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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."
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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
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
You cannot do everything on a PC that you can do on a Mac. I bought my first Mac a month ago for the quality of entry level video editing. Within one day I had burned a DVD of my most recent ski vacation with edits and a soundtrack. I tried this for a long time on my PC which was supposedly more powerful and was never satisfied with the results. At one point I upgraded my PC to Windows XP and found it was incompatible with my Microsoft Mouse!
It is also not possible to do this on Linux, I tried that to. After finally getting firewire to work I found that there were too many incompatible file formats. Maybe you can get it to work but I'm tired of tinkering every night.
My SGI Irix machine worked fine. HELL! it is just 1 180MHZ RK500 and still seems faster than my PC but I could only get a 4 gig hard drive.
Everything else I've discovered that I love (iTunes, iPod, iPhoto) is just gravy.
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
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.
Macs are for people who want to do stuff with their computer, not do stuff to their computer.
it's so funny that you mention this. My company sells a compiler for the playstation II vector unit. At present everyone who writes code for the ps2vu does so in asm. Can you imagine how stupid it seems trying to talk to people who say that they dont need a compiler cause they can do it in asm? What is most annoying is that some people in my company actually entertain the notion that they may have a point!
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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!
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
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!