To Mac or not to Mac

I am going through the same thing right - trying to decide. It's hard. Here is what I have found out.

mac's are more stable
mac's don't have the same amount of problems
mac's are great for grphic design, layout etc

pc's are great for doing spreadsheets
pc's are great for web site layout - you don't have to have mac for it at all.
pc's control 90% of market share

That's some of what I know right now! If you hear anything great - let us all know!

I was over at Suzanne's the other day and she was telling me about some of the cool things Mac's can do. It sounds like they're the Macromedia of computers - they give you what you want and don't try to stand in your way (i.e. on a Mac you can very easily copy the contents of a music CD to your hard drive, just with one click! No hassles about copyright).

Anyway, I'm sure Suzanne will have more to say. The only thing I might be worried about is a narrowed selection in terms of sofware... I might consider going Mac next time but that won't be for another couple of years, anyway, until my current machine wears out.

Well, since Office (MS) works dandy on a mac, I don't think the spreadsheet issue is relevant. It's really all about what works for each person. Yes, they are lovely (you'll have to play on it next time, Megan, I'm sorry!), and very easy to use and just pleasant in general. But if you're not visually driven, I'm not sure it will matter.

You can design for the web on a mac, no pc needed. IN FACT, you can get Virtual PC and it runs from the desktop, in the background, so there is perceptually very little difference and you can run OS9, OSX and Windows applications side by side.

K, I'm going on again, lol, but basically, software isn't the issue. It's hardware and deciding on your personal usage and value. What is good for you as a user?

Also, brooke, if you don't have a mac, you don't know how wrong that is that you don't need a pc for layout... N7 and Opera work great in either OS, but IE is a different kettle of fish altogether, and different on a mac than on a pc. Safari is also mac only.

I would say if you are using a PC to stay with a PC. For one, you would have a learning curve coming from a PC. You would also have to get new versions of some of your programs. I also think that Mac's are severely overpriced. You spend all that money for a Mac and then you only get one button on your mouse and don't know how to use that one. Certainly Mac's are cutting edge design wise but are poor values.
$1700 US for an IMAC with 256M of SDRAM, 32M GeForce, 60GB Hard drive. You can build a PC for less than half that with much better specs.

Certainly one advantage is that it is not Microsoft.

Just wait until OS10 gets ported over to Linux.

Nike Guy -- get as much RAM as you can. But processor speed seems to be a different issue in a Mac, yes. I have a new middle of the road eMac and it's quick as a bunny, even with 14 apps open including a multitude of browsers and graphics apps. But I do have extra RAM.

Mark! You old grump, you can use any mouse you want with a Mac!

Quote: Originally posted by Suzanne
Mark! You old grump, you can use any mouse you want with a Mac!

I know. I was just thinking about my first experience on an IMAC that I inherited. The thing didn't really have any buttons. Finally figured out you had to press down the front.

RAM is generally always better than processor speed. Apple, though is having a hard time with some selling the fact that their processor only runs at 800Mhz while Intel has theirs cranked up to 3Ghz. It is a different processor with different architecture but still the speed thing has caused some problems with them mainly from a PR prespective. That and you knows how much longer the processor is going to be around.

macs are not easily built or upgraded, much like laptops...just barely under sale price...PC's on the otherhand...so cheap to build...i'm building one now that i'll get for a total of about 1100 bucks where if i were to buy it it would be almost 2000...sweet deals huh? stick to a pc

Actully, I'm going through this also... I'm also considering a switch to a Mac (mainly for my music productions)

My main question (to follow nike_guy_man): Is a Mac 800Mhz to compare with a Win 2Ghz?

It is mostly smoke and mirrors. I think it would probably be comparable although it seems less. Here are some speed comparisons using some faster run G4's vs. Intel and AMD. AMD seems to beat them all. Overall though I don't think that you would notice processor speed that much. Apple though is still using SDRAM which is slower than DDR and RDRAM. That you might notice. Still to me the biggest issue is price.

A big advantage to Macs these days is the resurgence of Free/free/cheap software due to OS X's interop with Java and its BSD underpinnings. If you want a machine that Just Plain Works, an OS X mac is it. If you want a machine that will let you compile C code or hack Perl or do shell scripts or whatever, well, your OS X mac is that, too. I can't speak really knowledgably about RISC vs. CISC and all that stuff, tho I do know that new macs are starting to ship with DDR RAM, and that I didn't notice a speed difference (by speed I mean perceptible speed that I can actually notice, rather than numbers in a chart) between my old 400MHz TiBook w/1GB of RAM and the PCs I have to use at work until I got my current workstation, which is a Dell 530 w/2GHz proc and 512MB RAM, which Dell kicks my PowerBook's little metal butt in straight speed. But still, at first I had a 1.6 GHz Toshiba with 512MB RAM, and I did not really notice a great speed difference between it and my laptop.

In an interesting side note, Tim O'Reilly took an informal, non-conclusive little mailing list poll in which he discovered the largest group of users switching to Mac OS X are Linux users who want all the power and control of Unix, the terminal, the ability to run free software, to compile, &c. &c., but at the same time want a machine that Just Works (like as in with a minimum of fussing with things), and runs all the commercial stuff (office and the like) without hacks. His respondents' words, not mine.

I'm obviously biased toward the mac side, but I use win boxes everyday, so I get numerous opportunities to compare the two. When it comes right down to it, I prefer my mac(s) because the machine is pleasing to the eye and hand, the operating system is pleasing to the eye, is powerful, flexible, elegant and simple (compare, e.g., Quartz opacity rendering to whatever crap it is that XP tries to pass off as an alpha channel.), and the mac community is, similar to the linux community, full of knowledgable and helpful hackers willing to assist a newbie at no cost. I say, if you want a mac, do it. If you are even reasonably proficient with computers then the learning curve will be so small as to be negligible. I wouldn't even factor it in.

I have had tons of positive experiences with macs, more than on PCs. I have more mysteries, strange behaviors, weird reboots, and other troubles with PCs. Just my experience. YMMV.

One final anecdote. I wanted to print some stuff at Kinko's. So I brought in my PowerBook and sat down at one of their laptop stations. There were two long sets of instructions on a plaque; one for PC, one for mac (OS 9). I do not know squat about printing -- I'm a web guy who started on the web, not print. These instructions made no sense to me. What did I do? I plugged their Cat5 into my mac and clicked "print" in acrobat. OS X found all the IP-enabled printers (including some I wasn't supposed to see, I'm sure) and presented them to me in a list. I clicked the one that was correct, clicked print, and bang. Done. No instruction plaques, no fussing. As usual, the mac Just Worked.

Thanks listless for all that info
I'm hoping to get out of my house tonight and head out to the 1 Apple store in this state
Currently buried under quite a bit of snow... but it's warming up so I HOPE to finally get out and test out some Macs at the store before I make up my mind

From my (limited) experience with Macs.. I hate them. Just to print, you have to fool around with the "Chooser". What the #@$ were they thinking?!? I can't add all the printers I want, then choose the one to print from an application. Nooo... instead, you have to select the specific printer in the "Chooser".
Bloody macs.. :rolleys:

Well, I did get to the store
Here's my general impression:
Advantages
I can load as many apps as I want at once, no problem
Small apps load much quicker
Reboots and shutdowns are much faster.
Disadvantages
COST Is it really worth it to spend $1700 on this?
Software. Should I really pay all that to get Virtual PC so I can run my Windows apps? Will they run the same? Or should I pay even more to get the Mac versions?

For me, it's basically a question of Price VS Stability and Power
Mac users: Is it worth it? Or should I stick with my broken down Windows XP? (Stability there? NO)

Mark, that's OS9... OSX is a totally different beast.

Nike Guy? I just moved from PC to Mac and quite frankly the widgets and gadgets and mini apps that come STANDARD in OSX, and the ones that are open source, just.freaking.rock. I predominantly do middle of the road coding (BBEdit) and minor programming (JavaScript and Perl, still getting PHP down), a lot of graphic work (photos and vector work), and just playing around.

I *love* this machine.

Seriously, it's so worth it it's obscene.

My productivity and satisfaction with my job have skyrocketed, which was something I didn't expect, being newer to OSX, and very familiar with Windows.

But there you go. As listless said, YMMV, but I can't see myself moving back to a PC.

Hey Suzanne.. do you still use Photoshop? And if so, what OS did you buy for? Have you played with gimp?

I have never used Photoshop. However, I have Illustrator and the Corel Suite for OSX.

I have played with gimp, but not recently.

I ordered it a week ago, shipped Wednesday
Fedex Tracking:
From TAOYUAN CITY TW on Wednesday
Delayed for 3 hours at C.K.S. INTL AIRPORT TW on Thursday
"Delayed beyond our control" at ANCHORAGE AK
Sigh... 3000+ miles and 2 1/2 days before I head to the Bahamas
I'll take bets to see if it's coming on time... 3:1 odds say NO

Hey, at least it's in the country now. I wonder if they'll truck it the rest of the way or fly it closer to MD. If they truck it, you may wait another week or more.

I just had a 10/100 NIC shipped from NY to CA via UPS ground. Ordered it the 4th, shipped the 6th, and arrived the 13th.

nike_guy_man, maybe buy a lotto ticket, your luck has to change some time

It came!
What a birthday present for me
I am thorougly entertained with this
Unlike my 7lb compaq, this thing is light! 4.9 lbs... nice
I gotta buy some blank DVDs and try out my Superdrive
One question: How do I stop it from sleeping when I close the lid?

Well, 2 questions: Do I risk taking this with me to the Bahamas?

Make it 3 questions: Will I look like a terrorist with it in the airport since the terror alert is being raised?

In the process of installing Virtual PC, Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX and Photoshop 6

Very cool computer

1 - don't know

2 - it's brand new, what would you do to yourself if it was lost/stolen?

3 - doubt it

4 - I'll hold it for you while you're away.

YIEHAA!!!

I just bought this one:

17-inch widescreen LCD
1GHz PowerPC G4
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX
64MB DDR video memory
512MB DDR266 SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA hard drive

Getting it monday! Can't wait!