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Macs are more expensive (not by as much as some claim if you break down the BoM), Windows does run more software than OSX (bootcamp/VMware <> OSX) and lets wait for the actual numbers, like others have said just the percentage figures, whilst making a nice headline, are meaningless without the raw data behind them.

Windows runs more software than OS-X, however, Macs run more software than Windows only computers. I would also argue that the quality of OS-X and Linux software is better than what runs on Windows.
 
We have been hearing this for years. It's not like OS X has 0.01% market share. It's approaching 10%, which is decent.

10% worldwide? Really?

Seriously, I didn't think it was approaching that kind of market share outside of the US. I'd be interested to see the data behind that.
 
Here in NY we all use NYC board of edu computers and from what I've seen they are all Dell....

Probably depends on how many schools you're able to see. A friend of mine does IT for NYC and this past spring he was telling me about how because of budget issues he had to get up and running one more computer lab for this current school year. Despite having piles of (dead) Dells, he ended up using a bunch of ancient G3 clamshell iBooks; he tweaked the curiculuum to also include a "repair" as well as a "use" portion and as of when I talked with him, it had already gotten through the first half of the year just fine.


It's all based on return (or at least in terms of education). Buying truckloads of iMacs for schools is a plain waste of tax payers' money. Why would you spend $1200 on an iMac that runs even LESS software than a Windows PC?

Because maybe they last longer, and this makes them cheaper in the long run? Do keep in mind that the G3 clamshells I mentioned above were last produced in 2000 ... that's ten (10) years of being beaten on by kids.

And FWIW, the breadth of available software that a machine might be able to run is an incorrect paradigm: the correct question to ask is if it runs the software that you need for the job at hand (here, it is limited to just whatever you need for these classes).

Add in the fact that 90% of these kids will probably be working at companies that have their entire corporate applications based in Windows...

Perhaps you'll see the flaw here if you realize that by the time that they've graduated from school, whatever Windows OS they're using today will have become obsolete and replaced. Thus, if you revise your objective to be that the student learn how to adapt and apply ... then the OS doesn't matter and can thus include Mac OS without any heartburn.

As much as Macs might seem like a good idea for educational purposes, the better choice in terms of pure educational value and actual preparation for the real world is a Windows PC.

Perhaps so, but we can't jump to that conclusion until we have applied the very principles as we teach our children, where we follow the scientific method to test our hypothesis, and prove our case with peer-reviewed data, not mere opinions that lack the supporting quantitative substantiation.


Of course, this is all assuming that we're not talking about universities and colleges.

But why would that make any difference? Afterall, since college students are chronologically much closer to being out working in the real world, how does this sentiment not run contrary to what you suggested earlier as your rationalization for using Windows for grade school kids?


10% worldwide? Really?

Seriously, I didn't think it was approaching that kind of market share outside of the US. I'd be interested to see the data behind that.

I don't think 10% worldwide is correct. The numbers I've seen suggest that the weighted worldwide marketshare is around 5%, and the US Domestic marketshare is around 10%.

Of course, the interesting twist in this is that these numbers happen to combine both personal and business use. Thus, since the conventional wisdom is that figuratively "No" Macs exist in business, then the "Home" sub-segment must be substantially higher than the overall average (otherwise the numbers simply do not work).

For example, if we simplistically assume a 50%-50% distribution* for Home (Personal) versus Business, then if USA/Business segment has figuratively "No Macs" (approx 0% Mac share), then in order for the total to properly add up and average out to 10% overall, the math says that the USA/Home segment has to be roughly 20% Mac. Right now, today.

-hh

* - I have no basis for this notional "50%-50%" distribution. Hopefully, someone can provide a citation to a study that has detailed what this statistical distribution currently is within the USA Marketplace. I trust that it adequately illustrates the point, which is that if business penetration by Mac OS is lower than average, then the non-business adoptions must be higher than the same average.
 
Let's throw a simplified example

Yay... while Microsoft sales went up 10% of bazillions of computers, Apple sales went up 200% of diddly squat. C'mon, percentage charts?

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the government bought 1,000 Windows-based machines last year and 100 Macs. This would approximate the supposed average of Windows to OSX across the board based on most accepted numbers. Now, This year they buy 15% more (1,150) PCs and 200% more (300) Macs. That means that they now have 2,150 PCs and 400 Macs. Right? Doesn't sound like much, does it? So they do it again next year. 15% more PCs would be 1,323 (rounding up); 200% more Macs would be 700 adding up to a total now of 3473 PCs and 1,100 Macs. In a mere two years, the government would have a ratio of 3PCs to 1 Mac, or roughly 30% of their machines would be Macs compared to a mere 10% only two years previously. Were the purchase ratios to remain for just two more years, that would have the government running nearly 50% Macs.

So while you may think the percentage charts mean nothing, it clearly shows that the sales of Macs are increasing and that they could, barring some significant change, match PC sales before the end of this decade. Only two things could stop that kind of growth, and that would be to see the same kind of growth on the PC side or that accelerated growth of Macs slow down to industry average or less. Since Apple has seen these kinds of growth numbers for two years already, I don't see them slowing down all that soon.
 
I've been running Windows PCs for 7 years without any anti Viruses and I still haven't gotten one. It's all about common sense.

Wrong! It's about know-how, and you have it.

Can you really expect the average consumer to stay as malware-free as you right out of the box? If you look at security reports around the world, the answer simply has to be No! Unprotected, a PC stands a fly's chance in a tornado of remaining malware free. The average consumer has no idea of how to protect themselves other than using a commercial antivirus of one sort or another, and with all the rogue anti-virus applications being offered through email and website pop-ups, a number of those consumers will end up infecting themselves thinking they're protecting themselves.

So it's not about 'common sense,' it's about education and experience. The average consumer needs to be protected from himself even more now than ten years ago, and it's only getting worse.
 
Obviously you can't read very well... :rolleyes:

If you could have found current articles, I assume that you would have posted those. But instead, you posted links to two year old articles and insinuated that there are new articles that support the point.

The most generous adjective that I can think of is "lazy".
 
macs ship flash default, flash gets hacked to hell, macs can be hacked. This is just one example and don't give me "it hasn't happened so it can't happen" by that logic I've never died so I can't die.
 
Lazy? Feh, he could be one of the few smart ones who don't go out of their way for the Internet. A very smart way to live your life.

But, since she's posting on a rumours site - clearly not the case of living her life in a "smart way". ;)

Posting stale links, like I said, "lazy" is the most generous adjective.

ps: Congrats on an avatar that, while it may not have pupils, has regions that can clearly be understood to be eyes.
 
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the government bought 1,000 Windows-based machines last year and 100 Macs. This would approximate the supposed average of Windows to OSX across the board based on most accepted numbers. Now, This year they buy 15% more (1,150) PCs and 200% more (300) Macs. That means that they now have 2,150 PCs and 400 Macs. Right? Doesn't sound like much, does it? So they do it again next year. 15% more PCs would be 1,323 (rounding up); 200% more Macs would be 700 adding up to a total now of 3473 PCs and 1,100 Macs. In a mere two years, the government would have a ratio of 3PCs to 1 Mac, or roughly 30% of their machines would be Macs compared to a mere 10% only two years previously. Were the purchase ratios to remain for just two more years, that would have the government running nearly 50% Macs.

So while you may think the percentage charts mean nothing, it clearly shows that the sales of Macs are increasing and that they could, barring some significant change, match PC sales before the end of this decade. Only two things could stop that kind of growth, and that would be to see the same kind of growth on the PC side or that accelerated growth of Macs slow down to industry average or less. Since Apple has seen these kinds of growth numbers for two years already, I don't see them slowing down all that soon.

it's good to see than someone knows about steady growth and the tale of the invention of chess. :)
 
And this is why you are known for being one of the biggest Apple-hating trolls on this forum. The fact you even used Adobe as an example proves it when we all know it's Adobe's lack of support for Mac OS X that is allowing the programs to run like crap compared to their Windows version, not OS X's fault itself. :rolleyes: So much FUD from you people...

Test after test from Windows centric sites like PC magazine, to Cnet, have all said that Macs clearly run Windows better than their equivalent PC competition and the added bonus that you can run Windows and Mac and UNIX programs all on one machine legitimately can't be argued.

These are old finds off the top of my head, but there are newer articles that even support this argument better:

15 Reasons Macs are still better than Windows

50 reasons to switch from Windows to Macs

I only need one reason why Macs are better than PC's with windows - "they just work!"
 
But, since she's posting on a rumours site - clearly not the case of living her life in a "smart way". ;)

There's nothing wrong in partaking in a community. Its just how much time you're willing to spend in that said community.

Posting stale links, like I said, "lazy" is the most generous adjective.

Wait, I tried "Windows 7 vs Snow Leopard" and most of the articles were a stack of stale pancakes garnished with Ian Thorpe Mousse. At least the articles she provided were of good quality and still reasonably correct depending on your point of view.

ps: Congrats on an avatar that, while it may not have pupils, has regions that can clearly be understood to be eyes.

I tried it with pupils, didn't really work. I'm just wondering if its too abstract that people can't tell what it is.
 
There's nothing wrong in partaking in a community. Its just how much time you're willing to spend in that said community.

If I were going to take the time to make a post, I would take the time to do some research to reduce the chances of making some silly error in the post.


I'm just wondering if its too abstract that people can't tell what it is.

My answer would be "yes, too abstract". I certainly can't relate it to anything. But, I don't game, or follow animé, so I may just be naïve.
 
It's pretty easy to double Mac sales when you sold 1000 last year and sold 2000 this year. :) Compare that to PCs (all vendors) where millions (if not billions) exist.

I'm not hating...I'm just saying...

But it is nice to see Macs hopefully becoming more commonplace.

-Eric

An increase by 200% doesn't mean 'doubled' sales, but Tripled. That 2,000 sold you so proudly present is more like 3.7 MILLION sold. Believe me, those numbers add up quickly at that rate.
 
Yay... while Microsoft sales went up 10% of bazillions of computers, Apple sales went up 200% of diddly squat. C'mon, percentage charts?

Are you a fanboy? You compare percentage, not overall numbers for sales growth!
Besides, Macs are 10% of all computers in the US, so if they went up 200% it means they still sold more computers total.
 
10% worldwide? Really?

Seriously, I didn't think it was approaching that kind of market share outside of the US. I'd be interested to see the data behind that.

Maybe you should look at that second chart in the article--the one that shows Macs rising from a mere 2% in '04 to over 7% in '10 World-Wide. The US numbers are nearly double that now.
 
Wow, you must have your head so far up your backside that you don't even realize how far off you are. In case you missed the memo, most modern Apple computers can run all Mac software, most all Windows software (via the included bootcamp, usually at faster speeds than most competing PC hardware according to various PC publications; Google it you'll see) and most UNIX software... so no, the actual "better choice in terms of pure educational value" is clearly a Mac.

LOL. So you're going to buy Macs so you can boot camp Windows on it? I'm glad you're not making the decisions. If Macs were cheap, you'd have a point. But they aren't. No school is dumb enough to spend $1200 on a Mac when they would be running Windows the majority of the time. And please lay off the insults, they just make you look even more desperate.

You do realize the Macs come with powerful developer tools for free as well, not just to "make iPhone apps" but to learn programming from C, to Python, to Ruby, etc. To do that on a Windows based PC you have to download (and usually pay) for various IDEs, etc.

Other than HTML, I have never seen an elementary or high school teach full-on computer programming. In case you missed it, I WAS NOT REFERRING TO UNIVERSITIES OR COLLEGES.

Man you are so clueless, people like you are really beginning to piss me off in this forum. To your point that "Having a single company control both the software and hardware distribution of something critical to a business is never good" again, wrong. Look at the business world and their lack of security and productivity due to the fragmentation of the Windows PC market; I've worked for plenty of companies, both small start ups as well as Fortune 500, and in every single case, when the company or their departments switched to Macs, it practically put the IT staff out of a job because the Macs ran so smoothly. One large company I worked for had about 60% Macs and 40% Windows PC for 300 users and an IT staff of 4. On a daily basis they would have 20 to 60 Windows computers that needed major troubleshooting and the only time they had to work with the Macs is when a new employee was starting and they set up their user account.

Aww, people like me piss you off? How cute. Anecdotes are anecdotes. I've worked for the government of Canada and a very large consulting company as a business analyst. I can tell you not a single computer in the Canadian government runs on a Mac and transitioning would break tons of corporate application developed for the government.
 
But why would that make any difference? Afterall, since college students are chronologically much closer to being out working in the real world, how does this sentiment not run contrary to what you suggested earlier as your rationalization for using Windows for grade school kids?

Because colleges and universities have much more specialized areas of concentration (where it IS beneficial to be familiarized with Mac OS) than general studies in elementary or high school. It definitely does make sense for colleges and universities to purchase Macs. Most already do. Not to mention that universities and colleges have MUCH more money to spend than public schools.
 
Wouldn't that be Outlook?



Yup, the reason there is no viruses on OS X is because of market share. yup.

This is going to be a hard rumor to kill. Mac's are immune to viruses because UNIX doesn't work in a way that would allow viruses to function. Programs under UNIX cannot multiply and open themselves. First of all, it asks for sudo access if it's trying to do certain things. Secondly, you can't get a virus over eMail unless you open it (and give it sudo permissions).

Macs, however, can get trojans (if given sudo access) and spyware (if given sudo access). The only reason there is only 1 trojan (on pirated iWork) and 1 spyware (on 7art Screensavers) is because of market share. Viruses WILL NOT occur on Macs even if they have 100% dominance.
 
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