Then let’s broaden things a bit 
[ul]
[li]If Hitler had owned an iMac, he’d have gotten into Art School.[/li][li]My Macs CD drawer smells like Cat Food.[/li][li]Hi Opal.[/li][/ul]
Allow me to restate, People learn to spell… proper nouns.
There, now my butt is covered.
Krik
A) I have a ‘healthy’ firearms collections. Sometimes, I take them out of the safe, and…Nope. 5th amendment priv. and all that. But ‘Human Safari’ is not an unknown concept. But I don’t know if it would be a good long-term leisure activity.
B) I used to (and still get sucked into helping) be on the admin team for 250+ MS Exchange servers. On a weekly basis, MS PSS and CPR would be stumped by the problems we handed them. But I learned to love MS. For an admin, there is no greater job security then an MS admin gig. (Unless they go Sun on ya, then it’s a mad dash for the certs.)
C) Coding (for a living) is of the devil, and I will have no hand in such blasphemy.
D) Hello, my name is Brutus, and I have a PC video game addiction problem. (I think this point sums up my entire ranting thread nicely).
Most of the reasons in the Apple switch site are “Works with your peripherals!” I dont get it. Why would you switch to a mac just because it supports your digital camera?
Fallom, the site is there to respond to FUD people believe about Macs, like the lie that they don’t work with standard peripherals, that Office isn’t available, etc etc.
And not only does the Mac work with the most common digital cameras, in my experience it works much better with it than Windows, and it is much easier to manuever with my digital pictures in iPhoto, with its task-based interface, than with the Windows XP “My Pictures” system.
Kirk
Hoo boy, tell me about it.
My sister got a digital camera last year. I thought I’d install it on my PC, since she has a PC (one without a USB port, but she was going to buy a new PC soon anyway). So, I told myself, install it on your PC, you’ll know what to expect when she installs it on her (new) PC (whenever she gets one).
But I quickly changed my mind when I read the instructions. For Windows, you had to jump through major hoops. I believed you had to hook the camera up to the USB port, boot up Windows (but you had to have the camera plugged in with an AC adapter, not using battery power, gotta make sure that is right). Then you had to go through the whole software “install” process, which sounded pretty “iffy” and painful. Reboot, hope it would work. And, it didn’t end there. The instructions for getting your photos OFF of the camera and onto your hard drive were equally arduous, and required an illustrated diagram. All this, just to get a digital camera to work with Windows.
And the Mac instructions? Oh yeah. Drag two extensions from the CD to the Mac OS extention folder. Reboot Mac, hook up digital camera. Camera “mounts” on desktop, like any other hard drive. Drag pictures from camera to hard drive. That was it.
Needless to say, I have NO intention of installing this digital camera on my PC. I installed it on my Mac. Works like a charm. If my sister ever installs the thing on her PC, she’s on her own. I want no part of it. (I am often her "tech support.)
This is just one of many examples (granted, the most dramatic) I can give of how easy it is to install hardware on a Mac, as compared to a PC. My Wacom digital tablet - easier to install on the Mac (Wacom driver was wonky on PC). My CD-RW drive? Windows kept on “losing” it - no such problems with the Mac. I am not saying that things are seamless on the Mac - they aren’t. But usually they are far less miserable.
Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.
My experience is a bit different, though. Both Mac OS X and Windows XP recognized my camera immediately and loaded the proper drivers. Mac OS X loaded it as a hard drive, but also launched iPhoto, which imports my pcitures flawlessly.
Things are pretty similar on the Windows XP side. Attach the camera, Windows bings “new USB device found,” and pulls up the “Picture Importer” or somesuch, and pulls the pictures into the folder I specify on my hard drive. All well and good.
Its after the pictures are on the machine that Mac OS X shines. iPhoto makes it so much easier to manage, edit, and distribue my pictures than Windows XP. Since Windows XP integrates its photo “management” into the Explorer shell, you’re limited by the filesystem, no way to see all your pictures at once. iPhoto, with its Library, and then folders, structure, is much smoother. iPhoto doesn’t offer many editing tools, but Windows XP offers none, not even red-eye remover. You can view slideshows in iPhoto and XP, but you can save and export the slideshow in iPhoto. You can upload to the Net and order prints with similar ease in both programs, but iPhoto will also let you order a hardbound book.
So while importation is pretty much a wash, at least with XP and OS X, Apple really goes the extra mile and has produced a far more powerful and usable digital photography interface.
Kirk
Aaron Adams, one of the “regular folks” in Apple’s new ad campaign, also claims that his iBook “never crashes.” Considering he has technical credentials a mile long, I don’t think he’s being a techno-ignorant tool spewing ad copy.
Besides, I hang out fairly regularly at the Ars Technica forums, and the Mac regulars there boast of uptimes approaching 200+ days… so while “never crashes” is stretching things a bit, “very seldom crashes” is definitely achievable.
And Apple’s commercials still beat the heck out of anything featuring a CEO getting business advice from a cow.
Actaully, Gateway taking business advice from a cow explains a lot about their company and products.
rjung, your link for Mr. Adams’ link doesn’t appear to be working…
I’d make the WAG that most home users have Wintel boxen because that’s what they’re used to from work, and they’re not interested in learning a new OS or are afraid that their files are incompatible, or they simply don’t have Macs in their mental “possibility” department because Macs are “different” and therefore unthinkable.
But at the same time, a lot of people use Wintel boxen at work and hate them. They don’t really understand them, they simply know how to do the tasks related to their jobs, and any major deviation from the norm (like a blue screen of death or a sudden lack of recognition of their .dll files or peripheral devices) sends them scrambling for the Help Desk and someone who “knows how this thing works.”
My mom and my sister are among that number. My mom (who has a masters degree in finance) knew how to turn on her computer, log in to her company’s proprietary overlay to Windows, how to pull up stock information and e-mail (single click the buttons which said “Stock Information” and “E-mail” – single click launching was built into the proprietary overlay) and how to “open up the program I use to write things” aka Word, (single click on the W) and use it for basic documents which never had fancy formatting because she didn’t know how to use it. She retired two years ago having never used the internet, because she didn’t need it to do her job.
My sister got to my house, went into my office, saw that I have three computers (Mac G4 tower, TiBook and Compaq wintel laptop) and her eyes bugged out. She hates computers, and only knows the Sabre system that’s used by the airlines for ticketing and reservations. She has no plans of ever owning a home computer.
My mother saw me using the TiBook in bed this morning, and she decided to come have a look. By three this afternoon, she was enjoying reading a website dedicated to a professor she had studied under in college forty years ago. Mr. tlw and I have decided that we’re sending her home with her own iBook.
For her, the “Switch” ads aren’t condescending, they’re relating. When the dj chick says that she didn’t “get” her Wintel box and finally just sold it in frustration, that’s something my mother immediately understands. It makes her say “Yeah, me too!” She wanted to retire three years early (at 62) to get away from computers, and she would have, had she not faced a ridiculous penalty with regard to her pension. That kind of computer inspired angst does exist, and not only in stupid people.
Oh, btw – Apple G4, recently upgraded to 512 MB RAM, running OSX.1, current uptime clocking in at 163 days. I power down the TiBook, or it would have similar uptime claims. I have had program crashes – Outlook (which I’ve since done away with), Internet Explorer and various Office components. Gee, wonder what those programs have in common?
Uh… plug in the digital camera, a new menu icon appears, and then you transfer the photos to the destination folder. This is hard? How is the Mac interface better? Does it give you a blowjob while the images are transferred? (If so, I’m picking up a Mac ASAP!)
Anyway… I never use any “built-in” software for any significant applications. Need to sort and fiddle around with pictures? I got PSP. Need to edit video? I got Premiere. Edit sound? Soundforge. Listen to music? Winamp. Does any built-in software - for Mac or XP - surpass either of these programs in terms of quality or capabilities? In my experience, I say no.
getting back to the ad campaign,
I just find it strange that all the recent switchers seem to be the kind of people that I would hate to have to carpool with. Apple seems to be playing up to the old stereotype - “our users are incompetent, dorky types who do arty crap for a living”.
The commercials would have been far more effective if they’d just showcased the machines and the features of the OS next to a typical Wintel box.
Our dual 1gig G4 mailserver running OSX has crashed. More than once.
I run both a G4 and a Windows machine, at home and at work. So I don’t belong on either side of the fence. (except I can’t run Rhino 3d on my mac. Gah)
I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this question. I’ve been trying to convince my girlfriend to get a Mac, but she’s concerned that she won’t be able to do her work productively. Does Office running on a Mac save files in such a way that they’re transparently readable by Office on Windows? And vice versa?
I used to use Macs all the time for graphic design, but I haven’t since OS 7. I’d love to get another one, but I can’t convince her…
Macs will find it very easy to read Windows files, but not vice versa.
However - Macs can also save files in Windows format. In OS9 even if you didn’t have office you could get a utility called MacLinkPlus that would convert Mac documents to whatever Windows file type you wanted. On my ibook, I just drag the Mac text/Appleworks file onto the to->WordPC icon, and a new file icon appears for the file in Windows format.
Not sure what OSX has, but doubtless something equally good/better.
This sort of thing really irritates me.
So Peter Gabriel (and many other famous musicians) is an “incompetent, dorky type who does arty crap for a living”? And my friends (the mom works for JPL, has a degree from MIT) are “incompetent dorks”? And what is this about “arty crap”? You mean all the film, digital art and movies that everyone has enjoyed and admired (the stuff that is made on a Mac—not all of it, of course, but a good chunk of it) you mean that “arty crap”? Who really believes such a stereotype? Do you think that the public at large thinks this? If so, they are dumber than I thought. Or, they are being browbeaten and brainwashed by the PC-geek crowd.
<related hijack> You know, another thing that gripes my ass Big Time is the assertion by some PC geeks that Mac people tinker around and don’t do anything of susbstance. I’ve heard the condescending line, “If you want to do some real work, get a PC.” Sometimes, this line is uttered by some uber-geek who is too busy tinkering with their PC’s innards, or too busy playing games to do…well…work. On the other hand, I’ve created many (semi-successful) web sites, digital art, and am in the process of writing an eBook (prompted by the response from one of my sites). I am getting a lot of REAL work done on my iMac, and isn’t that the bottom line? And my friend who works at JPL (where they work on both Macs and PCs) does she do real work on her Mac? And my other friends, who are students or artists or whatever? What is this bullshit, anyway? </related hijack>
Uh…
The poster was pointing out that’s the message projected by Apple in the ads… Not that the poster agreed with the statement…
Yeesh…
No.
It lets you see all your photographs at once, in all your “folders.” Windows’ built in software doesn’t let you do that. It allows you to save and export slideshows, it lets you do basic editing and cropping of photographs right within the basic iPhoto interface. Windows “My Pictures” doesn’t do this. And it’ll let you print up a hardbound book, with just a couple clicks. To my knowledge, there’s no Windows software that does that as easily, and Windows XP’s interface doesn’t even try.
If you use Windows, you probably shouldn’t. Microsoft’s built in software is almost always crap.
But this discussion is about the built in software, so it should stick to that.
This is bullshit. We’re talking about the bundled software in the two operating systems, and you bring up very expensive, prosumer level programs.
Paint Shop Pro costs $110. Adobe Premiere is $550. Soundforge is $500. So yeah, if I were to spend close to $1,200 on software I could have a system that’s better. What a shock. I mean, gee whiz. Whoda thunk.
We’re talking about the programs that come with the operating systems and you bring up applications that cost as much as the computer itself? That’s just absurd.
Going just with what’s included in the computer: iPhoto is better than Windows XP’s My Pictures. It’s more flexible and has more features. iTunes is better than Windows Media Player. It’s easier to build playlists, has a better interface and will natively rip and export .mp3 files. iMovie is so much better than Windows Movie Maker that its not even worth mentioning. And Microsoft has nothing equivelent to iDVD.
One of the most ugly, least standard and inscrutible programs I’ve ever used. iTunes is far more approachable, and much less ugly than Winamp. So is Windows Media Player. And both tie in to their OS and thus are better for streaming Internet media. But I do believe that WinAmp is free (at least, to my knowledge, I never paid for it, back when I used it… so I hope it was free), so this is the only valid comparison you’ve offered.
Wow. What a shock. For $1,200 you can get better software than what comes with either OS.
If cost is not an issue, then for $1,000 I can get Final Cut Pro for moviemaking on my Mac which is better than Premiere, and arguably better than Avid, on either platform. For $700 I can get Photoshop 7, which is actual pro photography software, and orders of magnitude better than Paint Shop Pro. I don’t deal in music software, aside from jukebox playback, but I’m sure there’s a Soundforge type program that I can get for a similar $500.
So gee, for $2,200 on my Mac (or $2,700 on my PC, if you swap Final Cut Pro out and Avid in), I can trump your $1,200 “suite” on my systems. But is that a fair comparison? No. Comparing pro software to prosumer software that is less than half as expensive is just as much of a bullshit comparison as comparing $1,200 worth of prosumer software with the consumer applications that come bundled with $100 OSes.
Comparisons should be fair, or they are meaningless. If you spend as much on software programs like that as you do on the computer, I hope to God that its better than what comes with Mac OS X or Windows. But that doesn’t make those programs logical comparisons for our discussion here.
Kirk
Yes. Office XP for Windows and Office v.X for Mac OS X use the same file formats for all three of the major file-producing programs (Word, Excel and PowerPoint).
However, certain Mac-only features like Quartz-based transparency in Excel spreadsheet graphs will not transfer over, due to the limits of the Windows graphics system. And SmartTags in Windows Word XP or Excel XP will not be visible in Mac Word 10 or Excel 10, IIRC.
But the data itself, and the contents used in 99.9% of all Office documents, should transfer back and forth seemlessly (so long as you’re not like using platform-specific fonts).
Kirk
Don’t tell marketing people that; for some crazy reason they think that good ads = better sales. I know, they are wierd, aren’t they?