^^^ This. And the credibility of the OP really went up when they decided to call people "mac fanboys xD" and in the start of the thread none the less. I guess haters got to be haters.
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^^^ This. And the credibility of the OP really went up when they decided to call people "mac fanboys xD" and in the start of the thread none the less. I guess haters got to be haters.
I certainly wouldn't be put off a product because it contained the same or similar parts from another / cheaper device.
I work as an Aircraft Engineer and most large Aircraft come with a choice of engine manufacturer (sometimes 3) and Seat / interior and IFE (in flight entertainment) The 2 biggest manufacturers Airbus and Boeing have quite different products and philosophies that deliver competing Airframes. Many of the thousands of componets not least the multi million pound engines are essentially the same. It's the end product and aftersales support etc that the Airlines are purchasing.
The exact same can be said of cars, I drive a VW and many people like to point out that 'It's a Skoda or Seat' due to the fact VW owns several brands that contain many of the same parts, from chasis to engines to interior parts. But by that rational it's just as much an 'Audi, Porshe or Bugatti'.
The point is with globalisation and economics of scale this is the future, you have companies that design and sell products that are made up of OEM components. It's the end product and after sales / user experience that you are buying. From my point of view I happy to pay a small premium for Apple products as the complete package is IMO better than the competitions.
I work as an Aircraft Engineer and most large Aircraft come with a choice of engine manufacturer (sometimes 3) and Seat / interior and IFE (in flight entertainment) The 2 biggest manufacturers Airbus and Boeing have quite different products and philosophies that deliver competing Airframes. Many of the thousands of componets not least the multi million pound engines are essentially the same. It's the end product and aftersales support etc that the Airlines are purchasing.
The exact same can be said of cars, I drive a VW and many people like to point out that 'It's a Skoda or Seat' due to the fact VW owns several brands that contain many of the same parts, from chasis to engines to interior parts. But by that rational it's just as much an 'Audi, Porshe or Bugatti'.
The point is with globalisation and economics of scale this is the future, you have companies that design and sell products that are made up of OEM components. It's the end product and after sales / user experience that you are buying. From my point of view I happy to pay a small premium for Apple products as the complete package is IMO better than the competitions.
Just saying...this has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Your IT guy has no idea what he's talking about. I'm sure someone else has already explained everything wrong with this statement, so I won't even dive into it.
And as a Dell and Apple owner, I can tell you they are the same. (OS is the only true difference.) To the OP: I kind of felt the same way after the G5's. It made me a little sad, but technology has to advance. And apparently, Apple saw this as the best route to better computers. Although, it has made the line between hackintosh and mac much thinner. My friend built a quad nehalem machine with 1tb hdd, 8gb ram, and a 5770 for $1,400. He put it all in a mac pro case that he got for $50; and there is not a single difference between it and the nehalem mac pro ($2,400). So, if anything it's made it easier to build your own mac.
There has to be a difference somewhere, otherwise the price would be identical. I suspect either the Dell isn't using Xeons, or Apple has costs of production we cannot account for.
Parts has nothing to do with price. Price is set by how much the consumer will pay. Period.
People pay more for a Mac because they are easy to use. Apple has proven that people will pay more for good design. So get over it.
In what way mac hardware differs from PC hardware?
IMHO Macs cease to exist after G5 series ended. For me Macs were
different platform by using PowerPC CPU, different GPU, but now
we have Intel processors (few years ago we called PC platform Wintel) but
new we use Intel CPU's + we can boot Windows.
I don't see difference between iMac and Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba Laptop. Please
anyone tell me what kind of hardware Macs HAVE that PC's DON'T?
Also i felt bad when i saw one guy installing Mac OS X on PC, everything worked OOB he was also buying and using some apps from App Store
Is it true that Mac's are nothing else but brand made laptop like PC's?
What you guys think?
Wow... the iMac is the easiest example. The 27" iMac's screen costs $1000 alone. That should probably give a clue as to what the major hardware are.
I agree. Apple makes good looking computers that are easy to use for the novice consumer but its tweakability and flexibility can easily be outgrown for those who need higher performance and hardware flexibility without the strict "apples way" myopic way of doing tasks and computer management.
There's a reason apple computers haven't dominated business usage or been deployed in mission critical applications. OS X is restrictive and apple HW is limited.
It sounds like you didn't quite think hard enough on this way. I don't buy Apple computers for OSX - in fact, if they ran Windows natively, I would probably prefer it. I buy them for the HARDWARE.
iMac - All in one system and screen - there are no HARDWARE alternatives. Want an all in one computer that has the best displays, noise level, and performance? There are no competition.
Macbooks - This is even easier: The Airs defined a whole new generation of laptops, you might know them as "Ultrabooks". This was entirely the HARDWARE of the Air's engineering - screen quality, size, weight, battery life, etc. The Pros do the same thing, by marrying speed with quality screens, size and weight, and functionality. Finding a similar laptop with a 15" or 17" pro and getting them to be mobile machines (lasting 7+ hours on battery) is non-existent.
The other aspects of Hardware are Apple proprietary systems:
- Keyboard quality, Track pad hardware + software is unavailable to competitors
- Magsafe is useful and has been a life-saver
Hardware is the sole reason why I wait to buy Apple based systems. The alternative is:
- Poor build quality
- Poor battery life
- Poor screen quality
- Non-existent warranty support
- Poor mobility
- Poor trackpad
Finding a windows system that checks all of the boxes? Impossible. I wish, so that I could spend a little less and just run Windows and not have to boot camp to play games.
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Actually Apple is proliferating in business, education, and other sectors faster than any other industry. OSX is just as powerful, if not more so, than most other enterprise level solutions.
In terms of limited hardware, I'm not sure where you're getting that. At this point, Apple offers essentially the same high end solutions in the iMac, Macbook Pro, and Mac Pro line as other makers, with the exception of graphics performance (that primarily impacts gamers).
Thank you for that....
But I disagree with you here, for the most part. For ordinary people... who do the majority of work, Macs work better in my opinion.
I do serious work with my Macs. My wife does serious work with her Macs. She has a virtual machine with Windows on it (because the VPN client she needs for her work doesn't have a Mac equivalent). She came from a corporate environment with Windows, resisted the change to her Mac - for about 2 weeks. Now you couldn't pay her to go back. She finds the Mac makes her more productive. The simplicity of the interface does make a Mac simple. There is power behind the covers. It just doesn't clutter things up with bits you rarely need.
I attend a lot of meetings. There are about the same number of Macs as Windows machines around. The computer literacy is about the same. I'm a bit of tech nerd, so my level may be higher. As part of what we do we create and share a fair number of documents. At least once per meeting we Mac-heads will be able to do something with our documents that leaves the Windows users asking how we did that. We just say "It's a Mac thing." Not out of a sense of superiority...but because we can just do it... it's dead simple for us. And we don't know how to do it on Windows. I'm sure it's possible, because I don't think that Macs do much that Windows can't... but we can just do it. While the Windows users are still digging through menus and dialogues.
We are more productive, and we get more done. And my sample size is, I believe, reasonable accurate for the wider working world.
Oh sure, I'm sure there are things that Windows can do if you really really know the ins and out that OS X can't do. On the other hand, if I knew Unix I'm sure I could use OS X's Terminal window to do things that Windows can't do. My point is that for the vast majority of people... the Mac simple interface is probably better.
What is keeping Macs out of the enterprise is a lack of announced upgrade cycle and legacy support. And the fact that some critical SW has (like my wife's VPN client) are not available for Macs natively.
As a funny anecdote, my wife telecommutes for work. Last year they changed the passwords for the VPN access, and her access was cut off. They forgot to tell send her the new passwords because the IT contract support created their contact list based on the problem tickets filed. She had never filed a ticket, so they had no contact info. She is the only one using a Mac.
I wouldn't consider iPads being used as an accessory/appliance as "proliferating in business, education, and other sectors."
Apple has a long way to go to become a competitor in the business industry.
For "art", photography and media specific tasks, they have their niche but they aren't even seriously being considered for business computers but I think apple likes it that way.
As for apple HW bring top notch, higher quality and more reliable, search the iMac and other Mac forum and you will find a plethora of issues with the 3 items I just listed.
Sorry to say but apple quality and technical edge has become average that comes at a premium price because of hype and hardcore supporters who upgrade annually to help boost sales.
Apple has a long way to go to become a competitor in the business industry.
For "art", photography and media specific tasks, they have their niche but they aren't even seriously being considered for business computers but I think apple likes it that way.
As for apple HW bring top notch, higher quality and more reliable, search the iMac and other Mac forum and you will find a plethora of issues with the 3 items I just listed.
Sorry to say but apple quality and technical edge has become average that comes at a premium price because of hype and hardcore supporters who upgrade annually to help boost sales.
Why wouldn't you consider iOS devices "proliferating" in those sectors? They are computing devices made by Apple, and there is no question that they are a dominant device in those sectors. On University campuses Mac Laptops are just about the #1 brand, and in many cases the #1 brand. Apple's iPads are starting to be found in businesses everywhere. And not just in the board rooms, but on the floor.
Yes, Macs have a long way to go. A large part of that is, as stated earlier, Apple's unpredictability. There are studies (and I will do a Google search if you can't be bothered) that show a Mac's ROI is superior to a Windows machine, just as there are studies that show otherwise. The point being is that it's not an absolute that Macs cost a business more money overall. The biggest barrier is Apple's secretiveness, that makes planning purchases unpredictable. Businesses hate unpredictability.
I think Apple doesn't mind it, since they are making serious inroads into the business sector. They are doing it in an incremental way. Admittedly Apple doesn't really know how to sell big enterprises - and it takes time to learn. In my part of the world about half the systems I see in small businesses are Macs however.
And yet, they are rated by Consumer's Reports - yet again - as being the most reliable and the best in customer satisfaction. Forums don't count as evidence, I'm afraid.
And yet Apple is increasing their sales. Computers in general had a decline in sales of 3.5% in Q1 of 2012, to Apple's gain of 3.8%. Fancy that. All those upgraders must be buying multiple systems. It couldn't be that the general public is buying Apple computers and not Windows PCs? No, that couldn't explain that statistic at all, eh? Especially since Q1 has always been Apple's weakest quarter. Sales only get stronger for the rest of the year.
Ironically.... I think Microsoft actually likes it when Apple sells more Macs. MS makes more money that way. So, it's not Apple vs MS. It's Apple HW vs generic PCs. And Apple seems to be doing not too badly, eh?
It's quite clear that the OP is missing the point. What does, always has, and always will differentiate the Mac platform is the OS. It always has, and always will. A Mac, or a Windows machine or whatever platform for that matter, is not defined by hardware.
What you have said is almost like saying that a machine that runs Windows, but doesn't use Intel or AMD hardware like most Windows systems, isn't a Windows machine.
This discussion is really very entertaining and the naivety of the OP is simply charming ^^ Apple uses some of the same components as the PC world simply because these components are the fastest and best consumer available products. Or does the OP think that Apple should stick to a crappy and underpowered architecture? Or maybe even develop their own CPU and GPU. Oh, Apple would love that, but we all should know how difficult it is to develop something of that complexity. Despite all their know-how in CPU designs, a giant like Intel is not able to deliver a GPU, although they have been working on one during the past decade.
The truth is, Apple builds as much of their hardware as it is needed and often more than the competitors. Apple does not do generic component-into-case-assembly like DELL or similar companies, Apple's products are unique. And if they use x86 CPUs - so what?
I do agree a bit that Apple should focus more on cutting-edge low-level software features. For once, they need a new file system badly...
The truth is, Apple builds as much of their hardware as it is needed and often more than the competitors. Apple does not do generic component-into-case-assembly like DELL or similar companies, Apple's products are unique. And if they use x86 CPUs - so what?
I do agree a bit that Apple should focus more on cutting-edge low-level software features. For once, they need a new file system badly...
Everything you posted & outlined is hearsay and IMO.
Your post/rebuttal makes a good creative writing essay but it doesn't make it fact.
Just saying...
Here are some facts.
Windows - 85% of market share
Mac - 6%
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8
In one 2010 survey, Macs were owned by 38% of University students, up from 14% in 2007. And tied with Dell for the #1 spot. That counts as 'proliferating' by any definition. Link
In 2010 Macs took top spot for Reliability and Support - for the 3rd year running. Link
I already stated that my experiences were personal, and not necessarily indicative of anything more. But I believe them to fairly good sample of a wider experience. Simply because the people at the meetings are so darn average, but in a good way.
Your 85/6 split may be correct - there are different numbers from different sources. What that one number in isolation doesn't indicate is that Macs are increasing their market share by double digits (by some measures) while the PC market is losing share. I'd say that counts as proliferation too.
And - I don't think that that Windows is losing. MS forgot for a bit that they write SW for HW. They shouldn't care what HW platform is "winning" as long as they write SW for it.
I am not sure if you still have this Dell, but as for it not shipping with software to enable both drives. Unless there is something out of the ordinary it should have as Windows has this ability. If you still have this computer let me know and I can give you steps for your 2nd HD to show up. Dell should have done this out of the box. I have worked with Dell in the past on the business side and they are fantastic to work with. If you tell them something is wrong they don't doubt you, they just send the replacement item.
As for the BSOD. That is very rare on windows these days. Does it happen. Yes, but I have both PC and Mac and I can't remember the last time I had the BSOD. Been many many years now.
Now to the OP. Yes the hardware is the same. From what I understand Apple was almost forced to go to Intel, etc as what they were using was not keeping up with the speed that the x86 procs were producing as AMD and Intel had a speed battle going. To keep up Apple had to switch to faster hardware They made the right move IMO.
IMO both systems "Just Work", but Apple has implemented their hardware very well, and have been on the cutting edge with design. Think about the iMac or Mini. That amount of PC in such a small space. You don't see this much on the Windows PC side. They are starting to build some systems that compete with design such as the Asus Mac Air clone.(as I like to call it).
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Thanks for the offer. The IT guy swapped out my 2 x 60 gig for a single 250 gig he had lying around at work (but don't tell my boss!) It works fine for now for general surfing and emails etc. I'm still going to get the iMac when its released And pass my Dell on to my daughter. I realise you can have problems with both, but I'm willing to take the chance. As you can probably tell I'm not the most computer competent, so I like the idea of time machine (versus remembering to run a back up!). For me its the OS built with the hardware in mind. In Microsoft's defence they often get the blame for some pretty poor build quality which gives the user an unstable platform (its not like they build the things). I'll buy with applecare and a Time Capsule and I trust I'll be okay. If I do run into trouble there is always the useful MR Guides as well as the forum!
Just a reminder that you don't need an Apple Time Capsule to do Time Machine backups. You can connect a regular external hard drive to do that. I have no experience with the time capsule but it does look like a nice product. Wireless backup and serves as a wireless access point. If you've already got wireless in place that works, just go with an external drive for time Machine.
I've actually already got an external 500 gig hard drive. I back up the precious stuff now and again, but I'm guessing this won't be big enough for the iMac as it backs up everything with time machine. Right?
Also don't I need to buy it all together for my applecare to cover the lot?
You don't necessarily have to purchase all items at once to get Applecare. You can purchase Applecare after the fact, as long as the product is still in its initial warranty. I'm hazy on the details, but check out the info on this page: http://www.apple.com/support/products/mac.html
At the bottom it says:
"The AirPort device or Time Capsule must be purchased up to two years before your Mac purchase or during the term of your AppleCare Protection Plan coverage."
Which to me is somewhat confusing...
