Apple and PC: the discussion continues. (1 Viewer)

[Paul Jenkins]

As for the person who got the same value in a PC for alot less, does that also count the times you upgraded the PC month after month? I haven't seen a single PC user who hasn't added the total cost of another PC to their existing system and claimed to have spent less. What about all the hours of your time people spend upgrading CPU, motherboard, hard drives, video cards, IDE controllers, replacing the 1 dollar keyboard and 2 dollar mouse for a decent one? Sure the parts are cheap, but unless your time is worth zero $, then sure, spend all those hours upgrading

I've been running Windows 2000 Professional on my laptop, trouble free and with zero paid upgrades for over 2.5 years. The only upgrades have been service packs, which are free.
Most of the old arguments that Mac faithful had over the PC have long since disappeared.
Finally, this is the Home Theater Forum, and, since the Mac can not do HTPC like my current PIII Windows XP machine, by definition the PC wins hands down for what this board is all about
[edit: forgot to throw in that my XP HTPC machine is running DScaler and/or PowerDVD 24x7 and hasn't had any issues since I built it...]

 

[Joseph S]

Finally, this is the Home Theater Forum, and, since the Mac can not do HTPC like my current PIII Windows XP machine, by definition the PC wins hands down for what this board is all about

That isn't necessarily true. However, considering that this is TV and HDTV programming forum...

HDNet broadcasts many sports programs live but uses Final Cut Pro, Power Mac and the Pinnacle CineWave HD I/O board to get taped programs ready for air. “We looked at a number of the high-def, nonlinear editing systems,” says Garvin. “Some are really good at compositing, but not as good at editing. Final Cut Pro has been outstanding and even something of a surprise. High def is pretty high end — you’re inclined to be prepared to spend a lot of money to get what you need. And along comes Final Cut Pro with Pinnacle cineWave — it’s just amazing
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2002/04/hdtv/

 

[Anthony Hom]

Paul, I was not directing the comment at you. the person who bought the PC, bought a desktop machine, not a laptop. If you want to get into laptops, I can make the same argument with a Mac Powerbook I have had for six years, no crashes ever, had built-in ethernet since 1996, subwoofer sound system, and all my upgrades cost zero. so your argument has no more weight than mine.

 

[Derek Miner]

Yet, God damn if it'll read my PC formatted floppy.

I've never had that problem. But it doesn't seem to work the other way around...

 

[RobertR]

upgraded the PC month after month?....IDE controllers

What's this "month after month" business you're talking about?? I've had the same mouse for 5 years, and the same keyboard for 8 years. The last significant upgrade I did was a year ago (going from a 300 Mhz PII to a 1.2 GHz Athlon). Case, hard drive, video card, etc. stayed the same, and it cost me a few hundred bucks. Hardly the cost of a "new system" (ESPECIALLY the cost of a Mac system). BTW, IDE controllers are BUILT IN to a PC motherboard, so I don't know what you mean by "upgrading" them.

Is it possible to upgrade the speed of ANY Mac in such a modular, inexpensive fashion, in a manner of MY choosing? I very much doubt it.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

2K and XP. Try this: run regedit, and search for "progra~1". I seem to have a lot of them, and these are on machines with new installs of the OS, not upgrades.

Interesting. I'm running Win98se on my primary machine and something older on my other machines. I worked with a computer that was running Windows XP beta a while back and more recently setup a computer with XP release version. I honestly never got that deep... Dealt with a couple DLL files and that was it. I don't know why it still conforms to the eight character limit. Last I was told (and later confirmed in this thread) XP and 2k were built on the NT base, not the DOS base. Backwards compatibility I assume.

As for the floppies, this was a while back, but I remember some PC discs would work with the floppy icon and "PC" on the label second in the IBM logo font. Others didn't.

 

[Martin Rendall]

Yeah, but it's a lot easier when a huge majority are using monopoly-provided email and web clients written by a company that considers security an afterthought.

Ken,

Yes, and no. One can choose to use Opera and Eudora on Windows (avoiding that whole ball of angst), while many avid Mac users end up using Outlook Express, out of personal preference. But nobody's targeting OE on the Mac, oddly.

It's good that you pointed out that the software installed on the OS is often the culprit. There are very few viruses which infect directly through the OS these days, compared to those which make use of weaknesses in installed applications.

Bottom line though: both are crappy OS's. Both are great user interfaces. Pick yours, and move on!

Martin.

 

[MickeS]

Joseph, I don't think anyone has doubted the Mac's appeal to A/V professionals. The article you linked doesn't have much (if anything) to do with HTPC.

That's why these Apple ads are so puzzling to me. They are trying to compete in a field where they simply are not competitive. Why not stick to the professional market? IF they really want to compete in the homes, they need to open up their hardware to other manufacturers so that Mac's achieve the modular and inexpensive design that is the strength of the PC. They also need to make sure games are released simultaneously with PC games.

The ads are just trying to sell something the targeted customer (the PC user) already has, but with less compatibility with the market leaders, and for a higher price. It doesn't seem like a good strategy to me. But who knows, maybe it'll work.

/mike

 

[Mark Larson]

That's why these Apple ads are so puzzling to me. They are trying to compete in a field where they simply are not competitive. Why not stick to the professional market? IF they really want to compete in the homes, they need to open up their hardware to other manufacturers so that Mac's achieve the modular and inexpensive design that is the strength of the PC. They also need to make sure games are released simultaneously with PC games.

Professional market? Are you sure...? Didn't the pros use SGI and Sun workstations? I sure thought so, which is why i always looked at SGI in a Godly light.
They are targeting people who can't use a PC. I know many people who like using Macs, but when something small goes wrong, they whine like a chainsaw motor run out of oil - loud and long!
Let's get this straight: Apple's target market...
-Young designer types who can't use a computer and feel the need too surround themselves with nice looking gay objects.
-Execs who associate MS with the office.
-Hippies. (Where did i read that article about the hippy commune that was run on Macs for some time...? - About the only thing capable of running with Macs and most of their users' intelligence! )
-Anyone else??

 

[Trace Downing]

I use a UNIX system at work, and a Mac at home. I really don't get into the nuances of power and capabilities between the two, so I have no arguments in support of my decision to have an IBook. But, I can smell bullshit a mile away.

Young designer types who can't use a computer and feel the need too surround themselves with nice looking gay objects.

How do you tell which gender a computer is? Have you ever seen two male computers get it on with each other? If they have baby computers, that could solve the upgrade problem.
One more point about the HTF. This being the HTF, I have a TiVo, so I've never seen these commercials, because I can speed right through them, without having to bother being subjected to this "false advertising".
Lastly; Steve, send me an e-mail with those pictures you're talking about. Do you have nice looking, gay objects in you're home office? I've got a Matrix poster in mine, but Keanu Reeves swears he's not gay.

 

[RobertR]

this is the Home Theater Forum...and if you're watching movies on a PC, then you're just wrong. Cheap plasticky little speakers are no match for a good set of quality speakers, made out of actual wood. As far as even a 21" screen, and an office chair as opposed to a 50"+ widescreen TV and a nice leather Barcalounger is concerned...don't get me started

The utterly erroneous assumption you make is that watching movies on a PC MUST involve "plasticky little speakers" or a 21" monitor. The concept that it can be hooked up to something else seems to have escaped you. I watch MY HTPC on a 100 inch screen and six foot tall, $10,000 speakers. For well under 700 bucks, I get picture quality that exceeds that of a $25,000 Faroudja processor (not to mention any set top DVD player), and outstanding 5.1 sound. The ability of a PC based HTPC to give such superb picture and sound quality on a full blown Home Theater system is the whole POINT of using one in the first place, and such capablity is not available on a Mac.

 

[Derek Williams]

At my previous job I had a network of PC's, my present job is nothing but Mac's. I spend most of the time teaching teachers how to use technology in the classroom vs. fixing software problems.
For gamers or a person who upgrades hardware often PCÕs are a better value. If you mainly word process/web surf or upgrade RAM/Harddrive only Macs are a better long term investment. The systems have a better shelf life.
The switch campaign is aimed at the casual user. Most people (think Joe six pack) they only word process/web surf and might upgrade RAM/Harddrive.

 

[Joseph S]

Is it possible to upgrade the speed of ANY Mac in such a modular, inexpensive fashion, in a manner of MY choosing? I very much doubt it.

Of course you can. Most macs would have accepted both the components you chucked and the ones you added. You can even upgrade the CPU on an iMac if you want. Heck, you could've added a SCSI Card or Voodoo2 and a floppy to the original iMac.

 

[Chris]

I've used both for a long time.. a long time. I've worked with a client in a pre-press environment running a combination of SGI/Mac/PCs. I've worked in large scale networks for schools that are Mac, and large scale corporate that are PC.
Here's the reality: the mac is a very functional machine that handles many tasks very well, and if you are comfortable with a mac, it does a great job. The mac used to be the absolute leader in desktop publishing, where Quark and Adobe released their products first.. but that's no longer the case, now all products are released at the same time. The Mac makes up 5% of the market share. Which means newer "cutting edge" technology doesn't happen on the mac as often (though it does happen in the design sense) as often as on a PC.
On the PC side, you have a much more open choice of OS - while people bash Windows, I boot between Windows/Linux/FreeBSD on my machine. I can find third party OS developers for my machine - difficult to do if I'm on a Mac (basically impossible). I can chose from hundreds of hardware manufacturers for pieces and parts lowering cost; and I have the advantage of newer drivers and software being released quicker because I'm in that 95% on the PC side.
Both machines will serve you well, and if you're happy with one, why the heck change to the other? If you're not happy, then sure, switch. Of course, for all the "beauty" of Mac OSX 10.1 (isn't it now) no one bothers to mention the fact that tons of the Mac apps still run in Legacy mode only - and are not Mac OSX native.
But all of this is moot; we're talking about the commercials. The commercials don't give you the effective "good" reasons to go with a Mac; the Mac has a lot of nifty advantages by turning the advantages of a PC around: while PCs have numerous hardware providers, there is never a reason to worry about mac "hardware compatibility lists" there is only one "motherboard" maker so you know card X works with board Y. That's an advantage if you look at it that way. The commercials fail in their basic point: they don't make the most effective case for a reason to "switch" or run out and by a Mac. When the Mac first was introduced in a commercial (killing the AppleIIGS, released that same year) it was an innovative launch that promised something different. The same was true of the Ibook; an innovative launch that promised truly light-weight computing on the go. The introduction of the Ipod seemed like an also ran to every other provider offering MP3 players. The introduction of this campaign seems to be 'we know you already bought X, but are you happy?' Maybe the wrong approach.

 

[RobertR]

Most macs would have accepted both the components you chucked and the ones you added. You can even upgrade the CPU on an iMac if you want.

So I can shop for a motherboard with features that suit me and a CPU from a competitive vendor (ie they are engaging in price competition for my business), and I have a choice of multiple CPU and motherboard makers that suit my needs?

 

[Joseph S]

Of course, for all the "beauty" of Mac OSX 10.1 (isn't it now) no one bothers to mention the fact that tons of the Mac apps still run in Legacy mode only - and are not Mac OSX native.

Why should they? When RealPlayer gets their act together or forces all content in .mp4 everyone will be deleting their 9.x partition.

 

[Chris]

Actually, realplayer wasn't the one striking my mind as OSX non-native. I was thinking publishing apps and plugins. (And of course, Quark, et al) kinda defeats the purpose when the major league business apps are not OSX native.

 

[LarryDavenport]

Sorry, too many posts to read. I just saw a commercial and one lie they just told is "It never crashes." My Mac at work crashes at least 4 times a day, and often 10 or more. It usually happens using either IE or Netscape when loading a Java app. It also sucks when I try to print .ps or .eps figures as part of my job (something that never happens with my Gateway laptop running XP.) And unfortunately, the computer geeks at the UW are not Mac savvy so can rarely fix the problem. My boss is switching us over to PCs soon.

I don't want to get into a PC vs. Mac vs. Linux war; they all seem to have their pros and cons.

 

[Ken Chan]

The ads are just trying to sell something the targeted customer (the PC user) already has

There are people that for whatever reason have problems with PCs. Some of them would be better off with a Mac. There are also people buying their first computer; they see ads about people switching, and maybe they decide to avoid the "hassle" in the first place.
//Ken

 

[Jack Briggs]

Mac users are able to penetrate more deeply the mysteries of the Universe.