Slashdot Mirror
Why I Ain't Buying A Mac
gphat writes "An article at Rush Magazine details why the author isn't buying a Mac. This is in response to Apple wanting our input last week."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
The problem is that this guy is not in Apple's market. Apple is not going after people who want to tinker around with hardware and buy componets that have 0.1% markup. They want to sell to computer *users* like schools, small businesses, and the typical home user (like your mother). With that said, I do have to agree with the price issue that he raised. In the end, most people will probably choose a lower price over a cooler computer (iMac, for example). Apple needs a value line that competes with the $800 PC's.
There is absolutely nothing in that article that hasn't been said already. Even the G4 ATX style motherboard isn't a new idea - infact they are being sold (but can't run OS X).
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
1) Because I can do everything on a PC that I could do on a MAC.
2) Because I don't need flashy/trendy/cool cases to do my job.
3) Because I don't want to pay for an OS when I can get one for free.
4) Linus is much 'cooler' than Steve.
5) I don't need to make Toy Story 3 on my computer, just recompile a kernel and play Civ3.
6) I don't want that damn iMac making faces at me.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
it's one big rant about Apple's shortcomings, padded with small praises to lighten the impact.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
It's the original iMac (iMac Classic). It's priced to sell at $799.
Big problem is that Apple doesn't push it, and it's targetted at the edu segment. I'm not even sure you can get it if you are not edu.
If apple put some marketing into this line as well as the iMac line, then that would be great. It would make a well rounded computing lineup.
IMO, I think apple is not doing this because of three things. 1., they are afraid that it would canabilize their iMac sales. The margin on the Classic can't be that much. 2. It would cost more in terms of having product in the channel and additional production costs. 3. It would add confusion on what you, the consumer, should buy.
__nether
His points:
1. Macs are Expensive
2. He buys components to "stay ahead of the curve"
3. Mhz
My points:
Number 1 and number 3 are MULTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. Every 4 or so years (+/- 1) I buy a Mac. It usually takes that long for a new use of computers to come along that challenge previous processors. I bought a 6100/60 to do word processing, e-mail, and what is now basic web browsing. I bought an iMac for mp3, CDRW, digital imaging (with larger images than the 6100 liked). I will buy a G4 iMac in the next year or so for digital video. I average about $1200 for 4 years, which is about $300 a year, or $1/day. I spend more on coffee/lattes than I do on Macs. Now my PC (bought to play video games). Every 6 months or so I do a mobo and/or processor replacement so that I can buy any game in CompUSA/BestBuy, which is about $250 a year in UPGRADE costs. That doesn't even take into account graphic cards (1 new one a year), hard drives (when I run out of space or when the cost of a new one that is 3X as big is same as origional drive), replacement monitors (evey few years), etc. All in all, I spend a little more on my PC use than I do on my Macs.
Number 3 is a bunch of shit. Think of it like this. When one purchases a computer, they (hopefully) buy it for a purpose. They have a need they are fulfilling. Lets use are car example. Lets say you could buy a sedan for $15000 or a normal run of the mill city car for $15000. Based on a simple look the sedan is a better deal. Now lets say that sedan had the drivers seat on the wrong side of the car AND every year you had to buy brand new tires to keep up with roads designed for sedans. Not only that the Sedan pollutes the fuck out of the enviroment, some times doesn't start for any appearant reason, and the radio keeps turning itself on to the easy listening station once you achieve highway speeds. Sedan isn't looking so good anymore, especially since the normal car is reliable, doesn't treat you as if you are the enemy.
His points are stupid. There are reasons NOT to buy Macs, but these aren't among them. He's an average WinTroll trying to get web hits and it worked.
Burn Hollywood Burn
First, some background: I'm a Programmer/System Administrator with a heavy bias towards Open Source software.
And this guy's article got posted on Slashdot? Wow, whoda thunk...
Honestly, this guy isn't in the arena to buy a Mac. In the same sense, my roommate who is a graphics art/animation major in college is dying for a new iMac/Powerbook. Everyone in her classes seems to use them and love them. Myself, very similar to this guy (programmer/general computer geek), I would never even consider a Mac...more likely I would piece components together into one of the three have/fully built cases I have already sitting around my office.
--trb
Loves
Hates:
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The author says PowerMac G4 933MHz with a 60Gb hard drive, 256Mb of RAM, and a Super Drive (that's DVD and CD-RW people!). This is going to run me $2,299.00. At Dell's website (Dude, yer getting' a Dell) I can get a 1.8GHz Dimension with an 80Gb drive for $1,497.00. That's $800 dollars less for the same functionality, more hard drive space, twice the clock speed (I won't get into CPU architecture), and your required contribution to the Microsoft Empire in the form of Windows XP and Microsoft Works.
First, the superdrive is a DVD-R and CD-RW, it burns DVDs and CDs. The Dell doesn't have that, and guess what, it costs about 800$ to get one. The assembled-with-the-cheapest-possible-parts-PC doesn't have a warrantee, so it's not a fair comparaison.
Also, his whole argument about weither more MHz is better is quite stange. At first he says that only Joe Sixpack thinks that, and people who know computer architecture relalise that the MHz are only a part of a computer speed. Two lines later, he says that the Mac is slower because it has a lower frequency.
Let me tell you something, if you ever have two computers that have the same performances (time to do a task), always take the one with the lower frequency, you'll have a more stable system, it will produce less heat, etc.
Overall, it was a pretty crappy article...
GFK's
In his example, the author explains that a Dell costs $800 less than a comparable G4 with a superdrive. However, Dell doesn't even offer a superdrive on any of their products. Where the hell does he find the basis for that comparison?!? There isn't a PC on the market that can compare with the G4's video production capabilities.
My Blog Sucks.
Let's take a purely mathematical approach. Entropy S = k ln W where W is the mulitplicity of the configuration: W = N!/nl!nr!. Now, if we let N be the number of MacOS machines in existence with nl = number that have been cracked and nr the number that haven't been (yet!), we can plug in some numbers and find that the likelihood of break-in is roughly 87.3%.
YMMV, obviously, but even in the case of simple home usage I don't like to risk my data to such an insecure OS. That's why I stick to Windows95 which, despite what some MS-bashers like to say, hasn't had a single break-in attributable to design error ever.
Macs are for people who want to do stuff with their computer, not do stuff to their computer.
I've been a computer user for... sheei** since I was old enough to know what one was. I started out on one of those old RadioShack Tandy TRaSh 80 Color III's those old keyboards you hook up to your TV and program in BASIC. Those were the days. Then I got a real computer. My Macintosh Performa 6400 200Mhz... wow that thing kicked ass back in the day. I did so much with that thing. I was certainly a Mac evangelist. Learned C and C++ on that, HTML, made my first few web sites on it with the help of Photoshop and BBEdit. Then I got another real computer. It is what has become my Athlon 1Ghz, 320Meg RAM, 40Gig HD, nVidia GeForce 2, etc. etc... which I've built myself the same way the author of this article pointed out, piece by piece. I started out with a grandaddy of an old giant noisy desktop mega ATX case and slowly replaced parts and case till the only thing left of that original beast is my Sound card and a couple sticks of RAM. My point I guess if I have one is that PC's rock. Macs rock. I agree that Macs are expensive but if you HAVE the cash and you DO want one, then do it up. Personally I can think of plenty of other stuff I'm gonna buy before I buy a new G4 :( but alas such is life.
And btw, this guy's "fuzzy math" shines through, I like how he pointed out some specs and a price, then only one or two of the same specs and another lower price (I think he left out ram) then he hid behind absolutely no backup whatsoever, claiming to have some sort of "rocking" system for like a grand. I don't know about other folks but I have a rockin system and unfourtunately altogether it didn't just cost a grand. If I had every feature that the new G4's had then I'm sure I'd be coming close to about 2 grand, I think I probably am already. Price only matters to those who are greedy.
another little point I didn't like was about this whole Mhz business - just isn't a good comparison factor between machines. There are so many other hardware factors that can influence overall performance. Even if you get your system specs completely tight, each uses such and such rpm hard drives made by the same company, exactly 256megs 168 pin DIMMS at 133, there are still plenty of other factors... os, the compiler the os was compiled on, the system the os was compiled on, the programs you're running, the compiler THEY we're compiled with, your bus speed, your chipset, your entire architechture, the size of your chip cache, how many chip specific features the compiler you're using takes advantage of, how many OS specific features your programs take advantage of... the list goes on. I think this guy mentioned that he's never seen a mac respond as quickly as he feels his PC does on a regular basis. Hmmm, sounds like as a PC fanatic this guy really uses macs a lot... riiiiiight. Wonder if he's actually used any of the programs compiled with support for the G4's new architechture. In short this guys reasons for what he says are IMHO stupid. Sorry for the long windedness, just wasting time. peace.
one more quickie, apple should advertise more. apple has numerous commercials posted on their web site. why? I mean I get a kick out of em but no one else likely will unless they're already mac fans. I've seen a fairly recent new iMac commercial but that's it. Where are the logos at the sporting events, during survivor, all these giant shows? ok... over and out for real.
I'm too lame for sigs
For a while there, it seemed like Apple was learning to cope with this kind of economics. They no longer have so many proprietary interfaces and components. (They even used to have proprietary disk drives!) But now they seem to be doing it all over again -- not with the basic technology, but a silly need to be Cool. So we get all kinds of physical gimmickry that raises the price of the product. Sometimes these actually add value, like the easy-to-setup iMac cases. But mostly they're just pandering to the Distintive Brand and Design cult. All the little things they could do to extend their market breadth (rack systems for example) they just refuse to get into because it doesn't fit their image. This is a formula for irrelevence.
that he found it necessary to share with us? it's like he has some kind of inner turmoil and is trying to persuade us in order to persuade himself.
ah, premonition coming on: dude, you're getting a mac.
My father programmed in assembly on PDP-11's years ago. He still says that that stuff I do isn't programming, it's writin' novels.
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
Or, Another thing I couldn't do on my PC.
.jpg and maybe it is looking for .jpeg!! I have 300 files! How am I going to change that with a GUI?
(late one night) I'm trying to import some jpegs and it's not working. Hey, the extention is
HMMM. I pull up Terminal. Perl is already there! I write a throw-away script to convert all the *.jpg files to *.jpeg. THAT'S EASY!
I've never used OS 9 but I suspect I wouldn't like my Mac so much if it didn't have OS X
how much do we care what that one dude wrote? I could have written the same piece myself, but it isn't really "news for nerds"
I'm saving up to buy a Mac at the moment. If I was buying a PC I would have done so already, but the Mac I'd be happy with is more expensive than the PC I'd be happy with.
This is an interesting distinction, and ultimately the source of my current predicament. My problem has long been that Apple's product line is too shallow and not diverse enough.
The iMac is fine, but I suspect I will want to upgrade my video card at least once over the life of my machine. Why? Because I like games. The Mac itself will last for several years but I know with the pace of game development that I'll want a new video card before the system really needs any other upgrade.
That puts me in the Powermac range, which is very pricey. I really don't want to pay for all the other bells and whistles that come with the Powermacs, like Gigabit Ethernet and a Superdrive, but I don't have a lot of choice once I get into that category. I won't even get into the financial problem of wanting a Apple display.
I just wish Apple would sell a mid range tower. That's all. But I don't presume to know the economics of their market better than they do, so there must be a reason why. Perhaps they like forcing me for save up.
I use to be a Big PC guy who loved getting new hardware and upgrading my PC every couple months to keep it up to date. But after a while I just got really expensive, Even with using Linux as your only OS. So I started to let my computer fall behind the times for a while and save up my money and I got myself a Sun Ultra 10. And I felt that is was a much easier to work with the Sun then with a Linux box. Although installing some programes were a bit more difficult (Had to do the make stuff). But I never had issues with the harware no unexpected crashes from hardware, it just worked after over a year it still works perfectly. And the only thing that I really should upgrade on it is the Ram. But that is only for a speed increase not because apps require more. I can probably get at least 3 more years out of the Sun Systems sience Solaris is pritty good on working on older hardware, I can get a long life out of all the equiptment More then a PC. So now I needed a laptop so after looking around I found the PowerBook G4 to be the best bang for the buck. 1 Gig of Ram 40, Gig HD, GigaBit Eathernet, Wireless Eathernet, Larger Crisp screen. USB, Firewire. It had all the stuff I needed and I check for Dell and I couldnt build a Laptop to come have the same specs and still it became more expensive. And adding external components to it is a lot less of a hassle. And the OS works a lot more closely to the hardware then a PC ever did. The Apple saves me money because it saves me time. Doing it yourself is nice but that is if your time isn't worth to much money. For me I have to much to do and PC debuging takes way to much of my time. Why spend an Hour Debuging if you dont have to. Sun Workstation and Apple Computers have a higher operation time and a Lower TOC then PCs do. Even with a Free OS.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's only Linux people who think the sum total of using a computer is to sit there and recompile your OS or play games. That's why Linux hasn't made it far into the non-hacker desktop market. Most people actually like to do things using their OS, not make fidgeting with their OS what they do.
"I can do everything on my PC that I can do on a Mac. Of course, there were some driver and integration issues, but what do you expect? Computers are like that. Also, the video software took a while to get used to, but all software is like that. What do you think, I'm some stupid grandmother who can't figure out a few problems? Deal with it. And I don't have a SuperDrive, but who wants that? And the video software couldn't do some things I wanted, but hey, software has limitations. Besides, I can do everything on a PC that I can do on a Mac. I don't need no fancy cases. Computers are tools; you're not supposed to enjoy using them. And it's cheaper, if you don't buy an external SuperDrive, but as I said, who wants that?"
That's approximately what I hear most of the time.
I've used PC's and own one. I've also used Amigas, Ataris, NeXT, DEC Vaxen, IBM SYSTEM/360, SGI, every imaginable UN*X, Alpha, DG Nova, Cyber 205, ETA-10, TRS-80, 68HC00 and 1802-based systems I built from chips, and other stuff I can't remember right now. Not to mention overclocking the direct video board on a Thinking Machines CM-2 with 65536 processors.
I like the Mac. A G4 is my current development/word processing/video editing machine. I have no fear of hacking hardware, but when I feel like doing that, I whip out the breadboards and do it. The Mac gives me something that nothing except the Amiga gives me--an environment where issues were thought out, not always with perfect solutions, but always with a craftsmanship that is a cut above the rest. I spent most of my life and still spend it at work putting together large pieces of software. I like being able to whip out a tool with just a few lines of code in Cocoa; I like being able to have undo/redo from day 1; I like dealing with the products of designers, developers, and engineers who are not my intellectual inferiors, and I don't mind the fact that they make more money than the average code monkey, nor that this money comes out of my pocket. I like having a cooperative rather than an adversarial relationship with those who write the API's I use.
Some people don't like that sort of thing. That's cool. But you can't compare apples with mock apple pie.
This past weekend I bought my fourth Macintosh computer. For details, you can check my journal.
Disclaimer: I do not play games on my computer. The only thing I load up is MAME about once every month or so just as a stress-releiver.
That said: I have found Macintosh computers to be very low-cost in terms of life-time expenses. Yes, up-front costs are lower for PCs, but having used PCs (my job requires PC use, and I have done tech support on them before), they are far less hassle and expense to keep running well.
In addition, Macs tend to have a longer life than a comperable PC. I admit that you can throw Linux onto an older 486 or original Pentium, but most users will not do that. Most Mac users will hold onto their Macs for several years, even in its original configuration.
So comparing up-front costs does not give you the entire story.
Also remember that you cannot put a price tag on ease of use and ability to get things done.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Dell Precision Mobile Workstation M40
s p? customer_id=555&order_code=WS-M40&cfgpg=1
s /A ppleStore.woa/53/wo/jQIy01qrrnBvvsUvNu/0.3.0.3.30. 27.0.1.3.1.3.1.1.0?123,54
512MB, SDRAM Memory (2DIMMS),
48GB IDE Hard Drive,
3.5 inch 1.44MB Floppy Drive,
Internal Mini-PCI NIC/Modem,
Internal 8-8-8-24X SWDVD/CDRW Combo Drive,
Integrated IEEE 1394 "Firewire" port.
nVidia, Quadro 2 Go, 32MB, VGA
Mobile Pentium®III Processor,1.20GHz-M with 15.0in UXGA Display
$3,968.00
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.a
Apple G4 PowerBook
667MHz PowerPC G4 @ 133MHz
256K L2 cache @ 667MHz
1GB SDRAM memory
48GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon w/
16MB DDR video memory
Gigabit Ethernet
56K internal modem
1 FireWire & 2 USB Ports
Airport Card Included
$3,699.00
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObject
Dell Pros:
nVidia, Quadro 2 Go, 32MB, VGA
3.5 inch 1.44MB Floppy Drive,
Dell Cons:
No option to upgrade memory
Price
Mac Pros:
Gigabit Ethernet
1GB SDRAM memory
Airport Card Included
PRICE
Mac Cons:
ATI Mobility Radeon w/
16MB DDR video memory
No 3.5 inch 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Wait - Macs are too expensive? Did I miss something? A price difference of $300 dollars & gigabit ethernet & wireless ethernet & 512MB more RAM. Mac are more expensive?
___________________________
I'm not a geek, but I play one on TV.
I think the feedback is pretty fair considering he's a PC user. I don't think Apple should reconsider making all of their components available "off the shelf" but I still think they're pretty damn good machines that can easily be configured to boot into MacOS 9, X and any PPC distro of Linux (and many a Windows OS if Virtual PC is installed- but that doesn't compare to actual hardware)- and in more cases than with the PC world... all of your components will most likely just work... and pretty flawlessly at that.
MacPro 4,1 2.66GHz/Radeon HD 4870/Mac OS X 10.6.x
For many of my friends, (20-30+), one of the real reason is the games. Although we do real work on our pcs (I write programs on my Linux boxes and some of my friends design websites on their windows boxes), the real reason for many of us is that we want our machine to be GAME-COMPATIBLE. Sure there are games for Macs but they are much less (just checkout a local Fry's Electronics or Bestbuy), more expensive, and generally comes out much later or not at all. For my younger cousin and his friends, they are their family computer whiz, and their buying decision is whether they can run the latest games.
For my gf, her primary use other than school work is to surf the web and chat with friends. Although she is an architecture (mostly uses Autocad on pcs) student in an art school (they use all Macs), she is so used to IE with the 5 button Microsoft mouse that she totally dislikes the 1 button mouse, the sluggishness and the interface of the Macs (from her words) in her school.
Mac vs Win XP
I understand that his reasons to switch involve licensing rather than hardward/cost/available software/etc, but I imagine that JG could pretty much run whatever he wanted without too much difficulty.
Yes, Virginia, I just bought a mac. It is fabulous (my other frequently used machines include a win 98 box, solaris 8 on both sparc and intel, and RedHat 7.2) and as advertised, it is unix with a gui that does not suck and hardware/software integration that just bloody works!
I was configuring a new sunblade the other day and the question arose, which was best KDE or Gnome? My vote -- AQUA
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
Apple sells their products similarly; the various Macs since the iMac have been cool looking, easy to use, no hastle computers. Part of buying a Mac is the cool iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, ietc. software that automagically does everything you bought your new PC for, including uploading your stuff to your mac.com website.
It's all about increasing coolness and decreasing hastle for both VW and Apple.
Now that Macs are Unix machines I have this gut feeling that Windows is now the only bizarro operating system remaining in popular use. Mark my words: It won't be long before reporters start referring to Microsoft as "the beleaguered niche OS licensor."
-- thinkyhead software and media
Hello, I am a Windows man. I am interested in buying a Mac. Are they really as slow as the man above says? I hear conflicting reports all over the internet about this speed. I like their hardware very much, and Apple Mac OSX looks very cool, but are they slow? There are NO Macs in my town that I know of. I have never even SEEN a Mac. I am not lying. I went to the Apple reseller, and he did not have any Macs in stock, he only orders them to fill orders, so I am going by heresay. What is your experience? How do they feel in person? Are they cheap plastic or good plastic? Are they sturdy? Any thing you can tell me would be good. I am interested in the most expensive Powerbook Ti when I can afford it, by Christmas or early seasons of next year.
My friends say that "Apple would rather do it right than do it fast", since they use the Risc chip that is more modern design(?).
And I have heard that lots of people are waiting for new faster G5 processors to be sold, when are they arriving? When should I buy a Powerbook. I do not have any Mac right now, just Windows XP.
I do not like Windows XP. It is slow and made by criminals.
thank you in advance,
Philippe-Auguste
TROLL ALERT
Why? Because 1. I'm sick and tired of wasting hours trying to fix hardware configuration problems (the last straw was when I had a motherboard which simply REFUSED to assign anything other than IRQ 10 to both the video card and the NIC); 2. I want industrial-strength UNIX and a decent GUI; 3. I want integrated 802.11b without a PCI card sticking out of my laptop waiting to be snapped off; 4. I'm not a cheapskate who thinks he's getting more value buying parts himself; 5. I'm not stupid enough to think you can compare the frequencies of an Intel/AMD to those of a PowerPC processor.
If you want to fiddle around with hardware for the rest of your life, by all means, buy the PC. But system's integration is for morons. Have you ever tried to discuss anything sophisticated with your average hardware tech?
I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion from the fact that your Windows game machine requires more upgrades.
1. The fact that you have a whole machine for gaming suggests that Mac isn't a viable gaming platform for you.
2. Games require more upgrades than mp3s, CD-RW and digital imaging
3. If Mac were a viable gaming platform for you, you'd be upgrading more. I don't know how Mac upgrade costs compare to PC upgrade costs, but you'd probably be spending more than your PC upgrade costs, and significantly less than you spend on Mac and PC combined.
Really. Who cares if this guy wants to wallow in his own ignorance? Let him. He clearly needs to hold on to the old myths about Macs (most expensive... riiiiiiight) in order to make sure his world view isn't destabilized.
People have a right to their own delusions.
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
This account was promising for about a week, but your recycling is pathetic. You have no skill. Go crawl in a hole. I don't even care if you can come up with something new anymore.
> I don't buy computers anymore; I buy components.
Congratulations, pal, you're not in any of Apple's target market segments. Don't let the doorknob hit you on the way out.
> I don't think Steve Jobs is concerned with Apple
> making money -- excuse me, 'increasing
> shareholder value'.
I hate to say this, but this guy is a moron. Just because they're not interested in catering to the shade-tree PC builder doesn't mean they don't want to make money. In fact, Jobs clearly is interested in making Apple a profitable business. Along with Dell, Apple's one of two PC companies actually doing well during this recession. So claiming otherwise is just silly.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Actually Dell does have a combo DVD+RW/CD-RW for $429. Of course adding it STILL throws this guys numbers off.
The PowerMac also comes with a Nvidia GeForce4 MX while the stock Dell he is comparing it too has a GeForce2. I really don't know much about graphics cards so when I tried to recreate his comparison I upgraded them both to a GeForce4 Titanium which cut down the price difference some more. You also have to add the Dell movie studio package to get the FireWire ports that are standard on the Mac.
The Mac also has Gigabit ethernet which isn't an option on the Dell. Not quite sure what the value of Apple's built in ethernet card is.
The Dell has a "faster" (as in more Mhz) chip but the actual performance difference probably depends on what you are doing with it. From what I have seen it seems intel's clock speed advantage translates into a real performance advangtage but Altavec MORE than makes up for it when it can be used. So in general computing the Wintel machine wins; in mutlimedia stuff the Mac wins. In my own use mulitimedia tasks are the only processor intensive stuff I do. I will notice a perfomance advantage in FinalCut Pro but not in my wordprocessor.
Comparing the bundled software is difficult because the bundles are so different. The Dell comes with more productivity stuff; the Mac with multimedia and of course the DevTools CD. Overall, I think the Mac software bundle probably has a pretty significant edge in both quantity and quality.
Still trying to match up bullet points on spec sheets item for item, the Dell is still significantly cheaper.
Of course industrial design, the relative quality of the components and engineering don't show up on a bare spec sheet nor does even more intangible elements like "ease of use" and the like. The consensus opinion seems to be that in quality of engineering and in the attention to "intagibles" the Mac again has a significant edge. Is it worth the price premium? I guess that is for consumers to decide.
That story was new when it was invented in 1977 by people who complained about the price of the Apple II or maybe in 1981 by those who complained about the price of the IBM PC.
:)
They don't have a clue about what they're buying in terms of value. They only know that price means everything. They're irrelevant. Hope the clown sticks with Dell. Would hate to see them go out of business.
And half or more of the people in this thread are hung up on price, price, price......ever stop to think you're *never* getting the best price because somewhere there's one cheaper?
Price shopping, however, is fun. And should be pursued at length with considerable time involved, especially by those who place no value on something more important.......time.
This is because I can't use their laptop's keyboards. I need the key to the left of the 'A' to be a Ctrl key. This is not just a want; it is a genuine need based upon ergonomic reasons .
Apple's cost to satisfy my keyboard desires is small: re-design their laptops to use USB keyboards just like the rest of their line. Unfortunately for me, Apple hasn't done this yet. Their laptops still use the ADB keyboards, which are horribly broken-by-design. ADB keyboards are a vestage of the old insanely-bad input devices days, when Apple didn't have an industrial-strength unix core.
Apple: Please fix your laptop keyboards! Please re-design your laptop motherboards to use a modern up-to-date USB keyboard, to go along with your 30-year old modern up-to-date unix OS!!
My standard rant follows:
Apple Laptop Keyboards are Unacceptable to Unix Users
Apple designs horrible keyboards. ADB keyboards (which are still used on all of Apple's laptops) are unusable to unix users who need a Ctrl key to the left of the 'A'.
Proper Keyboard Design
- When a key is pressed, the keyboard sends a keyPress
event.
- When a key is released, the keyboard sends a keyRelease
event.
- Each key is assigned a different keycode.
Nothing more, nothing less.ADB Keyboard Mis-design
- When the key to the left of the 'A' (CapsLock) is
pressed, the ADB keyboard sends both a keyPress event
and a keyRelease event.
- When the CapsLock key is then released, the ADB keyboard
sends NO events.
- When the CapsLock key is next pressed, the ADB keyboard
sends NO events.
- When the CapsLock key is then released, the ADB keyboard
sends both a keyPress event and a keyRelease
event.
- The above cycle repeats over and over.
This is WRONG ! Apple's ADB keyboards are broken by design.Unix Users Cannot Use Apple's ADB Keyboards
What this means is that unix users who need the key to the left of the 'A' to be a Ctrl key cannot use Apple ADB keyboards. You can easily reprogram the CapsLock key to be a Ctrl key and get rid of the badness of the CapsLock key, but you can't get the required goodness of the Ctrl key to the left of the 'A'.
Apple Loses Sales to Unix Users
All Apple laptops have the horrible broken-by-design ADB keyboards which are unusable to unix users. I want to buy an Apple laptop, but I cannot and will not until Apple builds input devices usable by unix users.
1) Price. I can upgrade my PC for a fraction of the cost of even apples cheapest G4 (i do not like the CRT iMac, and i barely like the LCD one).
.MOV, grrr.
2) See Point 1.
3) DivX out of the Box. The best available "hack" is to convert a DivX to a
4) Lack of cusomisation to OS X. I dont wanna use whats best. I do NOT like the new menu styles. (I ran X for 6 months on an iBook 366 SE, so i have actually used X)
5) Antialiased X on LCDs looks crap! The buttons look ugly. They are trying to shove round things into rectanular pixels.
6) Yes, the mouse. I want a scroll wheel and two buttons. (I KNOW I can buy any USB mouse, but i think apple should listen, coz i dont wanna go out and but a 3rd party mouse!!)
Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!
Fortunately, I don't really care why someone else doesn't want to buy a Mac, and I don't care if they waste their time publishing an article about it.
I care that I use one every day and I love it, and I wouldn't trade it in even for the newest, maxed out Dell.
It's amazing how a company can have 90% customer loyalty -- but receive such awful press. Obviously PC users are missing something here. Brand loyalty and outstanding products aren't suppose to equal poor press and biased reporting. But hey, like I said, as a Mac owner I have the privelage of not needing to worry about it.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
mac's haven't used adb in years. i have usb keyboards attached to my titanium and had one on my two year old pismo. have you even SEEN a mac recently?!
Sigh, it seems that every OS has it's own troll.
Apple does not have the same goals as Dell or Compaq. For Apple to capture even .5% of the total PC market in the states is a huge jump, while Dell or Compaq would have to grab an extra 10% before even feeling it.
I had the same mentality as this guy, but a few things made me change, and I am in the process of saving my hard earned cash so I can afford to buy a titanium powerbook.
I am a card-carrying Microsoft-dor-whore. It is not rewarding spiritually like open source is, but it pays the bills and the projects are always a challenge. Because of the need to do things that only run on Windows I never thought about macs. Then I realized that over the last 2 years I have done 99% of my coding on a text editor (editplus, which really rocks, wwww.editplus.com) and the other 1% was done thru a terminal services client.
That meant I could use any kind of computer that could let me ftp a text file into my windows servers. Then I found out that there is a windows terminal services client written in Java that I can have for less than $50. On top of that I found out about Virtual PC. With Virtual PC I can have 3 or more computers in my back pack: A Mac, a Unix System and one or more Windows machines.
Now, I know the hardware is expensive, but he did not cover all the angles. There is no Windows laptop that can match the iBook's weight and feature set for the price. A 256MB, 600 MHZ iBook with the combo drive is 4.9 pounds and around $1500 if you add airport card.
Then, to be honest, there is no need to have my home computers running windows, even if I telecommute. I can do all my work with a Mac as long as I have the text editor and the terminal services client (I would not even need Virtual PC). And my wife could care less, she does not even use the second button in her mouse, and she was really thrilled when I took her to the Apple Store to see the new iMac.
As for components, I am sick and goddamn tired of how the homebuilt never measures up to your retal boxes. Of the 3 computers in my house the worst one is the dual processor machine I built for less than $1000. The retail Dell and the IBM Thinkpad run great.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
and check debian-powerpc archives; there is a patch that works.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
STEVE GIBSON ?
This is WRONG!
If I were you, I would get the iMac (its lovely - just got mine) and a games console, such as the cube, ps2 or xbox, rather than holding out for a G4 tower just to play games with. It still works out cheaper than trying to keep a PC current to play the latest games on.
I have given up on PC gaming after the medal of honour demo chugged on what was a reasonable system only 1 year ago, went for an iMac and a console.
Happy computing.
But on the other hand you have cool for trivial or no reason. There's that anti-ergonomic puck-mouse. You have ethernet interfaces that support two-node networks without a hub. (Cool, but is such a narrowly useful feature worth the extra costs?) You have clear plastic cases that look great -- until maybe a week of normal use. You have first-rate monitors non-Mac people would love to buy -- but which don't have standard connectors.
Worst of all is the UI of OS X. Man UI experts -- including some who helped research and define the original Macintosh usability standards, are disturbed by the way OS X seems to emphasize sheer prettiness at the expense of basic usability.
Believe it or not, I'm not totally ignorant of the role of image in modern business and marketing. For my sins, I've been involved in no fewer than three rebranding efforts. Sure image and brand and style are all important. But these are just representations of the product. You have to have a solid product behind the representation, or people will see through your flim-flam. At least that's true for computers -- but computers are a little more complicated than running shoes!
Speaking of ignorance: try putting champagne in a screw-top bottle. Doesn't work.
More Apple FUD from the king of trolls...
You can't mod the parent message to flamebait!
/., make it harder to everyone to reach moderator status. Unprepared people are given too much power.
Even with such idiotic phrases like Mr. A is cooler than Mr. B -- and however impolite the poster can be -- is *his* opinion.
What reason do you have to reduce it to flamebait? I myself agree on 2 or 3 items. Am I a troll for that reason?
Please
1) Because I can do everything on a Mac that I could do on a PC.
2) Because I don't need beige/boxy/boring cases to do my job.
3) Because I want an OS that comes free with the computer, instead of one I can "get for free" by downloading a couple hundred MBytes on my PC that doesn't have an OS on it yet.
4) Sir Clive is cooler than either.
5) I don't need to recompile a kernel to play Civ3.
6) I don't want that damn PC making noises at me.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I don't know what it is about me you don't like, but whatever it is, I hope you are happy.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
For years I dreamed (dreamt?) about a Mac...
At its time, the Apple II was a wonderful machine. You could tweak it to your hearts content. There were inexpensive peripherals like joysticks or that cheap pair of knobs I can't even recall the names. Heck, how easy was building a steering wheel!
Then came Macs. Great design, great software etc. but more important: it had no brain-damaged processor (like the 8086).
Unfortunately it was as closed as they could conceive it. No more tweaking. No more expanding. No more fun.
To the ordinary user they were incredible. Too bad I could not downgrade to ordinary. Mind you, I kept those foolish ideas about *understanding* things. While most practical people had an urge to "just do" things and did not care about internals, I developed a strong despise towards practical people.
So I wanted to get inside Macs and had little money: two reasons S. Jobs wouldn't want to hear from me.
OTOH, MS+IBM+Intel wanted my little money. And, even with a 8086 processor, the PC was usable. In fact, Mac's quality never came into play: buying a cheap PC was infinitely better than not having a Mac (for I could not afford one).
What is Apple these days?
A hardware company? So why people keep praising their software side?
A software company? Yeah, tell me that in a few months... the way Linux morphs, I'd advise them to stay on the hardware side, just to be safe.
This is why I'm not having a Mac -- because Apple don't want me as a customer.
I once wrote pretty advanced software in an Apple II. I was banned to the PC realm. Don't ask me to return, I don't love you anymore.
The only thing I can conceivably thank Apple is for their example: now that MS wants to follow the same path -- dropping "cheap" and choosing "griffe" -- I can kick them in the backside right from the start.
Let me save you from reading the article. His whole arguement is cost. Yes, we know they're more expensive. Next...
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
How many times are you going to paste
this fsckin' rant here? This must be the
sixth time I've seen it here.
Yeah, we get the point.
Take some time and work up a fresh thought.
But what do you think about ADB keyboards? Those are pretty cool aren't they?
When I was first experimenting with linux, I borrowed a copy of slackware from a fellow geek, backed up my stuff and installed. Weather I was going to use it or not wasnt a huge issue because I hadnt invested anything short of an hour and a half into it. To run OSX, one would have to buy all new (or new - old) hardware assuming they had an x86 box, which is why im not running the os now... and this is aside from the whole hardware tweakability issue, on which im definately on the tweaker side. If only there was an intel port of OSX....
I've looked at the Debian source code.
I don't believe it can really achieve the desired effect, due to hardware deficiencies. I'm very willing to be proven wrong.
Can the Debian source really make the CapsLock key act like a Ctrl key in all cases???
How about the following sequence of events:
- CapsLock key pressed;
- X key pressed;
- X key released;
- C key pressed;
- C key released;
- CapsLock key released;
There are two possibilities:- Both events (CapsLock down and CapsLock up) are reported when the CapsLock key is pressed
.
- Both events (CapsLock down and CapsLock up) are reported when the CapsLock key is released
.
Both are of course WRONG; no properly designed keyboard acts this way. All Apple ADB keyboards act this way.Questions:
- In the first case, how can the software know whether or not the Ctrl modifier should also be applied to the C key?
- In the second case, how can the software know whether or not the Ctrl modifier should also be applied to the X key?
Answer:The Debian software can't know, because it can't read your mind. The software can't tell if you are running emacs(1) or some other program. The Debian software didn't get the proper sequence of events from the keyboard, due to the bad design of the ADB keyboard.
I don't believe that the Debian software can truly solve the problem. Only Apple can solve the problem by ceasing use of the broken-by-design ADB keyboards in their laptops, and they can do this only be re-designing their laptop motherboards.
I could be wrong, and I'm willing to look at real evidence, but right now I don't believe the Debian code can compensate for Apple's bad keyboard design.
The missing keypress events aren't "not sent." They're merely sent in a nonstandard way.
I mean, all you needed to do was go to the Debian mailing list search like I told you earlier, type in "caps lock" and scroll down to serarch the "powerpc" list. Problem solved.
I should mention that I am using this patch on a recent iBook RIGHT NOW to map my Caps-lock to a Ctrl.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
OK. I'll assume that your solution works for Debian Linux. This means it is relatively straightforward to fix for all other distributions of Linux, as well as as NetBSD and OpenBSD.
But how can I make use of this for Darwin/OSX?
My partner and me have been using the same computer for a year now, and due to the usual irritations, we decided i should have my own. Now i seriously considered apple, really seriously. Ans then I had to give up the idea, and visions of beautiful design, and other prettiness because of the COST of the stuff. I decided we could buy a new cool dual amd motherboard, connect a thin client, and a nice designy Panel for me, and save us barrels....and barrels.
It is you who is wrong... You need to adapt to the system you are working with... thats like saying that virtual switched routers are bad because you can not jam a screw driver in then to make cross points...
Fuck off and write your code to handle it.
-Jason
Friend one - buys G3 (literaly) one week before the G4 comes out. He is paid actual money to edit actual comercials that go on TV (not weddings) No hardware cards for video. M-Audio Card for true multi-track audio editing (not a SB Live) Friend two - Soyo Dragon Plus with AMD 1700+ Friend three - P4, Can't get Aardvark card he wants because no Win 2K drivers. Doesn't edit video but I guarantee if you live off editing (not DivXing DVDs) you need a hardware card. The G3 edits DV better than the PCs. I have worked on Apple-based Avids & Final Cut Pros, Media 100s (Hardware based so computer doesn't count in my book), Pinnacle Reeltime card in a PC & Premiere 6, and Discreet Edit on a PC (with a proprietary card). Hands down the Apples have always performed better. If you don't need the performance in a specific way, then stick with what you like. But please don't spread some BS about how your Dell edits video better before you put a $1000 card in it. It just isn't true. These PC vs Mac topics are quite fun to read. I put this in the same catagory as the AT7 topic - people complaining about a product they don't want, let alone need.