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If Mac OS X Came to x86, Would You Switch?
A not-so anonymous Anonymous Coward would like to put this query before you: "I'm not a fan of Windows, and never have been, but I am a fan of the x86 architecture. I really like Linux, but there are still a few issues that are keeping me from switching completely. I really like Mac OS X but I don't want to drop $2000 on a computer that is only as fast as an x86 computer at half the price. Darwin, Mac OS X's unix-ish core, has been ported to x86 and Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn OS seems to be disliked by everyone but Microsoft. If Apple released Mac OS X to compete with Longhorn, would you switch?"
The original post propagates, once again, the "macs are slow" myth. Give me a break. I switched from PC a while back and have never looked back. My Mac(s) are great preformers, silent, reliable, come with a wonderful OS.
Screw windows, screw linux. seriously you guys.
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People hated windows 2000 before it came out. People hated windows xp before it came out. People will hate longhorn before it comes out. That's just how people are with microsoft, they're afraid of things they don't know yet.
What I have found generally is that x86 architecture appeals to kiddies. x86 has some real strengths, but it has many flaws. Teens don't recognise the flaws because of two factors. The most obvious is they don't have the experience yet to do any due dilligence. The second is the biggest problem. Teens don't have a lot of spare cash. You can follow this logic back to before the 1950's when teens would buy model T fords and similar for little money and try to upgrade the performace with hacks. A cut down Model T could not compare with a new car, but it WAS a lot cheaper. Of course you could not upgrade a new car in the 50's by bolting in a new engine. You could however allways upgrade the Model T with bigger and better engines... and other parts. The new car was already at the top of the game. So now we have a lot of teens with a lot of spare time and with little money. They look at Macs and decide they are rubbish because they don't have the cash to buy a good one. They believe they can get better performance by getting a cheap box and then spend the next year regularly crashing it while they try new overclocks on the GPU or CPU, or RAM or fan speed... Like the teens from the 50's they will grow up for the greater part. They will realise (here is the due dilligence part) that their time is worth more than the small increase in price. These are the ones that will buy a Mac, or another all in one system that is fast and "RELIABLE" out of the box. There will be others that will be like the old 50 year old car fanatics today who will continue to paint up their boxes, and tweak their timings until the day they die.