71% of College Students Prefer Macs Over PCs According to Jamf Survey

[alexandr]

Agreed my thinkpad cost me almost $2000

there you go

 

[curtvaughan]

i do. i do graphic design, so it's a no brainer that companies buy macs for "design department", but between 2005 and about 2012 i've seen almost all other departments switch to macs. i'm not going to tell you that this is necessarily the way all companies are, but the few i've worked for i can speak for.

btw pc's/android aren't exactly cheap. unless you're deliberately purchasing crap.

I'm not doubting that may be your observation at your company, and perhaps others who specialize in graphics design, but the following graph basically shows Windows dropping from 90% business market share in 2013 to about 76% in 2019. Macs went from under 8% to around 12% in the same period. Linux held steady at a bit over 1%, and "other" (presumably tablets) went from .2% to around 15%. Chrome OS accounts for a rise to about 1.35%. This is only for office/desktop devices - not applicable to servers, where Linux holds the largest swathe, overshadowing both Unix and Windows Server. Mac desktop clients have an advantage over Windows clients in interfacing to Linux and Unix server backends, Windows with Windows Servers (though Macs now deal with Active Directory quite well). Design and video rendering still favor Macs for their software needs, but that's a niche area in the overall business community. The video processing crowd has become increasingly displeased by Apple's scaling back of Mac Pro development and overall lack of upgradability for their current crop of machines. Just my take.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/

 

[alexandr]

I'm not doubting that may be your observation at your company, and perhaps others who specialize in graphics design, but the following graph basically shows Windows dropping from 90% business market share in 2013 to about 76% in 2019. Macs went from under 8% to around 12% in the same period. Linux held steady at a bit over 1%, and "other" (presumably tablets) went from .2% to around 15%. Chrome OS accounts for a rise to about 1.35%. This is only for office/desktop devices - not applicable to servers, where Linux holds the largest swathe, overshadowing both Unix and Windows Server. Mac desktop clients have an advantage over Windows clients in interfacing to Linux and Unix server backends, Windows with Windows Servers (though Macs now deal with Active Directory quite well). Design and video rendering still favor Macs for their software needs, but that's a niche area in the overall business community. The video processing crowd has become increasingly displeased by Apple's scaling back of Mac Pro development and overall lack of upgradability for their current crop of machines. Just my take.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/

sure. but keep in mind that i'm haven't been working for purely "graphics design" companies, usually that's just my department. there are plenty of others that would have defaulted to pc's prior to the timeline i've specified.

 

[mrxak]

Macs are good if you like A/V crap. If you like workflows for productivity and creativity. But other than that they are expensive toys with a shiny logo. As a rising Twitch streamer/celebrity a Mac is useless. PC is so much better and cheaper. I can emulate games and achieve 120 FPS in RE2. Mac can barely play BioShock 1.

LOL, what bait.

 

[tallscot]

I know this has been debated for years. But I wonder what you mean. As I say, the build quality on any Apple product is second to none. MacOS and iOS are tuned precisely for the machines they run on, and they show it, running incredibly efficiently. iOS especially does the whomp-whomp on Android, but that's an issue for another dayt.

Macs will run FinalCut and Logic without breaking a sweat. In the real world, they run efficiently, low power, and will last a long time. This is a great solution for many people who will get everything out of a Mac. To run a Mac yourself without being an IT tech is easier, usually, than using Windows PCs. Usually.

Windows 10 is pretty solid. I've had blue screens from drivers, but as a heavy user (and someone responsible for testing/endpoint managing models of laptops, both Mac and Windows), it's a push. Doing something particularly technical on a Mac has resulted in plenty of kernel panics.

As a Mac user, yes, there have been plenty of times when I would have said that, pound-for-pound, MacOS is "better" than Windows. However, Windows is a lot more stable than ever, has tasteful aesthetic defaults for the first time, has Exposé and multiple desktops finally, integrated GNU/Linux if you need it, and it will run a bunch of boutique software and games which still get put out only for Windows. Whereas on MacOS in the last few years, I've found it incredibly annoying fighting with Keychain in a managed environment, and the rollout for the new file system caused a lot of problems where people I knew who managed their own Macs still were reduced to reinstalling or recovering their entire OS.

The Windows 10 UI is still garbage.

Windows 10 Explorer is garbage. It doesn’t even have Recent Places. I have to manually browse the file system a million times to places I’ve been a dozen times when I open and save in Windows. Z: drive, clients, B clients, project H, logo.psd. Go to Illustrator and select open, again click Z:, clients, B clients, project H...It’s a joke. OS X has a recent places pop-up in all open/save dialogues and in the Finder. And the open/save knows where you were in the Finder. Windows? The Quick Access only shows you “frequent places”. That right there makes OS X 10X more productive. It’s insane how much time I waste navigating the file management.

The old Windows open/save dialogue from the 1990s still shows up. Example, “save optimized” on the latest Photoshop! It’s the 90s!

Print que comes up on OS X then goes away when the printer is done. Windows? Nope. You gotta go hunting and manually bring it up and leave it if you want to see the progress of future print jobs.

Taskbar is garbage. You click on Word and it shows you a thumb of every document you have open versus just going to Word and bringing up the document I’ve been working on, like the Mac. So two clicks every time. Hacked the registry to get close to OS X . Can’t launch documents by dragging and dropping on app in Taskbar. Gotta right click and say Open With.

Finder rename of multiple files is superior to Explorer. Very handy and powerful.

Copy files in the Finder on OS X and if there is already a file there with the same name, it asks if you want to overwrite or copy as a different file with a different name. Brilliant! Windows? Nope. You can overwrite or cancel.

No Quick Look in Windows. There is a utility called Seer. That adds it, but doesn’t support as many file formats, like Office. I use it all the time, especially in the open dialogue.

Windows 10 doesn’t wake up from sleep as reliably, doesn’t wake up dual monitors as reliably.

I have to restart Windows 10 on my work Dell laptop way more than I restart OS X (months go by).

I never had to reinstall OS X.

Integration with iphone with Airdrop is wonderful.

Text messages on my Mac through my phone with a keyboard with iMessage is wonderful.

Column View is better and more productive than the side bar in Explorer.

Coupled with tabs in the Finder, I’m way more productive.

Settings and Control Panels in Windows are still a mess buried under properties, under advanced properties. OS X system preferences is a superior UI.

Start Menu with the panel squares is idiotic. I had to right click on every single one of them and unpin manually.

Outlook on Windows has a UI from the Soviet Union. OMG! A million little icons and tabs that are horribly designed and inconsistent. It’s just hilarious that reply and new email are on a different tab from get new mail. I spent so much time trying to fix that mess customizing a ribbon.

Microsoft has no idea what they are doing with user interfaces. To this day. It’s embarassing.

 

[1146331]

You wouldn't want to because iOS kills active SSH sessions in the background after 3 minutes and no mouse support so it's pretty useless.

I forgot about that, however with SSH mouse support is not needed by it's very nature.

The background issue is bypassed if you open the app in a split-window.

Still though, I prefer a computer for SSH, it's much more convenient. Having my iPad allows me to do random, unexpected remote administration of my servers if something comes up. Heck, I can even use my iPhone with Termius!

 

[Dozer_Zaibatsu]

The Windows 10 UI is still garbage.

Windows 10 Explorer is garbage…

Fair criticism, mostly. I know it doesn't even need replies. This is just my 2¢.

I agree that Microsoft has not been consistent with its UI. I would maintain that Windows 10 is a vast improvement on where they've been, because I agree with all the infuriating things which I think were worse in previous iterations.

It's strong language to say "garbage." I agree that Windows explorer is the most frustrating thing for power users. No doubt. But having used MacOS and nearly every Linux GUI iteration, the Windows UI itself is by far the most stable. I've rarely had explorer crash. But compared to the screen tears of every Linux GUI, and Finder either quitting or freezing up, it's hard to call the Windows interface itself "garbage."

I also had the sense that Windows achieved a streamlined usability in Windows 2000, but since XP, they cluttered it up with Fisher Price UI elements. The QuickLaunch shortcuts needed to die when they integrated the task bar and start menu.

100% true that the out of the box utility of MacOS is a huge advantage over Windows. Microsoft has zero excuse that I have to remove the ads and games in its default Start menu. That said, I disagree with you entirely with your criticism of the taskbar. I was a mainly Mac user from 2009—2015 as my main driver, and found that I navigated the system via Quicksilver, then Sherlock, then just Spotlight, and Exposé — or "Mission Control" (still hate that name). The Apple dock was essentially useless to me. By contrast, the consistent TaskBar on Windows machines with AeroPeek has been useful for me, and helps me work with multiple open windows.

MacOS is incredibly well streamlined. I find it's a matter of how you work with it. It does work well mostly at being power efficient and stable. I say mostly because, well, I did direct I'T support for advertising and then academics and then engineers, and a rare kernel panic that happens when its at the worst possible time is still not going to be a happy coincidence. And it's true that more than half of inexplicable problems with Windows derping out on drivers are fixed on reboot, they are at least fixed after that. Your mileage may vary.

Also, in terms of getting work done, I will say this. Going now back to MacOS occasionally, I feel like I'm pushing windows around imprecisely. Microsoft UI snaps much easier, and I'm just going to say that because I'm right-handed and usually work in a window left-to-right, (since I'm working in English) window buttons on the right are much easier for me. I find I've used Spectacle in MacOS in order to give it the sort of responsiveness I get from other OSes.

But yes, Microsoft is way, waaay overdue for a better Explorer. They ought to take every cricism of yours to heart.

 

[greenmeanie]

If you work for a real College they dump the computers when the warranty runs out.
So your post means nothing.

There is no doubt that Apple is expensive. It always has been and always will be.

However, how long will that cheapo HP really last you? I've owned a few, and when I worked helpdesk in college, I saw plenty of them too. After a year or two, the plastic will creak and develop cracks in a few places, the sheen will wear off. After two-four years, some components will begin to fail. Faster if you lug it around from home to work or school and back. If it just sits on a desk like a desktop, then it will last longer.

In my experience, those cheapo HPs don't last longer than four years. For one reason or another, it becomes just easier to buy another $500 laptop than fix what's wrong with it. It's wasteful and in the long-run I don't actually think you're saving any money.

Setting aside current keyboard issues, Macs have generally been super resilient. It's pretty common today to see people using 2011 Macbook Airs and Pros.

Personally, I'd rather buy one $1000 laptop every 8 years than one $500 laptop every 4 years. In the end, it all costs the same.

[doublepost=1559537100][/doublepost]Same students crying others should pay their college bills.

What's another $4000 on top of $100,000 college debt? Why not get the best?

I'm guessing the other 29% are working hard to get through college with as little debt as possible and therefore a nice $1K Windows laptop does the job nicely.

 

[Timemaster]

Ok that what they want but let's also be honest for most college kids a Mac is massive over kill. Really they can do 95% of everything they need on a chrome book for what a few 100.
For ones first few years you have to check email write a few papers, take notes ect.
What does a Mac bring to the table? This followed by what software do you need to use which sadly a lot of it is windows only but that is very major dependent.

I say all that as a Mac user. My next computer will be a Mac. My wife's next computer will be a Windows PC but then again it is about right tool right job. We both require software thr requires one or the other platform for our respective careers. Right tool right job.

 

[Dozer_Zaibatsu]

If you work for a real College they dump the computers when the warranty runs out.
So your post means nothing.



[doublepost=1559537100][/doublepost]Same students crying others should pay their college bills.

In my experience, if you work for academics who rely on grants, they will repurpose, re-image, re-deploy those computers until they turn to dust.

What, you think the grad-student in the corner is going to get the new iMac? That goes on the tenure desk. Everyone else will be using old Dell 960s.

 

[jonnyb098]

Macs are good if you like A/V crap. If you like workflows for productivity and creativity. But other than that they are expensive toys with a shiny logo. As a rising Twitch streamer/celebrity a Mac is useless. PC is so much better and cheaper. I can emulate games and achieve 120 FPS in RE2. Mac can barely play BioShock 1.

"A/V crap, productivity and creativity workflow".....exactly. The stuff that many people do to, ya know...MAKE A GOOD LIVING. Rather than sitting in moms basement playing video games.

Thanks for telling us water is wet. No one buys a mac for gaming , thats well known knowledge for 20 years.