Macs for me.....
I started off programming one of the first IBM PCs, copying code from PC games mags - must have been back in the late '70s, then went through various different IBM machines up until about 92 when I got my first Mac (IIsi IIRC)
What a difference - it was suddenly easy to produce polished looking documents....
Several Quadras and Powerbooks later, I went back to the PC arena. Used to build all my own machines for gaming and went through a Mac hater phase.
Sometime in the early late '90s/early 00s I decided that gaming on the PC was a shitty experience and went over to console gaming instead. I'd had Sega and Atari machines before, but PC games were just better - until the original PS came out. Right now I've got a PS3, XBox 360 and Wii and I wouldn't consider going back to a PC (or Mac) as a games platform because it just doesn't compare to sitting on a couch with a beer, gaming on a 42" HD screen with sound through an Aloia amp into a pair of ('70s) Acoustic Research AR9 speakers (4 x 12" bass drivers in the pair!)
So, with gaming out of the equation, I went back to Macs in about 03/04? when the first White G5 LCD iMacs came out. Bought one of those for my wife who hated using my PC....in fact, she hated computers in general. The iMac changed all that. Suddeny she'd moved from film to digital photogrpahy and started getting all multi-media and internet savvy on my ass. Plus the kids loved the iMac and hated using my PCs for any of their stuff. I began to get converted back too and my high end custom desktop PC began to get ignored....even though I'd spent $1000s on custom audio hardware, Cubase, samplers etc (and believe me - that stuff NEVER all worked together properly!!!)
At work, when it came time to get a new Laptop, I convinced our IT department to get me a MacBook Pro instead......wow what a difference to the shitty plastic Dell hardware I'd had that died all the time and was just build like crap. The solid aluminum build of the MBP was something else - and that screen was great. All my co workers were jealous, but being haters, they were all " oh - that'll be no good in the Corporate environment". A year or so of trials proved that the Mac integrated perfectly and was faster and easier to use. My work material was clearly better and produced faster than my colleagues - despite using much of the same software! Now more people at work are going Mac. The IT department can't fault it either. The Mac users need almost ZERO support, whereas the PC users need lots - plus more hardware fixes and upgrades. Proven and documented!
About this point, I discovered "Logic Pro" for my music needs and all my weird audio hardware got eBayed. Never looked back here.....Logic Pro just rocks and gives me 10 times more power and flexibility than the old original PC/Cubase/Hardware route.
Anyway.....I ended up buying the wife and kids one of the 24" Aluminum Intel iMacs when they came out. Another "Wow" moment.
Recently I bought myself one of the new 15" unibody MacBook Pros - and that's another step up in hardware too. It's built like a tank and is just elegant and uber usable. I do a lot of work on the road, and MacBooks just take a licking and keep on ticking whereas PC laptop hardware is mainly plastic junk.
On the lack of software front, I completely disagree. All of the major packages are available on the Mac, and Apple also has superb software suites that you just can't get on the PC at all - Final Cut, Logic, Aperture for example. For any kind of media work, these are just the bomb. They are also extremely intuitive and elegant to use with a far less steep learning curve than their PC equivalents. There's a reason why "media types" predominantly use Macs.
In fact, if you don't want to wrestle with or worry about the computer you are suing, you're probably better off using a Mac.
Sure - Geeks will argue that a PC can give you more power for the same money. Fair point. It can. But 99% of users don't need much raw processing power anyway.
Geeks will argue that a PC is more configurable. That's debatable. You can certainly plug more bits of random hardware together and then fight with drivers to make it all work. Most people don't want to do that though. What's more, if you are that kind of Geek, then the underlying Unix operating system of the Mac will give you more control than you get in windows. Try settting up Cron jobs on Windows out of the box for example....
Geeks will argue for Ubuntu, or **nux or whatever. Good. Great in fact.....but why limit yourself. My Mac has OSX, Windows 7, Ubuntu and Unix all happily co-existing and running at the same time (with just a keystroke to jump from one to the other) should I want them. But you know what? I very rarely use anything other than OSX and the Terminal window for Unix needs. I just don't need to and all the others don't feel or look as nice to use.
The downside of the Mac is of course the cost and the locked hardware. A few years ago, the hardware made a big difference to me - now it doesn't matter as anything I used to need dedicated hardware for is now do-able in software and I don't really even approach the processing power limitations of my current processors for anything I do - even multi channel audio recording and soft synth and effects use. If you need dedicated hardware that you can't just plug in via USB or 1394 - then fine, you probably need a PC.
The cost of a Mac is definitely higher. If you can't afford it, then fine. You need a PC. If you can afford it and want to spend the money, then go with a Mac. It will be a much more enjoyable ownership experience. It's a bit like the old BMW vs. Ford argument - sure, you can get a faster Ford for the money. But a small cross section of people choose to buy the BMW instead, and almost all of them are happy with their purchase.
Macs are just easier to use and more elegant. Some people are happy to pay for that, others aren't - and that's just dandy too. We shouldn't have to live in a "one size fits all" world.
The funny thing is that you don't see many Mac users getting all lathered up about how bad PCs are. They just get on with their lives - admittedly looking down on PC users a bit smugly
But you DO see lots of PC users vocally dissing Macs without much experience of them at all or the understanding of why people buy them. It's a bit like many "upgraded" Ford drivers hating BMW owners for example ( I drive a Mercedes myself, so I consider myself above such arguments :twisted: )
Bottom line for me is that I've used both platforms intensively since the 70's and I choose Mac for my needs. That's not to say I won't switch back if I consider the PC to be a superior platform for MY NEEDS AT THE TIME. However I'm already expecting to be buying one of the new 27" iMacs in the New Year.....
Just my $0.02 - and hopefully fairly unbiased....
(As for the "one button" argument - anyone that brings that up just proves their ignorance. Macs have had multiple buttons on their mice for years - even if they LOOK as if they only have one! Their multitouch touchpad implementation is genius (and is poorly copied on many PCs) and the new "Magic Mouse" looks like a truly awesome desktop control device. What's more, as many geeks will tell you, keyboard control is faster and better for many, many uses - and Mac software tends to have much deeper key control than the PC equivalent. If you want it, it's up to you to learn the keystrokes! It's all there waiting for you....)
I started off programming one of the first IBM PCs, copying code from PC games mags - must have been back in the late '70s, then went through various different IBM machines up until about 92 when I got my first Mac (IIsi IIRC)
What a difference - it was suddenly easy to produce polished looking documents....
Several Quadras and Powerbooks later, I went back to the PC arena. Used to build all my own machines for gaming and went through a Mac hater phase.
Sometime in the early late '90s/early 00s I decided that gaming on the PC was a shitty experience and went over to console gaming instead. I'd had Sega and Atari machines before, but PC games were just better - until the original PS came out. Right now I've got a PS3, XBox 360 and Wii and I wouldn't consider going back to a PC (or Mac) as a games platform because it just doesn't compare to sitting on a couch with a beer, gaming on a 42" HD screen with sound through an Aloia amp into a pair of ('70s) Acoustic Research AR9 speakers (4 x 12" bass drivers in the pair!)
So, with gaming out of the equation, I went back to Macs in about 03/04? when the first White G5 LCD iMacs came out. Bought one of those for my wife who hated using my PC....in fact, she hated computers in general. The iMac changed all that. Suddeny she'd moved from film to digital photogrpahy and started getting all multi-media and internet savvy on my ass. Plus the kids loved the iMac and hated using my PCs for any of their stuff. I began to get converted back too and my high end custom desktop PC began to get ignored....even though I'd spent $1000s on custom audio hardware, Cubase, samplers etc (and believe me - that stuff NEVER all worked together properly!!!)
At work, when it came time to get a new Laptop, I convinced our IT department to get me a MacBook Pro instead......wow what a difference to the shitty plastic Dell hardware I'd had that died all the time and was just build like crap. The solid aluminum build of the MBP was something else - and that screen was great. All my co workers were jealous, but being haters, they were all " oh - that'll be no good in the Corporate environment". A year or so of trials proved that the Mac integrated perfectly and was faster and easier to use. My work material was clearly better and produced faster than my colleagues - despite using much of the same software! Now more people at work are going Mac. The IT department can't fault it either. The Mac users need almost ZERO support, whereas the PC users need lots - plus more hardware fixes and upgrades. Proven and documented!
About this point, I discovered "Logic Pro" for my music needs and all my weird audio hardware got eBayed. Never looked back here.....Logic Pro just rocks and gives me 10 times more power and flexibility than the old original PC/Cubase/Hardware route.
Anyway.....I ended up buying the wife and kids one of the 24" Aluminum Intel iMacs when they came out. Another "Wow" moment.
Recently I bought myself one of the new 15" unibody MacBook Pros - and that's another step up in hardware too. It's built like a tank and is just elegant and uber usable. I do a lot of work on the road, and MacBooks just take a licking and keep on ticking whereas PC laptop hardware is mainly plastic junk.
On the lack of software front, I completely disagree. All of the major packages are available on the Mac, and Apple also has superb software suites that you just can't get on the PC at all - Final Cut, Logic, Aperture for example. For any kind of media work, these are just the bomb. They are also extremely intuitive and elegant to use with a far less steep learning curve than their PC equivalents. There's a reason why "media types" predominantly use Macs.
In fact, if you don't want to wrestle with or worry about the computer you are suing, you're probably better off using a Mac.
Sure - Geeks will argue that a PC can give you more power for the same money. Fair point. It can. But 99% of users don't need much raw processing power anyway.
Geeks will argue that a PC is more configurable. That's debatable. You can certainly plug more bits of random hardware together and then fight with drivers to make it all work. Most people don't want to do that though. What's more, if you are that kind of Geek, then the underlying Unix operating system of the Mac will give you more control than you get in windows. Try settting up Cron jobs on Windows out of the box for example....
Geeks will argue for Ubuntu, or **nux or whatever. Good. Great in fact.....but why limit yourself. My Mac has OSX, Windows 7, Ubuntu and Unix all happily co-existing and running at the same time (with just a keystroke to jump from one to the other) should I want them. But you know what? I very rarely use anything other than OSX and the Terminal window for Unix needs. I just don't need to and all the others don't feel or look as nice to use.
The downside of the Mac is of course the cost and the locked hardware. A few years ago, the hardware made a big difference to me - now it doesn't matter as anything I used to need dedicated hardware for is now do-able in software and I don't really even approach the processing power limitations of my current processors for anything I do - even multi channel audio recording and soft synth and effects use. If you need dedicated hardware that you can't just plug in via USB or 1394 - then fine, you probably need a PC.
The cost of a Mac is definitely higher. If you can't afford it, then fine. You need a PC. If you can afford it and want to spend the money, then go with a Mac. It will be a much more enjoyable ownership experience. It's a bit like the old BMW vs. Ford argument - sure, you can get a faster Ford for the money. But a small cross section of people choose to buy the BMW instead, and almost all of them are happy with their purchase.
Macs are just easier to use and more elegant. Some people are happy to pay for that, others aren't - and that's just dandy too. We shouldn't have to live in a "one size fits all" world.
The funny thing is that you don't see many Mac users getting all lathered up about how bad PCs are. They just get on with their lives - admittedly looking down on PC users a bit smugly
But you DO see lots of PC users vocally dissing Macs without much experience of them at all or the understanding of why people buy them. It's a bit like many "upgraded" Ford drivers hating BMW owners for example ( I drive a Mercedes myself, so I consider myself above such arguments :twisted: )Bottom line for me is that I've used both platforms intensively since the 70's and I choose Mac for my needs. That's not to say I won't switch back if I consider the PC to be a superior platform for MY NEEDS AT THE TIME. However I'm already expecting to be buying one of the new 27" iMacs in the New Year.....
Just my $0.02 - and hopefully fairly unbiased....
(As for the "one button" argument - anyone that brings that up just proves their ignorance. Macs have had multiple buttons on their mice for years - even if they LOOK as if they only have one! Their multitouch touchpad implementation is genius (and is poorly copied on many PCs) and the new "Magic Mouse" looks like a truly awesome desktop control device. What's more, as many geeks will tell you, keyboard control is faster and better for many, many uses - and Mac software tends to have much deeper key control than the PC equivalent. If you want it, it's up to you to learn the keystrokes! It's all there waiting for you....)
Comment