Top 5 Reasons NOT to buy a Mac

[derboy]

No need for the eek emoticon. Maya is not only an animation but a generic modeling program. It certainly doesn't model objects like let say, Catia or Autocad does (since Maya only does the "skin" of the oject). How ever it's more than usefull for the average user. If you want a true 3D Cad program for Macs. Get Vectorworks 11.5.

Oh dear, i think you may have your Steve Jobs Glasses on. No Designer is going to manhandle a project through maya, only to have to take it over into a real 3D application to make it manufacturable. They may however render, and animate "it", and it might look nice.

As for Vectorworks, Have you ever used it? Its for designing houses and structural layouts. Lovely...

So yes, there are no reasons for a mac to be deemed the "creative Professionals" choice. The sheer grunt of a company to program a fully featured comercial 3d modelling program is beyond the realm of the Mac.

Or is that the reason behind the ipod consisting of a Rectangle extrusion with 12 fillets...

 

[Hattig]

Oh dear, i think you may have your Steve Jobs Glasses on. No Designer is going to manhandle a project through maya, only to have to take it over into a real 3D application to make it manufacturable. They may however render, and animate "it", and it might look nice.

As for Vectorworks, Have you ever used it? Its for designing houses and structural layouts. Lovely...

So yes, there are no reasons for a mac to be deemed the "creative Professionals" choice. The sheer grunt of a company to program a fully featured comercial 3d modelling program is beyond the realm of the Mac.

Or is that the reason behind the ipod consisting of a Rectangle extrusion with 12 fillets...

So what is the name of the 'wonderful' Windows-only industrial creative professional design applications that you use then?

I think you are merely trolling, I mean 'beyond the realm of the Mac' - the non-existence of a specific application doesn't mean it can't do it. Vectorworks appears to have a mechanical module amongst others for detail modelling, it isn't just house design.

 

[admford]

Oh dear, i think you may have your Steve Jobs Glasses on. No Designer is going to manhandle a project through maya, only to have to take it over into a real 3D application to make it manufacturable. They may however render, and animate "it", and it might look nice.

As for Vectorworks, Have you ever used it? Its for designing houses and structural layouts. Lovely...

So yes, there are no reasons for a mac to be deemed the "creative Professionals" choice. The sheer grunt of a company to program a fully featured comercial 3d modelling program is beyond the realm of the Mac.

Or is that the reason behind the ipod consisting of a Rectangle extrusion with 12 fillets...

There is Vectorworks mechanical. Over all product design is hard to find on a Mac. There are more specialized products available, but generic software packages much like AutoCAD are hard to find. If you look hard enough, i'm sure that most people will find an equivalent piece of software that they use also on the Mac. You can always try Argon, Graphite and Cobalt from Ashlar Vellum for Mac.

 

[derboy]

If you look hard enough, i'm sure that most people will find an equivalent piece of software that they use also on the Mac. QUOTE]

I do love that most mac users love Apple so much that there is nothing it cant do! Ever since my apple plus, to my duel G5 i have known what they can do and what they cant. 3D design is one of the later. A lot of people have had a go, you miss cinema 4D from your suggestions.

But at the end of the day, how many cars, kettles, phones, engines....etc have been conceptualised on a mac? The mac is not a viable tool for any professional project of this nature. Period.

Apple as a Creative brand is shifting. The times of Adobe and apple against the world are over. Now its about consumers using Iphoto and Itunes and feeling a warm glow inside for doing so.

 

[Applespider]

Apple as a Creative brand is shifting. The times of Adobe and apple against the world are over. Now its about consumers using Iphoto and Itunes and feeling a warm glow inside for doing so.

And with far more consumers taking pictures and listening to music than professionals designing industrial products, it's a bigger market for Apple to grow into which is why they are spending their R&D cash in that area and in the pro-media market. Apple's getting less esoteric and more populist which isn't all bad. I'd far rather have a bigger company keep pumping out the Macs and applications that I can use on a daily basis in normal life (consumer and general business developement modelling) than knowing it was trying to be all things to all people and doing none well.

 

[derboy]

Thats right, But i do still cringe when Apple proclaims itself as 'the' creative company, for creative users.

The product design market is Huge and, in terms of revenue, puts non linear editing in the total shade. After all, this is apple's only serious creative application. The rest are from adobe...

I'd love all the applications i use to be available on the mac but that will never happen. The intel change will benifit my type of duel use needs the most. Perhaps Apple finally realised they cant be all things to everyone, and did something usefull to that end.

 

[oingoboingo]

Oh, but don't you just love the pretty blue glow - so very peaceful and serene after your peecee crashes and you lose 3 hours of unsaved work.

If you're not saving your work at all during a 3 hour period, you deserve to lose it all.

But yeah, I'll jump in. WINDOWS IS TEH SuX0R!!!!

 

[Ti_Poussin]

1- Slower machine for the same price (will change soon, but I still prefer PPC over X86 architecture and OS X over XP).

2- Impossible to upgrade video card or processor in all machine except PowerMac those day.

3- AutoCAD, Catia not avaible for OS X, wich is a true pain for me. There's VectorWork, Strata3D, Carrara Cobalt, ArchiCAD, but they don't cut it for ingineering design.

4- Games on OS X often s*ck a big time, not very optimize, multiplayer not compatible with PC version, completly unavaible. Except Blizzard, the port are often a hell more buggy.

5- Road Map unknow, slow adoption of some feature (PCI Express, USB2 took a long time to come to us, LCD Gloss screen,...).

I'm still enjoying my old PowerBook Ti 1GHz, it's always a pain to use Windows again now.

 

[512ke]

1. If your job makes you travel a lot, and you want to connect your Mac to local ADSL in non-Mac-friendly countries. You can get stuck as the only Mac user for miles with no modem drivers.

2. In the city where I live, the city government's website has internet tax paying forms and traffic ticket paying programs that are Windows only.

3. If you're office is non Mac, you may have problems using their Microsoft Exchange Server to synchronize your calendar and contacts. It forces you in some instances to use Entourage, which is a pain.

4. Sometimes the latest Blackberry type devices don't work at _first_ on Macs.

5. Nothing in this world is perfect. For me, the minor inconveniences from time to time using a Mac are far outweighed by the numerous benefits.

I can do more (video, audio, calendar synching, iChat, file searching, automating etc etc etc) with many fewer problems (not so much crashing, fewer update hassles, almost zero viruses etc etc etc).

And a person's reaction to point 6 will vary:

-You are not with the herd.

 

[Doctor Q]

2. In the city where I live, the city government's website has internet tax paying forms and traffic ticket paying programs that are Windows only.

That's nice. I guess Mac users don't have to pay traffic tickets!

 

[theISHkid]

1. If you are a proper designer. Any professional 3D program will not be available on the mac. Only programs for other "creative professionals"!

2. Chances of getting the latest technology in a mac are small.

3. Design Team can only work on one thing at a time. (year of the laptop) (Putting a G5 chip in a desktop)

4. Apples high rated opinion of itself. In relation to treating its dealers and customers.

5. The amount of spin put on apple "innovation." Then move on to completely dismiss it (64 bit) or to publicly congratulate themselves on thier greatness. (people having to buy another version of OS X)

Man it is so funny hearing someone talk when they have no clue what they are talking about.... Yet again another pc user that has no idea because they have not tried a mac.

1. "Professional Designer" come on are you kidding me... Cineama 4dxl, Maya, RenderMan... if those aren't professional 3d apps then what is. Just because 3d studio max is not on a mac doesn't mean macs don't have 3d programs... I mean all of those freakin pixar movies were done on renderman.

2. Wrong... are we talking software or hardware? Macs may be slightly behind when it comes to games... but you especially cannot make that argument for design software... both the adobe suites and macromedia suites came out at the same time for both platforms... and isn't it funny how the system requirements are usually a bit higher for a pc than for a mac? Just because windows (for now) can spout off higher processor numbers than a mac... it doesn't mean that macs don't get the latest and greatest. It's also kind of funny how innovative apple is and you see other companies trying to follow.

3. Whose design team are you talking about? Just because that's news that people want to hear... that doesn't mean it's the only thing apple's design team is doing. They are just like any other company with offices all over... one group is working on one thing while another is working with something else.

4. I've never had good feelings dealing with apple... sure you hear about bad things... but that's just because the news never advertises good things. Besides that people with apples are actually happy and like their computers. Pc users either don't care or they are usually pissed about their computers.

5. Isn't microsoft releasing a new operating system soon... oh yea forgot about that... it just hasn't made it out yet because of all the PROBLEMS.

You know... if you love your pc then that's fine... but stay off boards trying to get others to be as miserable as you are with your pc.

 

[Tahko]

5 reasons not-to-switch from regular students viewpoint:

1. Games
2. DC++
3. Possible corruption into technology-retard thanks to minimal configuration required & having most of the software needed ready 'n kickin from day 1
4. Inability to use my banks internet service
5. Microsoft frontpage doesn't show correctly on any other browser than IE

 

[theISHkid]

5 reasons not-to-switch from regular students viewpoint:
5. Microsoft frontpage doesn't show correctly on any other browser than IE

That's because frontpage is like using mspaint instead of photoshop.

 

[realmcenter]

Here's some of the things that I see as a downside to Macs compared to PCs running Windows:

1. Not nearly as much software available for the Mac as oppossed to Windows, and/or it costs more for something comparable for Mac OS. Examples include software like DVD Shrink, VirtualDub, Tag&Rename, BitPim, etc.

2. Initial purchase cost might be higher. I say might because it depends on what hardware you are getting. An 12" iBook costs less than a similarly-configured Windows laptop of comparable size and weight, but a $600 store-bought PC easily bests a $600 Mac Mini in capabilities out of the box.

3. PCs generally support more legacy hardware than Macs. For example, my 12-year-old HP LaserJet 4L works just fine on my 2-year-old PC, while a similar vintage printer for a Mac would be using a serial port that dissapeared on Macs around 5-years ago or so. This legacy support also still holds back PCs somewhat in some areas (modern PCs can still boot DOS thanks to their BIOS) but at the same time it keeps older hardware that still works useful for longer.

4. Many more peripherals are available that are supported on Windows than Mac OS. Manufacturers are going to cater to the largest audience so Mac users have to be more careful when choosing peripherals and some just may not be available at all for a Mac.

5. Far smaller user-base. It's the simple reality that Windows PCs are the standard and more people know how to use Windows than Macs. That makes support easier to find than with a Mac. This can be a really big deal for new computer users.

I know Mac users like to assume that all Windows machines are bug and virus-infested machines that are next to impossible to keep stable, but that is simply not the case at all. Both Mac OS and Windows have their merits and downsides. My own Windows desktop machine is rock-solid stable, quite fast, and I have never had a virus infection on Windows. It is showing signs of needing an OS reinstall as I have not reinstalled XP in well over a year, but still runs just fine and the only way I can tell it needs a reinstall is by noticing that it takes a slight bit more memory than it should, still less than OS X Tiger does. But my iBook has become my daily-use computer because it is more fun to use, portable, and is simpler for some tasks.

 

[OnceUGoMac]

The Mac version of M$ Office is fully compatible and mostly better to the window$ counterpart So this would be a moot point I think.

Nope, he's right. Office for Windows is geared towards a corporate environment and includes features for that. Office for Mac is geared towards personal use and has exclusive fetures such as Entourage.

 

[Kelson]

Top 5 Frustrations w/ Mac....

I use a TiBook for everything, work and play.

1. Java support is lousy and slow. We use alot of Java at work, primarily applets on web pages that I need to do my job. While it may be the java coders faults, the applets run fast and smooth on windows boxen, they often choke and crash on my Mac. (10.4.2, latest Java 1.4.2 & J2SE 5.0)

2. Can't read Visio diagrams. Yes, I know you can get Omnigraffle and read the "XML Drawing" format, but everyone uses the proprietary .vsd format. It really sucks having to always ask people to re-save it as .vdx and re-send, or load it in Virtual PC and convert it. Plus, I can't create Visio's w/o using Virtual PC.

3. Microsoft Office incompatibilities. I save a file in Word 2004 on Mac, formatting in some instances is messed up on the windows version. Or when I load a .ppt and it has to go through and "convert" all of the "metafiles", of which there is one for every image in the PPT, w/ a 200 slide deck, that can be a heck of a lot.

4. Applications. Most of the time, there is a servicable alternative, but sometimes there just isn't. Like the clients for on-line poker sites or something.

5. Hmm...can't think of a 5th that is really annoying me right now, mainly those first 3 drive me crazy. I suppose the last one would be playing some windows media files that complain about the wrong codec, or flash not working quite right, mainly in conjunction w/ a video on demand setup, etc.

- Kelson

 

[derboy]

Man it is so funny hearing someone talk when they have no clue what they are talking about.... Yet again another pc user that has no idea because they have not tried a mac.

1. "Professional Designer" come on are you kidding me... Cineama 4dxl, Maya, RenderMan... if those aren't professional 3d apps then what is. Just because 3d studio max is not on a mac doesn't mean macs don't have 3d programs... I mean all of those freakin pixar movies were done on renderman.

2. Wrong... are we talking software or hardware? Macs may be slightly behind when it comes to games... but you especially cannot make that argument for design software... both the adobe suites and macromedia suites came out at the same time for both platforms... and isn't it funny how the system requirements are usually a bit higher for a pc than for a mac? Just because windows (for now) can spout off higher processor numbers than a mac... it doesn't mean that macs don't get the latest and greatest. It's also kind of funny how innovative apple is and you see other companies trying to follow.

3. Whose design team are you talking about? Just because that's news that people want to hear... that doesn't mean it's the only thing apple's design team is doing. They are just like any other company with offices all over... one group is working on one thing while another is working with something else.

4. I've never had good feelings dealing with apple... sure you hear about bad things... but that's just because the news never advertises good things. Besides that people with apples are actually happy and like their computers. Pc users either don't care or they are usually pissed about their computers.

5. Isn't microsoft releasing a new operating system soon... oh yea forgot about that... it just hasn't made it out yet because of all the PROBLEMS.

You know... if you love your pc then that's fine... but stay off boards trying to get others to be as miserable as you are with your pc.

haha, I'll Reply, but not to get your hopes up on an argument. Just to clear up some bits in your post. So if i may;

I've been using macs since they pretty much came out. Think that shows my commitment, and so i dont feel bad having a bit of a moan, on a forum that has a negative title! Oh yea, and i only recently(relativly) bought a pc because i have to.

1. Maya, renderman. Maya is an animation program, and has little use for anyone who wants to 'tolerance' or actually create something. You do know that every single injection moulded, machined, 'made' component to 90% of anything you can buy in the shops has been modelled on a computer. This is a serious buisness and one which requires serious software that is fully featured and supports international standards. Ring any bells o the mac?? Thought not

Renderman is a utility for that program for film quality results. Cinema 4d is an application made in the same vien as maja. Because you quoted a few 'Pro' apps at me, i'll inform you of the real ones. So that if you really care you can take a look! (now theres novel!)
Catia
Rhino
Proenginer
Solidworks
SDRC Ideas

-Sorry though, no films have been made using those. But the keyboard, and monitor you are using probably has. Also, All of those mentioned make finite element analysis easy. Heard of that?

2. I'm talking about hardware. You only have to look at the laptop threads, to see how desperate people are for upto date technology. They are literally holding off purchases. For such disparity amongst what is essentially a large proportion of all apple computers offered, I'd say it is a bit serious. Feel free to disagree

3. This point was trying to get at the fact that apple is a large enough company to properly find and motivate various projects at the same time, in one or various design teams. (for them to make concurrent varied releases)

4. Of course i know people have good/bad experiances with apple. I dont like the way they leverage thier suppliers. An example i can think of is moving to intel for politcal/internal reasons then publically critisising IBM. I know this is a contentious issue. (a lot of interpretation)
I dont like the way they treated my dealer, when my G5 went wrong. Apple gave them the runaround and they had unpaid costs. Having a good relationship with my dealer leads me to believe them when they say apple act high-handedly. This attitude is continued with customers, unless they are closer than arms reach. (like in a retail store)
And the call centres in the far east, for the UK consumer...

5. I wont go into this too much, as it looks like you agree. This is demonstrated my you having to bring windows to the thread, and suggests you cant think of a relevant comment. i cant remember quite how many annual releases apple has made of os x. i would say too many at £100ish a time.
The point is that they congratulate themselves, on what is essentially a compulsary purchase. whilst neglecting to mention what happened to the 'Big thing' they were recently touting.

I hope that reads succinctly theISHkid, and addresses your misconceptions in a logical way. You mention 'Love' for ones computer, that is a funny thing to say. But i do hope the umbilical relationship between you and your apple is nice for you.

-Sorry to anyone else who read that whole lot (+previous posts), and suffered a spell of misery for the duration, as theISHkid felt he did.

 

[sbb155]

I have said it before and I will say it now. It is all about profits. Apple is owned by shareholders who demand profits. It is a complete myth that the cinema display is better or that XP crashes (i get beachballs on my powerbook). BUT apple is smart enough to do great marketing to sell the machine to the masses. And guess what... we like it!

The apple is good in a personal environment. For the corporate world, it stinks. If microsoft wanted to end apple's business all they would have to do is stop making office. 100% compatibility and workgroup environs are needed in the corporate and university markets. MS provides this. iWork? Are you kidding? Could never work in the corporate world.

Apple's marketing, however, is second to none. We pay gross margins of 30% on apple computers, much higher than PC manufacturers. This accounts for a large difference in price - corporate greed for the apple shareholders.

And think about it... apple shareholders buy mostly... WINDOWS PCs! So as the stock goes up and profits go up, the shareholders purchase more windows based PCs. Remember, the people who invest in the stock OWN apple. And they overhwhelmingly buy PCs. Isn't it odd that the owners of a company largely prefer PCs over their own companies' products?

Frankly, I don't care if macs are overpriced and slow. I use them for video and music and personal things which are easier than on a pc. I freely admit and accept that it is an inferior product for word processing, spreadsheet, and corporate work.

The whole idea of the switch campaign is flawed. Why do people have to switch? Some people own sony and panasonic tvs. Why can't people own dells and apples? Both are better at certain things. There is no one superior product overall, but undoubtedly for video the apple is better. For the corporate world pcs are better.

Why is it so difficult to accept that both are good for certain things?

 

[jiv3turkey748]

i can think of one, no rollercoaster tycoon... thats about it though

 

[GeeYouEye]

A trip to the zoo

1) Browsing on MAC is next to hopeless! IE probably is the fastest but i cannot tell the difference from mozilla (any platform - HPUX /solaris / windows) ... Safari simply is darn slow to load and i am not getting into all compatibility issues here

2) Compatibility ... it is picking up but if you use PDAs and other printers (other than HP) etc ... you will end up spending a lot of money on poorly written software ... cell phones may be an exception

3) Connectivity ... any thing with a GUI plainly costs money ... SSH/SFTP clients are free on windows where as transmit is 25$ ... (ofcourse you can use ssh/sftp from command line) ... Messengers ... only ichat (with video/audio) ... and it will not work properly if you have a person even on AIM / Windows! Most VPNs and other stuff ....

4) you write any decent software ... you are F***ed ... the learning curve is totally stupid ... No standard C++/C libs ... all the apple marketing crap aside you have to learn objective -c and that darn thing is not useful any where else! Also add the backward compatibility ... any thing written for 10.4 does not work in 10.3 and in 10.3 will not work in 10.2 ... you can go on ...

5) hardware incompatibilities ... from RAM to usb connectors ... DVD writers and what not ...

6) Hopelessly slow burning ....my HP laptop burns DVD faster (with an external DVD drive - USB 2.0 based for you Firewire fanatics) than Dual G5 1.8 Ghz without any other single process running... both at 8X and you can go on ....


Most of the people hardly would have seen a latest generation windows laptops ... ever see the new HP business notebooks (<1.2" think) ? and new dell 700m is not bad either ... i do agree that old dells look horrible ... I have never had a Virus or Spyware on any of the machines so far ... and yes i donot even spend 2 mins on maintaining them every day ... just get the regular updates and you can even automate them ... For all this they cost a heck a lot less and can run any OS of your choice ... Networking for a layman is probably the single most impressive thing about Mac OSX and windows systems are not that behind ... Last but not the least .... i hardly ever switch off my computers ...laptops/workstations .... and they have not crashed in the recent past that i can (workstations over a year) think of.

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Apart from look at me i am cool .... and some how superior to rest of the people attitude because i use a mac... (which these forms are full of!) there is probably little that people on windows miss on Mac OS X ...

This, ladies and gentlemen, is an example of Trollius regularus, subspecies macrumors or more commonly, "board troll". This--

*person in crowd raises their hand* How can we identify a T. regulus?

Glad you asked. The first sign that you are being "trolled", or seeing a troll in action is that it will attempt to deride the members of the forum it is residing in. For example, this troll used a classic "accuse many of the board's population of an undesirable trait" attack, in this case of having an attitude of smug superiority.

Occasionally, as here, a troll will provide anecdotal evidence that is incredible and highly unlikely. Typically, this should be ignored, unless you can definitively refute it with an eyewitness.

Another action a troll will take is to deliberately post information that is obviously wrong, hoping to get other, smarter, impulsive people to flame him. A troll feeds on flames, twists them, and uses them to his own nefarious purposes. So remember kids, don't feed the trolls.

 

[iHateWindows]

Here's why someone would actually WANT a PC:

1. You enjoy viruses, adware, worms, bugs, crashes, overpriced software, and horrible tech support
2. You have a crush of the ugliest man alive, Bill Gates'
3.You enjoy an ugly, cluttered UI
4. You would rather say "Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 Longhorn Operating System" than just simply "Tiger"
5. You have an IQ lower than 2 and feel comfortable using the command prompt just to check your email.

 

[Capt Underpants]

meh... Windows isn't half as bad as you guys make it out to seem. I don't have any anti-virus software, but I don't have a virus (I know because I use a free online virus checker). Once you firewall windows up, there really isn't much to worry about.

If you don't know how to take care of windows (AV, anti-Spyware software, Firewall), though, it does get bloated. If you know your stuff, though, windows is a good OS.

 

[tech4all]

Here's why someone would actually WANT a PC:

1. You enjoy viruses, adware, worms, bugs, crashes, overpriced software, and horrible tech support
2. You have a crush of the ugliest man alive, Bill Gates'
3.You enjoy an ugly, cluttered UI
4. You would rather say "Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 Longhorn Operating System" than just simply "Tiger"
5. You have an IQ lower than 2 and feel comfortable using the command prompt just to check your email.

1) Most of those are true, yes, but you have to admit, OS X does have some bugs in it.

2) Not sure if that's the best reason to use/not use an OS, but ok.

3) Agreed.

4) Why would Windows XP's name be with Longhorn?

5) I've never used the command line to check email on a PC.

I don't have any anti-virus software, but I don't have a virus (I know because I use a free online virus checker).

The anti-virus software may not be on your computer, but you still use one

But you are right, Windows isn't that bad, course its not that great either.

 

[milozauckerman]

I have to agree with a lot of the people in saying that Windows is getting a bad rap here. Sensible computing wards off almost all malware - my parents have never run anything but Windows and over the last three years have had the same number of spyware/malware problems as I've had running OS X - zero. Their XP (Sony, Dell, Fujitsu laptops) systems have been as stable as my OS X systems and have had fewer hardware problems (my new dual G5 won't wake from energy saver sleep, the first HD on my G4 failed six months in).

That said, would I ever switch back? Not a chance. I'm very picky about my tools - I hated taking essay tests in school when I only had a crappy Bic ballpoint with me, I literally couldn't write as well fighting with the equipment. OS X is streamlined, aesthetically pleasing and rarely makes me feel like I'm fighting back against an interfering OS to work. It's worth the premium for me.

If I were any less picky, I'd probably buy a good Dell system for half of what I paid for my new dual G5.

I haven't drunk the Apple kool-aid (honesty time: I find their 'brand' grating in its uniformity and unimaginative modernity, particularly juxtaposed with the 'be creative' message they're still rolling out, it's worse than MS in some ways) and don't intend to. They make a product I like and I'll keep using it as long as it's the best option, but I feel zero loyalty to any multi-billion dollar capitalist entity.

 

[AcousticDoc]

Windows does have some advatages guys.

1) Games
2) More expensive compared to equal specs on a PC
3) No "hibernation mode" on laptops
4) Fewer mac users means less chance to encounter another person to get pirated software (I can't find anyone who has Mac Office for me to leech off of)
5) Less future customization for most of their desktop models.