The Macintosh is a "toy"?

[djellison]

Do we really have to play the who-copied-who game? There has been a borrowing of ideas in BOTH directions for a LONG time.

Doesn't change the key point that the chap I was replying to was WRONG>

 

[Rampant.A.I.]

I have used Macs pretty much all my life, and had my first Apple laptop when I was about 16 or so.

I have always caught flak for using a Macintosh. It's usually from people who grew up with PC's, and may have used a Mac once or twice for 15 or 20 minutes before getting frustrated because it was different, and deciding it "sucks" anyway.

I had a pretty wild experience with one of them recently. A guy I vaguely know went on a tirade about how Apple is "facist," their OS is "deeply flawed," and that they make money by deliberately misinforming consumers and running vicious smear-campaigns against PC users.

...Which I found really funny, because that's been my impression of Microsoft for years.


The most hilarious part of all is that now, suddenly, people who happen to like using a Mac are "Trendy poseurs," "Hipster scum," or "Fanboys." Before the iPod ruled the market for MP3 players, we were "Backwards," "Behind the times," and "Using a Fischer-Price My First PC."

It looks like the "toy" comments are coming back. 🙄

Why should I have to? Now my laptop bag has to have the laptop, the DVI-Adaptor, the VGA adaptor, the power supply AND a 2-inch USB extension lead?

Why not chuck just one more USB port on the other side. Samsung can do it with a £280 netbook.

And something other than a crappy unreliable mini display port.

Plug a powered USB adaptor in! I Do you really carry more than 3 USB devices with you when you take your MBP somewhere? What would you rather have, a SCSI connector to plug your monitor into? The majority of users are never going to plug in an external monitor.

However, most users will want a thinner, more compact laptop packed with hardware features. There's a lot more going on in D&D than "Oh, that many ports looks ugly. And leave the big one out, it's yucky."

 

[MTI]

PC gamers are the "Fast & Furious" segment of computing. I haven't noticed that the world's roadways are filled with nitrous and turbo'd drift cars . . . 😀

 

[dmmcintyre3]

This is wrong. Any sane Windows user would put shortcuts on the quick-launch bar NEXT to the start button that would act in the same way as the Dock for launching apps.

Another person spreading outright lies about Windows.

Which is what I do on windows. Is there a post your taskbar thread?

 

[chill.]

it's actually pretty true that the mac is a toy moreso than a pc

the vast majority of macs are used by personal consumers, not for a work setting. the only exceptions i would say are artists/film/musicians etc. entertainment industries where macs are standard. schools are also pretty famous for associating with apple computers

for work in offices, pc's trump macs hands down in terms of security in an enterprise setting. servers are usually linux or windows and not mac.

so if you had to pick one, pc or mac, to associate with the word toy, mac is really the clear winner.

just telling it like it is

 

[DeepIn2U]

Apple's support policies and product lifecycle management are what makes the Mac a toy. Apple only sells toys, or trinkets, designed to sell today, and be obsoleted prematurely when the new fashion line is ready for sale.

Computer companies sell systems, designed and sold with the intention that they will be useful and supported for the period of time it takes MOST of the customers to retire the product for something newer.

Really? This is why my TiBook using a cpu that is now 3 generations old (by type, older by iterations of the G4) can STILL run an OS that has been updated twice over giving me VERY powerful features that where not there when first released?

Correct me if I'm wrong but the TiBook 667Mhz originally shipped with OS X Jaguar, however both Panther and Tiger support it! I don't know of ANY specific hardware that was released 7-8years ago with Win98SE or Win95 that can run Windows 7 smoothly; and yes I'm running Tiger smoothly (thus far only YouTube is choppy with more than 1 tab open in Safari, and iPhoto '08 seems to be a resource hog on this 2001-2 machine.

I wouldn't DARE run my 1st gen P4 (2Ghz, 466mhz FSB, 650+MB, 250GB HDD Dell Optiplex GX260 on Win7)!

History Lesson:

The term 'Toy' comes from the early '80s' Mainframe IS mentality, before Windows had hit the scene. Apple produced the first visible Client/server system, and it scared the 'big iron' admins to the point of keeping them out.

Sound familiar?

BINGO! I remember that. Big Iron or shall I say BigBlue is still peddling and ball-chaining MainFrame (CISC, IMS, etc) large corporations - and back in 2007 allowed remote sessions supported in browsers using Sun Java VM not MS VM.

World Wide Web is invented on the precursor of the modern Mac, Steve Job's NEXT workstation...

Inventor of World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, uses Apple Mac
http://obamapacman.com/2009/08/world-wide-web-inventor-tim-berners-lee-uses-apple-mac/

Kevin Mitnick, Hacker, “Most Wanted Computer Criminal” Turned Security Consultant, is Mac User
http://obamapacman.com/2009/09/kevi...minal-turned-security-consultant-is-mac-user/

Danish Police High Tech Control Center runs on Apple Computers
http://obamapacman.com/2009/10/danish-police-high-tech-control-center-runs-on-apple-computers/

WOAH! Had no clue!

Oh and I just recalled grade 4; back in 1981.

I used the Apple II and it was the FIRST computer able to play back more than 1 sound at a time, and it was amongst the first computers to use a colour display (The PET was a JOKE! I consider THAT a PC).

Oh yeah and I got to play a game on that ... Karateka; compared to Tank that I played on the Commodore PET or Vic20 or 64 it was night and DAY!

 

[KingYaba]

World Wide Web is invented on the precursor of the modern Mac, Steve Job's NEXT workstation...

Inventor of World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, uses Apple Mac
http://obamapacman.com/2009/08/world-wide-web-inventor-tim-berners-lee-uses-apple-mac/

Kevin Mitnick, Hacker, “Most Wanted Computer Criminal” Turned Security Consultant, is Mac User
http://obamapacman.com/2009/09/kevi...minal-turned-security-consultant-is-mac-user/

Danish Police High Tech Control Center runs on Apple Computers
http://obamapacman.com/2009/10/danish-police-high-tech-control-center-runs-on-apple-computers/

Hell, even Linus Torvalds used Mac hardware at some point in time.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

Well, every day at work - I sure wish I had my "toy" so I could do my job there orders of magnitude faster. For me, using OSX - and then going back to XP Pro is like forgetting how to walk every morning. And this is using a PC with hardware a full generation newer than my toy.

I also think going from 2 24" screens to a single 17" may have something to do with this, too. (so it's not all the OS's fault)

 

[DeepIn2U]

1 last post

Oh just one more for the night on the subject of perceived Toys.

Philadelphia International Airport uses Macs to reduce cost
Saturday, October 17, 2009

http://obamapacman.com/2009/10/philadelphia-international-airport-uses-macs-to-reduce-cost/

Serving around 30 million passengers per year with economic impact of over $14 billion dollars, Philadelphia International Airport needed a state-of-the-art flight information systems based on modular, scalable design.

A Mac OS X based solution was first considered due to its capabilities and stability.

AirIT, contractor for the project, ported its Flight Information Display System from a PC environment to the Mac in just a few weeks.

some would say toys are easy to assemble or setup, hmmm. Then again ...

The decision to adopt the Mac platform was based largely on total cost of ownership.

The Mac based system requires only a quarter of the IT staff that similar, non-Mac-based installations normally require.

Apple software’s capabilities have streamlined their system to produce a time saving of nearly 70 percent for maintenance tasks. With Apple Remote Desktop, updating all the computers can be completed in less than a day versus the 5 to 7 days typical for such environment.

Philadelphia International Airport uses Macs to reduce cost
Saturday, October 17, 2009
PHL is the 11th busiest international airport in the world in 2008 in terms of take off and landing. Its expansion requires a modern, multimedia-capable flight information system that is easy to scale and maintain. A Mac based system managed by Apple software was selected for its low total cost of ownership.



Originally dedicated as the “Philadelphia Municipal Airport” by Charles Lindbergh in 1927, it became Philadelphia International Airport in 1945.



Serving around 30 million passengers per year with economic impact of over $14 billion dollars, Philadelphia International Airport needed a state-of-the-art flight information systems based on modular, scalable design.

A Mac OS X based solution was first considered due to its capabilities and stability.

AirIT, contractor for the project, ported its Flight Information Display System from a PC environment to the Mac in just a few weeks.

Reduced TCO

The decision to adopt the Mac platform was based largely on total cost of ownership.

The Mac based system requires only a quarter of the IT staff that similar, non-Mac-based installations normally require.



Apple software’s capabilities have streamlined their system to produce a time saving of nearly 70 percent for maintenance tasks. With Apple Remote Desktop, updating all the computers can be completed in less than a day versus the 5 to 7 days typical for such environment.



Apple Remote Desktop software’s intuitive tools – such as Automator actions, remote drag and drop, and remote copy and paste – help perform otherwise repetitive and tedious tasks with relatively little pain. It can even run UNIX scripts on remote computers, distribute software in an automated fashion, and monitor the status of each display across the entire terminal.

Upgrading to Macs even help to address airport security concerns: “With Apple Remote Desktop 3’s Curtain Mode, we no longer need to be concerned about revealing sensitive system information to the public whenever a change needs to be made via a client machine’s GUI.”

Non of my toys (GoBots, Transformers, GI Joe, HotWheels) never saved ME money, nor did they reduce my spending - well the TiBook saved me from spending way too much and actually pay off my credit card and improved my credit rating 😀.

So, thats a pretty cost saving toy that the airport is using. The only sad part of this story is a few people are now out of a job, unless they stay on as advisory or volunteer staff and bring such a solution to other airports across the nation.

There are plus' and minus' to both windows and mac's; however I've never seen the Mac as a toy just a tool used for a different task and acheived its tasks more efficiently with a different frame of mind. I'm no compsci wiz I'm just an end user.

 

[SactoGuy18]

Macs were considered "toys" until MacOS X came out, along with iMacs and Mac Pros that used progressively better PowerPC CPU's. MacOS X with its true pre-emptive multitasking made it possible to dramatically increase the features and performance of serious graphics and multimedia editing programs, making them heavily used in any company that needed to do any serious multimedia work (they're still the preferred computers for serious graphics and multimedia work even today).

 

[rprince]

It doesn't bother me. The only reason I posted was my teacher actually asked the whole class. I couldn't answer. But it doesn't make sense too me. I just wonder why some people think it's a toy.

It's just an outdated line from format wars gone by.

I guess it was due to people using Windows and Office at work just about everywhere, and the only place people would use a Mac was as a novelty at home ("a toy") or for those jobs that aren't really real jobs (music, design etc. Actually, these are real jobs; the people doing them just enjoy them!)

So PCs were associated with work and Macs were seen as a toy. Not only was that wrong at the time, but it has become even less true as Mac OSX is now well supported enough by application developers for it to be used in all the situations the PC is used and cloud computing on the web renders the OS almost irrelevant.

Some of the aesthetics and design choices may have also encouraged this viewpoint. I thought the original iMacs looked a little childish with their two-tone plastic case and the fact that Apple mice only had 1 button for a long time made it seem inferior and toy-like to the average PC fanboy.

 

[Amdahl]

Really? This is why my TiBook using a cpu that is now 3 generations old (by type, older by iterations of the G4) can STILL run an OS that has been updated twice over giving me VERY powerful features that where not there when first released?

Correct me if I'm wrong but the TiBook 667Mhz originally shipped with OS X Jaguar, however both Panther and Tiger support it! I don't know of ANY specific hardware that was released 7-8years ago with Win98SE or Win95 that can run Windows 7 smoothly; and yes I'm running Tiger smoothly (thus far only YouTube is choppy with more than 1 tab open in Safari, and iPhoto '08 seems to be a resource hog on this 2001-2 machine.

I agree with you, somewhat. Apple USED to provide longer support; that is what you just described. Apple NO LONGER provides longer support. They are no longer in the computer business; they have dropped it from the name. They are no longer interested in your laptop being useful for many years; they want you to buy a new one as often as possible. That TiBook is no longer supported by the current OSX. Neither is my less than 3 year old G5.

Intel Macs that are also about 3 years old or less are not getting OpenCL support, or 64-bit support, even though they were sold with 64-bit CPUs and can run Windows 64-bit. Recent graphics cards aren't getting OpenCL support.

Apple no longer supports their products like they used to. And the biggest example of that is their policy of only providing security updates for OSX when it is the just-previous version. Tiger is dead now, even though it was being sold JUST two years ago as new. A computer company, such as Microsoft, provides much longer support, and the length of that support is not dependent on future product releases.

I call for Apple to deliver five years of security updates for their software from last date of retail sale. You can not argue that this is unreasonable. As it is, a G5 users who is on 10.4.11 for Classic mode support, is no longer safe on the Internet because Apple has simply dropped support, just because they prematurely shipped Snow Leopard. Apple can't abandon products left and right, leaving owners high and dry, and then claim they aren't selling toys.

Apple's level of commitment to customers is clear.

 

[MTI]

Oh, there was a time . . .

When color monitors weren't thought to be for business;
When printers with scalable fonts weren't for business;
When business computers didn't have built in networking;
When a user interface that used icons instead of typed commands wasn't for business;
Pointing and clicking, dragging and dropping wasn't for business;
Business applications weren't sold in "suites";
Database software required learning another programming language instead of just filling out a card;
And, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. 😉

 

[DeepIn2U]

A computer company, such as Microsoft, provides much longer support, and the length of that support is not dependent on future product releases.

@Amdahl, you make an excellent arguement that I just cannot rebuttal against. Except for the quote above.

MS has 3 times now tried dropping support for Windows XP Pro/Home and the corporate industry pushed back to get extended support. Microsoft originally hailed Vista as XP's replacement but major business new the real deal about Vista. If Microsoft forced Vista on their corporate clients by pulling further service packs and licensed support for XP they'd have a serious problematic future outlook as Linux distros like SUSE or Ubuntu or FedoraCore would quickly take Microsoft's place.