Boy, did I goof my response to AHunter–I left out a line space. Sorry. Anyway, I have read through this thread again and I think maybe I am being converted. Marcie wants a Mac Notebook so maybe it is time. You Mac proponents are passionate, I will give you that. Maybe you can make some recommendations re the notebook?
My 0.02 cents:
I work in a technical capacity in my company, and I have to handle support and repairs on both PCs and Macs. Here’s what I’ve learned about them after working on a professional level with both systems:
PCs are prone to a lot of little glitches, but generally work. There really is no such thing as a ‘huge’ problem with a PC; nothing is unrecoverable unless you take a jackhammer to the hardware. However, a lot of the software tends to be kludgy since it’s designed by committee, and they do have a tendancy to quit when you need them most (I don’t know how many times, when I was in school, my printer quit the day before the paper was due!).
Macs will stay up and running and require very little maintenance for long periods of time. The user is shielded from the OS so it’s hard for ‘user error’ to screw them up. Software and the UI is generally easier to use than their pc-equivalent (notice I said nothing about the capability of those programs – the jury is still out on that). The problem with Macs, from my technician-standpoint, is that when they have a problem, they REALLY have a problem. The generic solution for troubleshooting a Mac seems to be “wipe the hard drive and reinstall everything.” Obviously not a great solution, but sometimes the only way to get them to work.
Has anyone noticed, BTW that in the last couple of years PC software and UI has grown to resemble Mac stuff more and more, while Mac hardware has grown to resemble PC stuff more and more? In another 5 years it’ll all be identical…
I’ve been using PCs since 1987 (I can still write scripts and batch files for PC-DOS), and I picked up Macs sometime in high school. My office uses both systems (about 600 people total, split about 70-30 PC-Mac). Judging from my own experience, Mac people normally fare VERY badly on a PC; PC people do take a while to get adjusted to Macs, but it’s not because Macs are inherently more ‘intuitive.’
I believe that it’s easier for PC users to use Macs than for Mac users to switch to PCs, not because PCs are harder to use, but because Mac users are used to an overly simplistic way of doing business and it’s a shock to use something that has more capabilities. Mac users’ minds have been molded to suit doing work the way Mr. Jobs thinks they should do work.
We’re arguing personal experiences here, which is kinda pointless…I would like to add, however, that the ‘friendliness’ of the Mac tends to give its users a sense of security and what I call ‘computer intrepidity’, a lack of the fear (that most people have) of trying new things. Because Macs are hard to break, so to speak, Mac people, in my experience, tend to be more willing to experiment than PC people, who are used to “if I click the wrong thing, it’ll all stop working.”
How cute, changing key words in my own text to suit your needs. Couple things: first, Jobs didn’t do what another software company (which shall remain nameless) did, which was “design an OS that’s just different enough from the most successful GUI out there so that we won’t be liable for copyright infringement”. The Apple team looked at how people thought and how people worked and designed a computer around that. Example: a one-button mouse was found to be simplest and most intuitive, so Apple went with the one-button mouse as the standard. Another example: Apple decided that the most-used functions should be executable with one hand. Thus, Command-Z for Undo, the now-standard X-C-V keys for Cut-Copy-Paste, plus Select All, Save, Duplicate, and Quit. What’s Exit in Windows? Alt-F4. Hey, that’s intuitive!
Second thing: you’re really going to have to qualify that “more capabilities” statement; that’s absolute bullshit.
sixseatport wrote:
The current plan for my PC is to send it back to the manufacturer. Even though the problem seems to be software/OS related - multiple attempts to reload the OS have proven ineffective. My experts with dozens of years of PC experience have decided to punt.
Amazing observation… and completely backawards from my experience. My PC’s disk has been reformatted twice and the OS reloaded three times, of course requiring a reinstall of all my software, all my data, and organizing the whole kit-and-kaboodle each time. When I complained about this, several PC pros told me that they routinely have to reload their OS every 6 months or so. One guy even routinely does a “preventative OS re-install” to protect his data!
My old Mac’s hard disk has never, ever, ever been reformatted. It’s been going for nearly 6 years with no breakdowns - and it gets a lot of use. I reformatted the hard disk on my latest Mac to change to the HFS Plus file system, but my only motivation was to take advantage of the increase in disk space. In fact, I’ve never heard of anyone every having to reformat a Mac hard disk due to system problems…
OK, we’re getting a little nuts now.
Maxtorque, I agree that we shouldn’t bother with the personal experience stuff, and that Macs are friendlier, etc, but I think willingness to experiment is more dependant on personality, not experience. I and my coworkers are certainly not afraid to see what an unmarked button does on a windows machine.
re: jobs not stealing anything like Gates…do I really have to bring up Xerox PARC?
Also, (I think) I said it before, I’ll say it again, “intuitiveness” is not a measureable quantity; I’m sure you think everything on a Mac is very intuitive, but when my sister bought her first computer ever, an IMac, 6 months ago, she couldn’t figure out how to even turn it on or off, much less copy or paste. It’s all relative. (incidentally, alt-f4 is a holderover from DOS. alt-q (as in Quit) or alt-x (as in eXit) will a PC program…is that intuitive enough? Now, tell me if you know how to do a force quit, and if THAT command is intuitive…and that’s really the equivalent of alt-f4.)
Oh, and more capabilities – 2 words: Software availability.
joeyblades,
Sorry, but the PC guys you have looking at it must be morons. What are they, like the Circuit City $6.50 an hour guys?
I’ve seen a fair number of Mac hard disks completely fragged (read: OS crapped out or the ROM stopped working, for one reason or another). If the ROM died, well, I guess you can’t really blame the system for that. But our Mac gurus over here, guys with 10+ years repairing Macs, assure me that wiping the HD and reinstalling the OS is something they’re forced to resort to a lot more often than the PC guys.
Oh, and before this gets any farther, let me say I personally think everyone should switch to Linux right now, and I know microsoft is evil, Bill Gates is scum, and Windows sucks (but manageable if you have a clue – and no worse than MacOS). I agree with all that.
However, Macs are nothing to get excited about either.
Erratum asks:
DOOM II (already mentioned)
Myth I & II (already mentioned)
Marathon I, II, & III (already mentioned)
Myst
Riven
Cosmic Osmo
Manhole
You Don’t Know Jack
HeadRush
Glider
Spaceward Ho!
Dark Castle I, II, & III
Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
Descent I & II
Sim City (the entire series)
Creatures
Virtual Pool
Carmageddon I & II
Duke Nukem
Quake I, II & III
7th Guest
… and many more…
There’s also a number of utilities that got their start in the Macintosh realm:
After Dark
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Stuffit
Canvas
Bryce (and associated 3D tools)
StrataVision
The later two, being popular tools for game development…
Sure and there are many games developed for the Mac that never make their way to the PC. I didn’t claim that all PC games started out on a Macintosh platform. In fact, I’m sure there are probably some games that were deveolped on the Macintosh and never released for the Macintosh. Absurd, you say? Not when you look at the typical Macintosh user versus the typical PC user… And this is my personal opinion, based on observation: Most Mac people are creative professionals who don’t care to waste their time with games. Therefore, the market for Mac games is much lower.
My my, I am enjoying the heartfelt posts here!
My totally newbie perspective on this is as thus: (Some general impressions - probably some are wrong.)
PCs are more for business, and games. There are more games for PCs than for Macs. Many businesses use PCs.
Macs are more for art and graphics. There are more graphics programs for Macs. Professional graphic artists (and “art houses”) often use Macs. Much of the most impressive computer graphics out there are done on Macs. Also, musicians and composers often use Macs. (Since I am interested in art and graphics, I think I need to learn more about Macs.)
My 17 year old nephew hates Macs. But, he’s 17, has probably heard all the anti-Mac crap and is just parroting it. He also loves games. For this reason a PC is a good choice good choice. Plenty of games for him. However, he is interested in graphics too, but I doubt he’ll ever get a Mac, even though he grudgingly admits that the Mac’s repuation for graphics is good.
Me, I don’t give a damn about games. I have “Monopoly” for the PC, which I enjoy, and I have “Myst”. That’ll do it for games for me! And, as the previous post clarified, there are a more than decent amount of games for Mac.
In my personal experience, I have witnessed more hostility and a lack a graciousness from anti-Mac people than from anti-PC (pro-Mac) people. When I got into computers, I got an old Packard Bell. My Mac friends were gracious - they said “While we are disappointed that you didn’t go with a Mac, we are glad you are getting online. And there are a lot of benefits for getting an IBM-compatable computer.” On the other hand, I have heard quite ungracious and almost hostile reactions from PC-people when it comes to Macs. I hear the “there’s no software for the Mac!” mantra, etc. So, from my perspective, the anti-Mac people are just a little too tightly wound when it comes to the Mac. I want to tell them to lighten up a bit!
I guess one thing that I do find annoying is when a person is asking questions about computers, like what to buy. Too often an anti-Mac person will just froth at the mouth and bend over backwards to dissuade someone from getting a Mac, even when they express an interest. Whereas it might be, in some circumstances, appropriate to recommend a Mac for some people. (For someone like me, for instance - I want to do art/graphics, and am not interested in games.) I find Mac people to be more realistic when recommending computers - they’ll be more apt acknowlege (perhaps grudgingly) that getting an IBM-compatable might be more suitable for some people. Or at least they won’t froth at the mouth over it.
yosimitebabe,
I think the reason a lot of younger kids dislike MAC’s is because for quite some time the only computers in a public school available to the kids was a MAC.
I have heard many times in the last few years about how the computers at school were not real PCs but MACs and that most of the better off kids had way cooler stuff at home. Also many of the technology challenged teachers
would use MACs instead of PC’s in computer labs, giving kids the impression that the MAC was for imbicles.
Not my feeling personally, but I kinda think this is where the kids are coming from.
watch what you say
or they’ll be calling
you a radical,
a liberal,fanatical
a criminal…
Thanks…that is an interesting observation. However, my first impression would be that no matter what kind of computers schools had, they probably wouldn’t have the funds to have the latest and greatest, and be able to upgrade them frequently. Probably just the opposite. (I took a night class at a high school about 2 years ago, and they still had 386s in the computer lab.)
My impression is that many schools would have older and crappier, of whatever computer systems they happened to have. (And perhaps there is some merit to the idea that Macs, even old Macs, have a longer “usability” life than PCs? Maybe that’s why schools choose them. Not that I have any real clue one way or the other.)
Babe:
I don’t like to see anyone get railroaded. When you sign on with the Mac team, you’re signing away your computing soul. You’ve stated that you’ve got a 1 GB drive and you’ve resorted to zip disks to store information. That’s a pain in the ass for sure, but if you want to upgrade your HD you’re going to pay through the nose. Then god only knows [if even it does] how to stick the thing in.
Like many things, it’s an arguement among people who can appreciate the finer points of the arguement. Everyone else, you in this case, are left wondering what has been said.
AHunter3:
The people buying the Chevy’s and Hyundai’s are not the one’s who can intelligibly argue a hardware point of Mac vs. PC. By the way, the same PC I mentioned before does all of those things and I can watch TV, capture video and save the closed captioning to a text file, I’ve got 1 Gig of MP3’s (as the Springfield dopers can witness to) a CD burner and the current price for 128 MB of Ram is $89 (I just looked it up.) The case/power supply I’m using is an ex-386 and so was the keyboard until I spilled tea in it a few months ago. If you tell me that a Mac keyboard doesn’t mind a little bit of tea, I promise to seriously reconsider my valuation. I’ve got a SCSI card, I don’t have to tell my BIOS anything about available memory and because I know more than nothing about how the thing actually does what it does, I have no problem upgrading.
Your point as far as I can tell is that Mac people just want it easy and PC people like to tinker. You’re right, that probably is the root of the debate.
JoeyBlades:
The Mac people are propagandists too. Here’s a quote, “I pity users of PCs who don’t realize that there are alternatives. I pity people who think that it’s normal to have to reformat your hard disk and reinstall all your software every six months just because “that’s the way it is.” I pity people who can’t connect to more than one printer at a time because there’s no available IRQ for a second parallel port. I pity those who have to remove their sound cards in order to install a network card because the sound card already grabbed the IRQ that the net card wants to use.” You obviously don’t know how to configure your BIOS. That’s OK, but you might want to stay over there with the Mac people. For everyone else. go to www.tomshardware.com (That’s my first UBB!!! I’m no longer a virgin.)
I admit I did not know that Macs can now use industry standard Ram modules. It must have been a really painful decision for them to make. Since you might know though, how much would it be for yosemitebabe to purchase a reasonably sized HD, let’s say 10 GB? Could she use a standard IDE or SCSI drive? I’m looking at www.pricewatch.com and they’ve got a 40 GB HD for $252.
MaxTorque:
“the mouse cursor jumps around like a spastic flea as it moves.” It’s likely you are using a bargain basement POS PC which doesn’t have mouse cursor support on the video card. New video card: $20.
The Evangelistas sound like terrorists to me.
Crystalguy:
Get a Mac. You can give it a cute name to make you feel better about getting reamed.
MaxTorque:
In response to “if I click the wrong thing it’ll stop working”. I don’t know what kind of morons you work with, but neither Macs nor PC’s tend to stop working by clicking on anything. What was that you were saying about propaganda?
And about the interface, the Mac UI hasn’t changed in years. About the mouse, with capability comes sophistication. PC’ers can perform exponentially more operations with only the mouse than Mac’ers can to include cut-copy-paste and quit.
JoeyBlades:
Your experts don’t sound very expert. Tell me the symptoms and I’ll tell you the problem. I’m serious.
Again the pro’s…I’ve had some of the same data on my CURRENT PC since the late 80’s although it is no longer on the original 120 MB HD. I’ve hit every OS upgrade since DOS 3.0 (I missed DOS 4, I think everyone did).
sixseatport: Unix/Linux is the way and the light.
Well handling systems for both Mac and PCs I can say Macs take abuse a lot better than PCs. Most office workers don’t shut down their machines right, they cold boot inappropriately but Macs seem to take this. Maybe this is why they are used in schools.
But I like PCs betters. They definately are quicker. No matter what type of Mac we had to run our office we also always ran a PC for the reports as it was so much quicker.
Let’s not forget the right click on the PC. Now Macs are much more user friendly and to add memory is a breeze.
The biggest drawback is you can’t share software as few people have them (Yeah I know you can’t share it anyway but people do). Also programs that cost $30 dollars in PC can cost $200 for the same programs in Mac.
Hmmm…Inertia, thanks for your input, and you certainly have been specific!
However, I think I need to ramble on a bit about what I understand, and what I don’t about computers, lest you think I am more of a newbie than I am. (I am a newbie, but have pockets of understanding in some areas.)
When I got my Mac, I wanted it to be cheep cheep cheep. I got a PowerPC 6100/60 off of eBay, that was the first PowerMac that ever came out, like 1995. It was about $300, (after I had the 1 GB hard drive put in.) It has 40 megs of RAM, enough to suit my needs, and OS 8.1, a decent OS, and also enough to suit my needs. But I realized it’s shortcomings when I got it. I would have bought a larger hard drive for it, but once again, I was cheep cheep cheep. It was not my intent to buy “THE” Mac that I’d use for a long time, it was just to get my feet wet with the Mac experience, without having to fork over a lot for a system. I’ll probably sell this little Mac next year, when I replace it with something faster.
And yes, I know I could get a far more powerful PC for the $300 I paid for the Mac, but I already have a PC. I wanted to learn about Macs. And, yes, I know they cost more. I thought it was worth the money. (By the way, that friend of yours who won’t upgrade the Mac he got way back when because he put too much money into it - why doesn’t he buy an old PowerMac like I did? It was relatively cheep, and he’d be able to get a lot out of it, compared to the old one.)
So far, I like my little Mac lot. (Still haven’t given it a name, though! ;)) It doesn’t run as fast as my PC (which I still love - I bought it custom-made a year ago.) However, my little Mac does plenty. It runs older (& cheaper - I got them off eBay) versions of PhotoShop and Illustrator just fine. It runs Painter Classic (with my ADB drawing tablet) almost as fast as my PC. (My PC is an AMD K6-2 333, 128 megs of RAM.) It does what I want it to do. I enjoy working on it. But, yeah, I know that a 1 GB HD isn’t much. I’m just holding out until next year, when I’ll hopefully get a G3 Blue and White PowerMac (from the Mac “Yosemite” series! Fitting, eh? ;))
The oft-mentioned idea that Mac software is more expensive than PC software doesn’t seem to jive with my experiences. I guess there are examples of it, but I haven’t noticed it so far. And yes, I have been actively buying software for my Mac! While I am a newbie, I think I would notice if Mac software was grossly overpriced. In fact, I’m having a blast on eBay getting software bargains for my Mac.
I noticed that there are things about the Mac that are different than with the PC. I missed the right click, but I realized that (at least when browsing the web) all you do is hold the mouse down for a second, and the same menu comes up as when you right click with Windows. Same thing with other “right click” things - I found simple keyboard shortcuts for most of the functions I used to right click for, so I don’t feel as deprived as I used to. I think the reason I am enjoying and adjusting to my Mac is because I want to, and I am willing to put in the time to learn how to do things differently. (Just had to pat myself on the back there.)
I may be a newbie, but I am smart enough to know it… I have several Mac books (so far) and they have helped me learn a lot of things and have helped me appreciate my little Mac. It’s apples and oranges in many ways (pardon that terrible pun!) There are things I wish the Mac OS has, that I enjoyed in Windows, and there are denifitely things in the Mac OS that I am astonished by. I feel almost outraged - “You mean a computer can do this without me having to jump through hoops first?” The first example of this was when I installed my external Zip Drive. It was so quick and painless compared to when I installed an external Zip on a PC.
I sometimes detect some derision from some of you with the idea that a computer can be “easy”. That Mac people choose a Mac because it’s “easy”. Like there is something wrong with that. I don’t see it that way. I think it’s about time. Unless you enjoy tweaking with settings and tinkering with your computer, you just want it to do what you want it to do. And not waste a lot of time messing with it. Not all of us enjoy tweaking. (Though, if you do, there is RegEdit…if I spelled that right.) In fact, some of the Windows users I know are pathetic (and I mean pathetic) newbies. Like my co-worker, who said that her laptop runs Windows 97. She really didn’t know. The other things she didn’t know just amazed me, and she’d been using computers longer than me. I would hazard a guess that she would opt for “the easier, the better” if she really knew her options. But I doubt that’ll ever happen for her.
And lastly (like this hasn’t gone on long enough) my reading and info-finding has told me that the latest Macs have gotten easier to upgrade (with the case that sort of “folds out” to reveal all the contents) and continued USB, firewire, etc. support. And all those USB products coming out! My PC’s drawing tablet and scanner are both USB, and both Mac-compatable. (I’m thinking ahead.) So, I am not concerned about continuing on my Mac path. Not worried at all. I’m a newbie, but I am not that much of a newbie to not have some clue about what I’m getting into.
I think the PC crowd who have an arguement just love to tweak which they can’t do with a Mac. It’s about that last couple of milliseconds it takes for I/O access or the 0.1 FPS in the Quake III demo. I’d almost say it was time for me to re-evaluate, but I had such an awful time with the Macs in the lab at school that it has soured my disposition. Just ignore all that stuff I said before.
JoeyBlades: you originally said “many new games for the PC were developed on the Mac platform first.”. By that, I thought you meant that the games themselves (not simply the art assets) were developed on Macs. To be honest, your list of games goes back quite a few years, and a lot of them are not “A-List” titles, and there aren’t that many of them. Unless your “and many more” includes a lot more, I think you have overstated the Mac presence in the gaming world. I can believe that a lot of the art for these games was done on Macs, but things like the Quake (I, II, or III) engines were almost certainly developed for x86, and highly optimized. Are you saying “these games were developed on Macs” or are you saying “some Macs were used during the development of this game”?
I think the vitriol exchanged by the “Mac’s Suck” and “PC’s Suck” camps is based less on the relative merits of the systems, than incredibly annoying proselytization originated by Steve Jobs and his Mac evangelist bulldogs. Anybody who was in the computer biz in the early eighties will remember the almost Moonie-ish light in the eyes of Mac boosters as they regurgitated the company line. Since then, the actual differences between the two machines has narrowed, but Mac-heads still sound like Pat Robertson fighting Satan. It’s not that PC users are convinced that their system is better, they are just tired of the relentless Mac yada-yada, and they get defensive.
They can argue all they want, but the Mac will never be more than a niche machine, despite the latest blip in Apple’s fortunes. It has been said before, and it is still true:
“Will the last person at Apple please turn out the lights?”
TT
“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”
–James Thurber
Hey Inertia! You said:
Start reconsidering. My Mac keyboard of choice is a Microspeed Deluxe, runs around $60, kinda pricey but nice feel and…
You can upend a whole can of Budweiser or Pepsi and it keeps on typing (well, it gets kind of sticky). You do have to upend it and drain it rather than letting it sit for hours (eventually the barrier loses to the fluid), but no sparks and no garbage characters or nonworking keys. And to get rid of the sticky-key syndrome, you can deliberately dump a cup of steaming hot water onto it, count to 5, and upend it. Dissolves most of the stickycrud.
On to other things: as I said, PC users of the more knowledgable variety know they can upgrade the whole motherboard cheaply and keep the case and most of the peripherals, and, by doing so, keep their PC alive more cheaply than a Mac owner purchasing at a comparable time could keep a Mac running at par speed and capability. But if you restrict yourself to those who do not comfortably remove the case and begin removing circuit boards, it’s a different story: the Mac that you pay more for will last longer and do more things without upgrades; dozens of things you might wish you had (and perhaps pay money for and suffer installation headaches for) on the PC are already there on the Mac.
Yosemitebabe describes a 6100 purchased cheaply secondhand. I did that too, although mine was a “Performa”, a 6115 (essentially same machine). I dropped in a G3 accelerator card for $300 and it was easily the equivalent of what I could have located for $300. Eventually gave it to my parents, who, using it for AOL and MS Word 5.1, have a splendidly mighty bazooka to shoot little flies with. (It emulates a PC at equiv speed of 133 MHz under W95, so then can run anything they are likely to want to run, period).
I have never had a problem moving a hard drive from one Mac to another, or of merely moving the contents thereof. If you want the actual physical drive (e.g., your old box has a 750 MB and you’d like to have the whole drive available on your new box which has its own 24 GB HD), you unplug it from the ribbon cable and plug it in in the new computer’s case; if your old Mac was SCSI-only and your new Mac is IDE-only, you buy an Adaptec SCSI card, which gives you blisteringly fast SCSI; if both are IDE (yes, modern-era Macs have descended to IDE), plug it in as boot or slave. (You can even plug in an unformatted IDE drive, launch VirtualPC, and use Windows to format it as a PC drive, install Windows2000, and hand it to your PC-using friend who couldn’t get their PC to “see” the drive).
On the other hand, there are some cool peripherals for PCs that don’t come in a Mac equivalent. That little Snappy card that plugs into the parallel port generates some damn nice stills from a videocam input.
And if you want to run Access or AutoCad, you need a PC. Emulation would be insufficient.
(although why anyone with one iota of choice in the matter would voluntarily subject themselves to Access when FileMaker exists is beyond me 
)
DataViz makes excellent translator software for both platforms (MacLink for the Mac and ConversionsPlus for the PC). PowerPrint writes some damn good do-in-a-pinch drivers plus Macport-to-PCParallelPort cable/converters that open the world of randomly encountered printers to a Mac even if they have no ethernet, USB, or Mac serial port.
We do OK, Inertia. The Mac is a versatile machine; it continues to compete in a Wintel standard world, and to survive in that world despite being an alternative to industry-standard. Meanwhile, the PC as we know it carries a lot of truly antediluvian retro baggage, much of which is dead weight. The Athlon is a fast processor by virtue of brute force and massive attention to preprocessing and lots of overhead for damage control in the speculative execution, but the instruction set itself is a lumbering dinosaur (no modern processor attempts to cope with it natively; your PC emulates the PC of the past, essentially). Even Linux sends instructions that are written as if to be executed by an i386 that must then be reduced to shorter instructions of more even length (plus awkward overhead for farming out memory addresses) before even approaching the front of the pipeline.
The rest of the architecture is similarly riddled with anachronisms. The Mac is not free of them (despite the transfer to FireWire and USB, there are physical remnants of ADB and serial port architecture, and the necessity of handling software calls that were intended to go to such ports will continue to burden the Mac architecture for some time to come), but compared to the PC architecture it is the proverbial spring chicken.
Let me reiterate what I said: the Mac is a more serious investment. There is more to it, and it costs more, and it lasts longer and/or is capable of doing more, but it is less amenable to inexpensive fundamental-level upgrading. It lasts 4-7 years with minimal upgrades before becoming a doorstop, then is difficult to do much more with. The PC costs less, requires more constant tweaking to stay adequate as a performer, is more difficult to make minor changes to (memory, peripherals, etc), is less well designed to last and perform over time, and is cheaper to replace when replacement time comes.
Disable Similes in this Post
Well of course the software isn’t going to be grossly overpriced if it’s pirated. Sheesh.
I am the user formerly known as puffington.
No—not pirated. Old. People getting rid of old versions of software (like the copies of Illustrator and PhotoShop I bought.) I have not made a thorough study of it, but it seems like I have a much easier time finding old graphics software for Mac than I do for the PC. I have thought of getting a copy of older versions of PhotoShop and Illustrator for my PC. But there don’t seem to be that many copies around on eBay, or else they are very expensive. (I guess that is because Adobe didn’t make PC versions of this software until a few years ago.)
But, I have also browsed around for software at CompUSA. I do not notice that big of a price difference. However, I am not into games. If there is some price disparity in that area, I wouldn’t notice it. I have to say it, though - the world does not revolve around games for some of us. If the Mac totally sucked in the game department, it would make no difference to me. And I’m not the only one who would feel that way, I am sure.
I also want to add - I am not familiar with all this past history of the Mac “Moonies”. All of that passed me by - I never knew anything of it. I carry no computer “baggage”. So I am approaching all of this with “virgin” eyes. They are all just computers, Macs and PCs both.
My first computer was a PC, and I don’t intend to give up on PCs - at least not for a while. And it wasn’t as if I was sucked into like Macs by some Mac “Moonies”, who brainwashed me. Hell, my sister is a software programmer for the military, and she hates Macs. If anything, I should be influenced by her, and hate Macs too, sight unseen. But I wanted to learn more about Macs. Why wouldn’t I? I looked into them, they look like they have a lot to offer. So why not give them a try?
And I don’t see that Macs are going out. I don’t see that they are just a “fringe” thing. I see that they are improving, adapting, and are especially good for what I am interested in - art and graphics. They are in the minority right now, and probably always will be, but damn - that iMac is selling well. I see no reason to think that they won’t continue to sell well, since Apple seems to improve each model. So, to my untainted, “computer virgin” eyes, Apple looks like it makes a nice computer, and it looks like it’ll be around for a while.