Mehmet said:
Here's my 2 cents on this windows running nicely vs os x and what not.
I need my computer to do work, that's it. I dont want to get rid of viruses, i dont want to get rid of spyware, i dont want to go into the registry to change things that should be in the UI. I dont want a lot of things to happen on a computer while I am trying to work. That's all I want (Or don't want 😀)
Well, the mac gives that to me, and a nice UI +unix to boot. That's all that matters to me right now, and as others have said, consoles are becoming more and more powerful and capable (online access, chat etc. etc.), so, I could just game on a 50 dollar GC (not that i game anymore..).
Lots of things on windows have to be tricked to work well, and usually dont work very well. Some things you have to do backwards, even in xp or 2k. Its like grabbing your left ear with your right hand over your head.. Sure, there are lots of programs for windows, but do they work well, and are not a pain to stare at?
Well, having set up a pretty much untweaked XP box just about a month ago that I'm already using for audio and video work (only extra thing I've needed to install outside of programs are some codecs), Windows can certainly work without any registry tweaks or fiddling with the system. The virus thing and the registry tweaking thing is a lot of FUD and I think a lot of apple fans know it. If you're serious about work, you likely don't have a crappy email client installed on the machine and you're not downloading questionable .zip files. I plug in my camcorder and it shows up as a video device that I can immediately control. I plug in a digital camera and it shows up as a harddrive/camera device. I have an M-Audio Audiophile soundcard and with zero tweaking I get a steady 6ms latency. The mainboard came with USB 2, network, and some other stuff, and I added a firewire card so I have 2 ports in back and 1 in front.
But the reason I'm picking up a mac is because although windows does have a lot of software, a lot of it is redundant and handholding, and the stuff that IS nice is impossible to find or try. For example, there's no program available on Windows that even approaches what U & I software are doing (the makers of metasynth, artmatic, and more). There's nothing that does what Numerology does. Final Cut, DVD Studio, same thing. There's TONS of video editing software available for windows but, frankly, it's all awful. Same with audio stuff.
There's a better community of people who are using their computer for rather specific things, which is fantastic, because those people are the ones that are going to try to help others, and if they have programming skills are even likely to delve in and make a program that does something unique. Do you really need 50 different FTP programs when everyone uses the same 2 main ones?
There's a pretty clear disconnect between the types of software and how they work between the two systems. Software on the mac seems to focus (at least recently) on the interface and making it work. Windows tends to focus on being feature rich, which doesn't help out people who are just getting into things. I think that's why things like iPhoto and iDVD are getting such praise -- they hold your hand without handing you crippled, crappy products.
Anyway, it's also impossible to get exactly what you get on the powermac line on the X86 line without shelling out a mint or shelling out a half-mint and putting it together yourself. And as anyone who has put together a computer on their own can tell you, you have to have a lot of experience doing it in order to not get crappy, cheap parts that give you unending driver conflicts.
