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Mac just works?
- Thread starter icecone
- Start date
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Is it still true?
With plenty of bugs, freezing, blue screen of deaths, does it worth such high price buying a Mac?
Generally Mac usage is problem free. There are times when they muck things up a bit but generally using a Mac is a joyful experience.
Remember that for every 100 people blasting something because it has bugs, you'll only ever get 1 person praising the good parts! Especially on a forum!
On the flip side generally using Windows is problem free too. Sometimes there are problems too.
Yep. Still true.
I used Macs for years, switched to building PC's for gaming and to use at work. I recently switched back to Macs and that was an illuminating experience. It just works. It doesn't crash, no ongoing freezes, no problems at all. I installed Leopard by just popping the disk in the drive and installing via defaults (no archive-install). I've had no problems. I then installed Windows XP via Boot Camp, and that went smoothly too. Now I can see directly in A-B comparison how much better OSX is than Windows. And it is. Still. A lot.
I used Macs for years, switched to building PC's for gaming and to use at work. I recently switched back to Macs and that was an illuminating experience. It just works. It doesn't crash, no ongoing freezes, no problems at all. I installed Leopard by just popping the disk in the drive and installing via defaults (no archive-install). I've had no problems. I then installed Windows XP via Boot Camp, and that went smoothly too. Now I can see directly in A-B comparison how much better OSX is than Windows. And it is. Still. A lot.
These forums are full of people discussing bugs, freezing etc. Well, you have to expect that, people aren't going to hang around these boards saying "yeah, still no problems here." "I've been using this app, and there are no bugs in it" etc.
My own experience (having used computers for 25 years odd, and working at the sharp end of IT) is that I bought a mac as a bit of a test 3 years back. I've had issues with it, yes. Mostly pretty minor ones, and nothing really bad. In comparison to the years I've had PCs though, the problems have been seriously trivial. I reckon the amount of time 'messing about' with the computer (updating it, fixing it, reinstalling it when it gets slow etc) has been cut by perhaps 80%. I've since moved totally over to mac, and moved all of my family to mac too, with no complaints.
I bought one of the new 24" imacs in august, one of the ones you'd believe constantly freeze and have major screen issues after reading these forums - it's been rock solid, crashing only once in over 3 months of very heavy usage, and the screen is great.
So.. it doesn't ALWAYS just work, but most of the time it does, and (unless you're unlucky and get a bad one) you should have less problems than with a pc. The other thing I'd say is that macs constantly surprise you in a good way, as you find all kinds of nifty little features and ways of doing things that make life easier!
My own experience (having used computers for 25 years odd, and working at the sharp end of IT) is that I bought a mac as a bit of a test 3 years back. I've had issues with it, yes. Mostly pretty minor ones, and nothing really bad. In comparison to the years I've had PCs though, the problems have been seriously trivial. I reckon the amount of time 'messing about' with the computer (updating it, fixing it, reinstalling it when it gets slow etc) has been cut by perhaps 80%. I've since moved totally over to mac, and moved all of my family to mac too, with no complaints.
I bought one of the new 24" imacs in august, one of the ones you'd believe constantly freeze and have major screen issues after reading these forums - it's been rock solid, crashing only once in over 3 months of very heavy usage, and the screen is great.
So.. it doesn't ALWAYS just work, but most of the time it does, and (unless you're unlucky and get a bad one) you should have less problems than with a pc. The other thing I'd say is that macs constantly surprise you in a good way, as you find all kinds of nifty little features and ways of doing things that make life easier!
I have an entire department full of Macs ranging from Power Mac G4s to Intel Mac minis.
I'm slowly rolling out Leopard with maybe 5-10 minutes of troubleshooting per machine.
I'm slowly rolling out Leopard with maybe 5-10 minutes of troubleshooting per machine.
Isn't linux pretty high maintainance? Everything I know about it says you have to at least consider yourself a power user to justify running linux. How right or wrong is this statement?
EDIT: What I mean is, isn't using a working linux more high maintainance than using say a working xp? Like could a 45 year old who isn't all that computer literate just swith from xp or mac to linux and never miss a beat?
Perhaps recent linux releases such as gutsy gibbon are better and easier than you might think
I'll never understand why people say windows sucks. Just because you had a bad experience with it does not mean it sucks. It just means you had a bad experience.
Absolutely. Ive been using windows XP since I can remember and have had no bad experiences, yes there have been times when its gone slow or clunky but then doesn't every computer do that?
I think Apple have done quite a good job of demonizing Windows in recent years, and hey, why shouldn't they? They're competition after all. I do however object to the 'Windoze is sh*te etc etc' line sang by many around here, yes there are bad cases, but then again there are bad cases with OS X.
Different strokes for different folks
OK, lecture over
Windows does not suck because of one bad experience.
Windows sucks because of a horrible bloated, outdated design framework. The bad experiences are just a symptom of that problem. All you have to do to understand why windows sucks is read the recommendation by MicroSoft that you do a fresh reinstall of their operating system (and all applications) every 6 months in order to keep it running smoothly.
Not quite, but once you've put the effort into configuring it that's pretty much true going forward.
Apple changed a bunch of stuff underneath the GUI.
That always causes major problems.
Likely we are seeing a bunch more problems in more areas, because the changes touched everything this time.
Some of the other OS updates keep most of the trauma confined to small areas, where the more radical changes happened.
Though losing some printers, scanners, SCSI cards, etc. always seems to happen anyways.
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But there are work a rounds for most problems upgrading on the Apple Support site.
That always causes major problems.
Likely we are seeing a bunch more problems in more areas, because the changes touched everything this time.
Some of the other OS updates keep most of the trauma confined to small areas, where the more radical changes happened.
Though losing some printers, scanners, SCSI cards, etc. always seems to happen anyways.
---
But there are work a rounds for most problems upgrading on the Apple Support site.
Is it still true?
With plenty of bugs, freezing, blue screen of deaths, does it worth such high price buying a Mac?
You are confused. There has never been a "blue screen of death" on any Macintosh running MacOS X. The Macintosh displays a blue screen while it is booting. Probably because it is a nice colour, and to make Windows users feel at home
You are confused. There has never been a "blue screen of death" on any Macintosh running MacOS X. The Macintosh displays a blue screen while it is booting. Probably because it is a nice colour, and to make Windows users feel at home
Isn't that color called psych ward blue, in order to keep the patients calm.
Yes, the OS seems to work fine, but the hardware is another issue...
Apple care is your friend. I recommend everyone to get it.
Apple care is your friend. I recommend everyone to get it.
Stop listening to others who have no idea what they are talking about and use it yourself. Most of the popular Linux distros (Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, etc.) are as easy to use as Mac OS X. (Actually, they may be easier with their automated software installation package managers.) It's the old world Linux distros, like Slackware and Gentoo, that require much more technical knowledge, but what you get out of that is a completely custom built kernel that only includes exactly what you need.
As do I. My two year old 17" iMac G5 suddenly developed some dead pixels and Apple said it would take them four weeks to get the replacement part.
So they gave me an 20" Alu iMac as a replacement
How about this for "just works": Last week, I typed up a paper in my debate class on my MacBook, and I had to print it. I just plugged the teacher's printer in, cilcked print on my MacBook, and it printed, simple as that. No prior installations or anything.
So your teacher has an HP then. Virtually all the HP printers do that these days, but for some reason Microsoft don't use it in their OS. Apple do.How about this for "just works": Last week, I typed up a paper in my debate class on my MacBook, and I had to print it. I just plugged the teacher's printer in, cilcked print on my MacBook, and it printed, simple as that. No prior installations or anything.
