Are you a long time Windows user curious about the Apple Switch campaign? Are you wondering if you should try it? Read below for my experience with the whole thing… twice. Just over a week ago I purchased a new 12″ Apple PowerBook G4…
Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
This decision was made after a 12 month agonizing debate over whether or not to try the switch… again. Interwoven into the decision was the fact that almost two years ago to the day I had already tried the switch . I reflect on why I bought my first Mac, why it ended up on eBay, and why I struggled over the decision to buy my second Mac. Did I make the same mistake twice? You can read how I feel about my decision, and what the outlook looks like.
Let me start off by giving you a little background about me. I am a thirty-two year old self proclaimed (and proclaimed by many others as well) geek. I have been using computers to write code since I was thirteen years old. Hammering out Basic and Machine Language on my Commodore Vic-20. Today I am a Software Engineer who enjoys writing Java and can wrangle Vi with the best of them. After my Vic-20 and Commodore-64, I graduated to an IBM PC clone to head off the college with. My only Apple experience had been when I was exposed to them in the 6th grade. We ran the Logo program (the little turtle guy) and a GUI word processor which was amazing to me. Besides this short lived experience with Apple computers, I never used them again. They were always a bit out of financial reach of my family, but I envied the kids that owned such beautiful computers. I stayed within the PC line for my personal computers and have worked on Sun and HP for work. I also started working with Linux pretty early on because I was running a 4 line BBS and was trying to write an application on Linux that could route Internet mail to my BBS.
I am thinking back to when Apple computers recently caught my eye. I recall being a real PC power user (always having the latest and fastest of everything in my PC) and laughing at those crazy Apple users. I remember thinking to myself, “What a boring experience, those people can’t even get to a command line and tweak their setting.” I was wondering when Apple would just go out of business and die. Those thoughts were pretty consistent in my mind for many years. Until… one day I was watching television with my wife and I saw it… an ad for the Apple Titanium PowerBook G4. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow! That is a beautiful machine.” I immediately navigated my web browser to www.apple.com and was in for another huge surprise. Apple had recently released a new operating system called Mac OS X based on one of my favorite OSs, FreeBSD. I couldn’t believe it. I have always loved and admired FreeBSD. I love the elegance and beauty of it. I love the philosophy of it. Unfortunately, I have only been able to be a FreeBSD supporter by way of user and cheerleader, but I admire and respect all of the individuals who put long hours into it.
I poured over all of the specs for the PowerBook and OS X. I was impressed. My wife could tell that I had that fixation about me that could only be cured by one thing… owning one. But alas things would have to be put on hold for just a bit while my wife and I tended to our newly born son. The time off from work tending to baby and mom made me a little stir crazy. I couldn’t stop thinking about all of the amazing things I would be able to do with my new PowerBook. My wife finally said to me, very lovingly, “Honey, go get your computer.” I think she was just tired of me asking her if I should buy it or not. So I trucked on over to the new Apple computer store and introduced myself to my new laptop. The purchase was not quite the fan-fare I thought it would be. I made sure to tell all of the employees that I came in contact with that this was my first Apple computer out of about twenty Wintel PCs. In the end, I think they thought I was more goofy than anything else. While waiting for the final checkout, I started chatting with a woman who had owned Macs her entire life and had that “Think Different… Apple or die attitude.” I couldn’t wait. I just couldn’t wait to be part of a culture that loved their computers so much that they were willing to charge into verbal battles on their behalves and emblaze their environmentally friendly vehicles with Apple logos. I was ready.
I journeyed home and opened it up. I was so excited. I planned to learn all about my new computer, get it all set up, and have my Windows based laptop on eBay within weeks. Then I slowly started to realize something. My new PowerBook that was supposed to be faster than my PC despite the Mhz gap was terribly slow. Then other things started to chip away at my excitement. All of the software that I currently owned and used on my PC was not available in a Mac version or even worse, if a Mac version was available, I was not eligible for upgrade pricing. Purchasing software for a new OS is considered a new purchase in the eyes of software manufacturers. I had heard about a product by Connectix called VirtualPC which would allow me to run all of my PC software on my new Apple. So once again, I returned to the Apple store and purchased a copy. If the computer didn’t run slow enough with native applications, it ran my PC applications even slower, unacceptably slow. So I antied up some more bucks and increased the RAM on my 400Mhz PowerBook to 1 Gigabyte. Surely that old Windows trick would work on the Apple side too. I started to become sad. I had passionately wanted this machine. I was planning on replacing my Wintel laptop with it. I was ready to start my basic training to become a Mac fanatic. Instead, I sat in sadness as the launcher icons bounced mockingly as I waited to get some work done. It became obvious I would not be able to replace my Wintel laptop with my new PowerBook and at almost $3,500 spent so far, this toy was far to expensive to keep around. Sadly, I took the “buy me” snap shots, packed her up and posted her on eBay. I took a bath on the sale because the new, faster and improved PowerBooks had been announced. I made my final “6 month same as cash” payment to MBNA months after my PowerBook was gone.
The humiliation from my Wintel loyalist friends was as painful as the financial and emotional setbacks. End of story? Do Apple and I part ways for good over my disappointment? Thankfully, no. I still kept a more watchful eye on Apple as rumors were circulating that new versions of OS X would dramatically increase performance and that thousands of new software titles would soon be ported or written for this wonderful new OS. Despite my disappointed with my first experience, deep down, I really wanted to believe. I wanted to be part of the “Think Different” culture. I wanted to own a beautiful yet functional computer. Then, Jobs and Co. did it to me again. I do have to this say of Steve Jobs. He is the perfect leader to the group of Apple disciples. I get energized and excited every time I hear him talking about Apples latest products. As I tried to rationalize my disappointment in my first switch, I came to realize that despite my love for the design of the Titanium PowerBook my brain couldn’t get over a false sense of fragility in the laptop. It’s width to thickness ration was weird for me to get over. The Titanium feel of the PowerBook made it feel very brittle to me. So from my dark depths of subconscious grey matter, the combination of wide, thin, and brittle, always made me feel like I had to baby the machine or be overly gentle with it. So I decided what I really wanted was something about the form factor of the iBook, but it had to have a G4 processor in it. Well, I think that you see where this is going, about a year after I sold my PowerBook, Jobs sprang the 12″ PowerBook on me. G4 in an iBook form factor and beautiful aluminum to boot.
In addition to the new line up of laptops, Jobs spoke of the amazing new WIndows interoperability in the latest version of OS X. He demonstrated a much snappier OS X and introduced the evolving .Mac and iLife products. Once again, I start to get the twinkle in my eye. Slowly, I start to prepare my wife for the fact that we might try the Apple thing again. It was actually to warn her of my forthcoming obsession. She reminded me that this was quite fitting as our second child was due in just a couple weeks (my first Apple experience coinciding with my first child). I started to ease my friends into the whole Apple experience and explained to them why it would be great to own an Apple. I had to slowly sell them without them realizing what I was doing. I had to somehow disarm them of all of the arsenal of ammo I had provided them on my first switch. I told them how great it was that an Apple could integrate seemlesly into their beloved Windows networks and that Microsoft had even release a Windows Terminal Services client for Mac OS X. I impressed them with peripheral Apple technologies like the new Apple iPod (many fell in love with my original 5 Gigabyte iPod, a thing of wonder) and the Apple music store. I even got one friend excited enough that he popped down a work bonus check on the top of the line iPod. I felt I was ready to spring it on them. “I am going to get another Apple.” Most suspected it from the way I had been talking. Others chuckled. Some plain out called me dumb to do it again.
I had my friends sold (or informed at least) and I had my wife sold too. There was just one person left, myself. I journeyed to my local Apple store and loitered around. I did not want any help from the employees. I did not want to chat with recent converts. I did not want to talk to die hard Apple soldiers. I just wanted some time alone with this new PowerBook to try to see if I was setting myself up for disappointment once again. I looked at it, it looked at me and I felt that feeling of excitement and wonder all wrapped up in the 12″ wide by 1″ thick metallic machine with its glowing apple emblem on the back. From the standpoint of art, innovation, and childhood wonder, I wanted to walk out of the store with it. In the end, the rational side of my brain waived a red flag, momentarily distracting me from the passionate side of my brain. While it had me distracted, it reminded me that I and my wallet had been down this road before. With my passionate side protesting, we walked away and drove home. I tortured myself and my wife with this trip a few more time over the next couple weeks.
Finally my passionate side and my practical side called a truce. We all decided to sit down and really think about this. We would decide to either purchase a new PowerBook or give up on the idea and stop torturing myself, my wife, and my friends. I am sure I was sounding like a broken record as I continued selling my friends and family in preparation of my impending purchase.
This is what my brain and I talked about. I knew I was infatuated with the Apple machines but I wanted to make sure I didn’t own a $2,000.00 piece of art to sit on my desk. The first thing I decided was, I was not buying this machine to replace any of my current machines. Its purpose would strictly be another learning toy to introduce me to the world of Macs and OS X. Second, I absolutely love music. I have a collection of over 700 CDs. Using iTunes and the Apple music store, this would become my machine on which I would rip, organize, and maintain my music collection, as well as keep my iPod in sync with my mobile music life. I also consider myself a very amateur film maker with dreams of becoming a film director later in life. I would use this new machine to interface with my firewire digital Sony camcorder and fool around with iMovie and iDVD. Next, when my wife and I found out she was pregnant the first time, we made the decision to go 100% digital with all of our photographs, so we bought the Canon S110 (I highly recommend any Cannon digital camera). Our digital photo collection kicked off with over 300 pictures of our first son within his first week of birth. With our second child’s arrival 20 months later the collection has grown very large an almost unmanageable. I decided I would use iPhoto to catalogue and manage all of our digital photos.
As an added bonus, I would be able to make bound books from my photos as well as publish slide shows of my photos and music to DVD. Finally, being a lover and adopter of cutting edge technology the PowerBook would offer me a conduit for tying together products I already owned. These include my Sony-Ericsson T68i cell phone and my Tungsten T palm pilot. What better way to keep these in sync but with iSync. How cool would it be the my laptop could act as a caller ID display when my cellular phone rings (connected via bluetooth) and provide me the option of answering the call or sending it to voice mail with a simple click of the mouse.
One last thing happened in my life that helped tip the scales in the purchase direction. My new project at work required me to do a lot of work formulating and maintaining shell and perl scripts. I figured it would be great to be able to drop to a Unix shell and code and trouble shoot my scripts on my local machine. Yes, these are all things that I could do with Windows or by loading FreeBSD or Linux on my computer. If you asked that question, you are missing the point of the article. I want to do it from a shiny new PowerBook. After all of this thought processing was completed, I had finally sold myself.
During my lunch break on a very stormy Friday, I drove to the Apple store in Clarendon, VA. I walked into the store and walked up to it. A pleasant sales person walked up to me and asked me if I needed any help. In a reserved, calm voice, I responded, “I would like to purchase a 12″ PowerBook, 512M of RAM, Airport Extreme card, and a subscription to .Mac.” Whew… I had done it. It was out in the open. The words had been spoken. An hour later I was back at work with my shiny new toy sitting lonely in the trunk of my car in the parking garage 11 floors below me. Two hours later, I called my wife to let her know the decision had been made. I started my hour and fifteen minute crawl home in traffic with my new purchase sitting in its box next to me. Even the packaging was sexy and made me anxious to get home.
My wife was nice enough to watch our two boys for a couple hours while I played with my new purchase. I played for an hour or so and then spent some time with my family. After the boys went to sleep, I picked my new PowerBook up again and began exploring. There were pleasant surprises around every corner. I set up my .Mac account and started exploring. I tweaked out the look and feel of OS X to reflect my personality and continued exploring. Everything was polished and beautiful. Life doesn’t get any easier (and dangerous) than the Apple Music store’s seamless integration with iTunes. The latest version of iTunes continues to impress me. It was one of my favorite applications during my time with my first PowerBook. It is elegant and innovative, yet it epitomizes simplicity. The Apple Mail application (used in conjunction with my .Mac account) was a pleasant surprise. Sherlock too was a welcome surprise, as I use it to track my eBay auctions and find local movie listings. While a little short on features, iMovie and iDVD are still fun to play with and author simple drag and drop projects.
In a snap, I was connected to a shared drive on my Windows 2000 server and importing all of my pictures into iPhoto. Normally, I am not one to get into bubbles and fluff (for example, I can’t stand the bubbly look and feel of Windows XP), however I have really taken a liking to the cartoon like bubbles in iChat. Safari has grown on me and has become my favorite web browser. Again described by beauty, functionality, and sheer simplicity. I love the new brushed metal look and feel Apple is using in some of their applications and hope they continue in this direction. Finally, the icing on the cake. During this years Apple WWDC, I was no longer an Apple bystander or a wanna-be Apple owner sitting on the sidelines longing for one of those sexy machines. This time, I was a sexy machine owner, and when Steve Jobs announced that Safari 1.0 was being released today and would be available as a free download on the web in about an hour, I knew hew was talking to me.
One week later, I am still happy with my purchase. I confided in my wife that I was fearful that I would by my new Mac and be disappointed in myself for doing so. I have reassured her however that quite the opposite is true. One week later, and still excited about my purchase, I sit back and ponder, “What is different this time around?” I think I have a few answers. First, with my first switch, I had built the machine up so much in my mind that it was destined to fail no matter how it performed. I was lusting after it’s beauty more than anything. Second, I had myself convinced that I would be able to replace every PC in my life with my new Apple computer. I convinced myself that if I could not do it natively, I would do it by sheer brute force and throw VirtualPC at it. This solution was destined for failure because I began to ask myself why I was abandoning a perfectly good and productive PC for a slower running machine that emulates my previous one. Finally, I think I had bought my first PowerBook for what the future of the OS and Apple held. In other words, the promise of the innovative roadmap they sold me rather than the current capabilities of the machine. By supressing my lust and passion the second go around, I have found myself pleasantly surprised.
As I sit typing this article on my PowerBook, I realize that this time around things are different. I find myself using it more each day for my daily computer tasks. Maybe it is a sign of me aging, but anymore, I just want things to work. I don’t have the time I once had for the joys of trouble shooting and configuring. I am at a point where I want something to work as described. I want functional tools that help make my everyday life easier and more enjoyable. I think that Apple is leading the pack with this philosophy. Apple has definitely sold me on the concept of the digital hub, and my PowerBook reflects that. I don’t think of my PowerBook as much as a computer as it is a tool that helps make my daily life integrated and simpler. I am looking forward to a long relationship with my new PowerBook and Apple. Lets hope there are no more children in my future anytime soon.
About the author
Stuart MacKenzie is a software engineer who enjoys Java, J2EE, and other related web technologies. He loves exploring new and bleeding edge technologies, and sometimes sits still long enough to hammer out a few articles.
I am at a point where I want something to work as described. I want functional tools that help make my everyday life easier and more enjoyable. I think that Apple is leading the pack with this philosophy. Apple has definitely sold me on the concept of the digital hub, and my PowerBook reflects that. I don’t think of my PowerBook as much as a computer as it is a tool that helps make my daily life integrated and simpler. I am looking forward to a long relationship with my new PowerBook and Apple.
Macs are and always have been a platform for accomplishing creative efforts, designed to be unobtrusive and let its user accomplish their work with a minimum level of interruption.
Apple is applying that same methodology to digital content management. A Mac lets you easily organize (and manipulate) your photos, music, and video in an unobtrusive, simple, and elegant manner.
yeah, let’s hope this guy doesn’t produce more kids. What kind of retard doesn’t at least test drive a $3500 TiBook before he buys one? I am at a loss to rationalize this kind of behaviour. Is he trying to make the point that his disposable income level is too high?
His solution was to talk himself down to lower expectations, so that the machine’s aesthetics could finally satisfy all of his computing requirements. That’s just plain sad.
Uh … he saw an advertisement for a G4 Powerbook … and only then realized OS X had been released?
Hasn’t OS X been around a lot longer than that?
What’s sad is that you think your post was actually a rational argument.
Yes, it’s a good idea when making a big purchase like a computer to evaluate how you are going to use it and make sure those needs will be met (and how much more money you will have to spend – like in new software – in the process).
Doing this kind of analysis is called “being realistic” and not “lowering expectations.” It’s what mature, intelligent people do. He screwed it up the first time. It’s good to see that he didn’t waste money twice.
Personally I would never buy overpriced inferior hardware no matter how shiny they make the icons. We have a bunch of MACs at work and they are all very slow compared to the comparably priced PCs we have. I’m sorry but it’s true. Also ease of use has ceased to be an issue in our company…all the PCs just work. Period. We have almost no issues with them and adding hardware is a snap.
I am surprised that he found out that he couldn’t sidegrade his software from one platform to another after he bought it.
This is a huge barrier to me even considering an Apple. It is not that the software is not available, but it is a huge expense to replace all the statistics, publishing and other software with the Mac equivalents. It would be on the order of many, many, many thousands of dollars.
Too bad…for me.
I think that he saw an ad for the iBook (the first one) and then realized that OS X had been released, but your argument still holds valid. He’s a geek who uses Unix and he didn’t know that OS X had been released? Even if you didn’t even like Apple at the time, you still would have known that OS X had been released. Doesn’t sound like much of a geek to me.
I have to agree with you from my (admittedly minimal) experience with Macs.
Also, plug and play issues on Windows are a huge myth. I think those go back to the Win 9x days. First of all, a considerable amount of hardware is supported out of the box on Windows XP. I’ll admit Windows 2000 has about as much builtin hardware support as DOS.
Even for hardware that doesn’t have drivers built into XP, it is trivial to install the drivers off of the disk that comes with it. Or even download of the Internet.
Name one piece of hardware that’s CONSIDERABLY easier to install on a Mac than on Windows?
My roommate in college had a Mac, and I have to say that Mac OS X is probably the most brittle, crashiest *NIX I’ve ever seen. I can recall several instances where I had to go to drop to the command line for him, just to delete some files off his desktop. The GUI wouldn’t let him.
There were also several times where it would just automatically reboot on him, lockup completely, or just become unusably slow, requiring a manual reboot.
From what I’ve experienced, I would have to say OS X is about on a par with Windows XP for stability, useability, and plug and play.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Well right now, i’m not making nearly enough to buy a mac. I would love to run OSX because for one I love the Aqua interface. Well the best I do now is run XP and RH9 and just customize the hell out of them to look like Aqua. The only upside is that if I get tired of the aqua look I can just change it pretty easily. I’m not sure you can do that on a mac. (though correct me if i’m wrong)
I’ve been running OS X exclusively for over a year and haven’t had any significant problems. It may be well be the most crashiest Unix that I’ve used in that I have had to reboot it every once in a while–but “crashiest Unix” is pretty relative. There’s nothing I’ve seen that makes it slow down over time as you described, although that’s behavior I’ve certainly seen under Windows 2000 and previous. I haven’t used XP enough to speak to it. My biggest problem with Windows in all the versions I’ve used (3.1, 95, NT 3.51, NT 4 and 2000) has been what I’ve dubbed “creeping crud syndrome”: over time, during perfectly normal use (even somewhat conservative use), the system slowly becomes less stable. Invariably, 18-24 months after the initial install, I find myself doing a complete reinstall. (That’s how I became a full-time BeOS user for a while.) For all the Mac’s foibles, I haven’t encountered this on any Macintosh operating system, and I’ve used System 6, System 7, MacOS 9.0-9.2 and OS X 10.1-10.2. (Pre-X versions of Mac OS could be made really unstable through extensions, but removing them was–usually!–pretty simple.)
I doubt there’s significant differences in plug-and-play anymore. To me networking on the Mac is a bit easier to set up, but it’s marginal (and I’ve watched a very Windows-savvy friend be utterly confused by the Mac way of doing things, so I’m aware it’s partially learned behavior).
“Name one piece of hardware that’s CONSIDERABLY easier to install on a Mac than on Windows?”
iPod
“My roommate in college had a Mac, and I have to say that Mac OS X is probably the most brittle, crashiest *NIX I’ve ever seen.”
Thats funny, its never crashed on me and has been nothing but totally rock solid. Sounds like the problem is with your friend’s computing ability (or rather… lack theirof)
“I can recall several instances where I had to go to drop to the command line for him, just to delete some files off his desktop. The GUI wouldn’t let him.
I think you’re lying. I’ve never heard of such an error.
“Well right now, i’m not making nearly enough to buy a mac.”
Considering equally equipped hardware is nearly idential in price, you must not be making enough to buy a PC either.
I found it tough to read through the sacrin of this ad… article. I too recently bought an Apple laptop. I went for the cheapest I could find with some extras. IBook 800MHz, 3xxMB Ram plus the extended warrantee. I passed on .MAC, I don’t want another monthly fee.
I bought it mainly because I’m writing plugin’s for a product I use. My main machine is still Windows based though.
My Gripes:
– Inconsistent LAF. Brushed metal and Aqua. Personally I would rather see everything one consisted look. Going with multiple looks just seems ugly in my opinion. I detest programs in windows that try to fancy up their interface. So windows isn’t immune here either. And there is not option to force them to one or the other LAF.
– Keyboard handling. I’m a code monkey. In Windows EVERYTHING is keyboard navigatable. Ok not everything, there are exceptions. The Mac isn’t consistent here. Newbees may like mousing around, I don’t. There is not way to get to the menu via the keyboard. No “alt-f” to get to the file menu for instance. Either that or it eludes me. Anything that causes my fingers to move from the basic keyboard position will cause productivity problems.
– The touch pad on my iBook isn’t as good as some other touch pads I’ve played with. But that’s just getting niggly.
– The dock gets in the way. The iBook has limited screen real estate and anything that takes away from it is a pain. I could make it really small but then it becomes hard to use.
– Text drawing is god awful in some apps. There might be a setting that I have to use though so this may be a bogus gripe. (Code Warrior I thinking about at the moment.)
– The machine came with a couple of games. Neither of them recognize my cheap Logitech Rumble pad. The OS does recognize it as a HID but the games don’t.
My Praises:
– No regret in buying. Since I bought the cheapest I could find, I don’t feel I overpaid for the machine. The packaging, the product, all are a touch above anything else I’ve dealt with. Most everything else that I buy for the computers I feel regret buying. Although I would figure I’d feel regret if I bought the super duper deluxe laptops. I dislike spending money but for what I got I felt good. (Ok so this is subjective.)
– OS is actually nice to use once you figure out some of the keyboard short cuts. It’s just a matter of toss out what you know of Windows LAF and learning the Mac LAF. Graphically I like it but I’ve always sort of liked the Mac’s look even if I didn’t use it. This is no knock on Windows’ new LAF. I like that too, I’m not comparing.
My neither here not theirs:
– I was going to gripe about office application problems. I didn’t want to buy MS Office for the machine. I just noticed that OpenOffice.org has been release for the mac. Albeit using the X-Window hooks, I have yet to try it on the machine. I use OO.org on the windows machines so if it works as well on the Mac, I’ll be happy.
– I had some games that had Windows/Mac CDs. StarCraft wouldn’t install on the machine. Scabble did but it’s basically a Macromedia Director game so it ‘should’ anyway. Hit and miss, mind you both needed the MacOS9 compatibility so it may be unfair to knock it.
I’ve only had the machine for a few months so far so I’m still working with it. I’m no end all be all source for this stuff.
enjoy
http://www.flickerdown.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3284
ps: first i didn’t understood the movie but now have a smile
on my face
“…We have a bunch of MACs at work and they are all very slow compared to the comparably priced PCs we have. I’m sorry but it’s true. Also ease of use has ceased to be an issue in our company…”
Yeah, that ranks up there with “a friend of my cousin’s boyfriend’s brother in law said that he was told by a friend of his neighbor that his cousin’s boyfriend’s friend’s mother saw….”
– Mounting hard drives that belong to a windows machine. I can’t get it to automount. I followed the steps they provided in the help doc which were clear and simple to follow. It just didn’t work. Mounting a drive was simple enought though. I couldn’t mount to my win2K machine though. I think because it doesn’t have a ‘guest’ account. Can’t see how I can connect to these machines as an existing account though. Still struggling here.
– Can’t check in source using cvs with a mounted drive on windows. Mind you this may be permissions on the windows machines but I couldn’t figure it out.
– The help viewer is lousy with some documents. E.G. the Metrowerks CodeWarrior help docs. These docs often get stuck on the first help doc page and no matter what you do it just doesn’t want to change to a link you’ve clicked. Thankfully the doc is PDF and HTML based so I end up using IE or Safari. Still not good though. No search options with the browsers.
It’s pretty funny how some people yearn so bad to be enveloped by Jobs’ reality distortion field. I hope this guy doesn’t meet any scientologists.
Everyone will have different and varying experiences. If the author of the article had listen to what people say for or against Macs, he’d still be clueless as to whether or not it’s worth trying out, because every platform has it’s goods and bads.
As with any platform, your luck may vary, and people will have different experiences they’ll want to share. My first experience with a modern Mac was horrible. Granted I was using OSX 10.1 at the time. But when 10.2 came around, it was a significant improvement, enough to make me switch completely and it’s now my main system at home.
Unfortunately the only way to really know if you’ll like Macs or not, is to actually buy one and use it for an extended period of time. I’m talking much longer than just a test drive at the store. The pitfall with this approach is that these machines are expensive, and if you run into bad luck and have a bad experience with it, sure you’ll feel like it was a bad investment. With PCs though, I never feel bad if a system turns out to be bad because I can always scrap the parts as backup or replacements for other systems, and some cases build a whole new system with some of the previous parts. The same can’t be done on the Mac. You really rely on warrenty and supoprt. My iMac and iBook are the only systems I’ve ever purchased extended warrenty for.
“The pitfall with this approach is that these machines are expensive, and if you run into bad luck and have a bad experience with it, sure you’ll feel like it was a bad investment.”
Thankfully, no more expensive than a comperably equipped PC.
“With PCs though, I never feel bad if a system turns out to be bad because I can always scrap the parts as backup or replacements for other systems, and some cases build a whole new system with some of the previous parts. The same can’t be done on the Mac.”
Why not?
You can’t do so for the Mac all in one units… As can be said with the PC all in one units. But Macs can be scrapped for parts too. You’re comment was pretty much right-on until you got to that point.
> “I can recall several instances where I had to go to drop to > the command line for him, just to delete some files off his > desktop. The GUI wouldn’t let him.
> I think you’re lying. I’ve never heard of such an error.
Well, I am not the original poster, but I can testify it to being true. Friend of mine had the same problem, I had to teach him some basic console commands. It only happened to his desktop files though…
“Well, I am not the original poster, but I can testify it to being true. Friend of mine had the same problem, I had to teach him some basic console commands. It only happened to his desktop files though…”
Are you sure you’re not talking about files that are on the hard drive? It is possible to have problems deleting files from the hard drive because of permissions issues.
I am a Mac system administrator and have never come across files not being able to be deleted from the desktop unless they were locked… but thats an easy fix… just get-info on the file and unlock it.
I’m sure it was something simple like that.
“I can recall several instances where I had to go to drop to the command line for him, just to delete some files off his desktop. The GUI wouldn’t let him.
>>[/i]I think you’re lying. I’ve never heard of such an error.[/i]
Yupp, I’m lying, because I have nothing better to do than bash Macs all day.
Just because you’ve never heard of it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I most certainly did have to delete some files off of his desktop through the terminal window. I believe those files were failed/corrupted downloads off of the internet that he couldn’t delete because Mac OS X thought the files were still in use.
That was not just a single fluke either. I had to do that on at least three occasions for him.
Oh, and BTW to all the people complaining about the following comment I made:
My roommate in college had a Mac, and I have to say that Mac OS X is probably the most brittle, crashiest *NIX I’ve ever seen.
This is to be taken as, compared to Linux and *BSD and Solaris (yes I have used all of them at some point for considerable amounts of time) it is noticeably crashier and more brittle. I never said it was overall really crashy, just the fact that it crashed at all, is unusual for a *NIX from my experience. This puts it about on a level with WinXP for stability. (Yes I know, with bad drivers XP can be terrible in the crash department, but that is caused almost entirely by bad drivers! Apple doesn’t have that excuse, since they control all the hardware and software.)
Don’t take my comments as a “Mac bash-fest” they are just observations that prevent me from seeing Macs as being superior to PCs. I don’t feel that they are inferior either. Actually, they’re pretty much on par with each other, depending upon what you wanna do with your computer.
While Macintoshes do seem to be nice machines, personally I would never touch one just so I wouldn’t become associated with the “Mac community.” From my experience with them, they tend be a bit snobbish, standoffish, and will gleefully overlook any significant flaw and support Steve Jobs until Doomsday, but yet continually bash Windows and Windows users as “losers.”
“Yupp, I’m lying, because I have nothing better to do than bash Macs all day.”
I’ve read many of your comments and it appears that apparently you do indeed have the time.
>> I immediately navigated my web browser to http://www.apple.com and was in for another huge surprise. Apple had recently released a new operating system called Mac OS X based on one of my favorite OSs, FreeBSD. I couldn’t believe it.
I have seen this quote in various incarnations from many writers when they talk about Macs, and it never ceases to amaze me that OSX just “snuck up on them”. Where were you for all the PR, news articles, columns, and hype?? I have never owned a Mac in my life, nor has any of my family or friends, but I was still well aware of OSX at least a year before its release. I can’t imagine how I could have not known…the articles and screenshots were everywhere. You would think “self proclaimed geeks” would keep up on the news a little better.
I just wish some of those crucial specialized softwares I need in the office would be available for Mac… next time I buy something home, it’s either Mac or something that runs BeOS/OBOS…
I read how the author had just discovered that Apple with MacOSX had a Unix operating system. I find this to be true even among computer professionals so its not beyond the realm of imagination for this to happen. A lot of people are decidely ignorant of what Apple is doing and just sit on the sidelines wondering why Apple has not died yet.
There were also other comments like MacOSX is unstable which doesn’t really carry a lot of weight in my book. I have support a MacOSX servers and desktops along with MacOS9 systems in a prepress environment and we do not have these instability issues. Buy goood RAM and be proactive with system maintenance and you can have good reliability regardless of the OS.
That article almost exactly describes me. I heard about OS X. I wanted a good alternative to Microsoft. I wanted to do my part in promoting choice by voting with my wallet, and talking to friends about how great Mac was.
Well I had my Mac with OS X for about two weeks and then I sold it and cut my losses. Right now I am thinking that my next computer may be a Power Book.
I recently bought a 12″ Powerbook too
It works and looks like a charm — I love the Freebsd core and the X11 server 
This just plain rocks.
don’t sell it away anymore.
)))
I have similar experience, but of course I didn’t as rich as him to spend $3500 on it. I spent like $350 on my G3-300, and like $70 on software. But the machine is incredibly slow, and I can hardly get anything done. So the two macs are kinda sitting there doing nothing now.
This is a know problem.
The file was created from an OS 9 application or while the system was booted to OS 9. The main issue was that the file is flagged as being owned by the SuperUser and Finder didn’t have a way for the user to specify that they wanted SU priviges so they could delete the file. I beleave this was fixed in 10.2+.
I read and enjoyed this article very much. This is primarily due to the fact that I was also pondering buying a Mac soon. I’ve been debating for almost a year now, and I could really relate to what the author wrote in his article. I think I amy go ahead and order a new G5……
Sorry, made a spelling mistake. amy = may….Sorry about that.
Pretty nice article, I switched too, (iBook 800MHz, dvd/cdrw). Nice machine, but an even nicer operating system.
mmm … I’m getting a 12″ Powerbook soon. Oh joy!
12″ powerbook or 15″ ??
I’d wait for the 15″. 12″ isn’t big enough.
“Inconsistent LAF. Brushed metal and Aqua. Personally I would rather see everything one consisted look. Going with multiple looks just seems ugly in my opinion. I detest programs in windows that try to fancy up their interface. So windows isn’t immune here either. And there is not option to force them to one or the other LAF.”
There is a program that will turn off the metal look (in almost everything). Besides, Apple has a rationale of sorts behind it: metal apps interface with foreign devices, pinstripe apps for everything else.
“Keyboard handling. I’m a code monkey. In Windows EVERYTHING is keyboard navigatable. Ok not everything, there are exceptions. The Mac isn’t consistent here. Newbees may like mousing around, I don’t. There is not way to get to the menu via the keyboard. No “alt-f” to get to the file menu for instance. Either that or it eludes me. Anything that causes my fingers to move from the basic keyboard position will cause productivity problems.”
System Preferences > Keyboard > Full Keyboard Access settings. Tweak as desired.
“The touch pad on my iBook isn’t as good as some other touch pads I’ve played with. But that’s just getting niggly. ”
I would suggest getting a mouse. That’s what I would do anyway. I never liked trackpads (and those damn IBM clit mice less so).
“The dock gets in the way. The iBook has limited screen real estate and anything that takes away from it is a pain. I could make it really small but then it becomes hard to use.”
Get a Dock replacement. versiontracker.com lists lots of software for this kind of thing.
“Text drawing is god awful in some apps. There might be a setting that I have to use though so this may be a bogus gripe. (Code Warrior I thinking about at the moment.”
You can tweak antialiasing in many ways, with both stock software and 3rd party apps (check out TinkerTool as an example)
“The machine came with a couple of games. Neither of them recognize my cheap Logitech Rumble pad. The OS does recognize it as a HID but the games don’t.
”
http://www.usboverdrive.com. that may fix the problem (it did for me and my weird, obscure game pad)
“I immediately navigated my web browser to http://www.apple.com and was in for another huge surprise. Apple had recently released a new operating system called Mac OS X based on one of my favorite OSs, FreeBSD. I couldn’t believe it.”
FreeBSD is one of his favorite OSs? And he didn’t know that Apple was developing OS X based on FreeBSD? Did he live under a rock? Or is he just lying his ass off? What FreeBSD user didn’t know that OS X was based on FreeBSD? Most FreeBSD users knew this long before Apple even released the first screenshots of OS X, much less released the OS itself.
>>
FreeBSD is one of his favorite OSs? And he didn’t know that Apple was developing OS X based on FreeBSD? Did he live under a rock? .. What Kind of Author is This?
>>
A normal, regular person, that’s what he is.
Sorry, but I’ve also come across quite a good number of otherwise Unix freaks who didn’t, for example, know shit about linux. They wouldn’t even recognise a vanilla RedHat System if it was shouting out at them. People have lives and jobs to do you know, and not everybody cares to keep up with the latest toy in town.
“Sorry, but I’ve also come across quite a good number of otherwise Unix freaks”
I can’t think of any UNIX freaks who don’t at least know that Linux is a Unix clone though.
After having used x86 for years I move to a 12 inches
Apple iBook. Used it for almost 2 years, then I went
to an x86, choosing a X30 laptop from IBM. And I will
never ever go back to any Apple machines if God lets
me do. MacOS X was nice, indeed but BSD support sucked
too much and contacting Apple has been the worse experience
I ever had. At least with IBM I can grab info about
my machine even if it means signing an NDA.
“There is a program that will turn off the metal look (in almost everything). Besides, Apple has a rationale of sorts behind it: metal apps interface with foreign devices, pinstripe apps for everything else.”
I’ll have to look for that proggy then. I wouldn’t mind if the interface was completely brushed metal or completely pinstripped but the mixing is just not on in my opinion.
“System Preferences > Keyboard > Full Keyboard Access settings. Tweak as desired. ”
Did that. Menus are still not accessable with the keyboard. Mouse required.
“I would suggest getting a mouse. That’s what I would do anyway. I never liked trackpads (and those damn IBM clit mice less so).”
I do actually. But when I’m on the road I leave everything I can at home. Mouse stays home.
“Get a Dock replacement. versiontracker.com lists lots of software for this kind of thing.”
Cool. Another thing I’ll have to hunt down.
“http://www.usboverdrive.com. that may fix the problem (it did for me and my weird, obscure game pad)”
Thanks! I’ll see if that works.
Ok, maybe things are different in Canada. However when you buy something here and you aren’t satisfied with it within 30days..you REFUND IT..no bloody need to to sell it on ebay or pay for it 6months later.
Secondly, is it just me or is it rather silly to buy a computer for creditcard money..By the time he was paying it off in 6months, he could’ve used the exact same money to buy a 6month newer & better machine. Oh, that and the fact that it would lack interest.
Same goes for software. How the hell do you run out and buy an expensive(probly put it on the cc too) piece of software without reading a single review. Also, all the software that I bought had a return-to-maker-within-30days-if-not-satisfied clause. Maybe it’s just certain titles and only in canada.
In any case. I’m sure that MBNA is mighty happy with this guy as a customer. He seems to have weird horrid itches to buy expensive hardware that serves litttle purpose(YAY for wasting $2000 on organizing mp3s and photos..YAY!).
Also he claims to be a fan of freebsd, however he doesn’t appear to enjoy much of OSX’s unix side. There isn’t a mention anything but iCra..err..iApps.
After reading this article it seems that Apple should merge with a creditcard company and put even more shiny iButtons into their OS. As long as there are itching geeks, we’ll have a successful apple.
I bought a desknote A928 (http://www.desknote.biz) and I run linux on it. The hardware price was only US$ 800 and all the software, including linux was free.
Note: LCD is 15″, my processor is a Pentium 4 2,0 GHz and I have Firewire, 4 USB 2.0 ports, IR, DVD/CDRW, etc…
It is my main desktop and I am very happy with it. The hardware is open and software also…
a t68i, g4 powerbook, ipod, cannon s110, tungsten-t and a sony digital camcorder, a wife, two kids.
i wish i was rich too.
i’m envious.
>It’s pretty funny how some people yearn so bad to be enveloped by Jobs’ reality distortion field. I hope this guy doesn’t meet any scientologists.
I agree with you on that… There’s just something about Jobs, I’m not sure what it is…
Like when the flat panel iMac came out, I wanted one so much. It’s all I could talk about! Thankfully I didn’t have any money at the time… Because a few months later I realized it’s kind of a silly looking computer, expensive, and slow.
So I just upgraded my PC for $250… That’s $1,050 cheaper than the iMac, and I’m quite happy with it.
It will just take another 15 years or so. And then you’ll all be saying how great it is.
Look, it’s obvious what apple is doing is better. Obvious. PCs are just cheaper, faster (about to change) and more compatible. That’s it.
I am a Mac system administrator and have never come across files not being able to be deleted from the desktop unless they were locked… but thats an easy fix… just get-info on the file and unlock it.
I’m sure it was something simple like that.
Oh quit trolling, you’re intentionally turning people off Macs. For the record, I had a similar problem where I couldn’t clear the Trash because some files refused to be deleted. This was under 10.2.
Obviously, you have to give a new OS some time. Mac is probably at the point where it can be recommended for businesses. Following advantages:
– Not too many apps. This is actually a good thing for businesses.
– 1 mouse button. This makes training easier.
– Nicer appearance by default. This increases morale.
– Less variable. Saves admin costs.
– Reasonable to program for. You can make inhouse apps.
The thing to watch out for is networking, networking, and networking. I don’t think it’s hard at all, but you need to do little test runs. Even among only Windows machines, voodoo is often needed. I’ve had frustrating anomalies with integrating a Mac into a Windows/Linux network.
“PCs are just cheaper”
I think you mean equivilently priced.
Jobs clearly understands much of the point of personal computing. It’s not just marketing. However, he strongly attracts those who yearn to fit in somewhere. There are many people like that; look at Joel Spolsky or especially Philip Greenspun. There’s the marketing component, but there’s also substance.
I’m not wanting to concentrate on peoples’ personalities, but it does point out how there aren’t that many people who “get” what they’re working on.
“Oh quit trolling, you’re intentionally turning people off Macs.”
pardon me?
“For the record, I had a similar problem where I couldn’t clear the Trash because some files refused to be deleted. This was under 10.2.”
That’s different. He said that he couldn’t move a file from the desktop.
Obviously, you have to give a new OS some time.
Agreed. Thankfully, with NeXT’s rich history, OS X is a mature operating system.
“Mac is probably at the point where it can be recommended for businesses. Following advantages:
– Not too many apps. This is actually a good thing for businesses.”
No its not. Thankfully, there are plenty of Applications however. (You say I’m trolling?)
” – 1 mouse button. This makes training easier.”
1 or many mouse buttons. You have a choice. With PC’s you only get many. Makes training harder?
“The thing to watch out for is networking, networking, and networking.”
Thankfully, OS X networks BEATUTIFULLY. The few times where incompatibilities arise is almost always the product of Microsoft’s injected incompatibilities as is the case with Exchange servers.
i’m an apple fan boy, but he sounds like a walking apple advertisement…
OS X is not “FreeBSD” underneath. The userspace comes from FreeBSD partially, but many components of the userspace come directly from NeXT (i.e. NetInfo). OS X does not use BSD-style init either.
As for the kernel, OS X’s process scheduler and VMM, which I would consider the two most important components of an operating system kernel, come directly from Mach. While FreeBSD’s VMM is a descendant of Mach, it has been *heavily* modified over the past decade.
The components of the kernel that do come from FreeBSD are the unified buffer cache, the VFS, and the networking components. I would assume that the asynchronous I/O implementation and kqueue implementation are largely based on FreeBSD as well.
The bottom line is that Darwin is a combination of NeXT and FreeBSD components and XNU is a hybrid Mach/FreeBSD kernel, with the important components of the kernel being Mach, and the FreeBSD components being relatively uninteresting.
“those damn IBM clit mice”…you made my day with that one…thanks for the giggle.
So, you bought a Mac and feel elite, right? Well, of course you do! You are one of the few, one of the chosen, one of the ones who is sure.
You can be proud that you are now a member of one of those most elite minorities on Earth — OS X users.
You can be proud that you can put aside your cringing weak ago and feel okay to “think different”. After all, you have your shiny white or metal machine to back you up in case a problem arises.
Let it be known all over cyberspace… “I’m an American and I got over my fear… and I just purchased a shiny new expensive computer!”
But just remember, Winston, what happens at the end of the story. Goldstein, played by Jobs, is not really who you think he is. In the end, with tears streaming down your face, you will confess your undying love for Bill Gates and his Thought Police Windows Palladium PC’s.
Geez you are an insecure sorry little sap. I cant believe you just posted that silly response.
I like Mac quite a bit as you can see from some of my more recent posts. However, I dislike, with a passion, the endless fawning over Mac. Sure, it’s marketed as a cult of the worthy, but in the end, it’s just a computer. Get over it already.
AppleDroid (12.105.181.—) has nothing better to do while he waits for his rendering to finish on his Mac. Let’s all worship Apple to make AppleDroid happy.
C’mon guys, lets go troll the OS News Forums…
Troll, Troll, Troll, Troll…
Dammit, that 12.105.181.— keeps messing up our plans!
I like Mac quite a bit as you can see from some of my more recent posts. However, I dislike, with a passion, the endless fawning over Mac.
Me too. Thankfully you don’t see a whole lot of that around here.
“Sure, it’s marketed as a cult of the worthy”
Is that what you think? You’ve got some bizarre ideas there buddy.
“but in the end, it’s just a computer.”
Agreed.
“Get over it already.”
Get over what?
Well, what do you expect? MAC’s are simply a serial number embedded into a NIC, or do you mean a Mac? as in the computer?
Yes people, there are dickheads like Me (IP: —.covad.com) who are poor as heck and disgruntled with the PC but instead of improving their lot, they go around and abuse all and sundry, especially those like Stuart MacKenzie who actually have the money to spend on what they want.
I too am moving to a Mac, and I really don’t give a shit what you ( Me (IP: —.covad.com) ) or any of your poverty striken PC-fanboys think. Stick with your hacked to gether, half baked computer and I’ll keep with a computer system with software and hardware that work together flawlessly.
Yeah, actually my friend had trouble with deleting a pesky folder and changing permissions using Get Info didn’t work out and all sorts of crazy things. Nothing would work, couldn’t rename it or anything, but I am one that doesn’t find it a huge deal to go in to Terminal and take care of it that way. I never did figure out what the real deal was as I’m no Command Line God by any stretch of the imagination, but throwing a couple sudo commands at the problem took care of it.
This was an earlier version of OS X when things were still a bit flaky. I haven’t experienced this since, beyond maybe trying to delete something that’s still in use somewhere or something stupid like that.
I playfully that submit most college kids that would drop in to command line to delete the trash for a friend are products of the hacker’s portrayal in The Matrix movies and trying to look cool, but i digress…
I playfully that submit most college kids that would drop in to command line to delete the trash for a friend are products of the hacker’s portrayal in The Matrix movies and trying to look cool, but i digress…
Ohhh yeessss…. damn I felt real l337 that day, lemme tell ya
It was simply the only way to do it. An app forgot to tell the OS that it was done with the file. The finder thought it was still in use and refused to get rid of it.
If you can tell me some other way to delete a file that the OS still thinks is in use without doing something to “try to look cool” let me know.
The only other solution I can think of is reboot…sorry for my *nix hatred for rebooting unless absolutely necessary, guess I am l337 after all.
PC Games eventually come out on the Mac, but much later after all the hype has gone and no one is playing them anymore.
It’s safer with a PC and a *lot* cheaper. Like the new G5 is over $5000.
Until Apple reduce the cost of their hardware, this “switch” idea is useless.
“Look, it’s obvious what apple is doing is better. ”
For you maybe. Not for over 85% of the world population.
“Obvious.”
You try to convince yourself of something wrong, or what ?
PCs are just cheaper, faster (about to change) and more compatible. That’s it.
“It’s already pretty good. Add a better OS too, and more software, more game, then yeah. That’s it.“
“PCs are just cheaper” I think you mean equivilently priced.
No, that meant *CHEAPER*.
As in “less expensive for the equivalent machine”.
As in “pay lot more just to have a little apple logo on your PC, but not the quality equivalent to a non-apple of the same price”.
“faster (about to change) ”
What is about to change ? Are you talking about the G5 with it’s cranked and hacked perf numbers ? Stuff that you can downright call cheat ? The G5 that, even before it’s released, it’s outperformed by multiple non-apple PC already on the market ? For cheaper ?
Hey, bytes256,
That actually wasn’t meant as a slam against you. If you read, you’d see I had to do the same thing you did.
I was just picturing college students that do that unnecessarily to impress friends is all.
Hey how come when all the apple articles come out, the pc people go “lol!, sha right” and the apple-ites act like offended hippies in search of good poetry? Wtf its just a computer guys….sheesh.
Kinda off topic, but is the lowest priced iBook as of now (from the Apple Store, at $999 with an 800MHz G3) worth it? Does it have decent speed? How slow does slow get on a modern Mac?
Thank goodness finally some common sense
@ Sikosis
“Until Apple reduce the cost of their hardware, this “switch” idea is useless.”
@ The Pessimist
“No, that meant *CHEAPER*.
As in “less expensive for the equivalent machine”.
As in “pay lot more just to have a little apple logo on your PC, but not the quality equivalent to a non-apple of the same price”. ”
Why do George Castanzas and Fred Sanfords continue to dominate these Mac articles? You poor homeless PC people with cable modems and 3.2GHZ P4s have nothing to contribute other than how Macs cost 1 billion dollars and how Apple died yesterday and you are telling us today. Maybe you guys should find jobs or refine your current PC skills so that you can differentiate yourself from the other 5 trillion MCSEs and MCPs and actually afford some of this hardware or take a financial managment class to learn how to manage what you got.
Apple is not in the econo-PC business, there are already plenty of those around so why insist on it, its not like you can afford it if they did have low cost Macs. You would start whining about how you can’t build a Mac from stuff you find in the garbage, sewer, swamp or radioactive pond.
On the topic, I never knew someone who regretted switching but I would advise less lofty hardware if you are a new Mac user. That Powerbook G4 is slow and useless under MacOSX 10.0 and is tolerable in 10.1., 10.2 is much better in useability. I use a G4/466 at work and it runs fine for a lot of tasks despite being an old piece of hardware.
are a bunch of whining babys.
Use what u re comfortable with and shut up.
Who cares anyway.
“PC Games eventually come out on the Mac, but much later after all the hype has gone and no one is playing them anymore.”
For most games (most of the good games) they come out at the same time. That’s okay… I’ll I want is most good games.
“It’s safer with a PC and a *lot* cheaper. Like the new G5 is over $5000.”
How do you figure, the new G5 can be had for for less than $2,000. ($1,799) Find me an equivilent PC for less.
“Until Apple reduce the cost of their hardware, this “switch” idea is useless.”
Considering the fact that Mac’s and PCs are at the same price points when you compare both platforms with equivilent specs, it would seem that the switch idea is PERFECT.
If I had $2000 to spend on a new computer and wanted to buy a Mac, what should I go for?
top of the line 14.1″ iBook
middle of the road 15″ Powerbook G4 or
bottom level Power Mac G5
Also, seeing people talk about how OS X is slow worries me. Is 10.2 really that much better?
>>”Look, it’s obvious what apple is doing is better. ”
“For you maybe. Not for over 85% of the world population.”
Give them time, the’ll start to realize it too.
“PCs are just cheaper”
Compare a PC with equivilent hardware and software… and you’ll find that the Mac is either slightly over, same price, slightly under or significantly under.
“faster (about to change)”
They’ve been faster throughout their lifetime. its only been throughout the last year and a half that they lost the speed crown.
“more compatible. That’s it.”
Now you’re getting it.
“It’s already pretty good. Add a better OS too, and more software, more game, then yeah. That’s it.”
Considering the fact that I can get faster hardware AND a better OS at the same price, why settle for less?
>>>”PCs are just cheaper” I think you mean equivilently priced.
“No, that meant *CHEAPER*.
As in “less expensive for the equivalent machine”.
Okay, find me a PC with equivilent specs as a Mac (considering the G5 towers) with the same specs. You’ll find what we’ve been saying all along. They’re either slightly more, the same price, slightly less or significantly less.
>>>”faster (about to change) ”
What is about to change ? Are you talking about the G5 with it’s cranked and hacked perf numbers ?
No, I think he’s talking about the G5’s that beat the PC chips fair and square. Nobody knows what you’re talking about…
[i]”The G5 that, even before it’s released, it’s outperformed by multiple non-apple PC already on the market ?”
That’s not what every test that has been completed thus far has said. Yet you knew that already… you’re just trolling.
“For cheaper ?”
Yep, by a lot too.
“Kinda off topic, but is the lowest priced iBook as of now (from the Apple Store, at $999 with an 800MHz G3) worth it? Does it have decent speed?”
While you would be significantly better off if you were to buy into a G4 or G5, a G3 is still a very capeable machine. I wouldn;t have said that about some of the older G3s, but the newer ones are a great starter Mac if you want to make the transition slowly.
“How slow does slow get on a modern Mac?”
About as slow as you can get on a modern PC.
“If I had $2000 to spend on a new computer and wanted to buy a Mac, what should I go for?”
top of the line 14.1″ iBook
middle of the road 15″ Powerbook G4 or
bottom level Power Mac G5″
If you already have a display and dont need portability… Go for the G5. If you need portability, I wouldn’t go for either of the laptops you mentioned. I’d go for the 12″ Powerbook. Its the ultimate in portability (very small) yet is very full featured
“Also, seeing people talk about how OS X is slow worries me. Is 10.2 really that much better?”
Pay no mind to the trolls in this forum. They are just reiterating the feedback that came from the first version of OS X… which was slow, but 10.2 was a major improvement as will Panther be.
Yes, you can custom config a dual processor G5 and end up with a $5k comptuer.
They start at $3k.
The whole line starts at $2k
—
I have an iBook 600 and it’s plenty fast for surfing the web, writing code, etc under 10.2.6
But, if you plan to be doing regular photoshoping, video editing, or anthing else, a G4/G5 is in order.
But right now, surfing the web, there is very little difference between this G4 dual 867 and my ibook.
Honestly, you’re a freak.
If you were a friend of mine and spent all of your time telling me of your desire to buy a Mac, showing me your iPOD, informing me you were going to buy that Mac, or trying to convince me to buy a Mac I’d probably end up dope-slapping you into next week.
It’s a machine for chrissake! It’s not a life altering choice (or if it is, your life is way way off balance). It’s a tool, a time-saving device. It’s not your best friend, it’s not your lover (ooo, the packaging was sexy!), it’s not anything but a hunk of metal, plastic, and silicon.
This op-ed piece was sad sad sad.
Perhaps I’m wasting my time trying to post a legitimate message in the midst of all this nonsense, but I’ll try to answer the question of “how slow does a modern Mac get?”
I have an iBook 600MHz with 384MB of RAM. So it was low-end over a year ago. It’s certainly no iMac G4 800MHz (my other, main machine), but it’s OK. Running Jaguar, it’s fine for surfin’ the Web, e-mail, Word docs, programming (Cocoa development’s pretty swift on this baby), and some lightweight multimedia stuff. Don’t expect to get good game performance out of this.
Of course, this is all somewhat moot as the new “low-end” iBook is already way better than what I got. With a faster processor and system bus plus a decent graphics card, I imagine it’s a way better performer than my machine. But my point is: OS X Jaguar running on an older, so-so machine isn’t bad at all. A new machine? Snappy.
Of course, as always YMMV.
Jared
You’re wrong. Perhaps he had the initial version of osx which was essentially a beta. But I have yet to EVER have the pc just reboot on me without warning. I’ve had a few apps crash, a few freezes and a few resets in a few years. But it is extremely stable. I suggest you check out the mac again, especially once the G5 and Panther are out. I guarantee you will be impressed.
As a counterpoint I work with windows 2000 at my job (in a help desk). Now there’s a buggy os, (though better than 98). I don’t think 2000 has done that to me either (rebooted out of the blue). However, we have had horrendous problems addng hardware, removing software (dipping into the registry to undo changes) and pc’s that have to be reimaged because they get “slow” and we run out of troubleshooting ideas.
This is not to mention the 3 times in the last year we were overrun with viruses, constant server crashing and unbelievable problems with windows and word. Not to mention countless calls from secretaries who cannot figure out how to do basic things in windows (like change printers or desktop pictures), because unlike the mac windows is very counterintuitive. Use a mac for a week or two and you will see a huge difference. If you’re an expert at windows you might feel that mac is counterintuitive as you’re not used to it, but I would bet a dollar that a brand new user would figure out a mac much quicker than a pc)
You also say name one piece of hardware that is easier to install and i would say “all of them”. seriously. Half the time you don’t even need to install a driver from a cd and when you do it is effortless. That commercial with the cute switcher (Janine porch?) who saved christmas is totally accurate. Plug in 90% of digital cameras and….that’s it. Plug and play. (scanner support is perhaps more iffy I will admit….)
How about uninstalling apps. How easy is this? Take the app and throw it in the trash. Uninstalled. Literally. (ok you can also uninstall the pref file).
If you install an app it cannot f*#$ with your registry because each app is contained in its own package and the system folder cannot be touched or overwritten by any apps files. So when something goes wrong you dont have to spend 3 hours digging into the registry which was rewritten.
I have to use windows at work and spend the entire time troubleshooting either system issues or app issues and I dont have those problems on my mac at home. not to say that it never crashes, but its very seldom. Also zero viruses. Never. And with each os it gets better. Don’t rely on your looking over your freinds shoulder to judge the mac. It is FAR from os 9 days. Though I loved 9 at the time with X you can plainly see how antiquated 9 is. I really think the majority of users who put down a mac haven’t seen one since before os x and are basing their opinion on the older os.
Let’s be honest. The real litmus test of the platform isn’t the cost/value/price or the speed/frequency/bandwidth or even the looks. What does PVD use? MAC. The other 85% of the population will catch up soon enough… we just have a head start!
Honestly, who throws a shoe? — Austin Powers
You make me laugh! NTACs
To make it easy for the people who say macs are too expensive think of it this way. There is no low end mac. The low end mac is the equivalent to a relatively higher end pc. No macs don’t come with a semi decent graphics card, firewire, cd burner or dvd burner (in the case of the imac a monitor) ethernet etc. You put all of that into a pc and it costs more than an emachine. The mac might be a little more, but its not double the cost. And the laptops are comparatively priced. Once the g5 comes out you will see that that is possibly the LOWEST priced high end pc around. It’s competition is really workstations that cost 4000 dollars.
Now if you want to build your own pc you’ll get it for much cheaper. and if all you want is an emachine with no frills then I’ll grant you the pc is much cheaper.
“I wouldn’t mind if the interface was completely brushed metal or completely pinstripped but the mixing is just not on in my opinion.”
Don’t use any of the haxies from unsanity.com. They tend to crash most of my cocoa apps. If you want a consistant look you might want to get ThemeChanger (free: <http://www.clichesw.com/products/themechanger/>), and the grab a bunch of cool Themes for OS X from <http://www.resexcellence.com/themes/>. That way even your carbon apps will have the same look, as themes essentially replace the actual graphic files for the look of OS X.
“System Preferences > Keyboard > Full Keyboard Access settings. Tweak as desired. ”
” Did that. Menus are still not accessable with the keyboard. Mouse required.”
Huh??. Works flawlessly. Set it so that you can use ctrl with letter keys, then if you hit CTRL+m you can move around the menues with the cursor keys and select with return or enter.
“Get a Dock replacement. versiontracker.com lists lots of software for this kind of thing.”
I you prefer to use the keyboard you HAVE to get LaunchBar. This thing has changed my life and I cannot live without it any more.
<http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/>
Can’t you just read how to create URLs on OSNews? (big red letters underneath the posting form) Just leave a space around them.
I actually switched around 2 years ago now, but I can tell where he’s coming from. I actually switched off of Windows to BeOS around 5 years ago, so my real migration was from Hacked-to-be-modern BeOS R5 to brand-freaking-new OS X 10.0. I think my BeOS experience prepared me well for having large parts of the OS missing or non-functioning. When my machine first arrived, I still had to boot in to OS 9 to burn a CD or DVD, install drivers and that sort of thing. OS X wasn’t even the default bootup. About 3 months after buying my Mac, I was getting very discouraged. I had purchased it to run OS X, not OS 9, and stability in either was terrible. A switch back to BeOS, Linux, or even Windows seemed inevitable.
Luckily, 10.1 came out right about this time. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover its upgrade price (nothing), but my hopes for the platform were lower at this point. 10.1 really got me back into it. I could finally do stuff I had wanted to do, like making DVDs and running (more) Unixy stuff. The development tools had become useable (though still not great), and the apps I really wanted (Office, PhotoShop, DVD SP) really started arriving. 10.1 was enough of an upgrade that I was willing to stick with my Mac for a while longer.
After a year of Mac owership, it came time to buy a computer; I try to update every 12 months. I don’t know what had happened in those past 12 months, but there was no question in my mind at this point that I’d be buying another Mac. I finally felt like I was part of a computing community where stuff really happened. I had switched to BeOS because I was upset with Microsoft’s apparent inability to make neccessary changes, only to end up with a dead OS. In Mac land, stuff really happens. I couldn’t turn my back on this.
In the next few months, I plan to buy a new G5. I’m reasonably confident that it will be at least as useful to me as my previous machines. 10.3 looks exciting, and I’ve become completely hooked on iTunes and its store. In the end, my Mac turned out to be all I had wished for, it just took a few point releases.
Huh??. Works flawlessly. Set it so that you can use ctrl with letter keys, then if you hit CTRL+m you can move around the menues with the cursor keys and select with return or enter.
No troubleshooting here hey? mac just works? What u have to SET IT UP TO USE keyboard..
Mac osx crashes oftern.. every mac osx user i know has hard locked his more than once.
Mac osx has aweful support for hardware devices.. even the Apple inbuilt audio device has problems.
If your buying a mac cause u think its easier to install and configure.. your very very wrong. I mean make up your mind are u a unix power user, or an apple lamer.
Either u want power and useability like windows.. or u want lame apple useability or lame linux power. (I used unix for over 10 years and the command line just blows).
IF u buy a device that wont install in a snap for windows ya take it back, .. if its for apple.. do u call apple or the proprietor.. everyone keeps telling u they know nothing of this bug.. or dont support osx yet.. etc etc
“mac just works? What u have to SET IT UP TO USE keyboard..”
It’s not dificult at all .
“Mac osx crashes oftern..”
No, it doesn’t.
“every mac osx user i know has hard locked his more than once.”
I know many OS X users and each person I’ve talked to has said what few crashes they’ve experienced were only with the first release of OS X.
“Mac osx has aweful support for hardware devices..”
Could have fooled me. Every single hardware device that me co workers and I have attached to our Macs have worked flawlessly, this without checking to see if these devices were supported beforehand. These devices include everything from digital cameras (many models) to video cameras (many models). Support for external hardware devices is one of OS X’s gretest strengths. Frankly, I’m surprised you brought it up.
“even the Apple inbuilt audio device has problems.”
Something tells me you’re making this crap up because, not only have any of us never had any problems with Apple’s built in audio device (assuming you’re talking about the microphone) I’ve never heard about anyone having such a problem.
“If your buying a mac cause u think its easier to install and configure.. your very very wrong.”
No, they are very right. We have had more problems with our XP machines than I care to count, all of them resulting in dificulty in configuring the OS correctly. Meanwhile OS X has been a sinch for any task we throw at it.
“I mean make up your mind are u a unix power user, or an apple lamer.”
I am a Unix power user AND an Apple lamer thank you very much.
“Either u want power and useability like windows..”
Now why would anyone want the limited power and useability that Windows provides?
“or u want lame apple useability”
I don’t want lame Apple useability, I want the powerful Apple useability that Apple provides.
“or lame linux power. (I used unix for over 10 years and the command line just blows).”
Or have Power AND usability in one package… hence the reason to go OS X.
“IF u buy a device that wont install in a snap for windows ya take it back”
Same for An Apple machine. Tell me, why would it be any different?
“if its for apple.. do u call apple or the proprietor”
Take it back, call apple or the proprietor. All three are likely to work… the same way it would on a PC for that matter.
“everyone keeps telling u they know nothing of this bug”
Or they do happen to know about a particular bug… the same as it might be for any computing platform.
“or dont support osx yet.. etc etc”
or do support the platform… the same as is the case for any platform.
Why are you working so hard to find fault with Apple and the Mac?
Let us all be thankful. Even when we are laughing maniacally when unbelievably… yet another “switch” or “linux review” or “microsoft announces” article comes up.
We are thankful because OSNews is keeping us in touch with the community.
“By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”
— Oscar Wilde
Apple has become a religion amongst many. Some dude here posts constantly pro-apple comments, I really don’t know why he bothers. And I don’t get the PC vs. MAC stuff. PC stands for Personal Computer, and a Mac is also a Personal Computer. On the other hand the x86 platform doesn’t belong exclusivelly to Microsoft. The MAC is only a Computer! It is a tool to do day to day work! It has a tight integration comming from one vendor, and it is high-qualitty. Lots of people know that. And yes, it is somehow expensive. I don’t say I can’t afford one, because anyone who works can afford an under $2k Computer. But why would I trow my money at it? I am not a Windows user, and I’m not so crazy about OS X eather. But then again, how could I, and many others laugh to death over the comments here? How could we have some fun in the late evening? So keep on the trolls, bashes, PC vs. MAC arguments, stupid PRO PC or PRO MAC arguments, stupid lies like :” OS X crashes all the time”, or “Apple will die anythime soon”, or “I can’t get anything to work with my MAC”, or on the other hand the general “The PC is crap” comments. Without all these comments many people wouldn’t have fun and this site would run out of busines.
On the other hand I’d love to see articles like: “A quick&dirty PHP tutorial”, or “How to set up Linux on a laptop corectly”, or “How to code in OS X”, or “How to use the Windows GUI API…” and the list can go on. Maybe I should submit a couple of these in the future….but people don’t have interest in this kind of stuff, I forgot…Instead we have to read how a MAC integrates into the life of a grown up with the brains of a 12 year old (no offence meant by this). But really, if I’d had 2 kids, the last thing I’d would be obsessed about would be the question:” To buy or not to buy…”. I don’t think this is a soap-opera web site, its a computer-tech orriented site. Then again, I may be wrong, cause I just finished work and I’m tired….
There are pretty big differences, and they’re like rock-scissors-paper. For example, Apple wins stability for controlling hardware+software. But that means enormous negatives like lock-in.
Nearly every advantage is also a disadvantage. Depends on your perspective and goals. The important thing is that as Apple improves, you have more choice.
“Apple has become a religion amongst many.”
No, we’re just passionate about our computers… that’s all.
“Some dude here posts constantly pro-apple comments”
I’m assuming you’re talking about me because I;ve been posting so activly lately.
I’m not posting pro-apple comments, I’m correcting the incorrect anti-Apple comments.
“I really don’t know why he bothers.”
The opposite reason why there is a handful of individuals here that insist on posting noting but anti Apple comments.
“And I don’t get the PC vs. MAC stuff.”
Certain platforms are significantly better than others.. in price performance and usability yet dont have the recognotion they deserve. We’re just trying to help the recognition engine.
“PC stands for Personal Computer, and a Mac is also a Personal Computer.”
Noboday is disputing that.
“On the other hand the x86 platform doesn’t belong exclusivelly to Microsoft.”
And yet the unwashed masses don’t know any better.
“The MAC is only a Computer!”
MAC is an acronym for Media Access Control. “Mac” on the other hand is the abbreviation for Macintosh.
“It is a tool to do day to day work!”
Nobody has said otherwise.
“It has a tight integration comming from one vendor”
Whgich uses many of the same comoddity parts that every other PC manufacturer uses.
“and it is high-qualitty.”
yes it is.
“Lots of people know that.”
Unfortunately, most don’t.
“And yes, it is somehow expensive.”
No more expensive than a comperably equipped PC.
“I don’t say I can’t afford one, because anyone who works can afford an under $2k Computer.”
Be it a Mac or a PC. They run at the same prices when the same features are used when compared.
“But why would I trow my money at it?”
The same reason why you might trow money at a PC.
“I am not a Windows user, and I’m not so crazy about OS X eather.”
You deserve a cookie.
“But then again, how could I, and many others laugh to death over the comments here?”
I don;t know, how could you laugh to death over the comments here?
“How could we have some fun in the late evening?”
Personally, I like to puncture my body wit bobby pinw then crumble up saltines and roll in them till I can’t stand it any more… but to each his own.
“So keep on the trolls, bashes, PC vs. MAC arguments, stupid PRO PC or PRO MAC arguments, stupid lies like :” OS X crashes all the time”, or “Apple will die anythime soon”, or “I can’t get anything to work with my MAC”, or on the other hand the general “The PC is crap” comments. Without all these comments many people wouldn’t have fun and this site would run out of busines.”
Personally, I would prefer inteligent conversation without all that garbage. The signal to noise ratio has been low here as of late… so many of us are simply trying to fix that.
“On the other hand I’d love to see articles like: “A quick&dirty PHP tutorial”, or “How to set up Linux on a laptop corectly”, or “How to code in OS X”, or “How to use the Windows GUI API…” and the list can go on.”
Me too.
“Maybe I should submit a couple of these in the future….but people don’t have interest in this kind of stuff, I forgot…”
I disagree. Most of us do. Unfortunately, you’d never know it by reading many of the comments on these boards.
“Instead we have to read how a MAC integrates into the life of a grown up with the brains of a 12 year old (no offence meant by this).”
This comment is an example of the signal to noise ratio being lost.
,i>”But really, if I’d had 2 kids, the last thing I’d would be obsessed about would be the question:” To buy or not to buy…”.”[/i]
Funny thing about computer geeks. We’re funny like that. Perhps you visited the wrong site. The home and garden web page can be found next door.
“I don’t think this is a soap-opera web site, its a computer-tech orriented site. Then again, I may be wrong, cause I just finished work and I’m tired….”
We’ll go to bed. it sounds like you need some sleep.
Hmmm…funny thing about this little ol internet thing we got going here is it chuck full of sites that deal with just about any subject you can imagine. There just happens to be this wacky place called google.com that lets you search for places that just might teach you about “A quick&dirty PHP tutorial”, or “How to set up Linux on a laptop corectly”, or “How to code in OS X”, or “How to use the Windows GUI API…” which are not likely subject matter for a place with the title of “OSnews” that in this case is giving us news about an OS. And no, you don’t have to read anything posted here…there is at least some free will left in the world after all.