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."

Comments

They do have an $800 line ... Re:Apple's Market

[nether]

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

Interesting user base

[(trb001)]

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

Re:Apple's Market

[PoiBoy]

They already have something to compete with the $799 Gateways and Dells -- a $799 iMac. Although l337 g33ks may find it sluggish, for the average user it's a great deal. It does everything PC's do, and it's (flame suit on) easier for mom and dad to figure out how to use than a Windows box.

Lame Price comparison

[AaronBaker2000]

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.

Re:What about security?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry about that troll. He doesn't have a leg to stand on since you can't start with an equation of only variables and end up with a number like 87.3%. I hope that nobody actually believes this moron.

Win95 is horribly insecure. Especially if you didn't get ever single patch that M$ put out for it. More nukes, trojans, and other odd hacks existed for it than any other OS I can think of (but I have a feeling XP will beat that due to the large target phenomenon).

As for this poster's reply: Despite what some Mac-haters say, OS 9 and X are both very secure (well, 9 has a potential local security shortcoming, but not remote). There haven't ever been any terrible security holes in the OS as far as I can recall. This is not only due to a good design but also due to the fact that nobody could understand how Macs work without much more research than a Windows box needed. The most important point, however, is that Mac OS has never been a big target so nobody tries to crack it. That is perhaps the best security an OS can have. For this reason, nothing M$ makes will ever be "secure."

Jeff.

Comparing apples to apples

[TwitchCHNO]

Dell Precision Mobile Workstation M40

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.as p? customer_id=555&order_code=WS-M40&cfgpg=1

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/WebObjects /A ppleStore.woa/53/wo/jQIy01qrrnBvvsUvNu/0.3.0.3.30. 27.0.1.3.1.3.1.1.0?123,54

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?

Re:Comparing apples to apples

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot a *huge* advantage the TiBook has (and one which was, for me, a major factor in deciding to purchase one) - the ability to run dual displays off it (not just video mirror, two independent displays). For a laptop being used a desktop replacement, this is a *HUGE* advantage.

counterpoint

[cbowland]

James Gosling (of sun and java fame) recently said he was switching to macs. To quote from the article, "And from a personal point of view, I personally actually read the [Windows] XP license and decided I couldn't sign it. So I've been shifting over to Mac. "

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 ;-} (Actually, I choose to install both but run KDE.)

Not a target Apple customer

[pvera]

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.

I did your research so you don't have to

[plastik55]

Jesus Christ, do you realize you sound like the Timecube guy? No one likes a blowhard, especially when he's wrong.

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.