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Mac Marketshare at Universities Booming?

And here's where Apple is rubbing their hands: These are the future managers, scientists, artists.... in other words Decision-makers.

Grab 'em while they're young, and hold on tight.

Well done, Apple.
 
At Auckland Uni in New Zealand I'm seeing quite an increase in Macs around the Engineering School where I'm studing BE. Last year there was hardly any Macs (the occasional MacBook in the cafeteria every few days..) but this year there is suddenly a sharp increase.. now there are usually at least 2 Macs out of the 10~15 laptops in the study area, and maybe another few in the cafeteria.. Moreover many of my friends (who are tradtionally anti-Apple, anti-Mac, and/or anti-iPod, usually for no good reason) now sport/want MacBook/Pros and have/want iPods or actually know about the new iPods that just came out. Frankly I'm quite surprised...

Perhaps the most surprising thing is I see the odd iBook or PowerBook once every few days.. suggesting that a few people are bringing their Macs to uni to use now that Macs are more popular... :rolleyes: I certainly have less to think about when pulling my MacBook out nowadays (I used to be afraid of those "look it's a mac.. what a retard" looks), especially when I boot up VMware and start running Kubuntu and Windows in the labs, then switch to OS X with a keystroke. Unity still gathers the most amazement tho :D

It's a great time to be a Mac user :cool:

I also really hope Apple gets its act together soon too. They're becoming more and more... arrogant (if you will).. regardless of how much they have the right to be (points at iPhone 1.1.1)...
 
My current university is still very PC-dominant. I got my first BA at Harding, though, and my department (English) was all Mac. I didn't switch because of that, but it was a nice additional perk. ASU is still primarily PC; I don't think I've seen a single other MacBook around campus. It's a shame; we're only 1.5 hours from the Apple store. . . ^_~
 
I can attest to this...

During my first year of university... 2005/2006 I was often the only mac in the entire library...

2006/2007 ... i'd guestimate the mac population at around 40%... over just one summer... it was amazing...

I'm on placement this year... but when I go back I expect and hope 60%.
 
i study music at university and I hate the number of students who are buying macs because they look cool
Although, they DO look cool, and ARE cool
It just frustrates me - maybe I am a dog in a manger
 
9489b70ab55692ffcac3ec776aa50a1f_img_6672s.jpg


From http://gracefulflavor.net/2007/10/0...aught-on-with-college-students-just-a-little/

That is one impressive picture...
 
GoodWatch said:
Imagine what will happen if 92% of the world’s personal computer population consists of Apple machines. Will a similar problem as in the Windows world emerge? Will Apple fall victim to the same lame practices? In other words; is this a blessing or potential curse? :confused:
Click to expand...
I don't think Apple have the manufacturing capability for this to ever happen, even if they could somehow convince the majority of the public that paying a little extra for a quality computer and OS was worth it.

This trend is incredible for me as when I was at university in the early 90s the reverse was happening. The Mac labs were empty and people queued for the Windows 3.1 machines, and every year less and less students and lecturers had Macs on their desks. Great to see the pendulum finally swinging back :)
 
Only 1 person at my old university didn't have a Mac, and everyone at the place I just graduated from had a Mac laptop.

Maybe it's a Manchester thing? :D
 
jhande said:
And here's where Apple is rubbing their hands: These are the future managers, scientists, artists.... in other words Decision-makers.

Grab 'em while they're young, and hold on tight.

Well done, Apple.
Click to expand...

That's quite profound in an odd little way.

Thinking about my circle of friends; the creative ones either have or want (through not being to afford one) a Mac. The ones with dead end call centre or jobless jobs use PC's.

Crazy how it's just an OS and good hardware (in my experience) that causes this rift. They're both doing pretty much what the other does, just one of them does it without fuss :cool:
 
I think just about anyone who's gone to college lately could tell you that..:rolleyes:

Hell, even community college has an infestation of Macintosh. But then there's people like my friend who HATES the mac, she only has an iPod and an iPhone:p
 
Meanwhile, my kids crappy school district just sold their souls to the devil (Dell). Once upon a time they were all Mac. I'm so upset with the local school board. They actually told the teachers that they switched because the Macs were too difficult to network and had a lot of trouble with the internet. Can you believe that load of crap.
 
This picture makes me happy. It honestly doesn't surprise me, especially with the great promotion Apple ran for back-to-school.
 

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Taylor C said:
This picture makes me happy. It honestly doesn't surprise me, especially with the great promotion Apple ran for back-to-school.
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I really hope that the picture wasn't taken in the middle of a lecture. If I was teaching that day, I'd tell everyone to put the computers away and pay attention.


Like the other posters in this thread, I agree that the percentages have been jumping. When I started my undergrad degree, there were 3 of us in the whole dormitory system that used Macs; now I'm well into grad school and it seems like half the campus uses Macbooks. Sometimes I wish I had a badge that said "I've been hooked since the LC II"
 
Detektiv-Pinky said:
The only thing that bugs me about OSX really is the diversion in the (German)keyboard-layout from the 'standard' PC-layout,
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I also hate the way the Windows keyboard layout deviates from the (standard) Mac one. :D

as well as key-bindings in Finder (such as Enter for rename). And please do not tell me will get used to it. I won't - I have to use OSX and Windows systems simultaneously.
Click to expand...
Yes, why is Windows not using the cmd/Apple/Windows key as the main key for shortcuts? :D
 
I really don't think this has much to do with the superiority of Apple. It's about fashion pure and simple. Macs are cool. PCs are a bit geeky. Plus Macs are more expensive so they also have the premium 'cachet'.

I notice this survey is of the top colleges where students tend to be a little more affluent. I wonder what those on lower incomes are using?
 
raggedjimmi said:
Only 1 person at my old university didn't have a Mac, and everyone at the place I just graduated from had a Mac laptop.

Maybe it's a Manchester thing? :D
Click to expand...

I'm at Manchester and have converted about 15 people so far. Awareness has been the biggest factor. When I started uni 3 years ago, most people had heard of a Mac but knew nothing about it. Buying a computer meant buying Windows. Now, they at least know that there are other options out there. Which is a huge shift in mindshare.
 
I can definitely see this happening at my school -University of Oklahoma! I was shocked to see the number of macs around campus. Even half of my professors have them.

GO SOONERS!!
 
Wow, glad to see that change at Pton. I was one of those 10% of students using a mac in 03-04. I converted a lot of my friends to mac users, but we were all still very much a minority at the time.

I worked for a couple years in the OIT helpdesk there, which is what convinced me to buy a mac. We never got calls from mac users for much more than setting up email. My Dell inspiron kept having just random stupid problems, mostly because of Windows, so I switched, and I'll never go back!
 
Detektiv-Pinky said:
On top of this you have a GUI that let you go on with your other tasks and support from a wide range of professional software (something you simply do not have in Linux).
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Linux has wide selection of professional software. It might be software that you do not use, but they are there. Hell, the software you recommended, Eclipse, runs on Linux!
 
manu chao said:
I also hate the way the Windows keyboard layout deviates from the (standard) Mac one. :D


Yes, why is Windows not using the cmd/Apple/Windows key as the main key for shortcuts? :D
Click to expand...

OK, that is what really annoys me about some people in the Mac community. The failure to see the issue:

The Standard-PC Keyboard is not something Microsoft invented. It is an Industry-Standard and a lot of operating systems support it (Solaris, Linux, Windows...). I have learned to touch-type a long time ago and expect keys to be on certain places on the keyboard. Can you imagine how often I have cursed the Mac when writing a Webmail I have accidentally closed Safari by hitting right-:apple:-q while trying to enter an @?
Same with curly (and other brackets). They are all over the place in the German-Keyboard layout. Tell you what, I have managed to remap the Keyboard so that the right :apple:-key now functions as ALT-GR. It was quite a difficult process, but something I feel absolutely necessary. (link)

Maybe the real reason Apple is taking of in the educational domain is that those things may not matter so much for young people using their first computer. However, it matters for people like me, who have worked up quite a legacy and have developed certain ways to work.

And please remember, it is all Software and Apple is not even consistent in their own applications. Hitting 'Return' in iTunes does not rename the title, but rather plays it. Apple could easily make it possible to flexibly map the key-bindings to whatever you feel lucky with (maybe a Switcher-Mode?).
 
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