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If a Mac is your first choice, what is the key thing that makes it your first choice.
- Thread starter Denarius
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Very witty, you both jumped the gun a little though as it takes a moment to set up the poll after the post. Bit of a forum design flaw in my view.
I would have to lean towards the operating system. I used to love both the operating system and hardware design until I started repairing Macs here at work.
Ever replace a hard disk on a iBook/PowerBook G4 or MacBook Pro (non-unibody)?
Ever replace a hard disk on a iBook/PowerBook G4 or MacBook Pro (non-unibody)?
Yup, I upgraded the Hard drive on my MBP. It was time consuming to say the least!
It's the OS that makes it for me as well, really.
Really? I must confess I've only used it very briefly so didn't really have a chance to form an opinion. Where did it fall down for you?
I have to confess to skipping Vista entirely and that comment was admittedly a bit tongue in cheek.
So far, it's mostly my intimate familiarity with XP that's made all the Windows 7 changes difficult to adjust to. Having to constantly google things that were old hand with XP has been enough to make me toss my hands up and just use the Mac as much as possible.
I do use Windows 7 for access to corporate stuff although my job is entirely in the Unix space (pretty much every flavor over the years).
I jokingly told all my (Mac-head) colleagues that if I'm going to have to intimately learn a new OS, I'm going with the Mac over "the Seven."
Reality seems more prepared to make me familiarize myself with both. And oddly enough, the biggest Mac guys I work with are Windows 7 fans.
So far, it's mostly my intimate familiarity with XP that's made all the Windows 7 changes difficult to adjust to. Having to constantly google things that were old hand with XP has been enough to make me toss my hands up and just use the Mac as much as possible.
I do use Windows 7 for access to corporate stuff although my job is entirely in the Unix space (pretty much every flavor over the years).
I jokingly told all my (Mac-head) colleagues that if I'm going to have to intimately learn a new OS, I'm going with the Mac over "the Seven."
Reality seems more prepared to make me familiarize myself with both. And oddly enough, the biggest Mac guys I work with are Windows 7 fans.
I picked "OS" but there is more to that.
It's hardware/software integration. Apple designs the OS with the hardware in mind. This provides a more stable OS and overall computing experience.
Plus, OS X is very easy to use yet gives advanced users room to play with. And it doesn't kill that iLife is amazing and free with new Macs (Garageband is easily worth $50 to me by itself.)
It's hardware/software integration. Apple designs the OS with the hardware in mind. This provides a more stable OS and overall computing experience.
Plus, OS X is very easy to use yet gives advanced users room to play with. And it doesn't kill that iLife is amazing and free with new Macs (Garageband is easily worth $50 to me by itself.)
I was planning to scold you for posting a poll for a question this "obvious" but after reading some of the responses I realize there is room for discussion, 99% OS responses in the poll (including me) notwithstanding.
I really do like Apple hardware, but I feel limited by the hardware platforms they offer. The Macbook and Macbook Pros are simply great. So is the Mac Mini. I can't see replacing my display every time I want to upgrade my computer (iMac). Getting back to portables, where is a netbook? Ubuntu runs fine on my Acer Aspire One but when it's time for updates, I always have decisions to make and the update process for Firefox actually involves a python script. As scotty said upon realizing he couldn't talk to the mouse and had to actually type, I say "How quaint". I think OS X would run just great on a netbook. Sure there are some apps that would drag, like Photoshop CS working on a 20 megapixel raw image. The reason people put up with Apple's few choices is the OS. We've already seen how quickly Apple deflates if their OS starts to suck back in the dark times just before they brought back Steve Jobs. No need to go there again.
If M$ ever snaps out of their coma and offers a gui running on top of some flavor of Unix, look out because Apple's days would be numbered. Windows 7 looks decent but suffers from the operability issues it inherits from its windows code base. If the Windows 8 gui were written on top of a stable *nix OS, 8 would give OS X a run for its money. Notice how quiet the Mac OS X ads are allofasudden? It's because Win 7 doesn't suck nearly as badly as Vista did. Vista was even worse than Windows Me and that's saying something. When you've built marketing on how much better OSX is over Vista and Vista suddenly goes away, you gotta think of something new. Apple came closest with the "trust me" commercial but we haven't heard from them since.
Meanwhile M$ continues to enjoy a sharp rise in hardware sales based on its OS while Apple suddenly seems to be simply inching along with "normal" or "modest" growth in Mac sales. Will the iPad change this? I don't know yet. First of all, how do we count iPad sales? Is it OS X? Will it cut into Macbook sales? I think it might. I'm pretty sure I'd rather have an iPad as a "second machine" over a Macbook Air and I came pretty close to picking up a MBA refurb for $999 a few months back. But Steve Jobs once said if anybody cannibalizes Apple sales, he wants it to be Apple. Maybe iPad will lead to price slippage throughout the entire Apple hardware lineup. This would be good news for end users and if Apple manages to still make record profits, it would still be good news for Apple. If I could get an Acer Aspire One with OS X on it, I would be willing to "pay extra" for it. So in conclusion, I say it's about the OS. Mostly about the OS. You know for comic relief you really should add Price to your survey.
I really do like Apple hardware, but I feel limited by the hardware platforms they offer. The Macbook and Macbook Pros are simply great. So is the Mac Mini. I can't see replacing my display every time I want to upgrade my computer (iMac). Getting back to portables, where is a netbook? Ubuntu runs fine on my Acer Aspire One but when it's time for updates, I always have decisions to make and the update process for Firefox actually involves a python script. As scotty said upon realizing he couldn't talk to the mouse and had to actually type, I say "How quaint". I think OS X would run just great on a netbook. Sure there are some apps that would drag, like Photoshop CS working on a 20 megapixel raw image. The reason people put up with Apple's few choices is the OS. We've already seen how quickly Apple deflates if their OS starts to suck back in the dark times just before they brought back Steve Jobs. No need to go there again.
If M$ ever snaps out of their coma and offers a gui running on top of some flavor of Unix, look out because Apple's days would be numbered. Windows 7 looks decent but suffers from the operability issues it inherits from its windows code base. If the Windows 8 gui were written on top of a stable *nix OS, 8 would give OS X a run for its money. Notice how quiet the Mac OS X ads are allofasudden? It's because Win 7 doesn't suck nearly as badly as Vista did. Vista was even worse than Windows Me and that's saying something. When you've built marketing on how much better OSX is over Vista and Vista suddenly goes away, you gotta think of something new. Apple came closest with the "trust me" commercial but we haven't heard from them since.
Meanwhile M$ continues to enjoy a sharp rise in hardware sales based on its OS while Apple suddenly seems to be simply inching along with "normal" or "modest" growth in Mac sales. Will the iPad change this? I don't know yet. First of all, how do we count iPad sales? Is it OS X? Will it cut into Macbook sales? I think it might. I'm pretty sure I'd rather have an iPad as a "second machine" over a Macbook Air and I came pretty close to picking up a MBA refurb for $999 a few months back. But Steve Jobs once said if anybody cannibalizes Apple sales, he wants it to be Apple. Maybe iPad will lead to price slippage throughout the entire Apple hardware lineup. This would be good news for end users and if Apple manages to still make record profits, it would still be good news for Apple. If I could get an Acer Aspire One with OS X on it, I would be willing to "pay extra" for it. So in conclusion, I say it's about the OS. Mostly about the OS. You know for comic relief you really should add Price to your survey.
OS X sets it well apart.
But the high-quality hardware is a big draw. Gorgeous screens, MagSafe connector, etc.
And things like Time Machine and Folder Actions are added bonuses.
My "key thing" doesn't really fit into the four options: I value my time.
Don't misunderstand me: I love Apple hardware and OS X. But the one thing that brought me to an Apple computer in the first place (circa 1996!) was the fact that Macs were easier to use than their Windows counterparts.
I wasn't intimidated by the learning curve; instead, I was concerned about conserving time. I listened ... and listened ... and listened ... to friends and their horror stories about viruses and drivers. I just knew I didn't want to go through all that.
Time really IS money. The fact that a newbie can open the box and have an iMac up and running in five minutes says a lot about the Mac's facility for conserving time. The sole reason I continue to buy Apple products is that I don't have time to waste. Granted I might save money going the MS route, but the time savings go down the drain. Those who disparage Apple products because of what they perceive as a price premium have never asked themselves what their time is worth ... or they don't value their own time at all.
Don't misunderstand me: I love Apple hardware and OS X. But the one thing that brought me to an Apple computer in the first place (circa 1996!) was the fact that Macs were easier to use than their Windows counterparts.
I wasn't intimidated by the learning curve; instead, I was concerned about conserving time. I listened ... and listened ... and listened ... to friends and their horror stories about viruses and drivers. I just knew I didn't want to go through all that.
Time really IS money. The fact that a newbie can open the box and have an iMac up and running in five minutes says a lot about the Mac's facility for conserving time. The sole reason I continue to buy Apple products is that I don't have time to waste. Granted I might save money going the MS route, but the time savings go down the drain. Those who disparage Apple products because of what they perceive as a price premium have never asked themselves what their time is worth ... or they don't value their own time at all.
Possibly for the Mac, but not Apple, as Steve said they're a 'mobile devices company now'!
Seriously though, you've raised an interesting point here. Apple pulled an absolute blinder by taking the best of open source OS's, refining it to deliver a truly slick user experience and then locking it into their own hardware. Absolute genius in my opinion.
The fact remains that a lot of the ingredients for OS X are still open source and the opportunity to build a really slick competitor to OS X that's not locked to hardware exists for someone who is so inclined to.
Whether MS are the ones who'd do it, I'm not sure. They've stipulated reluctance to abandon legacy users as a reason for not starting from scratch although they introduced NT in parallel to 9x.
I think the people who would benefit most from investing resources into a consumer friendly open source OS are software developers like Adobe, Avid, games Manufacturers that would suddenly be in a position where they're no longer beholden to another company for the medium to bring their products to consumers.
I love my Apple, but it's high time that they had some real competition.
The OS without a doubt. I love Apple's case designs and trust their hardware configurations to be wise and optimal for their software.
At the same time I do think we can get more bang for our buck..
At the same time I do think we can get more bang for our buck..
My reasons for wanting a Mac:
* OSX and mainly because it's a unix OS. I prefer a unix OS when doing software development. At the time, I thought it was a faster, more stable OS when compared to Windows. I also just like the UI in general.
The real reason why I was able to actually buy a Mac:
* My wife thought the aluminum iMac looked cool and it matched the decor of the room it was going in.
For the longest time, I hated MS operating systems and that was a big reason I went to Macs, but I have to admit that I really like Windows 7. I use Windows 7 at work, and on an HTPC at home and I have never had a problem with either of them. I'll probably get flamed here for saying this, but if I had to buy a new computer today, I'd probably save the money and build a pc running windows 7 and just deal with the fact that it's not unix (I use msys anyway when developing software on windows). I always thought that the price premium for Macs was worth it but now with Win7, I'm not so sure anymore. I'd probably stick with Apple laptops though. I like their clean design.
* OSX and mainly because it's a unix OS. I prefer a unix OS when doing software development. At the time, I thought it was a faster, more stable OS when compared to Windows. I also just like the UI in general.
The real reason why I was able to actually buy a Mac:
* My wife thought the aluminum iMac looked cool and it matched the decor of the room it was going in.
For the longest time, I hated MS operating systems and that was a big reason I went to Macs, but I have to admit that I really like Windows 7. I use Windows 7 at work, and on an HTPC at home and I have never had a problem with either of them. I'll probably get flamed here for saying this, but if I had to buy a new computer today, I'd probably save the money and build a pc running windows 7 and just deal with the fact that it's not unix (I use msys anyway when developing software on windows). I always thought that the price premium for Macs was worth it but now with Win7, I'm not so sure anymore. I'd probably stick with Apple laptops though. I like their clean design.
Mostly the OS. My actual target OS is linux, but all the email, docs, spreadsheets here are done on windows with MS Office. OS X does a much better job interacting with my linux systems and lets me run office, which I cannot do on my linux desktop. OS X works as a very nice middle ground to interact with both environments.
Like the hardware design also...
Like the hardware design also...
Operating system, without question.
Other than the fact that apple wins the "beauty contest" with their unique style, there is no reason to buy a Mac BUT FOR the operating system.
Other than the fact that apple wins the "beauty contest" with their unique style, there is no reason to buy a Mac BUT FOR the operating system.
Why do I choose to use a Mac?
Well, I really like those "I'm a Mac" commercials... and my mom always told me growing up that I was special.
Well, I really like those "I'm a Mac" commercials... and my mom always told me growing up that I was special.