I think you've forgotten that PCs have always been better for gaming. This isn't anything new and it's been talked about since the 2000s. Gaming is not the first reason why people choose a Mac.
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71% of College Students Prefer Macs Over PCs According to Jamf Survey
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I think you've forgotten that PCs have always been better for gaming. This isn't anything new and it's been talked about since the 2000s. Gaming is not the first reason why people choose a Mac.
A vast majority of the Windows fan-base, who claims that Windows is "best"; have no idea of how to even turn a Mac on. They use Windows, which is fine; but before you can compare against another platform, presumeably you could have at least "tried" the OSX.
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.
Those syncing options are one of the reasons I buy into one ecosystem
The problem with the used Mac market is that it is very hard to actually find a good deal. The hardware holds resale value incredibly well, and I've so, so frequently had clients come to me with their newly-purchased used Mac only to discover that they have to throw money at it, often making their savings almost non-existent. It doesn't make any sense to save a total of only $100 and end up with 2 or 3 year old hardware. This is more prevalent with laptop models. I'm going to pull a number out of my rump here and say that at least 75% of total Used-Mac purchases I've dealt with ended up being a terrible deal for the buyer. Common issues are failing batteries (laptops), insufficient ram, and either insufficient storage or storage that is too slow for modern version of the MacOS to run on properly (unless the user has vast stores of patience).
I always give this advice: Be absolutely sure the used system you are buying will do 100% of what you need it to do for at least the next 3 years, and in the case of laptops assume you will have to replace the battery. If you can actually find decent savings on a system that meets that test and that's been well cared-for then going used can be fine.
You do know Macs can run Windows, right?
Macs are great for students—before, during and after college. Especially CS majors... trivial to run Linux, MacOS and Windows, even simultaneously.
This may come as a shock but the niches you point out (gaming and Twitch celebrity
) are the actual minority. Your first points are far more common. So, just a heads up for you there …I bought my daughter a MBP13 her freshman year of high school … she just finished her sopohmore year of *college* and hers is still going strong. I just ask her yesterday when she came home about it and 2 of her friends are on their second **college** PC.
My wife got the same model 2 months after my daughter and after 6 years she has written 3 novels on in in addition to working daily in written-content creation. Other than 4 or 5 of her keycaps are worn white it also still purrs along.
And I am still doing web development on my early 2013 15 MBP … even after I built a $3.5K Threadripper workstation. I used that for 6 months and came back to the MacOS for productivity/reliability alone. Even though the PC is technically faster it was not in actuality
The intrinsic values of a Mac and the macOS get lost in niche-oriented arguments.
There is likely no PC built in 2013 that is as capable today. Value is a tricky virtue but I do not personally have any doubt which is superior when all factors are addressed.
True, but that has more to do with crushed dreams and a growing awareness of their own mortality than which computing platform they use. Run! Chase that fading light...
I switched to an Acer 14 inch (2 USB 3.0) to replace my '09 MB Pro laptop. Love it (metal body) for $220 I could replace it every year if I had to. The Chromebook gen will likely dump Chrome OS for the trendy image of Apple soon as they can. Note - I still use a Mac desktop and will until it dies or I do
Rightfully so.
MacOS is the superior OS.
However, it is as I suspected: Brand cachet is no. 1
The numbers released above are fairly consistent with what I've observed the last several years with college students/faculty at a major university where I live. Right now there's about a 60/40% ratio between PC and Mac usage among students, and these days I'd say brand, style, and the ability to easily work with their iPhones (which still dominates with students, probably by 70/30% favoring iPhones over Android) accounts for Mac users. Most students with iPhones favor Macs for easy interfacing to their phones. There are a couple of stats not mentioned which would be interesting:
* Of the students who prefer or use Macs, what models do they use? I see many more pre-2016 Apple laptops than the newer ones with no lit up Apple logo, and indeed, laptops that old have proved reliable for them. As a corollary, how satisfied are users of newer Macs with reliability and ease of interfacing to other devices?
* What are the percentages for students owning/using PCs or Macs less than three years old, and further, how about breaking that down by quality? Since Macs are expensive and considered high end, it would be interesting to compare Mac users to high end PC users. That would also present evidence as to whether price is a large determinant. If high end PC users are fairly rare among students, many of them bought PCs to save money.
* Run similar surveys of university faculty and staff. I personally observe more faculty usage of PCs in the science/engineering fields, Macs among liberal and fine arts faculty. Similar surveys of university staff would depend on what machines are purchased by individual departments, which most often purchase for bulk price point. U.T. Austin has long favored Dell since it is headquartered here in central Texas and Michael Dell himself started his company while a U.T. student back in the mid-80s. Dell has, since the 90s, offered large discounts to U.T. for Dell computers of all categories (laptops, desktops, servers).
I think you'll also likely find that most college age students purchase hardware similar to what they used prior to college, and most of the current ones probably began using computers anywhere from 5-15 years ago. We might be going through a large transitional period with computer brand usage, as older students in their mid-late twenties had considerably different home/school computer experiences than those 18-22 or so (undergraduates). They've all grown up post-2000, and technology has accelerated in a huge way during the last twenty years. One of Apple's failings the last ten years or so has been to neglect the secondary school market for Macs, and even iPads. Most secondary school systems can't afford bulk Apple purchases, and largely gravitate to PCs and Chromebooks. Those trends have affected the current crop of students immensely. Time will tell. As the students mature through the college education process, Apple will need to increasingly reach them through current offerings, rather than just reputation (good or bad). They won't care how great Apple was in the Steve Jobs era, but how it is currently perceived with its product offerings.
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Of course I know that.
But why spend more on an Apple computer and extra software cost and support costs to run Windows on a Mac? The cost to set up a Mac to run Windows and to train users on how to use it -- with VMware Fusion, Parallels, etc. -- is WAY more than the cost of just buying a PC with Windows on it. I ran Windows at home for over a decade using VMware Fusion on my Macs, but I would NEVER force a "normal" user to run Windows that way -- especially not in a business, domain-based environment.
Seems to be totally different here in Germany (and other parts of Europe):
We have re-sellers like As-Good-As-New, Flip4Mac, ReBuy and others, selling very good refurbished machines, mostly 2-3 years old, for very reasonable prices, starting with 13" MBP 2011 for around 350,- with new batteries.
Some already contain SSDs instead of the original harddisks. Even if you go closer to recent models, you save a couple of hundreds of dollars.
So, depending on what you expect to do with the machine, you´d be saving a lot more than the stated $100,- in comparison to a new machine. (Not to mention the keyboard, display, repairability issues and soldered SSD / RAM of current hardware).
Most resellers have a warranty period of 18, some even 30 months. We equipped all our office with such offers and have never been let down so far (5 years counting, 10 machines, iMac, MacBook Pro and Mac Pro)
Buying an Apple laptop today is not the same as what it was before, unfortunately. I agree with many that MacOS is fantastic. The latest MacBook Pro's, MacBook's, and MacBook Air's are great on their own. However, I am beyond disappointed in Apple's decision to only have USB-C ports. I have adapters that work with my MacBook, but not my iPad Pro. I have adapters that allow me to connect a monitor to my MacBook, but then flicker. Even Apple's own adapters have issues. Even today's hubs have stability issues. In my opinion, everything about USB-C is unstable....yet this is the only wired connectivity option going forward.
The USB-C issues are not limited to Apple's devices, but at least with many of the Windows laptops, they offer other connectivity options for external monitors and such. With as many people who have complained about keyboards, I'm shocked there's not more complaints about USB-C.
The USB-C issues are not limited to Apple's devices, but at least with many of the Windows laptops, they offer other connectivity options for external monitors and such. With as many people who have complained about keyboards, I'm shocked there's not more complaints about USB-C.
Lol. College students prefer whatever is trendy.
Reliability, easy of use, longevity, security.... none of those things are as clearly in Mac's favour as they used to be. All that is left is a silly premium, serious lack of upgradeability and repairability, and a serious lack of flexibility in most of the professional segments, bar some legacy and traditional strongholds.
Apple is simply squeezing the profits out of a platform which it is ready to abandon as soon as it doesn't generate the ludicrous margins it has in the past.
Reliability, easy of use, longevity, security.... none of those things are as clearly in Mac's favour as they used to be. All that is left is a silly premium, serious lack of upgradeability and repairability, and a serious lack of flexibility in most of the professional segments, bar some legacy and traditional strongholds.
Apple is simply squeezing the profits out of a platform which it is ready to abandon as soon as it doesn't generate the ludicrous margins it has in the past.
You’re kind of right. I got a windows PC and since for my job I need to use IE I couldn’t get the Mac option. It’s definitely a pain in the ass to have so many “quirks”. The real world really needs to adapt.
This shows how Apple's pricing is driving away business. My next laptop will probably be a Windows because I just don't see the value anymore in the high cost Macbook Pros. And that's sad.
I wonder what the percentage would be if the respondents are limited to electrical and computer engineering students. My bet is it would be significantly lower as a lot of software for the majors are Windows only.
The shocking part is that the number wasn't 100% or that the article wasn't "100% of all humans prefer Macs." Windows is an abominable mess.
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Can you post the results of the survey you conducted?
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Tired old argument that spans 4 decades. Apple has zero interest in capturing the entire or even most of the market, nor should it try to do so by lowering prices. Given that it is the most profitable computer maker on the planet, it seems like the strategy is the correct one.
[doublepost=1558620676][/doublepost]
Can you post the results of the survey you conducted?
[doublepost=1558620810][/doublepost]
Tired old argument that spans 4 decades. Apple has zero interest in capturing the entire or even most of the market, nor should it try to do so by lowering prices. Given that it is the most profitable computer maker on the planet, it seems like the strategy is the correct one.
Good post. I work at an elementary school and we are all windows laptop. Half are touch screen. The kids hate using the laptops without touchscreens. Curious to see if there strong preference for touchscreens continue when they get older. I also wonder if Apple will continue on their path of not having touchscreen laptops.
Scary.
Much as I like the idea of Chromebooks in general, a whole generation of people who think having no choice of web browser on their laptop is an acceptable state of affairs... is rather troubling to me. I remember when we fought against Microsoft just for including one
Disclaimer: I'm 34 and prefer Mac OS X, work on an iMac + 34" second monitor and also run full-Windows 10 via boot camp.
This is what's called a biased survey from a statistical perspective. When you put up a possible answer that says "Uses PC but prefers Mac" but not a corresponding "Uses Mac but prefers PC", the only reason you would leave out reciprocal potential answers is if you were seeking a specific result in your study. Also, no details are provided on the type of college students polled. Are these freshmen, seniors, grad students? I suspect a poll of undergrad vs. graduate students, conducted in Puget Sound vs. Cupertino vs. Nationwide would all produce very different outcomes. Were any gamers polled, or were they all playing Fortnite in their dorms on their PCs? My fundamental issue with this type of survey though is cost bias. If you really had to, you could buy a new PC for under $300 in any Walmart/Target, but the cheapest new Mac Apple sells that I could find is a refurbished MacBook Air non-retina (with a military discount) for $764. Most new MacBooks cost over $1200, so are people really voting for OS X, or are they voting based on their comparison of a $3,000 15.4" MacBook Pro 6-core Retina Radeon Pro Vega system vs. a garbage 1440x900 $500 HP running Windows 10 Home edition full of bloatware they sampled at a Best Buy?
"Data, when tortured long enough, will admit to anything."
Personally, I like both operating systems a lot right now, but I give the edge currently to Apple. That wasn't always true, it seemed like for 25 years one of them was always broken, or slow, or lacking features. When Apple admitted defeat on keyboard shortcuts crucial to system level and implemented MS Office commands they actually catapulted ahead of Microsoft for me personally, because I like the efficiency of the Command button being closer to the center of the keyboards than "Control" on a typical Windows keyboard. (Random: Yes, I know this can be swapped with a macro or settings alteration; I'm just commenting on the default settings.)
Apple's ecosystem/handoff, iTunes, keyboard shortcuts, superior App Store, quality hardware (not counting KeyboardGate), the ability to run a full copy of Windows via boot camp and customer service are all relevant for me at the moment. Apple is also one of the only tech conglomerates that actually cares about my data and personal privacy, and that is a big deal for me. I think the data harvesting via Facebook and Google abuse honestly creep out Tim Cook.
However, if someone else plays a ton of cutting-edge games instead of casual X-Com and KOTOR like me, does a lot of coding, relies on MS Office, prefers more options, Adobe's suites or AutoCAD, prefers faster answers to their queries more than privacy, likes Alexa/Cortana, or does web development or Access database queries with different programming languages, they likely prefer PCs.
I'm just glad both of them continue to improve. For a long time, the standard was... Work is 100x easier on a PC, Fun/Casual/User Experience/Media browsing is 100x more satisfying on a Mac. Today, you can do almost anything on either platform. Now if I could just get a decent sized MacBook with 12+ hours of battery life, 4+ cores, LTE-Advanced/5G, WiFi 6 (Wireless 802.11 ax), Touch ID but optional NO Touch Bar, maybe an SD or microSD slot and no keyboard issues that could run MS Access, costs less than $3,000 and doesn't start shaving aluminum every time I glance at it, things would be perfect for the next 7-10 years
This is what's called a biased survey from a statistical perspective. When you put up a possible answer that says "Uses PC but prefers Mac" but not a corresponding "Uses Mac but prefers PC", the only reason you would leave out reciprocal potential answers is if you were seeking a specific result in your study. Also, no details are provided on the type of college students polled. Are these freshmen, seniors, grad students? I suspect a poll of undergrad vs. graduate students, conducted in Puget Sound vs. Cupertino vs. Nationwide would all produce very different outcomes. Were any gamers polled, or were they all playing Fortnite in their dorms on their PCs? My fundamental issue with this type of survey though is cost bias. If you really had to, you could buy a new PC for under $300 in any Walmart/Target, but the cheapest new Mac Apple sells that I could find is a refurbished MacBook Air non-retina (with a military discount) for $764. Most new MacBooks cost over $1200, so are people really voting for OS X, or are they voting based on their comparison of a $3,000 15.4" MacBook Pro 6-core Retina Radeon Pro Vega system vs. a garbage 1440x900 $500 HP running Windows 10 Home edition full of bloatware they sampled at a Best Buy?
"Data, when tortured long enough, will admit to anything."
Personally, I like both operating systems a lot right now, but I give the edge currently to Apple. That wasn't always true, it seemed like for 25 years one of them was always broken, or slow, or lacking features. When Apple admitted defeat on keyboard shortcuts crucial to system level and implemented MS Office commands they actually catapulted ahead of Microsoft for me personally, because I like the efficiency of the Command button being closer to the center of the keyboards than "Control" on a typical Windows keyboard. (Random: Yes, I know this can be swapped with a macro or settings alteration; I'm just commenting on the default settings.)
Apple's ecosystem/handoff, iTunes, keyboard shortcuts, superior App Store, quality hardware (not counting KeyboardGate), the ability to run a full copy of Windows via boot camp and customer service are all relevant for me at the moment. Apple is also one of the only tech conglomerates that actually cares about my data and personal privacy, and that is a big deal for me. I think the data harvesting via Facebook and Google abuse honestly creep out Tim Cook.
However, if someone else plays a ton of cutting-edge games instead of casual X-Com and KOTOR like me, does a lot of coding, relies on MS Office, prefers more options, Adobe's suites or AutoCAD, prefers faster answers to their queries more than privacy, likes Alexa/Cortana, or does web development or Access database queries with different programming languages, they likely prefer PCs.
I'm just glad both of them continue to improve. For a long time, the standard was... Work is 100x easier on a PC, Fun/Casual/User Experience/Media browsing is 100x more satisfying on a Mac. Today, you can do almost anything on either platform. Now if I could just get a decent sized MacBook with 12+ hours of battery life, 4+ cores, LTE-Advanced/5G, WiFi 6 (Wireless 802.11 ax), Touch ID but optional NO Touch Bar, maybe an SD or microSD slot and no keyboard issues that could run MS Access, costs less than $3,000 and doesn't start shaving aluminum every time I glance at it, things would be perfect for the next 7-10 years