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"Macs are for work, not for play"

K

krunk

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 29, 2004
236
0
I hear this a lot. It's like a mantra when topics concerning dated hardware comes up. I find this so incredibly confusing because I find computers fun. It's why I chose a career in computers and why, often times, work seems like play for me.

This statement clearly implies that PC's are for fun and Macs are work. If one wishes to have fun with computers, they should by a PC.

I'm curious, for those that support the Macs are for work view. . . why can't macs be for fun too?
 
I use to be a heavy PC Gamer and use to edit videos on a PC. Once Final Cut was introduced, I had to go over to Mac. I was the one that made fun of my cousins and stuff for using Macs and saying that they were crap. Now they are the most dominant pieces of equipment, speed wise. I took back everything I said about Macs. I use the Mac for a ton of work now and really miss my PC Gaming. Haven't played a Game on one in so long. Can't wait for Leopard and a new MacPro so I can get into the Windows side again and play classics like C&C, SWAT, UT, etc... For the type of gaming I'll be doing, the MacPro and graphic options will work just fine for me. :)
 
Macs really don't have a great selection of games, and really aren't meant for gaming.

When I switched back to Apple, I needed it for editing videos and getting stuff done. Windows didn't allow that, it wants you to baby it and take care of it every second. I got sick of maintaining it like a new born baby.

I can't even remember the last time I ran maintenance on my Mac Pro. It still runs smoking fast every day.
 
Depends what you consider work and what you consider play.

I couldn't work on a Mac since Excel on the Mac doesn't have all the features that the PC version does, particularly when it comes to pivot tables. Nor does it have access to some of the business information tools that I need.

On the other hand, I consider 'play' to be messing around with photos, movies and music rather than gaming.

Horse for courses...
 
I personally find it funny that people say "macs are for work and pcs for play. Because well have you seen Apple commercials..i could swear they say/imply PC's are for work and macs are for play. and that macs are ready for use, whatever use u can throw at them. Also because I always play games on my mac, mainly WoW and C and C Generals. Macs are for anything, and more games being sold for macs will only put more pressure on apple to release better spec'd machines, mainly in the GPU area.

o..and getting a PC for games, When i use any microsoft OS, i get mad. it just bugs the living heck out of me. pretty hard environment to play games in I think.
 
One thing's for sure: It's definitely a lot more WORK keeping a PC up and running and protected from viruses.

Whenever I've had a choice, though, I've always used Macs for work. I just find it easier to be productive if you're not always worrying about the underlying OS.
 
wordmunger said:
One thing's for sure: It's definitely a lot more WORK keeping a PC up and running and protected from viruses.

Whenever I've had a choice, though, I've always used Macs for work. I just find it easier to be productive if you're not always worrying about the underlying OS.
Click to expand...

How much work is it to install an antivirus and call it a day?

At my place of work, we run Mcafee which i dont really like but some computers here are like 6+ year old PIII boxes with the original Win2k that shipped with it and the only thing added for malware is Mcafee. I'm sure the non technically oriented sales and office admin users are not going out of their way to maintain anything. The sys admin team (I'm in that) dont go out of our way to do anything on them either. We just monitor the logs on the main antivirus server.

Anyway this whole "maintain windows" crap is so tiring. Really. Just install AV and forget about it.
 
Personally I feel all computers are for work. I don't believe in computer gaming, that's what consoles are for. Last thing I wanna do after working on a computer for days is sit back down at one to play a game,
 
Anyway this whole "maintain windows" crap is so tiring. Really. Just install AV and forget about it.
Click to expand...

In order to facilitate such an environment, the pc has to be locked down. Don't run as admin, don't let users install software, so on and so forth.

While this works in corporate, at home it doesn't work so well. My parents kept getting viruses/trojans despite McAfee due to their naiveté as users.

Oooo a eCard for my birthday! Trying to explain the dangers just made them uber paranoid of email, web sites, everything on the computer. They found it very stressful.

My next stage was to, of course, create user accounts and not give them the admin password. I installed all software on request and figured this would take care of it.

There was a bug with the virusscan at the time so it didn't fully work as non-admin. Specifically with email, the one thing my mother had the most problems with.

Also, my dad's games would not run as a normal user....popular microsoft made games. Yes, I set run as admin and so on.

There were other issues that popped up. Like dropping internet connections and not picking them back up on its own, there was a corrupted registry once. Other things. When I lived nearby it wasn't so bad, 5-10m to troubleshoot and get them back up and running. But when I moved away, it felt like a never ending stream of support calls that were incredibly difficult to walk them through the fixes for.

So I got them a mac. Being new to computers in general they fought me, but I did it anyway. Told them I'd never answer a support call again if they didn't do it. After the first couple of weeks of questions like "how do I get to my email? How do I access the web?...ohhh safari, that's like IE", I have only received a single phone call in 2 years. It went something like:


"Thank you sooo much for making us switch to a mac. I can't believe how easy it is to use and since I haven't been stressed over just touching the thing I've taken the time to learn the iApps, MySpace, blah blah blah"

My father picked up web development, flash, html, and adobe apps.

Sure they could have done this on windows, but using windows was like taxes to them: a necessary evil. While osx is not like using anything. It's just there. It does what it does. So they actually took the time to learn some of the things that make computers interesting.
 
I use my mac for work and for play!

"You have a Mac Pro, thats a workstation, it can't do anything else"

Bull!

Yeah, I have a Mac Pro. I use it for my business. It's also our "home" computer. (my business is out of my house) We both have Mac Laptops, but the MP is the base.

It has an extra harddrive to host all of my music and videos, an extensive iTunes library, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstien, etc. I have 3 logins. One for work, one for me, one for her.

And guess what? All she does is play on her login, and all I do is play on mine. When it comes to work, this thing is a powerhouse, but it does everything, and it does everything well. So I poop on those that say the Mac Pro can only handle work stuff!
 
FF_productions said:
All experiences vary, and mine sucked. I used windows for a few years. I wasn't always an Apple fan boy.
Click to expand...

I went from windows->linux->freebsd->osx

My personal experiences were:

windows: constant fiddling and fixing and maintaining. Very easy to blow up.

linux: lot of time to set up, but once going stable as a rock. zero maintenance

fbsd: dirt simple to set up and get going, sometimes configuration needed. (this could be slanted though since I had a solid nix background). rock solid

osx: no setup. rock solid. good commercial application support (what nix and fbsd were missing)
 
Our company is very liberal and we give all a lot of flexability so we dont lock the machines down. Every domain user is at least added as a local admin on their box. The only security is our spam filter at the gateway level, the firewall itself and the antivirus installed on the desktops and servers. There is no special maintaining that needs to be done. I've been there for 4 years now and I kid you not when I say that I have not seen a virus on any machine here.

Dont get me wrong...they have been encountered, but the antivirus blocked them so the system is still clean.

My father is on his 3rd year with is XP. He knows absolutely nothing about computers and he's got nothing but SP2 on his XP and AVG. He calls me from time to time to tell me that his AVG has blocked this or that. I go to his place once a week and do backups of his data for him and what not. Once a month I do a system scan for viruses. So far its always come up clean.

99.9% of viruses PC users get are due to P2P installs before they get an antivirus software installed OR they download a hacked version of one from a P2P and install that (how dumb can anyone get right).....



krunk said:
In order to facilitate such an environment, the pc has to be locked down. Don't run as admin, don't let users install software, so on and so forth.

While this works in corporate, at home it doesn't work so well. My parents kept getting viruses/trojans despite McAfee due to their naiveté as users.

Oooo a eCard for my birthday! Trying to explain the dangers just made them uber paranoid of email, web sites, everything on the computer. They found it very stressful.

My next stage was to, of course, create user accounts and not give them the admin password. I installed all software on request and figured this would take care of it.

There was a bug with the virusscan at the time so it didn't fully work as non-admin. Specifically with email, the one thing my mother had the most problems with.

Also, my dad's games would not run as a normal user....popular microsoft made games. Yes, I set run as admin and so on.

There were other issues that popped up. Like dropping internet connections and not picking them back up on its own, there was a corrupted registry once. Other things. When I lived nearby it wasn't so bad, 5-10m to troubleshoot and get them back up and running. But when I moved away, it felt like a never ending stream of support calls that were incredibly difficult to walk them through the fixes for.

So I got them a mac. Being new to computers in general they fought me, but I did it anyway. Told them I'd never answer a support call again if they didn't do it. After the first couple of weeks of questions like "how do I get to my email? How do I access the web?...ohhh safari, that's like IE", I have only received a single phone call in 2 years. It went something like:


"Thank you sooo much for making us switch to a mac. I can't believe how easy it is to use and since I haven't been stressed over just touching the thing I've taken the time to learn the iApps, MySpace, blah blah blah"

My father picked up web development, flash, html, and adobe apps.

Sure they could have done this on windows, but using windows was like taxes to them: a necessary evil. While osx is not like using anything. It's just there. It does what it does. So they actually took the time to learn some of the things that make computers interesting.
Click to expand...
 
I use Windows at work, for work. Then I come home and play games on my Mac. I haven't owned a Windows PC since 2003. To each his own :)
 
My housemate walked in on me playing WoW one day. He went like "Hey, you use a Mac! I heard Mac's can't play gam...." Stopped mid-sentence :p
 
I've heard it the other way, "PC's are for work, Macs are for play." I think this comes from the "spreadsheet mentality" that word processing, checkbook stuff, quickbooks, spreadsheets, and the like are what most people consider "work." The Mac, though, is capable of doing all of these things. Not many people consider the audio, video, graphics, photo world real "work." Most people that I've talked to consider it play, or not serious work. I even had a conversation with a teacher about it and she said, "I need a workhorse, not a toy." She of course owned a PC and didn't know the capabilities of the Mac. I use my Mac, however, for both real work and play work.
 
My mom called me the other day about her virus protection on her PC. She pays some company online to manage it. I didn't even know what she was talking about. I just said, "Mom I'm sorry, but I don't deal with this, so I don't know how to help you." She was puzzled. "Don't you do anti-virus?" "No mom, I have Macs." "Well you still have to have anti-virus software." "No, I don't". She said, "I don't believe that." "Sorry, but it's true." I still think she doesn't believe me. :)
 
I'm a graphic designer... and let me assure you, that's work. The work Mac gets used for nothing else, apart from occasionally running iTunes from a server-based library. It's not even hooked up to the web... all my work-based email is run from a separate Windows box.

The home Mac (MBP) is used mostly for work, emails, hanging around here, some audio stuff and web stuff. No games.
 
FF_productions said:
Macs really don't have a great selection of games, and really aren't meant for gaming.
Click to expand...

That is exactly what those within microsoft felt about directx, back in the early 90's.

Gaming has become a big market. Apple will want a slice of that pie. They'll -need- a slice of it, if they want to compete for the all-in-one media entertainment market.
 
Blue Velvet said:
I'm a graphic designer... and let me assure you, that's work. The work Mac gets used for nothing else, apart from occasionally running iTunes from a server-based library. It's not even hooked up to the web... all my work-based email is run from a separate Windows box.

The home Mac (MBP) is used mostly for work, emails, hanging around here, some audio stuff and web stuff. No games.
Click to expand...

but, they are fully capableof playing games. as long as ur not stupid about what games the GPU can/can't handle.

the OP asked "why can't macs be for fun too?" which i am curious what you answer. you said "no games" but why not? they CAN play games.
 
Spikeanator6982 said:
but, they are fully capableof playing games. as long as ur not stupid about what games the GPU can/can't handle.

the OP asked "why can't macs be for fun too?" which i am curious what you answer. you said "no games" but why not? they CAN play games.
Click to expand...

Video games are still "low-brow" culture, and thus low status pastimes. "I don't play games" has a similar ring to "I don't watch tv". See also: certain music genres, movies, etc. We choose how to present ourselves even when we choose our hobbies.

So, it isn't really a matter of whether or not someone has the hardware to manage it.

(/shop talk off)
 
My Mac is for whatever I damn sure tootin' want to do with it. An no lilly livered, slack jawed, slick haired, nose flyin' high-falootin' yeller bellied, pipe smokin' high browed know it all is gonna tell me any different.
:)

I play games, I work, I surf, I learn, I entertain.
All on the MacPro.
It's more computer than you think.
Only from Apple.
 
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