The Ultimate MacDate

Hack Jandy writes "Anandtech - the PC hardware site - took the Apple challenge and tried a Mac out for a month. The result was the most indepth Macdate I have even seen. As quoted by Anand, 'In the end, Apple has developed a very strong platform.'"

Comments

Re:Macdate?

[0racle]

You both sound like your hung up on labels. Makes sense considering the elitism of most Linux users I've met.

Re:20 IE Windows?!!!

[ageoffri]

Joy of tabbed browsing? I've tried and found it very annonying. I like alt-tab between multiple windows at work, many times it is several IE windows. I tried friefox's tabbed browsing and it just didn't work for me.

Re:But I like my apps....

[techsoldaten]

I'm in the same boat, please no flames.

The price for me to move starts at around $30k. It would cost me $12k for ArcView, $3k for 3DSMax (is there a 3DSMax for Mac?), $4k for Maya, $4k for Adobe products, $1k for Office, and that is just for everyday usage. There are also a number of CAD programs without Mac equivalents that would force me to keep a Windows box around and introduce the issue of cross flatform files.

Ironically, I actually have a G4 sitting upstairs that I used until about 6 months ago when I determined it was becoming a paperweight. High end users really have issues when it comes to talking about migration.

M

Re:But I like my apps....

[techsoldaten]

Yeah, whatever.

The cost to replace Office is accurate.

$500 for professional edition and I am including some cash to purchase alternatives for Access and Publisher.

The Abobe figures are accurate.

$450 for Acrobat, $1250 for Creative Suite, $1500 for Video Collection, and I'm not going into the cost of all those plug ins.

M

Re:mac = suckage

[michaelbuddy]

Uhh, actually I support over 1200 customers with Macs and I help design and train software on a Mac. I've also worked in a College Lab solely with Macs. I've seen and used all the OS since version 8. And although I can't complain about the kernel and bindings. I can state that Mac is more trouble than it's worth. Trademarking the trashcan. Sweet. so you my friend are wrong. You may love mac. But my point of posting is that Mac users love to justify the money they spent. But that doesn't make up for the marketing lies and BS that users spill on everyone. Like, for instance OSX never crashes. sure, never. Only every day.

Re:Pedantic Retort

[Anonymous Coward]

For a new user, they're most likely going to buy an OEM license of winxp at little or no cost. Also, xp has been out for how long? Lets do a little cost analysis for someone other than a brand-new user.

Winxp Pro: $279.99 (released October 2001)
MacOS X: $129.99 + 10.1 (free as upgrade, $129.99 new) + 10.2 ($129.99) + 10.3 ($129.99)

Since 2001, the xp user has bought their OS once, while the mac user has had to buy their os THREE times over, for hardware that is often (though not always) more expensive.

10.0: March 2001, last build June 2001
10.1: September 2001, last build June 2002
10.2: September 2002, last build October 2003
10.3: October 2003, still in production

Notice a pattern? I'm not sure if Apple releases patches for their earlier versions, but I doubt it.

And Apple is already planning on extracting another $129.99 from their customers with 10.4.

Re:Linux user considering buying an iBook

[ocelotbob]

Your entire argument boils down to the fact that you dislike the fact that many different visual operating environments can live on one binary platform. Let me guess, you don't like a mixture of carbon and cocoa apps, because there are differences in the ways those two apps run as well, right? Also, your distro does have a bearing on behaviors; most distros come with tweaks to kde and gnome to make them much more consistent. You're comparing a server distro to a desktop OS, of course the desktop-oriented OS is going to work better out of the box and be more consistent. Try comparing Apples to Apples here (pardon the pun)

With regards to driver support, where is 3dlabs' support of OS X anyways, I mean, it's easy to get Linux drivers for high end cards. Googling for support for the same company for OS X was much less fruitful. Additionally, licensing has everything to do with drivers. Were nVidia and ATi much more open with the distribution of their binary modules, it would be easier for desktop-oriented distro makers to create a better, more consistent product. Apple can ship with ATi drivers in the box; there's no need to go to ATi's site to download drivers; ATi, and nvidia, don't afford the same luxury to Mandrake users.

Try using a real desktop-oriented distro some time, you'll see that your experience of Linux on the desktop has been soured by trying to use an environment designed for servers to perform desktop tasks. Other distros are a lot more friendly.