’t for you. You’d want to get a MacPro Desktop. Then you can be an upgrading fool.
ETA: I just took at that list. It’s not exactly skimpy.
Is anyone else bemused by the fact that the reasons to love a Mac seem to change over time? Used to be, one major reason why Macs were great is because they didn’t have a command-line interface. Nowadays, one major reason why Macs are great is because they do have a command-line interface.
(Disclosure: I work for a large software company based in Redmond. I also haven’t actively used Macs since about 1995, and even then I was spending more time on the SGI boxes in the lab than on the Macs.)
I can build a PC with the power of a Mac Pro for 40% less than the Mac Pro. 40% of 3-4 grand. Just sayin’.
Yeah, lots of iterations of the same printer from the same manufacturer. Note how many MFCs don’t get MFC support on the Mac. 
FWIW, here’s Apple’s product grid:
| CONSUMER | PRO |
|——————————|—————————————|
PORTABLE | MacBook | MacBook Pro |
|——————————|—————————————|
DESKTOP | iMac | MacPro |
The consumer modeles aren’t designed to be intensely upgradable. Geared toward the non-techies. Laptops are always an inherent squeeze. And the Pros are far more upgradable with tons of bays and compatibility with plenty 3rd party manufacturers. Maybe not as much as the PC world, but still plenty.
Perhaps, but at a price: You wouldn’t be able to run Mac OSX.
ETA: To put it another way: What if I told you, you could build the machine of your dreams, for 40% less but it had to run Mac OSX? Would you switch?
Well, whatever, it’s never been a problem at all for me.
Actually, that’s not true. A friend of mine has what he calls a hackintosh and it’s running Final Cut Pro just fine.
Ehhh… yeh, Hackintosh. Sounds like a chore and I don’t even know anything about it. I’m generally averse to unofficial hacks.
Not sure if you saw this edit above:
ETA: To put it another way: What if I told you, you could build the machine of your dreams, for 40% less than it would cost to build a PC. But it had to run Mac OSX? Would you switch?
All this bickering about cost is silly to me. The price difference between a ‘truly’ comparable Mac and PC is so nominal compared to my other annual business expenses over the course of 3 or 4 years (the typical time I use my workhorse machine), that I may as well just get what I love to use. Life’s too short to be so penny pinching and utilitarian when it comes to how you make your living.
No, OSX is a crippled implementation of FreeBSD (IMHO, of course) so I would just run FreeBSD and find some utilities that mimic the better features of OSX.
And I’m not proficient in FreeBSD (nor do I care to be), find Windows cumbersome and full of gaping, threadbare seams, and love OSX’s GUI.
Ta da!
IANS, a little story for you. A couple of months ago, my dad (who uses exclusively PC) outgrew one of his hard drives, and sent me the old one. I didn’t check to see if it was on any special lists or anything, I just installed it in my Mac desktop. In less time than it would have taken me to even open the case on most PCs, I had my computer open, the new drive in and connected, and closed up again. After about another minute to format it, it was working perfectly.
Oh, and I also quite frequently remotely login to my Macs to do all sorts of command-line tasks, and I’ve never had a problem with that, either.
Now, if what you’re saying is true, that there are so vastly many things that you can’t do on a Mac, all that means is that you’re not very good at doing computer things, because the things you say you can’t do, most Mac owners can do without a problem.
Unless you own an iMac I’m not really sure what your story has to do with anything. I can literally open my computer case and hot swap in a hard drive and have it closed in less than 60 seconds, no power cycle necessary. Do I win a prize now?
Despite 3 pages of Mac enthusiasm, nobody has been able to explain why OSX is incapable of doing some very basic OS functions needed for networked computers.
Has anyone been able to answer why this great OS has a runaway ~/library folder that swells up like a black hole for no good reason?
Can we talk about kernel panics?
Funny, but you’ve kind of missed my point, especially by taking what I said out of context. Here’s what I said:
“So what if I save $1000 dollars on a Unix box? I have over 20 grand wrapped up in software, most of which probably doesn’t run on any Linux flavor.”
Which means buying a Unix box does me no good, if can’t use all the software I’ve invested in over the last decade. So, I might save $1000, but I lose tons of software compatibility, coworker compatibility, my preferred OS, and gain a steep learning curve and myriad devils I don’t know. Yeh, um, no thanks. It’s not always about money.
And, that’s assuming I really could save that much money.