"In 2005, Apple announced the Mac Mini. It was the answer to what I was looking for in a computer, so I bought one. This is a report about the early months with my new Mac, and how it compares to a Linux computer (I have never owned a Windows computer). In short, I am now both a Mac and a Linux user - Apple gets GUI simplicity, usability, and coherency right, and Linux everything else."
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Member since:2005-07-06
I liked my Mac Mini in many ways, but the reason I walked away and sold mine was because IT WAS NOT AS GOOD AS ADVERTIZED
You go around judging products by adverisements and are disappointed when they don't match your expectations ? We live in a world that sells _washing powder_ as a life altering experience for christ's sake.
Next time shop around, go to internet forums and ask for opininions, ask friends and collegues and go to the Apple store and play around with an actual machine. You'll have much more realistic idea of what to expect.
I was in the Apple store most of the weekend before I bought my mini, in the end people started coming to me because they thought I worked there .
Member since:2005-07-06
It's not the Apple marketers that set the bar so high, after all every company hypes their product. Instead it is the Mac fan base that oversell it. I also tried switching to the Mac (6 month trial then back to Windows). During that time I discovered that Apple had their own implementation of the BSOD called the WWOD (White Window of Death). And why do all the apps start with an i? When scrolling through a list of apps it is a pain when half the apps start with an i. I switched back not because the Mac was a crappy computer/OS but because it was no better than what I was used to. The Apple fan base just needs to wake up and realize that this is not 1985. None of this is intended as anti-Apple, they bring much creativity and energy to the desktop and I wish them well.
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Apple sets the bar very high in their advertizing. Consequently, a "switcher" is going to have very high expectations from their new Macintosh, and will be dissatisfied when it doesn't measure up, even if it's above Linux/Windows. I know this because this is what happened to me. I am also a Linux->Mac switcher.
Apple advertizes their system as being all high and mighty, but in general I found the Mac Mini to be slow, buggy, and the user interface to be quite inconsistent. The fact that you can't export the display to a remote machine, whether you like it or not, is a disadvantage for Linux switchers. Ditto for slow UI, ditto for UI inflexibility (who do I have to kill for sloppy focus?) ditto for poor network performance (and it is BAD.)
I will agree with you on one thing, which is that his complaining about the Mach underpinnings and FreeBSD, at least so far as that it's unfamiliar to him, is unreasonable. He needs to suck it up and learn it, or switch back.
I liked my Mac Mini in many ways, but the reason I walked away and sold mine was because IT WAS NOT AS GOOD AS ADVERTIZED. When I bought it, I took a hit in performance and was provided less interface flexibility than in Linux. But the final nail in the coffin was that the vaunted Apple UI was really not significantly better than Windows for example, and was in fact even less consistent and oftentimes extremely poor performing. Apple needs to wake up and reinstate their Human Interface Guidelines group that they canned a few years ago, and rewrite finder to not be such a buggy, slowass piece of shit.
Frankly, if finder hadn't sucked so bad, I would probably still own my Mac Mini. I was sold on a life-altering UI experience, and it was very much "not so."