Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Do you have to own a mac to love it?

N

nomnom

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 26, 2010
16
0
Hi everyone... I'm the one that posted the thread about wanting to switch to windows if Apple doesn't hurry up. I agree with some of you out there that it was quite a childish thing to say but, I have much reserve buying one. Contrary to most of you, everyone around me owns a mac. And the pressure's on me to buy one as well (they've all got the PC sucks attitude). But I've been using macs for years now (about 6). My school's is always equipped with the latest imacs and as I said all my friends got macs. I mean it's really slick and all but a lot of the time, the rainbow wheel of death occurs more often than the blue screen of death and it pisses me off how softwares always crash unexpectedly. So do you think that you have to own a mac to love it? Can you convince me a bit more?

And it goes without saying, be nice and civil. If you can't say something helpful, don't. Vent your anger at the world elsewhere. Thanks to everyone in advance. :)
 
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I'll give you my take on it.

Lab computers are used by many people and they also usually have unstable images due to IT being rushed.

Lab computers are never a good indication of real-world performance if the computer is your and yours only.
 
The following is my personal experience and therefore may not reflect the experiences of the majority of users.

When I owned a Windows PC it would crash about once a week. I used it for VPNing into the office and remote desktoping (is that a verb?) into my work PC. I also used it for playing music, processing pictures with Photoshop, email, web browsing, and a little bit of video processing.

In November of 2007 my PC crashed and corrupted the NTFS disk with my photos. I was fed up and decided it was time for a Mac so I got a 24" iMac. I was able to repair the NTFS drive and recover most of my photos but I did end up losing a few that 1) weren't able to be recovered and 2) were too new to be on the latest backup I had. Since then I've had my Mac lockup/crash 10 times maybe. That's much much better than my Windows track record. In May of 2009 I got my wife a 13" aluminum unibody MacBook. I think it's crashed less than 5 times.

I have gotten the spinning beach-ball on my iMac quite a bit since I upgraded to Snow Leopard (I never used to get it under Leopard) but it usually goes away after 5 seconds or less so I can live with it. As far as usability the iMac blows away my Windows box - Time Machine, GarageBand, iMovie, quick-look in email and Finder, stacks and expose all suit my workflow much better.

Did I love Macs before I got one? No, but I was ready for a change and hoping that the stability of the OS and hardware would be better. Do I love them now? No, I wouldn't say I love them but I do think that they are much better for me than Windows.
 
I would also add that the computers you find in public computer clusters can have issues you are not aware of that stem from many people using them all the time and/or them being old.

I know that a fairly new imac at my school seemed a bit slow to me when I was considering getting my mac. But I've had no such problems on my own personal computer
 
yea... you REALLY can't base anything on your experience with macs in a public computer lab. I've owned a few macbook pros in the past few years and I think I've had to troubleshoot something once and it wasn't even a big deal... however, I get tons of annoying pop ups and weird glitches whenever I use an iMac in my school's computer lab... I don't know what they hell they do to those things, but the definitely don't function the way privately owned mac's do.
 
Why don't you get what you really want. If you have had bad experiences with Mac-based PCs, then get a Windows-based PC. Why would you care what others think? I like Macs, however, that is my choice. Your choice should not be influenced by those around you. Get what you want. There is nothing worse than having regrets, or buyer's remorse.

Good luck with whatever you get, and most importantly, enjoy the experience.
 
I have really no complaints about windows. I really never had big troubles, except when i used programms which used a lot of Hardware resources, or when i didnt restart for a few days.
Except that my pc merely crashed, which is why im not one of the guys saying that windows is just crap and ****.

At least: if you have basic computer knowledge, you will do good on every system IF the machine is well configurated.
 
newbie answer

I read this fourum often but I've never posted anything so yours will be the first.

I'm taking some Adobe classes at the local college which has several labs with all new Macs. The lab we are in now is equipped with the new 27inch iMacs. I've never used a Mac before taking these classes but if my experience on these new iMacs is any indication, then I think they are quite stable machines.

I'm using a new Dell (work computer) at home to do my lab work and I can tell you using Photoshop on that computer is not as good. I have to make sure that I save constantly so I don't lose my work. Given that my work comptuer is fairly new with a dual core processor, I would think I wouldn't have problem but I can tell you it does freeze up every now and then where the iMac has always been stable. Also my work computer is still XP but I've been told that windows 7 is much better.

Anyway, I just thought I would throw my two cents in.
 
No. The first time I've ever used a Mac was in a lab at school. Once I started to really use OS X, I got hooked and it was definitely a breath of fresh air.
 
I always admired macs for being different. Given they are much more expensive than generic PC's in Europe I couldn't justify the price. Now that I actually use a computer to make money I decided to get my first mac.

After 15 years of Windows and Linux, at first I felt confused and had some regrets. Then 2gb of RAM was too little and performance wasn't great. 6months later, having upgraded to 4gb and used software I didn't even think that existed, I'd rather upgrade my computer less often than get anything non apple.

I also have a very powerful desktop. I switched to Ubuntu from Windows 7 last week and I can't see myself using windows again as my main OS.
 
Gabriel GR said:
I always admired macs for being different. Given they are much more expensive than generic PC's in Europe I couldn't justify the price. Now that I actually use a computer to make money I decided to get my first mac.

After 15 years of Windows and Linux, at first I felt confused and had some regrets. Then 2gb of RAM was too little and performance wasn't great. 6months later, having upgraded to 4gb and used software I didn't even think that existed, I'd rather upgrade my computer less often than get anything non apple.

I also have a very powerful desktop. I switched to Ubuntu from Windows 7 last week and I can't see myself using windows again as my main OS.
Click to expand...

Why did you move to ubuntu from Win 7? I've used Ubuntu quite a bit, but there's always software that isn't available in Linux that eventually makes me go back.
 
I had a Macbook Pro. Card died and I don't love it. Left a pretty sour taste in my mouth. Don't think I'll be buying Apple notebooks any time soon. Too much money for so little.

My eMac, on the other hand, has been the best computer purchase ever. That thing is a tank and there's no sign of slowing down. It's slow but it's a great kids computer and file server.
 
The spinning beachball is most often due to a slow hard drive that can't keep up - you often don't notice HDD activity on a Mac. If you went to a PC you'll see the same thing happening with the HDD light on and drive crunching away.

The solution is pretty simple - get a Mac, upgrade it with an Intel SSD and enjoy. A 7200 rpm drive does take quite a bit of the beachball out too, not quite that of an SSD though.
 
Dozerrox said:
Why did you move to ubuntu from Win 7? I've used Ubuntu quite a bit, but there's always software that isn't available in Linux that eventually makes me go back.
Click to expand...

I mostly work with open source databases, R for statistics Java AJAX and PHP. The only Windows Programs I need are Office (when I need to export something to access for some coworker) and photoshop which I now run on my mac, even though it's slightly slower.

I have to make numerous remote connections to other Unix servers too and the terminal is much more useful than Putty etc.
 
neteng101 said:
The spinning beachball is most often due to a slow hard drive that can't keep up - you often don't notice HDD activity on a Mac. If you went to a PC you'll see the same thing happening with the HDD light on and drive crunching away.

The solution is pretty simple - get a Mac, upgrade it with an Intel SSD and enjoy. A 7200 rpm drive does take quite a bit of the beachball out too, not quite that of an SSD though.
Click to expand...

I don't know what causes the spinning beachball, I just know that it's a headache. I bought a MBP in July 2009, and it started with the spinning beachball. Before I knew it, in November, Apple had to replace my harddrive. Now the beachball thing is happening again. This should not be happening on a new laptop. I see the same thing on my iMac and Blackbook. I think Apple needs to fix this problem.
 
I've been using Macs primarily for the better part of 7 years now and I can count on one hand the number of times mine have frozen/crashed/beachballed/kernel panicked/etc... WTF are you people doing to your computers?
 
Arminator said:
I have really no complaints about windows. I really never had big troubles, except when i used programms which used a lot of Hardware resources, or when i didnt restart for a few days.
Except that my pc merely crashed, which is why im not one of the guys saying that windows is just crap and ****.

At least: if you have basic computer knowledge, you will do good on every system IF the machine is well configured.
Click to expand...

fixed. your welcome
 
Imbecile fanbois on this forum can really make your blood boil if you're an adequate person, bare that in mind.

From my perspective, I don't get their agenda at all. My PC is about 3,5 years old now, it's running very quiet, everything works perfectly, it's on all the time, I rarely reboot (only for updates), and the last time I had a crash was more than a year ago, I can't even remember. The viruses? I haven't gotten one since getting it. And guess what, I'm on Vista SP3, I didn't even bother with W7, because there's no need, everything works flawlessly.

So, in short - all the crap pouring out of Get A Mac commercials and fanbois on here is just that - crap.

One thing - I've built my PC myself, so perhaps I need to get one of those pre-made HP ones to understand why so much hate for Windows machines, but so far I am having much less problems with my PC than a lot of people on here with their "works-outta-box" Macs.

PS - I am waiting to get an mbp anyway, for development, it would be interesting to see how well it really works.

:)
 
The only consistent beachball I get is when I open iTunes, and that's rather expected until iTunes is rewritten.
 
Op, you have no idea of the crash problems windows has. Beachballs are NOT equivalent to BSODS, windows have beachballs too they are just little blue circles that spin around and most of the time resolve themselves. (like on a mac) You cant compare beachballs to BSODS, a BSOD is complete fail of the entire system, and they do still happen in windows 7.

EDIT: I am not a mac fanboy, I even own a recently built PC.
 
Why do people have a problem when others raise legitimate issues with Macs. As I have said many times, I have 2 macBooks, an iMac, and bought my wife an MBP and my son a macBook. I love Macs and will never buy a Windows-based PC again. There are too many things that Apple do right to list. However, that spinning beachball is a problem. No, it's not like the blue screen of death that you get on Windows-based PCs. However, it can lead to that. With Macs it's the white or gray screen of death. I know, because my 4 month old MBP totally crashed. Like I said the hard drive had to be replaced.

Just for the record, I don't abuse my computers. My new computer hardly travels with me. I never dropped it or spilled anything on it. I don't have a lot on my hard drive - I save most things on my external hard drive. I think its an issue that has to be looked into. Even the repair guy at the Apple store admitted that it's an issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back