Steam has been growing more rapidly than ever recently, partly thanks to MW2 (still sucks having no dedis though), and more recently AvP and the upcoming Metro 2033 requiring Steam, but Steamworks makes up for that, and I much prefer Steamworks to GFWL.
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The Significance of Steam and Valve's Games for Mac
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Steam has been growing more rapidly than ever recently, partly thanks to MW2 (still sucks having no dedis though), and more recently AvP and the upcoming Metro 2033 requiring Steam, but Steamworks makes up for that, and I much prefer Steamworks to GFWL.
I suggest you look at the WINE project and itterate yourselves. Both of you. because that is what Cider is using - WINE.
Having a quick glance online, a 15-inch MBP costs £1,500 and the nearest specced Dell 15-inch was £1000. That's 50% extra for roughly the same level of hardware.
And for software, you're looking at an operating system that is much more limited as to what it can run without special intermediary software.
Now you are being silly, you're trying that old argument of macs have no software, and there is plenty available, and get this some is (arguably) better than its windows counterparts.
Plus it's Unix, so open source goodies FTW http://www.macports.org/ to name but one.
Edit
Although don't get me wrong, gaming on the mac platform has been in a sorry state for a long time.
Thorugh Steam.
The only Other OS that has the functionality you're describing is Linux running Cedega.
I suggest you try KDE Games in the Mac Ports. KDE Games is the ULTIMATE casual gaming pack. Best of all its 100% free!
This is so awesome!!! i have steam on my windows partition on my macbook pro. this is better than the iPad! 
That is very tempting, but I have a list an arm long of the stuff I got in the steam sales to get through.
Morowind, Oblivion, Mass Effect, The recent tomb raider games just to name a few, I don't think I'll ever have the time
Completely agreed on all points (if you're just talking about specs in the last one at least). I just think that people coming in and making people out to be ignorant or dumb for not knowing about Steam on a) A non gaming forum. b) A non gaming forum for a platform Steam has never supported - are a bit silly.. And the last (almost) 100 non-console game purchases I've made have been through Steam!
I know the impact it has had on the market, I love Steam. I also love my Macs, and I love osX.. And there are a lot of people like me.Saying that, I also love Win7 (pretty sure I'm supposed to feel dirty after saying that, but nobody can deny the strides MS have taken).. I'm just excited for the Mac side of things at the moment.
Buying a Mac if all you want is games makes no sense. Neither Valve or Apple are likely targeting those users at all. Availability of cheaper hardware is a bit of a moot point.
I'm not saying that there isn't any software available... there's just far less native applications compared to windows without some amount of fiddling to get things working.
If apples were competitively priced (when comparing hardware) with their PC counterparts, the style and swagger of the operating system might be a little more appealing despite it's limitations. At the moment, anyone who has somewhat decent knowledge of computers wont be willing to pay 50% extra for a pretty apple tag and sauve operating system with less all-round functionality. If they were competitively priced, I would probably pick up a MBP for actual work other than gaming... at the moment I'd have to go for the cheaper PC which allows me to do all my actual work just fine.
I wasn't talking about gaming quality hardware specifically... you're going to be paying more for a low powered processor in a Mac than you would pay for that same low powered processor in a PC. I could perhaps understand if the operating system was far above and beyond any of it's competitors, but with Windows 7, that's simply not the case so far. All I would be paying for at the moment would be an apple tag and lesser hardware if I were to choose a Mac over PC. I like Macs, but not enough to pay that much for the priviledge.
again, every mac is a PC, so there are no limits there.
tell me, how does that dell weigh?? and what does the battery life look like?
is it under 1 inch thick too? does it have a backlit keyboard?
That is definitely worth 50% to me.
After this refresh, it will be even better.
I'm sorry, but this post shows that you don't know much about the mac platform.
I agree that the pricing of the hardware can be more than comparable PCs, but at times it can be on an even level. My current MacBook when I purchased it cost roughly the same as any comparable Dell or Acer notebook at the time, on release of the 2008 Mac Pros, similar specced Dual Xeon workstations generally cost more than the macs. Likewise the current top end iMac is a steal, as trying to get a core i5 or core i7 computer with a 27" IPS LED screen of that resolution at the same price will be next to impossible.
As for less native applications, quantity wise there may be less, but in nearly all fields the mac platform is catered for (AutoCad, gaming and a decent wave editor are notable exceptions). Plus take into account it's BSD kernel, Bash and Perl straight out of the box, the simplistic power of applescript and it looks pretty healthy, because if there is one thing that easily outshines windows with the macintosh platform it's its easily scriptable nature.
LOLL wtf ROFL no way apple could buy steam/valve
aslo this is the best news i have had since being a mac user. i have been playing Heroes of newerth which is the best game available for the mac! but now that Counter Strike source is coming to the mac oh man all hell is going to break loose! also this is also not a good thing because. there are so many hackers that hack to cheat in valves games that this could start a wave of super elite techies to start constructing worms and keyloggers for macs.... good and bad that this is coming. There is a viscose hacker realm based on valve games and some of them are the best out there. the reason why you would see those things is because of the accounts values and how the VAC system works. the anti cheat system. so hackers always need accounts to test there hacks to make sure its vacproof so they will go to any means to get accounts without paying for them to test there hacks to make sure they wont get banned on there main accounts this again will be very interesting to see what happens in months to come. as more things become more mac available.
All I was reading in that last post, was Ignorance, Fanboy-ism, Fear of competition, and stupidity.
Let me get this straight. Apple buys an online game distrubution store, which mac users can't use without running windows, so 90% of macintosh users can't use the service? Further more, all the games they sell run on the PC. All to prevent Google from somehow importing it's online store to an app for andrioid? Do your research before stating something so stupid. Steam does not own any games it sells. It is just the online store that stores your purchases, and if you think that Apple can afford to purchase all the PC game companies who make games available to purchase through Steam (including Microsoft there) I'd have to say you were wrong.
I know its hard to look up information on the internet roocka, try a yahoo search for 'what is steam valve'. You'd get a wiki site.
Who cares if you get a Mac or not? Really. If you do what you need to do on your setup then you're happy.
I prefer working on Macs. Whether something is "far above and beyond" depends totally on the individual user, their workflows and application preferences. I've seen the "there is so much more software on Windows" argument so many times, but really, how many different flavours of the same functionality does a person need? Other than games - generally you only need one for each task, so broadly speaking osX has equal "functionality" as it has massive software choice within most product categories. There's a lot of unique software I've grown accustomed to. No big deal. The point of Steam isn't to convert people, it just makes it easier for us to play together. A lot of people do knowingly pay the "premium".. It's not just ignorance and brand identity. I, and millions of other people make an informed choice that this is best *for us* - it doesnt have to be "THE best!" - that can't be objective anyway. It certainly doesn't have to be "the best for gaming" to be damned good for gaming.
A few of the people I've built mid-range PCs for would have considered Macs if they had more on the gaming front. It's a bit of a missing link in terms of osX software availability.
A few points from a Steam user:
1) Valve is an independent company and therefore CANNOT be bought by any company. They can accept an offer however they continue to state they have no intention of being bought. It's not that they want MORE money but they prefer having the final say in what they do as a company.
2) A competitor estimated that Valve has 70% of the digital market through Steam.
3) Valve does have ownership of games on Steam, their own. It's this factor which helped catapult them to be THE service for PC gaming. Their games are cult classics for PC gamers and are exclusive to their own service.
4) The DRM is the best type of DRM (no DRM is preferred) available. You create an account like on iTunes. You sign in to your account from any computer in the world and once logged in you have access to every one of your games (I have 609 lol) to download then and there. You can download an unlimited amount of times (some games have extra DRM which is stated in the description of the game). There also is an off line mode.
5) The community factor is also big. Groups, friends, etc. There is even an internet access lay out in game.
6) Valve has shown no signs of slowing down but just the opposite. The last year and half they have added some publishers as Lucas Arts, Square, EA, Sony, and many more. The only publisher they don't have is Microsoft and Blizzard. They continue to grow every day.
Those are some points to remember for those of you who are not familiar with the service. Its a blessing to the PC gaming community and I am sure it will be for those of you who only have a Mac and don't want to use boot camp.
1) Valve is an independent company and therefore CANNOT be bought by any company. They can accept an offer however they continue to state they have no intention of being bought. It's not that they want MORE money but they prefer having the final say in what they do as a company.
2) A competitor estimated that Valve has 70% of the digital market through Steam.
3) Valve does have ownership of games on Steam, their own. It's this factor which helped catapult them to be THE service for PC gaming. Their games are cult classics for PC gamers and are exclusive to their own service.
4) The DRM is the best type of DRM (no DRM is preferred) available. You create an account like on iTunes. You sign in to your account from any computer in the world and once logged in you have access to every one of your games (I have 609 lol) to download then and there. You can download an unlimited amount of times (some games have extra DRM which is stated in the description of the game). There also is an off line mode.
5) The community factor is also big. Groups, friends, etc. There is even an internet access lay out in game.
6) Valve has shown no signs of slowing down but just the opposite. The last year and half they have added some publishers as Lucas Arts, Square, EA, Sony, and many more. The only publisher they don't have is Microsoft and Blizzard. They continue to grow every day.
Those are some points to remember for those of you who are not familiar with the service. Its a blessing to the PC gaming community and I am sure it will be for those of you who only have a Mac and don't want to use boot camp.
This sort of discussion is never productive. XD
It's funny whenever Mac users get excited about something that a load of Windows die-hards descend into the thread to spoil their fun and completely miss whatever points the majority of people are happy about.*
It's fun occasionally debating stuff though however pointless it is.
* - it was also funny when some hard-line mac users were dismissing Steam offhand as not being news-worthy. Lame.
It's fine until it boils down into "I'm better than you due to ...". The majority of the time it involves money. At that point I don't care who started it.
Tunnel vision is all too common. Steam is something Apple wishes it had created.
I just put together a near identical (specced) PC on scan, and it come up to roughly the same price as the i7 27" iMac, so I can definitely understand the appeal of the iMac for professional use, and the pricing seems to be more than fair. I can't really see the use of a 27" screen for everyday home use outside of enthusiast gaming (which would require the insane GPU power of a PC), but it seems to be an impressive deal all the same.
For mid-range laptops and computers, PC's seem to be winning on value everywhere I look. I'm going to be buying a new laptop within the next couple of months, so if Macs manage to become more competitive price wise in that timeframe, then I might look into getting myself one, especially if steam does go ahead with porting the source engine to macs. I have a decently powerful desktop PC for gaming, it also dual boots into Ubuntu for work stuff).
I can't really comment on applications any further without educating myself a bit more, but I can't imagine I'm wrong in saying anything the Mac has, Windows also has and visa versa. Out of interest, how easy (or possible) is it to set up a OSX/Windows/Linux setup on a MacBook?
I hope you don't get any of that from my posts, I'm not better than anyone, lol.
This sort of elitism seems rife on the web.. On the steam forums you have some people doing similar regarding their high end gaming rigs. Real gamers use (insert product here). The insane rivalry between game platform fans breaks my brain. On the consoles it's cringeworthy. Supposed to be about entertainment, a totally personal thing.
With the iMac I personally don't like the glossy only screen, but that's just a preference thing, plus I'm not a fan of all in one systems.
But as for your question on OSX/Windows/Linux, it's as easy as pie, just install Fusion and you can have all three running at the same time
Bootcamp will also do windows perfectly, but for booting into Linux without VmWare it's a little tricker, but doable (I just can't remember how).
As for apps, all the platforms have what most people need I guess, some are more suited for certain things, and some platforms have gaps in what decent software is available, as much as I prefer the mac OS I have to maintain a certain amount of OS agnosticism to do my job, and game