Hi, i am very close to moving over from Windows to Mac. What platforms are you using (poll included) - thanks in advance
My son bought a Mac a few months ago and is in heaven. He loves everything about it. He has an iPod but now he wants an iPhone and iPad. He loves all things Apple.
OK here we go again Windows rocks because you get more bang for your buck . Apple are decent products but in general they ask for to much money for to little performance . They look nice and therefore are fashionable but other then that there is nothing much to it .
1) You need more horsepower to get Microsoft software to work good enough. 2) Microsoft won't guarantee their software will work on your hardware. Apple does. 3) Microsoft won't guarantee all your hardware will work together seamlessly. Apple does. 4) Microsoft doesn't have a store you can bring your hardware or software to for support. Apple does. 5) Consumer Reports rates Apple products #1 in every category for performance and support (for at least 10 years running). If you think for Apple's prices you only get good looks, think again.
#1 You get more horsepower on PCs and the Microsoft software (the OS) requires only minimal resources , the additional software needs extra resources . The situation is the same on a Mac . Also PCs are insanely more powerful then Macs , or would you like to show me a Mac with 24 cores ? #2 Microsoft guarantees that their software will work on your hardware if you respect their rules . On the other hand Apple sues you if you dare to install their software on your hardware . #3 No Microsoft doesn't guarantee that companies like Intel , AMD, Nvidia and Kingston do . #4 Microsoft doesn't provide the hardware , your hardware company does and they do that for long periods of time (up to 3 years) . Also there are far more places to repair a PC then places to repair a Mac . #5 Performance ? LOL performance compared to what ? The commondore 64 ? Also allow me to get into the mobile world iPhone4s vs Samsung Galaxy S2 (which is half of year older) . WHo wins , when it comes to performance , price , flexibility and privacy ? Let's see , you can't run a lot of software on a Mac unless you install windows on it that includes : Dynamics CRM and ERM , ASP and ASP .NET decent testing servers , most computer games (which are in the number of thousands) . So ya Macs are awesome , they only miss big businesses and computer games , but you should probably ignore those . Dude for real now , are you trolling or are you seriously believing in what you are typing ?
I think if Apple doesn't serve like that... No one buys Apple's products.That's for sure.Microsoft doesn't need to offer any support like that.
If a Mac needed more power to run, they would specify it. A Mac does not need as much as Windows does. Macs don't need 24 cores to run. Neither does Windows. And Microsoft sues you if you use it on more than one machine. Most people would rather have guarantees of operability than worrying about that. They do NOT. Call ANY of those companies when you have a problem with Windows and see how quickly you get hung up on. That would NEVER happen at Apple. Apple also provides warranties on hardware AND software up to three years. And if your hardware company says it's software or you think it's hardware, where do you go? What if it's both? That would never happen at Apple. Your Microsoft software doesn't work right. Which store do you take it to?
Apple is the world's largest tech company. How's that Zune doing for you? That's why can sell their stuff cheaper. They don't support your hardware or any software that makes your box work. Apple does.
unfortunately am using windows , hope soon i can switch to mac , which is the best choice for normal users & designers/developers like me
Ah... the classic Mac vs. Windows pissing contest... this won't get locked or people banned, of course not... Oh wait, Digital Point, my bad. First off though, the poll lacks an "all of the above" choice -- which is an important one since I'm pretty much an OS whore. Linux, freeBSD and Solaris on servers, Windows on my primary laptop and desktops, Haiku in a VM since I've been doing a bit of Dev work for that, OSX down in the garage on my Apple IIE (that I gutted and stuck a Atom mainboard in -- instant legal hackintosh since it's still an "apple brand computer" )... and even DOS 2.11 on my Tandy 1000 HX where I still do some game development. Having been an Apple Certified Repair tech (back in the 90's where the qualifications for such involved knowing how to RMA, knowing how to RMA, and knowing how to RMA) and worked with computers for over three decades -- I've made a lot of observations on the subject. For all of Windows faults, IMHO it is still the best all-around day to day choice for a desktop or laptop OS. PERIOD. I can't even think of the last time I had windows crash (and the crashes I had can be blamed on creative labs, NOT Microsoft -- thanks Daniel_k for fixing what creative is too lazy to support). For me it remains the most intuitive and easy to use OS -- but let's be fair on that; I do NOT run ANYTHING in the default configurations. FIRST thing I do is drag the taskbar over into portrait mode on my right-most 17" portrait display (1024x1280) taking up half the screen. This way I can have a nice large quick-launch, and still open up about thirty tabs while still seeing the full window titles. I then kill the stupid new "indexing service" nonsense, turn off the idiotic "hide file extensions" crap, make it show me hidden files and folders, modify Explorer to ALWAYS default to "details" with all folders as "general items" so I don't have to deal with that thumbnail or 'automatic folder type' idiocy, up the font metrics to 120dpi so I can actually sit a NORMAL distance from the displays without squinting... Now, this all might sound like me bitching about it -- but no -- at least with Windows I can CHANGE these things. On the OSX side, the multitasking controls are so pathetically useless I pretty much HAVE to install Fantasktik to even use the blasted thing, the 'unified menu bar' is the most confusing pile of dung I've EVER dealt with (the whole "focus the window before you go to it's menu" being a royal PITA), much less the idiotic "you can only close applications using the menu or the keyboard" bs. Font rendering for me is a blurry illegible mess, and with no built in way to resize fonts in applications it's an accessibility JOKE. To be brutally frank there are only TWO things I like about Apple's operating systems -- Application installation and removal, and the built in support for ASIO audio on all devices. But -- the REAL problem I have with Apple has little to do with the OS and everything to do with the hardware -- as I wouldn't trust them to make quality hardware anymore than I'd trust the average person to understand the economics of credit and how it's destroying the economy. In the past 20 years I have seen such amazing gems out of Apple as connecting master and slave on a IDE port to the same pin and leaving the real slave line unwired so you can't use a normal IDE optical drive as a replacement, omitting two power lines on a PCMCIA slot in laptops to call it "airbus" so you HAD to buy wireless adapters from them (was cute how a lot of Buffalo PCMCIA adapters still worked without the extra power), underclocked G3 CPU's 50% so they could skip having heat sinks or proper airflow around the CPU and instead wrap it in insulating foam (fun when they heated up enough on the toilet seat ibooks enough to burn a hole clear through the dialup adapter), sold 65K color displays as 16.7 million color, shoved the WRONG ribbon cable for their displays into a mis-matching connector resulting in the oh so popular "striping" death of said displays... So excuse me if when people say "apple quality" I wonder just what the hell is in the kool-aid. The most stunning example of this is where they've gone with keyboards. Chiclet keyboards SUCK -- they sucked on the Trash-80 Coco, they sucked on the Aquarius, they sucked on the MSX, they sucked on the Sinclair Spectrum, they REALLY sucked on the PC Jr... but wait a decade or two, slap a Apple logo and a flimsy pressed aluminum case around it and the hipster *****'s line up around the block for them. PATHETIC. Sorry, Model M l33tist ******* here -- IBM Model M. When you have to type every last ******-******* character in ASCII7, accept no substitutes. Bud, the keyboards today aren't worthy of the name... they come in designer colors and they're too low.... and when you type on them they make this weak, almost apologetic sound. Not the model M. They only come in beige, and when you type on 'em, KER-CLICK! That's a man's click Bud... A Model M says "I'm a keyboard, sit down and gimme your best shot!" Oh if only a Model M could speak, the tales it could tell... IF I was to go for OSX, I sure as shine-ola wouldn't be doing it on Apple hardware -- though at that point just use Win7, which makes OSX look like a rinky half-assed TOY by comparison. Especially since for the cost of the best iMac I can build a Quad display PC that blows the base model Mac Pro out of the water and have money left over... It's why Apples really are for people who know nothing about hardware or software... No, that's not a compliment.
Which flies in the face of the hundreds of thousands of users who replied to the annual (paid) CR membership survey where they were asked if they had any problems with their Windows or Apple hardware that required service. The majority reported more problems with Windows machines. Personal opinion. I didn't know if I would like it either but my wife, son and myself all LOVE the keyboard AND the mouse! Again, with NO support for ANYTHING. You do all the work including putting it together and, if it fails, you're on your own. You get what you pay for. Yes it is. Apple will take care of you!
1) the largest respondent number for any of their paid subscriber polls was 40K -- a number entirely consistent with their ~7 million circulation. 2) because consumer reports is SUCH a reliable source and has NEVER been caught skewing the numbers in their favor by omission of data that contradicts the advertiser they're trying to make happy. (they really are a shadow of what they were in the 80's) By omitting out of the 40k or so respondents how many were responding to each machine (go ahead, try and find that number! They say how many people responded but NOT how many for each category!) they could have skewed the numbers any way they liked -- it's like when in the late 90's Volvo called BS on their constantly ranking Toyota as the best at EVERYTHING when they showed that CR basically threw out half the respondents for "not being up to their standards" --- in other words for disagreeing with the result they wanted. "Out of 40K respondents" Wow, 40K people responded? "No, that's just the 40K that agreed with what we wanted to say, we omitted the rest" Treads into the same territory as the dipshits who think there are less IE users today than there were 7 years ago just because it's gone from 95% share to 39%.... forgetting the question "percent of what?" --- because of course 95% of 750 million is more than 39% of 2.1 billion... oh wait, no it isn't... from 2004 to 2011 IE actually GAINED over 100 million users despite the market share taking a nose dive. When you change the size of the pool, share is meaningless. It's like a product review on NewEgg -- something with two people giving the product 5 eggs does NOT carry the weight of 100 people giving it 4 eggs. It is why percenters love their percents -- easiest way to bold faced lie while using facts to do it... and usually it's the trendy yuppie types (or hipsters -- aka Yuppie 2.0) who actually bite the cookie out of ignorance. Take the card stacking, mix in a little bandwagon, plain folks, testimonials and name calling -- and Apple pushes out a marketing beast that would make Joseph Goebbels cringe. You mean like when they mass banned people from forums for even MENTIONING the display issues? Buying up the websites that used to list all the ways to fix the problems and burying them faster than Adobe or Symantec do with competitors? Flat out refusing to fix any machine that exhibits the striping issue on it's display? (especially if it's pre-intel and even if you've got the extended warranty)... you mean like if your optical drive breaks you don't have the machine for two weeks as they have to ship it across the country for service. (since swapping out an optical means total disassembly?) I think you meant to say Apple will service you... in the same way a cellmate named "biggie" would. Again, that must be some REALLY good kool-aid. The build quality is trash, the vendor lock-in is so monopolistic it makes M$ look like it's run by Marxists -- and if it wasn't for it's Cult status nobody would be dumb enough to waste money on it. They're IKEA. No joke... you hear the same thing from Ikea fanboys. For those of you not familiar with it, "IKEA is a fully immersive, 3D environmental adventure that allows you to role-play the character of someone who gives a shit about home furnishings. In traversing IKEA, you will experience a meticulously detailed alternate reality filled with garish colors, clear-lacquered birch veneer, and a host of NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS (NPCs) with the glazed looks of the recently anesthetized." But that's like when people start talking about how stylish the cases are -- when to me they have all the style of a recently sanitized hospital ward... white plastic and brushed metal.
You could be right but you're not. CR carries no advertisements or has any advertisers of any kind. Why would they do that? They gain nothing by doing so. Or are you just guessing. I don't recall that story but do remember it. But you are confusing the story. CR gives two reports. One based on their testing in their labs. The other as reported by their members. But you, again, are saying CR has something to gain by skewing the results. What is it? In a fist fight, if you gain 100% of yourself and I gain five buddies, I'll be glad I'm not on your side. Apparently you know nothing about the CR surveys and never participated in one and, possibly, never read one. Percentages are not used or displayed, so you're way off base. The rest of your post, in fact your whole post, flies in the face of, and contradicts, everything I've ever heard and read or experienced. You even claim CR has advertisers which is entirely not true. CR even buys all the products they review without being given anything by any manufacturer. I believe you are only trying to remember things from the 90s, like the Volvo story, and trying to push them off as facts for today. If you have to go back 20 years to find something to support your story, perhaps you shouldn't be posting at all.
Pretty sure the copy on newstands does (I'll probably go check at bord... uhm walde.... crap, where can I actually buy magazines now?)... their websites certainly do, though carefully crafted to hide them as if it's something of their own. Having worked for a few non-profits (museums) I know the score on that one. Right, I'm SO sure those "non-anonymous anonymous" donations couldn't EVER play a factor... Sorry, I've got a nasty dose of the "non-profit blues" when it comes to that sort of thing. A fistfight is NOT running a small business or even a major corporation... especially in a free trade environment with anti-monopoly regulation. Show long as you're showing growth and profit, there's nothing wrong with having competitors. IF nothing else it keeps the "evil monopoly must be stopped" whackjobs in check. Even more so when it's a 'value added' loss-leader, something you're basically giving away while providing full support for. Hell, at this point it would probably be more profitable for them to drop it entirely since IE generates WHAT for income? It's a loss-leader just like media player... Only thing online I could find referencing the topic: http://www.slashgear.com/consumer-reports-apple-has-best-tech-support-1077322/ Rating from 0 to 100... last time I checked that's called a percentage. NOT using the word doesn't stop it from being what it is... and their not saying "percentage of what", and using goofy iconography instead of real stats is EXACTLY why they can pretty much push any agenda donors or advertisers want them to. Every time I've seen an article, review or reference to such online from them, the information has been incomplete and blatantly missing important factors that would give it any sort of credibility... which is why I've always wondered how in the hell they've gotten and maintained the reputation they have. The only reason for such omissions of data is to skew the results in favor of whatever it is they're trying to push. They're a bit like Nortons at this point -- coasting on reputation alone as nobody with more than two brain cells to rub together would believe there's any value there. Which is funny given the RDF already present in this thread. His body lies, but still he roams...
Oh, you also have to figure in bandwagon/cultism into the respondents... since people are 10 times more likely to take the time to respond in the negative than they are in the positive UNLESS you have cult-like fanboyism in place. As a rule PC owners who if nothing is wrong they won't take the time to fill out a survey... they've got better shit to worry about. Would you like to take a survey? Would you like to take a hike before I shove my boot up your arse? Apple owners you ask the question and they'll go on for hours about how wonderful it is... they'll invite you in for tea and grab the tom tom's for the drum circle. So I'd not be surprised if that alone didn't skew the numbers too. The Apple "culture" is a truly freaky thing I've never quite been able to fathom -- even when I worked for them. I REALLY didn't "fit in" -- always asking questions like "We're really charging $200 parts + $100 labor to install a $20 memory stick? admittedly that's probably bad practice within ear-shot of the customer
/me grabs popcorn . Guys would you like to meet in a Skype conference and shout arguments at each other ? Although I don't think even that will make Howard admit that Apple have done anything wrong . He is hooked up on Apple just like a heroin addict ; I guess this is why they call it the Apple religion .