Most Mac Owners Also Own a Windows PC, But Not Vice Versa

Barence writes "More than eight out of ten Mac owners also own a PC, according to a new piece of research. The NPD survey found that 12% of US computer-owning households have a Mac. However, 85% of those also own a Windows PC, suggesting that the Mac/PC divide is nowhere near as clear cut as both Apple and Microsoft suggest. Mac owners are also far more likely to have multiple computers in the house. Two thirds of Mac owners have three or more computers in the home, while only 29% of PC owners have two or more PCs."

Comments

Here's why

[abbynormal brain]

Because we (PC users) can't afford them! Lower the price already. Also: I wasn't raided with the "I'm better than you - look at my Mac" attitude - or a hippie, or drive a VW, or ... you get the picture.

Re:Here's why

[alen]

what for? it's the same exact hardware. same exact intel laptop CPU's except for the Mac Pro. biggest difference is Mac's use nvidia chipsets instead of Intel due to the fact that nvidia has better integrated graphics. all the other parts are exactly the same and Mac's have used identical PC components like RAM and hard drives for decades

Re:Here's why

[LBt1st]

...or just buy a PC.

Re:Here's why

[gnick]

...should start wondering WHY you can't afford it...

Because I have better things to spend my money on. I can put together a system that satisfies all of my needs at dell.com or using computer chunks found at pricewatch.com for a small fraction of the price.

...start planning HOW you can afford it...

No. Let's go back to WHY.

Re:Here's why

[Kartoffel]

Or start planning your life so that you understand whether you actually NEED it. Aspiration towards ghetto-fabulousness is not the greatest motivation.

Re:Here's why

[uberjack]

As someone who just couldn't bring himself to fork over the ridiculous sum necessary for a 32 GB iPod touch, I couldn't agree more. Decent Macs cost too much money for any casual/curious user to afford - for the price of a dumbed-down and underperforming Mac Mini, one can buy a decent Dell system powerful enough to run most modern games.

Re:Here's why

[Steauengeglase]

True, I'd be more interested in knowing the number of Mac owners who also had PCs around the time of Mac OS 8 or System 7, long before you could pick up a $250 e-Machine.

Re:Here's why

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what I took from that article is that the people most likely to gripe about Macs probably don't own one, whereas the Mac users griping about Windows are mostly speaking from personal experience.

Re:Here's why

[ArhcAngel]

I think you hit on something there. According to sources laid out here The upper middle class (high 5 figure to well over $100,000 range) is about 15% of the population. Since Apple has about a 12% market share it could be extrapolated (hypothetically since we would need more empirical data to corroborate) that a good portion of that 12% are, in fact, upper middle class and thus are more likely to have the funds to spend on multiple computing devices. With the middle, lower middle, and working class making up the bulk of America it does indeed seem to support your suggestion that Apple lower it's prices to garner a larger piece of the demographic pie, as it were.

Re:Here's why

[Anonymous Coward]

what for? it's the same exact hardware. same exact intel laptop CPU's except for the Mac Pro. biggest difference is Mac's use nvidia chipsets instead of Intel due to the fact that nvidia has better integrated graphics. all the other parts are exactly the same and Mac's have used identical PC components like RAM and hard drives for decades

You forgot things little things like machined aluminum case, dual channel wireless cards. Better quality parts add up.

Re:Here's why

[omeomi]

I'm reasonably certain it's been shown a number of times that if you build a PC with the exact same hardware as a Mac, you'll end up with a PC that costs about the same. The only difference is that PC makers offer systems with a wider range of hardware options (including lower-quality hardware on lower priced systems), and include more "Click here to try AOL" crap on the desktop, thus lowering the price... and creating a market for computer retailers to charge a fee to remove that crap from your new system...

Re:Here's why

[mabhatter654]

A vanilla Macbook is appropriately priced for what you get. You have to buy Sony or go online to get an equivalent laptop.. if anything the problem is that Apple doesn't make CHEAP computers like $300 netbooks so that cuts out the poor/cheap folks looking only at price. Even the maligned Mac Mini is a pretty good machine for MOST sub $700 machine buyers. The majority of PC users don't open their computers over the life of the machine. The majority don't even add ram or video cards. They pay $600 for Last Year's parts in an empty plastic box that makes them feel good. A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC. Again, the problem is that Apple doesn't sell a "stripped out" model to hit a lower price point like Dell does... then you find out that the Windows PC was TOO stripped out and won't use all the features of your new OS (hint: THAT is why Vista bombed.. Microsoft caving to cheap OEMs)

I'd look at these numbers differently. Most people own a PC because the workplace DEMANDS it. 12% of people that own a Mac in addition to a PC went out of their way to seek it out because they didn't like Windows.... that's a huge and growing dissatisfaction rating.

Re:Here's why

[JWSmythe]

    It's still obviously a cost consideration. If you pay $300 for a Windows PC, or save up $1,000 for a Mac over the next 4 months, you're still spending over 3x as much for the Mac.

    While the wonders of the old economy still persist in people's minds (more money will always come in, so we can just save for a while and buy anything we'd like), that isn't quite as persistent now. (money will come in, until it doesn't, and then we only have what we saved).

    If Apple wants a larger market share, they will have to make their pricing competitive. It's still not competitive enough, so they will continue to make a larger profit per unit with a smaller number of units.

    It's all in the game you want to play. Do you want 4 customers making you 1 million dollars profit, or 4 million customers making you 1 dollar profit? The choice isn't quite as clear as you'd think. If you have the 1 million dollar customers, if one goes away, that hurts a lot. If you have the 1 dollar profit customers, a whole bunch can jump ship, and more will come in because your prices (and profit margin) is smaller.

    But hey, if you want to save up your pennies and buy a Mac, more power to you. It'll be a nice fixture in the back of your car, when you get fired in the next round of downsizing next week, and you find yourself homeless.

   

Re:Here's why

[Jezza]

Is that the only reason? I'd be staggered if the only reason PC owners don't buy Mac is because they can't afford them. How cheap do Macs need to be?

If that's true then most PCs must be of the "low end" type, Celeron rather than Core 2 Duo - right? Is that true?

Re:Here's why

[Anonymous Coward]

What I took from it was the people with one single PC find that one single PC can do everything they need it to do so they do not have to buy another computer. I wonder why people with a Mac typically have more than one computer and why is that computer likely a PC? They obviously need or desire the PC functionality for some reason. Don't mod down because you disagree, post a reply instead.

Re:Here's why

[jimicus]

If that's true then most PCs must be of the "low end" type, Celeron rather than Core 2 Duo - right? Is that true?

Actually, that wouldn't surprise me. Last time I checked, when you do a comparison down to a component level of a Mac versus a Dell with equivalent specs, you have to go quite high up in Dell's range before you even find the same CPUs available as an option, never mind standard.

The alternative is that Dell have this huge mid to low range (and continue to have something in the mid to low range year on year) that very few people are buying.

Re:Here's why

[guruevi]

Isn't it great, a fee that allows you to not buy what you didn't want to buy in the first place. But as far as the specs go: Compare a Mac Pro with the Dell T7400 (both the same exact hardware) and you will see that the Dell comes out somewhere between $1000 to $2000 more expensive. Even the Mac Mini is low priced for what you get. Of course you can do it cheaper when you do it yourself but that doesn't include any support or warranty nor your time that you spent assembling and sending back and forth parts.

Re:Here's why

[ezelkow1]

That may be true under the same circumstances, purchasing a pc with absolutely no discounts or freebies thrown in. If you are willing to wait you can purchase a pc with the exact same specs as an MBP for half the price. I did this 2 years ago when I bought my dell. It actually had better specs than the current gen MBP at the time with better graphics and a larger hard drive for half the price of the MBP. So no, it is not true that they cost the same. You just have to time your pc purchase correctly. During the holiday season they offered 400 off any laptop valued at 1100 or more, plus a 100 gift card on top of it. So let alone that the pc was already better than the MBP at 1400$, the extra 400 off really beat the mac.

Re:Here's why

[Not_Wiggins]

I'm reasonably certain it's been shown a number of times that if you build a PC with the exact same hardware as a Mac, you'll end up with a PC that costs about the same.

Actually, it has been shown to be cheaper to build your own Mac.

I'm only addressing your Hardware comparison. In reality, there are more things that go into the value of a "computer solution" than just the hardware components: software availability/quality for your own needs, support, design/appeal, etc.

Re:Here's why

[avianchaosx]

For high-end machines, I've seen articles showing they are comparably priced, but those articles tend to forget that the mainstream PC makers offer discounts all the time. I don't think I've ever seen a real sale on the Macbook line (and a free iPod touch or whatever they decide to bundle is not equivalent to getting a discount worth the MSRP of the bundled device), while Dell, HP regularly have large discounts on their machines and the retail stores have sales every week. Taking that into consideration, the cost of a PC is a significantly less.

Re:Here's why

[Penguin's Advocate]

Personally I own PCs as well because I already had them before I switched to Mac. When they die or become too slow to be useful, they will not be replaced. Honestly I haven't booted my "main" PC in about 3 months, and that was just to grab some files. So, I "own" PCs, but I don't "use" them anymore. My ancient Sun E4500 sees more use than any of my PCs these days, and at this point that thing is just a power-hungry toy.

Re:Here's why

[defaria]

You got that backwards - if you built a PC using the funds you would have spend on a Mac you'd get a machine that's twice as good.

Re:Here's why

[93 Escort Wagon]

And the simple fact is that now Apple has switched to Intel you can buy the SAME hardware that is in a Macbook or Macbook Pro for $700- $900 or more cheaper from a Dell or HP.

No, quite frankly, the simple fact is you can't.

Whenever I see this argument, I have to wonder - how have you not noticed that Dell and HP (and most others) make both cheap laptops and expensive laptops? The cheap laptops are big, thick, and heavy. The expensive laptops are lighter and thinner. Yet they're all running Windows and have similar processor speeds and RAM amounts. If your argument had any merit, Dell's $2000 laptops should be considered "the SAME hardware" as Dell's $700 laptops. So tell me - how do they get away with this?

Here's the answer: With a laptop you pay more if you want lighter weight, thinner profile and/or better construction. The real difference between Apple and Dell (or HP or whoever) is Apple doesn't offer an equivalent to the low end, thick, heavy laptops that Dell or HP offer.

Re:Here's why

[nolife]

Apple doesn't make CHEAP computers like $300 netbooks so that cuts out the poor/cheap folks looking only at price.

Don't you think some people buy a sub $300 netbook or PC because it might meet their specific needs? I have an HP Mini that I got for free but they sell for under $250. It does what I need it and expect it to do. What am I missing out on? What am I doing on it that it is failing to perform because it is "cheap"?

I happen to look at the price of EVERYTHING I buy including a bag a frozen vegetables at the grocery store and make a decision if it will meet my needs for that amount of money, I call it maximising the value for my dollar. How do you buy and compare things?

A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC.
You can find PC's that have all of the features of the mini for well under the Mini's price. Sure, I can also find PC's that are the same and even more expensive than the Mini too but if you'd like to only compare to the overpriced PC's, that's your choice. Another note, maybe someone does not need or has zero use for firewire, bluetooth, or two video ports on their specific PC, why should they pay for it?

Re:Here's why

[gunnk]

My wife and daughter have MacBooks. I have an HP Desktop running Ubuntu Linux. It was a matter of price and the ability to upgrade the hardware (this coming from someone whose machine slowly evolved from IBM AT to 486). I do like the Macs (and think they are well worth the price due to the quality of OS X and the bundled apps). However, I like the power of Linux (OK... and the pretty eye candy...) better.

Also, many people have old PC's and new Macs. They didn't throw out the old PC and still use it for their kids' games or the like. My mom has an old PC that just collects dust in the basement, but they still own it.

Re:Here's why

[kannibal_klown]

I'm reasonably certain it's been shown a number of times that if you build a PC with the exact same hardware as a Mac, you'll end up with a PC that costs about the same.

The same? No. There is a markup.

However when Apple releases a new model with a new CPU/GPU/TechonologyX the markup isn't bad at all.

The problem is, the Apple stays around that price for a long time while Dell has reduced its prices and moved onto a slightly faster CPU in the same time frame. Minor speed bump here, better GPU there, price depreciation on their older stuff, etc.

Given enough time the Apple price is then viewed as ridiculous as Apple releases their products at a snail's pace compared to other companies,

Re:Here's why

[The Wooden Badger]

I won't buy a Mac because I can't build my own system. Why bother buying some store bought computer when you can get the same thing for much less by building it yourself? In my case I saved more than 50% with my recent system build. Not even an option with a Mac.

Re:Here's why

[MBGMorden]

There's WAY too many assumptions in your conclusions. Just because the upper-middle class is 15% of the population and Mac ownership is 12% of computers doesn't mean that the two numbers are linked at all. Indeed my guess would be that computer ownership PERIOD (a statistic that wasn't stated) is slightly shifted towards the "upper class" side of the divide already. All in all though, all such guesses would need statistics to back them up rather than just trying to intuitively connect the dots on unrelated pieces of data.

Re:Here's why

[digitalhermit]

Interesting.
I just spec'ed the Mac Pro with 2.66GhZ processor, 4G RAM, 320G HD (the 15" model on the Apple website) versus a Dell XPS (2.8GhZ, 8G, 500G HD, 15" 1080P display) and the Dell came in $100 less. I also added BluRay RW, Bluetooth and a 2 year warranty. When I bought an XPS some months ago, it didn't ship with AOL or Earthlink. There was some Dell online storage idiocy, but I disabled that the first time it popped up.

Where did you spec your Mac versus your PC?

Re:Here's why

[ebh]

Do you want to *support* four customers who have each put a million dollars in your pocket, or do you want to support four million people who have each put a dollar in your pocket?

Re:Here's why

[interval1066]

"I'm reasonably certain it's been shown a number of times that if you build a PC with the exact same hardware as a Mac, you'll end up with a PC that costs about the same."

No, not even close. I build my own rigs and I've never spent as much money on my hardware as it would have cost me to buy a Mac.

Re:Here's why

[Hognoxious]

you should start wondering WHY you can't afford it and start planning HOW you can afford it...

I should travel back in time and change my parents so that I'll be born with a trust fund?

Re:Here's why

[shmlco]

Of course, if it's a bargin you want you can also go to Apple's web site and buy refurbished Macs and save 10-20%.

On the flip side, like certain cars Macs also have a fairly high resale value. After a year or so you might be able to resell that Mac for half (or more) of what you paid for it. Whereas after the same period of time you might be lucky to get 20-30% of your purchase price for that Dell off eBay or Craig's list. (And you had to use a Dell, to boot!)

Re:Here's why

[BarrettW]

I own a mac, a Windows PC and drive a VW. I am not a hippie. Thank you.

Re:Here's why

[Rycross]

It partly depends on when you buy the Mac. If you buy right after a hardware refresh, then for the same price you can get a Mac that is fairly close to the PC (there's still a markup, but its not dramatic). If you buy right before a hardware refresh, then there's going to be a very large discrepancy.

Re:Here's why

[shmlco]

Are you nuts? A 32GB Zune HD costs $289 on Amazon. A 32GB iPod Touch costs $279, also on Amazon.

Large high-quality touch screens cost money. Large amounts of flash RAM cost money. Good processors and WiFi and so on cost money. With a Zune right at the same price point, how is Apple's price for a 32GB Touch "ridiculous"?

Re:Here's why

[MBGMorden]

Even the maligned Mac Mini is a pretty good machine for MOST sub $700 machine buyers. The majority of PC users don't open their computers over the life of the machine. The majority don't even add ram or video cards. They pay $600 for Last Year's parts in an empty plastic box that makes them feel good. A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC./quote?

All items of which MOST users, particularly anyone buying a "budget" PC, simply don't need. Hell I'm a programmer and aside from the two video ports (more like $50 to add to the Dell), which I only played with briefly (dual monitor just wasn't all it was made out to be), I've never used any of those features.

Also, the Mini and Dell's budget lines simply aren't comparable. The mini is $599 at it's lowest cost. Dell's basic PC starts at $269. That's a 122% increase in price. Not to mention that the Dell at less than half the cost includes twice as much RAM and nearly 3 times as much hard drive space, but we'll call that a wash since the Mini does include a faster processor (though the Dell comes with about all the processor a home user would need - indeed I'd argue that the hard drive and ram are better places to put funds than the processor). Not to mention that if the notion does strike me that I want to play some games on the machine, tossing in a $100 video card and a $50 processor means I'm in business on the Dell. With the Mac? Be ready to replace the machine.

Now personally, I'll not argue that the Mini IS in fact a very good machine for most people's needs. It's just that at what they charge it's overpriced. Compared to similar level PC's, that machine is worth $300-350.

Re:Here's why

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I just went through and customized a Dell Studio Slim with a larger hard drive (500GB, vs the mini's 320GB) and a faster processor (2.93Ghz vs 2.0Ghz) for $500, vs the Mac mini's $700.

Re:Here's why

[mcsqueak]

I did this 2 years ago when I bought my dell.

Same here. Two years ago my shitty HP bit the dust and I needed a new computer. I REALLY wanted a Mac Book Pro 17", but I couldn't justify the price tag at over $2k. I was able to purchase a fully-loaded Dell XPS 15" with a 3 year warranty for around $1,500 because Dell was running a nice $400-off special, with almost identical specs in terms of speed and memory (and same video card if I remember) as the Mac I wanted.

I would have have just put Windows on it anyways as a dual boot... there is no way I'm shelling out for a second copy of Adobe CreativeSuite.

Re:Here's why

[w0mprat]

If I'm not mistaken the Zune HD was a pretty impressive piece of hardware spec compared to a iPod touch. For only $10 more.

Re:Here's why

[nabsltd]

Do you want to *support* four customers who have each put a million dollars in your pocket, or do you want to support four million people who have each put a dollar in your pocket?

This is not an issue for Apple, as Macs don't require any support...or so their ads claim.

Re:Here's why

[ArhcAngel]

There's WAY too many assumptions in your hypothesis's.

there FTFY

Oh...and *WHOOSH*

My tongue was firmly in cheek when I penned that response despite sharing the OP sentiments.

BTW
How does one submit a comment and then mod replies to oblivion?

Re:Here's why

[jim_v2000]

"Instead of crying out loud that you can't afford it, you should start wondering WHY you would want to afford it and start planning HOW you can avoid it... Just a pass-by motivational thought"

ftfy

Re:Here's why

[MBGMorden]

If that's true then most PCs must be of the "low end" type, Celeron rather than Core 2 Duo - right? Is that true?

Absolutely true, which is why the CPU performance wars have most faded away except for hardcore gamers. Computer chips have been fast enough to do literally everything the vast majority of users want to do now for the last 5 years or more. RAM requirements have gone up in that time (on a newer OS anything under 2gb and it feels slow to me, though I have 4gb on my main machine), but I'd wager than 90% of users can't tell the difference for their tasks between any 1Ghz+ chip and the fastest quad-core on the market.

The chip makers long ago figured out that the "budget" cpu market was much higher volume (though much lower margin).

I'd bet that if Apple put out an honest to goodness budget system: small tower case, cheapo Celeron processor, 3.5" hard drive (lapop drives cost more), a regular old tray loading DVD drive, and that's it. No bluetooth, firewire, other other nonsense that the vast majority of users never use, then they'd sell them like hotcakes. They just don't want to because margins are low on such systems, and they know very well that even among their loyalists that's all most of them need, and people already paying gouged prices would flock to that system, cannibalizing their ridiculous markups.

Re:Here's why

[xxuserxx]

This seems like a stab at uninfomed buyers and not Apple VS PC. I am a PC enthusiast and I can build a killer PC for well under what I would pay for a Mac with half the capability.

Re:Here's why

[jasonwc]

Even assuming that is true, Apple ignores entire market segments. For example, Apple simply does not sell a mid to high-end "desktop" system. They have all-in-one iMac's which start at $1200 and offer 2.66-3.06 Ghz Core 2 Duo chips and Workstation Mac Pro's which run high-end Intel Xeon Quad Core processors starting at $2500. They have totally ignored the high-performance desktop market.

Intel Xeon processors are meant for workstation and server systems where most programs are multithreaded. The Xeon systems can be run in 4 or 8-core configurations (8/16) threads and support up to 24 GB of FB-DIMM's per processor. The 3.2 Ghz Xeon CPU itself currently retails for $1600. This is not a mainstream desktop solution!

On the other hand, the iMac is very underpowered for the price. The $1200 system comes with a 2.66 Ghz Core 2 Duo, which is only slightly faster than a similarly priced Windows laptop. I just put together a $1000 desktop with a 2.8 Ghz Core i7-860, 4 GB DDR3 1600 @ 7-7-7-20, 1 TB WD Caviar Black, 802.11n wireless, a 630 W PSU, a high-end Cooler Master V8 cooler, a motherboard designed for overclocking, and a case with 3 120mm fans and a 140mm top-mounted fan to keep the system cool. If I wasn't OC'ing, I could have spend $800 for a Core i7 system or $600 for a Core i5 system.

The Core i7 chip I purchased is a good 3x faster than the 2.66 Ghz C2D in multi-threaded apps and at least 1.5x faster in single-threaded apps due to Turbo Boost and Hyper-threading. For multithreaded apps, hyper-threading can provide a 15-25% improvement in performance. In addition, the new Lynnfield Core i7's allow for extremely fast single-threaded performance due to Turbo Boost which allows higher clock speeds when unused cores are disabled. With 3-4 cores, the i7-860 runs at 2.93 Ghz, with 2 cores 3.33 Ghz, and with one, 3.46 Ghz.

In the past, it wasn't clear that a Quad Core was superior to a Dual Core chip for regular desktop or game usage as most desktop apps and games are either single-threaded or optimized for two cores (games). However, with the introduction of a more advanced Turbo Mode that can dynamically overclock the system by 533-666 Mhz (dual and single-core mode), there is never a situation where a Dual Core chip is faster.

Thus, Core i5/i7 Lynnfield CPUs crush even the fastest Core 2 Duo (E8600 @ 3.2 Ghz). My Core i7-860 is 2x faster than my old C2D 2.0 Ghz chip in single-threaded apps and 3.5-4.5x faster for multi-threaded apps. Turbo Boost makes the system feel noticeably faster. Application load times have halved. I can load 5 or 6 applications simultaneously and have them load in the same time as if I simply loaded one as the system dynamically overclocks the system and enables all 4 cores/8 threads for the few seconds that they're needed, and then parks them afterwards. Everything feels faster and I would not go back to a Dual Core chip.

In addition, the Core i7 architecture is highly optimized for certain uses. For example, High Definition video encoding is now 5x faster and decoding is 6-7x faster. High-bitrate L4.1 x264 encodes that used 80-100% CPU now use 10-15%.

Apple offers no Core 2 Quad or Core i7 systems. There is certainly a market for high-end desktops. Half of the Desktop systems I see at Best Buy run Core i7 chips - and that was before the lower cost Lynnfield processors were released last month. So, why isn't Apple offering Quad core desktops?

----------------
Also, I think your premise is false. If you want a 15" laptop the cheapest option offered by Apple costs $1700 as cheaper MacBooks have 13.3" screens. My 14" 1" thick 4 lb. 2.1 Ghz C2D laptop with a 7 hour battery life cost me $650. It's hard to justify this price difference even if the hardware is superior. Even the lower-end MacBooks which max out at 13.3" inch screens start at $1000.

Re:Here's why

[ArhcAngel]

I know HUH! I mean I have the Atari STe chugging away crunching my MIDI files while I play Populous and they don't even mention the Atari crowd. What's up with that?

Re:Here's why

[chord.wav]

More like: Analyze your current situation, then think how you can change it.
Dumb and simple example: Take a job that requires you to have a Mac and make the company pay for it.

Re:Here's why

[beadfulthings]

Another thought: Macs seem to retain their value and to have longer useful lives. I'm on only my second Mac in nine years, and I haven't begun to think about replacing it. This is a three-Mac household because the old Macs just keep going and going. My original Mac, a G4, is now functioning quite happily as a file and print server. My husband uses one that was brought to the household by my elderly mother, who has since passed away. My current one is a 20" iMac about three years old, bought for somewhere around $1300. I haven't begun to think about replacement. I bought an HP mini-netbook last December for around $400, and it accompanies me to the library and on trips--I just map a drive to the old G4 and dump my files to it whenever I remember to do it. I'm planning to upgrade my Mac OS, and I need to update some software I use, but once I've done that, I figure I'm good for at least another couple of years.

Re:Here's why

[MBGMorden]

BTW
How does one submit a comment and then mod replies to oblivion?/quote

I'm going to let you in on a secret: *I* am not the one doing the modding in such a case, but inevitably it will happen.

Re:Here's why

[jim_v2000]

I just bought a Vaio laptop recently. It's got an ATI 4650 w/1gb vram, 4 gigs of RAM, 2 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 320 GB hd, bluetooth, 802.11n, Bluray drive, and 16.5 in screen @ 1600x900 resolution. It cost me $999. The Macbook for $999 doesn't come close, even if I ignore the screen size.

Re:Here's why

[shmlco]

"It's all in the game you want to play. ... The choice isn't quite as clear as you'd think."

That's obvious. Check out the difference in stock price and valuation for HP and Dell vs. Apple.

Every one of these stupid couch potato analysts start with the same stupid premise, "If Apple wants to increase market share, they need to..."

But market share isn't everything. Apple sells a high-quality well-designed premium product to people that want it. They have a retail presence like no other. They offer in-store support and training with qualified non-minimum-wage employees that actually speak english as a first language. Like it or not, all of those things have value.

Dell and HP went the "market share" route, offering "competitive" hardware and prices... to the point where they're now primarily competing against each other on cost, and with razor thin profit margins to show for it.

Then, of course, there's the small matter of using and maintaining Windows, paying your annual protection fee to Symantec, and suffering through day by day with that under-powered, under-equipped $300 computer. Not to mention replacing it a year later because the lowest-bidder capacitors used on the motherboard died, corrupting the data on your hard drive and negating half your "savings" in the process.

TANSTAAFL

Re:Here's why

[Chabil Ha']

I'm sure there are a number of reasons why, so I'll throw out a few ideas for discussion:

1) Software wise, PC users have everything they need. As far as business, productivity, games, etc. Windows has everything a PC user could need. Sure equivalents exist on the Mac, but why switch when, as you mention, cost is significantly less?

2) On that same note, perhaps Mac users have a piece of software that either isn't available on their platform, has an inferior equivalent, or is just easier to obtain/use on a PC?

3) Mac owners more open minded? TFA also mentions they tend to have more other electronic gizmos, too, so why not a PC? Perhaps rather than spending discretionary income on other things, it is directed to the consumption of these kinds of goods?

Re:Here's why

[crmarvin42]

More market share is desirable, but not at the expense of profits. Market share matters less than it used to. As long as there are enough macs to keep developers interested, apple can ignore market share If they choose.

I don't believe that they are ignoring it (they've gained share in the US and global markets) but they don't NEED market share as badly as you seem to believe.

Re:Here's why

[omeomi]

I REALLY wanted a Mac Book Pro 17", but I couldn't justify the price tag at over $2k. I was able to purchase a fully-loaded Dell XPS 15" with a 3 year warranty for around $1,500 because Dell was running a nice $400-off special

So, without the the $400-off special, a 15" Dell cost only around $100 less than a 17" Mac? You don't think the extra 2" of screen real estate on a notebook is worth at least $100?

Re:Here's why

[ezelkow1]

But why would I want to sell it after a year or two. So far its 2 years old and still plays every single new game that I would ever want to play with almost no reduction in quality. It chews through every professional audio application I throw at it. I really dont see a need to buy a new one for at least a few more years, and who would buy a 4-5 year old laptop no matter what brand it is.

I also dont understand the dell hate. Like I said I've been using it for 2 years just fine, even used it out in dj gigs so its not like its been packed away in a safe location, and yet I have never had a single hardware failure. Yet I know many people who have purchased macs around the same time I got my dell and they have all had some sort of failure that required apple to intervene and provide support. So while my experience amongst a few people is not the norm, just randomly hating on dell just because is also unfounded, along with the belief that apple has that much better reliability. In the same vein there was a recent story from a professional audio site about a performers switch to using a pc with ubuntu for all their work because they had gone through 2-3 mac book pros all having failures and were sick of it.

Re:Here's why

[mini me]

Macs cost more because of OS X. Microsoft gives Windows to OEMs for practically nothing.

Re:Here's why

[Mr. Freeman]

"I wasn't raided with the "I'm better than you - look at my Mac" attitude"
Have you seen the recent PC ads? "OH NOEZ! THIS MAC IS TOO EXPENSIVE!!!"

How many times have you heard "Wow, you use a mac. You're an idiot" or "macs suck and are overpriced dude, get a PC"?

I'm not an apple fanboy, I use windows on my desktop, windows/ubuntu dual booted on my laptop, and centos on my server. I agree that SOME apple owners can be pricks, but that's true of everyone that owns anything. SOME people that own XYZ device or use IJK product will be assholes. Don't try to tell me that this attitude is exclusive to mac owners.

Re:Here's why

[Sandbags]

It's a bite more, give them some credit....

Just because the CPU speed in GHz, RAM size in GB, and HDD size and type are a match does NOT mean the machines are even CLOSE to equal.

Compare for example the 15" macbook pro, with the nVidia 9400GPU (base, not even the enhanced 9600M GT), to a Dell Studio 15, or to their new "flagship" machine.

The Mac has a faster system bus, included bluetooth by default, includes an enhanced multi-anteanna wireless N radio, better graphics than any Dell in even a similar price range without going into 16" and larger models, weighs less than the 13" dell systems, has a really solid feeling aliminum chassis, has higher tech LiPo batteries that last longer and charge faster and don't explode, has a higher screen resolution, offers a non-glossy screen option, can run both Mac OS and Windows, and in the case of Dell's new flagship machine, it's user field upgradeable where Dell's is NOT! All that for $1599 or less, compared to Dell's closest equavalent machine at $1709. Oh yea, Apple support also actually HELPS you with OS and software issues, Dell references you to microsoft who charges $199 per incident for support. A 13" model is ontl 1099, and the white macbook can be found easily under $950.

You go find a 13" or 15" machine with 7 hour battery life, that weighs 5lbs or less, operates on a 1066 bus with a full featured Core 2 (including VT!), comes with descrete graphics, 1200x800 or better screen, Wireless N, bluetooth, and has an internal optical drive that costs less. I can't find a competitor more than $80 lower in price that meets that, and that's without throwing in the backlit keyboard, 8GB ram max (not 4), memory card reader, firewire ports, a webcam, and other non-essential "specs" and that's also without any of the software you're going to need to buy for a Windows box (OK, some people buy, /.ers know how to get other ways).

No, Apple does not make a cheap shit netbook for $400. Who cares! Anyone who only needs the most basic netbook features (mail, web, word processing and well that's about all they can handle) doesn't need anything more, but, statistics show more than 90% of netbook buyrers have a second more powerful machine already... If you;re buying a more powerful notebook, start looking in the $700-900 range, and realize a Macbook Pro is $100 more, but has so much more performance it would last 4-5 years not 2-3, all of a sudden it's CHEAPER.

Keep in mind, OS X has had consistantly declining operating requirements, where Windows (and even linux!) makes LEAPS in requirements, greatly shortening the survivable life of the machine. Having a laptop that supporets 8GB of RAM, user replaceable HDDs, and more powerful chipsets and faster subsystems, for a small premium over a "cheap" full notebook, and over 4 years, the Mac is far cheaper. compared to equivalent PCs, the Macs are in line. On the high end, the macs are hundreds cheaper (Macbook 17" is more than $700 cheaper than Del;l's equivalent flagship notebook and $300 less than Adamo).

Re:Here's why

[Astadar]

I spec'ed out the xoticpc as closely as I could to the MBP 17" stock model at $2499. It came to $1218.

However, it has a 1400x900 display (vs 1920x1200), no wireless-n option, no GeForce 9400M/9600M GT graphics, no information about weight and, possibly most importantly, no information about battery life.

While it does come in significantly less expensive, I don't think that you can argue that they are equivalent.

Re:Here's why

[Runaway1956]

Story tagged "No news day". Phhht.

Re:Here's why

[shmlco]

"...along with the belief that apple has that much better reliability..."

Yeah, that's why Apple consistently has the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry.

Re:Here's why

[MBGMorden]

Indeed. I've got nothing against Macs. I own one, and have another PC hacked to run OS X (and I also have an iPod Touch as well). I've also got a Windows desktop and Windows laptop though. I just find Mac's overpriced for what you normally get.

When I went to get my laptop for example: all I wanted with something that I could take with me. Anything with a usable processor, ram, hard drive, and wireless connection was fine. No bells and whistles. I got that for $325 from Lenovo. The cheapest Mac notebook starts at $1000. My specs on my notebook were comparable, but specs comparisons aren't even needed for me on a laptop these days. ALL of them have enough power to do what I want. The $325 one fills my needs. I'm sure the $1000 Mac would fill my needs too but why pay the extra to get the same tasks done?

Re:Here's why

[PopeRatzo]

We probably would also find that more Mac users have high-end sonic toothbrushes and Windows users have the regular kind.

Mac users are more likely to have butt plugs and jars of K-Y in the top drawers of their nightstands, too, but I'm sure that's just coincidental.

And they love show tunes and Streisand records. That's well-established.

Re:Here's why

[DragonWriter]

According to sources laid out here The upper middle class (high 5 figure to well over $100,000 range) is about 15% of the population.

The "upper middle class" is usually the quintile above the middle quintile and below the top quintile (indeed, the one source cited in the article that actually links class terms to income quintiles uses it that way.) But the high-five-figure (~$88,000 or ~$91,000, depending on which of the figures cited in that article you use) "to well over $100,000" (actually unbounded on the top) group identified in the article is the top quintile (20%) of households, and somewhat less than that of population.

Since Apple has about a 12% market share it could be extrapolated (hypothetically since we would need more empirical data to corroborate) that a good portion of that 12% are, in fact, upper middle class and thus are more likely to have the funds to spend on multiple computing devices.

Even if the first part was an accurate description, this doesn't describe facts from which the conclusion stated would be justified. There are other reasons for suspecting that Apple's userbase is largely above median income, but the fact that their share of the market is within a few percentage points of the percentage of the population in the group you describe as "upper middle class", even if you slice up income groups to make that true, doesn't support that conclusion in the slightest.

If you slice up the population right, you can find an income group at any point on the spectrum that is approximately the same size relative to the whole population as the Apple share is to the whole computing market. This means absolutely nothing.

Re:Here's why

[nabsltd]

Agreed.

My household is firmly in that upper-middle-class, and of the 10 computers I use on a weekly basis, none are Macs.

• Asus EEE Netbook (XP Home...no time yet to upgrade it to XP Pro)
• Dell Studio 15 laptop (XP Pro)
• 3 various machines running XP Pro, one is a DVR
• 1 machine with XP Pro 64-bit
• 2 VMware ESX servers
• Fedora 10 acting as iSCSI SAN
• Windows Server 2003 for SQL server and file-sharing

Everything else runs as a VM under VMware ESX.

Re:Here's why

[jasonwc]

I didn't mention the Mac Mini. However, the Mini isn't a full-powered desktop. It uses low powered 2.13-2.26 Ghz Core 2 Duo CPUs which can't compete against higher-end desktop dual-core chips (E8400/8600 @ 3-3.2 Ghz) or Core 2 Quad/Core i7 chips.

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

Not quite.

Dell offers a "tiny desktop" that is less than the Mac equivalent while having better specs.

Furthermore, this "tiny desktop" can be upgraded with much more interesting options that simply aren't available from the Apple equivalent.

The problem with the "specs games" that Apple fanboys like to play is the fact that a PC doesn't restrict you to one spec. One PC brand wont even do that.

So I can replace my 09 mini with a $200 ION or get a much more expensive Dell that will blow the doors off the Mac.

I can also get a semi-custom system for the same price as a mini that has most of what you would buy a Mac Pro for.

Macs are more expensive because Apple Corp is confident that the faithful will bend over.

Re:Here's why

[zerblat]

Hypotheses. FTFY.

Re:Here's why

[arminw]

...Because we (PC users) can't afford them!....

One way to afford a Mac and PC, is to save your money, sell your PC, buy a Mac, either laptop or desktop and then install Windows in a virtual machine. Virtual machines worked great on the Mac unless you want to play high-performance video games. In that case, Windows has to be installed on your Mac using Bootcamp. This is a good solution especially if you don't have that much space.

Re:Here's why

[camperdave]

We accepted defeat. See, we stuck with the brand. Atari was THE machine to have back in the 8bit days, despite what Commodore would have you believe. Then the two released their 16bit machines, the ST and the Amiga. Unfortunately, Commodore bought out Atari's engineers, and Atari bought up Commodore's. Thus all the high tech goodness moved to the Amiga, and those of us who stayed loyal to the brand wound up with the inferior Atari STs, who's only saving grace was the built in MIDI capability. We started quietly slipping into PC-land, and did so all the more when we found Linux.

Now instead of Commodore vs Atari, it's Fedora vs Ubuntu.

Re:Here's why

[ericfitz]

Actually, it has been shown to be cheaper to build your own Mac.
 

Your comment is a non sequitur.

The link you provided might show that it's cheaper to build your own Mac than to buy one from Apple. However, since the same PC you built would run Windows, then it is necessarily the case that it cannot be less expensive to build a Mac; at best it costs the same.

Now the point that you are missing is that the Mac supports far less hardware than Windows supports. If there exists at least one component that is not supported by MacOS but is supported by Windows, and that component is cheaper than any comparable component suppored by MacOS, then it must be the case that it is cheaper to build a PC.

Re:Here's why

[Aranykai]

The real difference between Apple and Dell (or HP or whoever) is Apple doesn't offer an equivalent to the low end, thick, heavy laptops that Dell or HP offer.

That may be true, but the market has demonstrated many times that people dont care. They want fast and cheap, so they skimp on size and quality. Personally, I wanted all of the above so I bought an asus eeepc :P

Re:Here's why

[nabsltd]

Even the maligned Mac Mini is a pretty good machine for MOST sub $700 machine buyers.

Ridiculous. For less than $800, I just built a Core i5 machine with 4GB of RAM, 1.2TB of hard disk, and a Radeon HD4850 video card (which can drive 2 monitors).

With some cost cutting (less RAM, fewer hard drives, cheaper video card), I could add a bluetooth dongle and match the Mac Mini on all regards...except nothing I could do would make the Core i5 as crappy as the processor in the Mac Mini.

The only thing the Mac Mini has going for it is the form factor, but if that small size isn't important, it's worth less than nothing, since the easy upgrades on even a mini-tower case are a huge advantage.

Re:Here's why

[downhole]

I used to use a Power Mac G5 as my main computer, and I just replaced it with a PC running Linux. Why not a Mac Mini? Compared to the price of buying or building a PC, I could get better performance for less money. With the Mini, you're paying extra for a teeny, tiny computer with mostly laptop parts. My computer is going under my desk, and it doesn't make any difference how big it is. So why not get more computer for less money?

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

Unless you can actually quantify why he should bother with the Xeons then you are just cluebie trying to argue based on specs you don't even understand.

The beauty of PCs is that you can find the price performance sweet spot and keep yourself off the bleeding edge where all of the highest prices are.

You don't have to buy a Cray-YMP just to get 3 external drive bays and 5 extra SATA ports.

Re:Here's why

[Aranykai]

The point your missing is that apple didn't offer $400 off, making the dell over $500 less.

Re:Here's why

[kestasjk]

12% of the letters in your post were the letter 'a'.

Mind = blown.

Re:Here's why

[jabithew]

I've had my own PC for about 9 years now (two different boxes). I got my MacBook last year. I've since moved all actually useful activities to my Mac now (i.e. work, email, web, Skype etc.).

I keep my PC, and keep it up to date, for games. While I would prefer to keep both platforms running, if I had to choose just one I'd opt for Mac in a flash. But that's why Mac owners would tend to have PCs I guess. And I agree that a PC can do everything; it's just that after using the Mac it feels like pulling out my teeth one at a time.

Re:Here's why

[nabsltd]

Last time I checked, when you do a comparison down to a component level of a Mac versus a Dell with equivalent specs, you have to go quite high up in Dell's range before you even find the same CPUs available as an option, never mind standard.

Boy, the Apple fanboys are out astroturfing today.

A Mac Mini starts with a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, and 120GB hard drive for $599.

Dell has not one, but three machines that beat that spec and the price:

• Inspiron 537 starting at $458
• Studio Slim desktop starting at $469
• Studio Hybrid starting at $569

In addition, you can really beat the spec with two quad-core machines for less than $530.

Sure, Dell has a few models with hardware that is less than that of the Mac Mini, but it's not like they are that much cheaper, or that the better models are hidden.

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

> majority of PC users don't open their computers over the life of the machine. The majority don't even add ram or video cards.
> They pay $600 for Last Year's parts in an empty plastic box that makes them feel good. A Mini has nearly all the same features
> as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC. A

        The "two video ports" on the back of the mini are for practical purposes highly proprietary.

        Whereas the ports on the back of a clone sh*tbox will be at least standard and reflect hardware
that the consumer is likely to have already like non-Apple monitors and standard HDTVs.

        Bluetooth and Firewire are not things the pedestrian user is going to even be aware of. Video
cameras don't even use it anymore (firewire) and isn't Apple even abandoning it?

Re:Here's why

[mmeister]

We get it. PC users are cheap and don't consider their time to be worth paying more for computer hardware. That's a choice you make. Other things you'll likely miss out on: higher end cars, higher end clothes, and higher end kitchen appliances. If only they, too, would lower their prices.

Re:Here's why

[bazorg]

Actually, this discussion has happened millions of times, always to show that if your comparison starts with "I'll configure a PC to be comparable with a Mac", the Mac is a great deal; whereas if you start with "I'll pick a sane PC configuration and find a Mac that is comparable" you would have to be quite eccentric not to buy a PC.

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

Well, the mini is a price competitive low profile box. And mac laptops are
pretty slim. There are cases where the Apple design decisions make sense.
It's that "spec shopping". If you happen to want a small and silent machine
then the mini has some merit.

If you are putting it up next to the $600 boxed PC at Walmart or Costco
then it's going to creamed purely based on specs.

Or it could be a split-household thing. If they bothered to do a similar
Linux oriented survey they would likely find something similar.

It's almost as if some households are comprised of multiple individuals.

Re:Here's why

[jo_ham]

The iMac uses "desktop" parts - desktop cpu, ram, hd, optical drive, screen, psu etc etc.

I think only the base iMac uses what could be called "laptop" parts - the GPU. The higher power iMacs use desktop GPUs (modest models though they may be compared to bleeding edge, 9.4kW 8-slot, LN2 cooled cards in PCs).

No, the reason a Mac costs more is that it is pitched at a different market - Apple don't sell a budget, it's part of the brand. So most of the consumer level gear is similarly priced to a budget PC+extras to match the specs - but this doesn't just mean "same RAM size, same CPU, same HD space", but includes things like "machined aluminium case" instead of "plastic case" and "firewire and camera as standard" compared to "sometimes has firewire [varies so wildly by model] and camera optional".

As with any consumer gadget, you have to decide on a personal level whether buying a Mac is worth the price of it - as many people on slashdot will tell you, for them they are overpriced and they can do better with a whitebox store and an afternoon building something to slap Ubuntu on.

It's no different to the guy who buys a slightly more expensive car than the next guy because he likes it better. Sure you have your guy who buys a car to lord it over people with cheaper cars, but most people who buy the more expensive one just happened to like it and felt the cost was worth it.

Re:Here's why

[mcsqueak]

So, without the the $400-off special, a 15" Dell cost only around $100 less than a 17" Mac? You don't think the extra 2" of screen real estate on a notebook is worth at least $100?

No, I think with the $500 total discount straight off of the list price, not including the value of the extended 3 year warranty (I have no idea how much Applecare would cost for that long) makes that extra 2" of screen real estate a tad expensive.

Re:Here's why

[initialE]

Pls mod up, he's expressed something that everyone knows, just not how to say it.

Re:Here's why

[dbet]

If you want a 15" laptop the cheapest option offered by Apple costs $1700 as cheaper MacBooks have 13.3" screens. My 14" 1" thick 4 lb. 2.1 Ghz C2D laptop with a 7 hour battery life cost me $650. It's hard to justify this price difference even if the hardware is superior. Even the lower-end MacBooks which max out at 13.3" inch screens start at $1000.

Apple is sort of unique in that their 13" laptops are cheaper than their 15". Most other manufacturers are the opposite. Right now a Dell INspiron 15" starts at $400 while the 13" starts at $600.

When I was recently pricing out laptops, it was hard to get a 13" that compared with a Mac and was cheaper, but the 15" models, the Macs came out much more expensive. In fact many manufacturers don't even offer 13" models with a CD drive.

Re:Here's why

[kamochan]

My guess is that that PC is for the kids' games. There's stuff out there that won't run properly in Parallels.

We've got a Mac laptop for each parent and an imac for media center use, which makes us a 3-machine household with 100% mac penetration. But our 8-month-old loves this quirky peekaboo Flash game from fisher-price.com, and I'm thinking of getting a netbook for her... which would, I guess, be classified as a "gaming PC for the kids" :)

Re:Here's why

[Quantumstate]

For £450 I built a machine with a triple core amd, 4GB of 1066 ram, 1TB hard drive, firewire, surround sound, 2 video ports, HD4830 so basically a pretty good machine along with a 22" screen. A mac mini for £499 so only £50 more expensive has 1GB of ram a slightly worse processor, a 120GB hard drive which is almost laughable on a modern desktop, a mobile graphics card which performs poorly compared to mine. You cannot seriously argue that the cost is anything like comparable. Also have ignored any extra options which they try to push like the 24" monitor (the only option if you want to order a monitor with the PC) which costs £635 whereas I bought a 22" for £100.

Re:Here's why

[jasonwc]

And their prices on the 13.3" Macbooks aren't that great either. For $1,000 you get a 2.13 Ghz C2D, 13.3" 1280x800 16:10 screen, 2 GB of DDR2 800 RAM, a 160 GB Hard Drive, an Nvidia 9400M chipset, 802.11n wireless + Bluetooth, a 5 hour battery and 5 lb. size.

Here is what I got for $650 at Best Buy:

Asus U80A:

2.1 Ghz C2D
14.1" 16:9 LED 1366x768 screen
4 GB DDR2 800
320 GB Hard Drive
Integrated Intel 4500MHD Graphics
802.11n Wireless, Gigabit Wired
HDMI/VGA Out
4 lbs, 7 hour battery (6 hours normal usage with wifi + browsing, 8 hours without browsing)

So:

Pros:
- Equivilant CPU
- Double the RAM
- Double the hard drive space
- 1 lb. lighter
- 2 hour longer battery life.
- $350 Cheaper!

Cons:
- No Bluetooth (added a USB bluetooth dongle for $15)
- No dedicated graphics.

Nonetheless, you can't play games on a Mac anyhow so the dedicated graphics doesn't get you much. My Integrated Intel graphics can hardware decode 1080p H.264 in MPC-HC (Blu-Ray + x264 encodes) which is what I wanted.

With the ultra-bright 16:9 LED screen and hardware accelerated decoding, I can watch HD movies on battery which is great and the battery lasts all day. I've tested over 8 hours without wifi and 6+ with.

The Macbook doesn't seem like a great deal to me.

Re:Here's why

[jasonwc]

Dell's 15" laptops are cheaper because they use cheap parts (Dual-Core Pentiums vs. Core 2 Duos), less RAM, cheaper hard drives, and most importantly, they're huge, heavy, and have shit battery life. Less money is spent on design because there's more space for fans and airflow.

When you buy a 13" or even 14" laptop, you're paying for the reduced thickness, size, and weight, longer battery life, and higher quality parts.

Re:Here's why

[VGPowerlord]

Exact same hardware? I'm afraid not. The Dell Precision line uses the high-end nVidia Quadro or ATI Fire graphics cards, not the consumer-level GeForce GT 120 / ATI Radeon HD 4870.

Oh, and comparing the Mac Pro with a Dell depends entirely on how you enter Dell's site. Dell seems to start off with a number of different base prices.

The Single Processor Mac Pro is cheaper than the Dell of the same price. But then again, Dell's prices are sort of wacky, too.

However, when it comes to dual processors...

Dual Processor (Base Model):
Dual Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processors E5520 2.26GHz,8M L3,5.8GT/s,turbo
6GB, 1066MHz, DDR3 SDRAM, ECC (6 DIMMS)
512MB NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 580, DUAL MON, 2 DP & 1 DVI
750GB SATA 3Gb/s with NCQ and 16MB DataBurst Cache(TM)
16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD(TM) and Roxio Creator(TM) Dell Ed
Vista Business w/ XP downgrade option

Total Price: $3,241
Mac Pro price? $3,299

Oh, and here's the crazy thing. The model of the above that corresponds to the Mac Pro single processor? $3,396. Yes, it's more expensive on Dell's site to get a single processor Xeon 2.66GHz and 3GB of RAM than it is two quad core 2.25GHz processors and 6GB of RAM.

Re:Here's why

[thisnamestoolong]

No. This has not been shown. I read an article a while ago by a fanboy attempting to demonstrate this who actually factored in the cost of Norton, Photoshop, and a couple other programs to get the price up. As for avoiding the "Click here to try AOL", you can save even more and build your own system, or get a system built from any number of local shops in your area. It is simply no longer reasonable to argue that Macs are comparable in price to PCs -- if you think that OSX is worth it, then go for a Mac. I personally don't think it's worth it, but it is simply a matter of opinion.

Re:Here's why

[mmeister]

All the stuff that a Mac can't do? While there is custom software some industries require that is only on a PC (I know of some industry service sites that *still* only work with IE for Windows - not even Firefox for Windows works). In general, Macs can do pretty much everything a PC can do and often do it much better. And in those rare cases, you can run a virtual Windows to deal with that custom software situation.

So there is no actual need for a 2nd machine. I think many of these people had PCs and then bought a Mac. Now they have a Mac AND a PC because they didn't throw away their PC.

Re:Here's why

[michrech]

Well, this isn't a perfect match (NO PC OEM makes a perfect match), but it's closer than the OP:

http://www.xoticpc.com/force-3751-built-msi1722-p-2500.html?wconfigure=yes

Configured as follows:

FORCE 3751 (Built on MSI-1722)
- 17" WSXGA+ "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy Screen (1680x1050)
- Standard Dead Pixel Policy
- Intel® P9700 45nm "Montevina" Coreâ2 Duo 2.8GHz w/6MB L2 On-die cache - 1066MHz FSB 25 watt
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- nVidia GeForce 9600M GT 512MB PCI-Express DDR3 DX10
- 4,096MB DDR2 800MHz KINGSTON HyperX Matched Kit - Low Latency CL5 (2 SODIMMs) Dual Channel Memory SPECIAL!
- Standard Finish
- 2X Blu-Ray Reader + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
- 500GB 5400RPM 8MB Cache Buffer (Serial-ATA II 3GB/s)
- Internal 5-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/ xD-P)
- Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 5300 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi Link
- Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- No TV Tuner
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Smart Li-ion Battery (6-Cell)
- Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit + Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Coupon w/ Drivers & Utilities CD's
- Microsoft Office 2007 SBE - (Word/Excel/Outlook/PowerPoint/Publisher)
- 3 Year Complete Care Warranty - 3 Year Parts with Next Day Shipping, 24/7 Telephone Tech Support & Lifetime Labor Warranty

Total price was $2,182.00.
Total price without extras $1884.00

I took some liberties by adding the Blu-Ray reader (it *added* $139 to the cost) and adding the three year next day shipping warranty (which ran an extra $159) I didn't see anything on the Apple page that mentioned the warranty until I finally found the "Learn More" link that explained the MacBook Pro came with a standard 1 year with 90 days free phone support. Even the basic 1 year warranty with the laptop I put together has 24/7 tech support and lifetime labor warranty. Removing the "extras" takes us down to $1884. Yes, the screen still isn't 1920x1200 (the MSI web site says it's available with a 1920x1200 screen -- the xoticpc web site just doesn't have the option), and the keyboard isn't backlit (a USELESS drain on the battery, in my opinion), The weight of the MSI is 7lbs. I couldn't find anything on the MPB 17" product page that lists the weight (even looking at the page source, which is how I had to find the warranty info -- POOR UI design Apple!). After doing a search on Apple's site, I found the 17" MBP to be 6.6lbs (which didn't come up in the search, but a link for the 15" did, and the 15" page had a link to the 17" specs -- ANOTHER POOR DESIGN, APPLE!). VERY close between the two. There is an optional 9 cell battery for the MSI which should make it last nearly as long as the MBP.

If this post does anything, it shows that you can get *extremely* close to the MBP specs (only very minor differences between the MBP 17" and the system quoted above), and while not half as expensive, you can still save a very significant amount($615, roughly, in this case) (of course, I've never been one to claim a similar PC was half the cost as the OP did, I've only ever claimed that similarly spec'ed PC's are less expensive).

My thoughts are scattered -- wish I had more time to hash this out, but with previous experience, it's unlikely this message will get read/replied to anyway... :(

Re:Here's why

[be951]

the problem is that Apple doesn't make CHEAP computers like $300 netbooks

Sure they do, sort of

Re:Here's why

[phayes]

I had a 68020 Nubus Mac II for over 10 years. It cost even more back then in relative terms than a tricked out new Mac does today. It was also faster than the mini UNIX servers shared between 4 devs that I was administering back then. I was only able to afford it because the company I was working for owed me a lot of money & it was cheaper for them to buy it for me & then write it off as defective...

Re:Here's why

[mattack2]

Wait, more eye candy on Linux??

Plus, what parts of the "power of Linux" would you not get(*) by running Terminal and doing CLI stuff there? This is a serious question, not meant as an attack.

(*) unless you just mean everything being open source and you want to recompile everything -- more than what's included in Darwin for example on the OS X side.

Re:Here's why

[michrech]

Of course, if it's a bargin you want you can also go to Apple's web site and buy refurbished Macs and save 10-20%.

On the flip side, like certain cars Macs also have a fairly high resale value. After a year or so you might be able to resell that Mac for half (or more) of what you paid for it. Whereas after the same period of time you might be lucky to get 20-30% of your purchase price for that Dell off eBay or Craig's list. (And you had to use a Dell, to boot!)

How is purchasing someone *elses* previously broken Apple at a "20-30% discount" a good deal? I'll buy certain things referbed (routers/switches, cable modems, some audio equipment, etc), but a computer? No thank you.

If you want a better example than Dell (I work on a campus with over 2000 Dells and we rarely have hardware issues with them, but I digress...):

HP often offers $300 to $400 off laptops over $1000/1100 "coupons" (always posted to slickdeals, if not right on their own web page). They have laptops that are *very* similar to the various MacBooks.

Re:Here's why

[drsmithy]

Another thought: Macs seem to retain their value and to have longer useful lives.

There's no technical reason for this. At almost any point in time, you will get a more powerful PC at a given price point (the month or so after a new Mac model is released can be an exception), and for most of the last decade, Windows has been *much* friendly to lower-end machines than MacOS.

The main reason, in my opinion, is because of the much lower buy-in point of PCs. A decent, basic Mac setup (2Ghz, 2GB RAM, 120GB HDD, 20" LCD, keyboard+mouse)is going to cost around US$800. For a PC, it's more like $500. When you pay significantly more for something - and particularly when you would to replace it - you make it last longer.

Re:Here's why

[michrech]

Macs cost more because of OS X. Microsoft gives Windows to OEMs for practically nothing.

That's Apple's fault, not Microsoft's.

Apple has been reported to have nearly *given* various bits of hardware to schools in the past (I worked for several K-12's that received such computers ranging in prices from $50 a machine to a couple hundred per machine). Apple computers cost more because Apple marks up their parts to ridiculous levels. Why can't MS "give" away their OS if Apple is/was doing the same with hardware? Besides -- if Apple really wants more market share, why aren't they "giving" THEIR OS away like MS does? If I were a shareholder, I'd be pissed at how Apple is doing business, if the only goal was to rake in cash as fast as possible (which seems to be what every *other* shareholder is wanting out of other companies)...

Examples:

(from 17" MBP product page, since that's the page I already have open from a previous comment)
$300! difference between 2.8Ghz C2D and 3.0Ghz C2D
$1000!!!! difference between 4gb DDR3 and 8gb DDR3 (the HIGHEST price memory on newegg is only $779!! Is Apple fucking HIGH?!)

Other Apple PC product pages have similar examples. It's no wonder Apple is seen as being more expensive. That difference in price on the RAM alone is just crazy. Don't even think about giving me that "no one buys accessories from Apple" crap excuse. No PC OEM is that way (to Apple's extent, anyway). It's just insanity.

Re:Here's why

[scot4875]

Dell and HP went the "market share" route, offering "competitive" hardware and prices... to the point where they're now primarily competing against each other on cost, and with razor thin profit margins to show for it.

Well, to be fair, Dell and HP probably looked at capturing the "I have more money than sense, and like to convince myself that Apple actually sells something worth the premium" market, but found it pretty well saturated already.

--Jeremy

Re:Here's why

[commodoresloat]

(NO PC OEM makes a perfect match)

I think we've found the basic problem with all this speculative comparison right here.

Re:Here's why

[camperdave]

Is that the only reason? I'd be staggered if the only reason PC owners don't buy Mac is because they can't afford them. How cheap do Macs need to be?

About half what they are now. Most people don't go into a computer store with a fistful of specs and a fat wallet. Most people go into a computer store with a fixed price range and could care less about the specs. So for CAN$800 what does Apple offer?

Mac Mini $729:

• 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 1GB memory
• 120GB hard drive
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics

But I still need to buy a monitor. Okay, how much are they? Refurbished monitor $699. Oops! Budget blown!
Total number of systems in the price range: ZERO

Okay, and what does Dell offer?

Laptops:
Mini 10 and 10V
Inspiron 11z, 14z, 15z, 13, 14, 15, 17
Studio 14z, 15, 17

Let's look at the Studio 17 laptop $749:

• 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB memory
• 250GB Hard Drive
• CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
• widescreen 17.0 inch display (1440x900)

Dell also has fifteen desktop systems for under CAN$800 (including monitor)

Inspiron 545 $799:

• 2.33GHz Intel® Core(TM) 2 Quad
• Dell 20" HD Widescreen Flat Panel Display
• 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM
• 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
• Integrated Intel® GMA 3100 Graphics
• 16X DVD+/-RW Drive

Okay so for my $800, Apple has nothing they can offer me, but Dell has 11 laptops, and 15 desktops in my price range. I expect there would be similar results for HP, Gateway, MDG, etc.

Re:Here's why

[maxume]

Sony makes overpriced shit. Bad way to argue in favor of Apple.

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

The Cupertino Cheerleading squad must be out in full force today.

Every time you replace a mini with an ION, a fanboy cries.

Re:Here's why

[iammani]

Is that you, steve?

Re:Here's why

[drsmithy]

Keep in mind, OS X has had consistantly declining operating requirements, [...]

Please indicate which version of OS X had lower requirements than the one preceding it.

Don't roll out the "but it was faster than the previous version", either. That's moot when the first two versions of OS X were so slow you literally couldn't buy a machine that ran them well, and the couple following them weren't a lot better. No version of Windows has *ever* had the poor performance on contemporary hardware than OS X 10.0 - 10.3 did.

Re:Here's why

[Sandbags]

XP 512? it started at 64MB! and even SP3 still lists 64 as required, 128 reccomended... Granted, it runs like ASS with less than 1GB installed. I also find it odd that IE 7 is installed by default with SP3 patch rollup, and it's system requirements are higher than XP's...

OS 10.0 128MB ram,
OS 10.1 128 (unoficially 64)
OS 10.2 128 (256 reccomended)
OS 10.3 128 (512 recomended)
OS 10.4 256 (512 reccomended)
OS 10.5 512 (1GB reccomended)
OS 10.6 1GB (1GB reccomended)
the key (I misspoke my statement, sorry) is that each new version runs with improved performance on the same hardware. no it was not possible to go from 10.0 to 10.6 on the same hardware (though it is possible to go from 10.0 to 10.5, which covers 2001 - 2009 with improving performance for each release, and assuming you had a G4 processor and added a bit of RAM along the way)
Also, Windows runs like ASS with it's minimum recomendation (it is barely usable at 4 times that setting). OS X runs like a champ with little stutter, and 100% of OS features work with the minimum supported settings. the "minimum" is simply Apple's choice to suggest what it SHOULD run on in order to get suitable performance, where microsoft chooses to list the absolute hardware minimum.

I can attest that I have had OS 10.4 running on a machine with 128MB of installed RAM, and it did in fact run (and booted faster than an XP box with 1GB).

Vista "premium ready" (aka, can actually run the whole OS) required 1GB of RAM to do the same thing OS 10.4 did at the time with 256MB.

Windows 7 requires 2GB MINIMUM for the 64 bit edition. OS X 10.6 only requires 1GB.

Linux can only survive in server mode (no GUI) on 64MB. Base OS requires 256MB running Gnome or KDE Windows Manager (and it runs like ass with less than 512).

Re:Here's why

[binary paladin]

No. Macs cost more because it's not the same market as Dell or [insert OEM here]. It's the same reason they don't feverishly update the processors or specs. They don't sell PCs. They sell a platform and they sell complete devices. Period. They also have a much nicer profit margin per unit than Dell.

I'm not here to defend or attack that. The financials speak for themselves. There are hundreds of morons on this site who think that Apple would just "take over" if it took the advice of said morons and did things like offer budget machines or a customizable desktop that it would be king, etc.

Mind you, I would LOVE a Mac desktop that was a real desktop and NOT an iMac and not a Mac Pro. I don't hate Apple for not releasing it though because I'm certainly not their bread and butter. (Neither are gamers and neither are people who, for the most part, really care about Hz, Bytes or tech specs.) My dad doesn't care what processor is in his MacBook Pro. My mom doesn't care about how much RAM is in her Mac Mini. All they care about is that it does what they want at a pace that's reasonable for them. I like it because, as I'm the "family IT guy" I almost never have to touch these machines.

Just because Apple doesn't meet your needs, doesn't mean their execs are stupid. Getting annoyed at Apple for what they charge and what the sell is like getting pissed off when BMW doesn't my a 4x4 pickup work truck. It's not their market. They don't care about getting into it.

If Apple doesn't meet your needs then don't buy their stuff. I have GOT to stop reading any article that's Apple related on Slashdot. It just turns in to mountains of faulty comparisons and complaints and crap on both sides.

Re:Here's why

[gmanterry]

Thank you. Nothing worse than someone knocking an OS they have no experience with.

Re:Here's why

[binary paladin]

http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html

SL requires 1GB and Leopard ran on 512mb (albeit, there was no reason not to have at least 1GB). I'll bet SL runs better with less RAM than Leopard did too, but I'm not making that claim since I haven't done any actual testing.

Re:Here's why

[jayme0227]

I'm just curious how the Mac brand would be affected if Apple added a low-end computer to their lineup. Apple currently seems to target the groups that want proof that they they are "cooler" or "more hip" than everyone else, although they surely wouldn't use those phrases. Would low end Macs completely eliminate the "cool" factor of the Apple brand, thus eliminating much of the fickle pretentious college student market, or would they be able to rely on their superior usability to keep their current markets and add new ones?

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

Like I said... the sad fanboy "specs game".

If you're buying a PC, then you have more than one choice.

You don't have to be restricted to the i945 one year and then the nv9400 the next year.

I can "tweak" the CPU part of the spec to yield a machine for 1/3rd the price if my INDIVIDUAL requirements allow for that.

I can ignore things I'm never going to use or will actually be more bother and expense.

Re:Here's why

[michrech]

You go find a 13" or 15" machine with 7 hour battery life, that weighs 5lbs or less, operates on a 1066 bus with a full featured Core 2 (including VT!), comes with descrete graphics, 1200x800 or better screen, Wireless N, bluetooth, and has an internal optical drive that costs less. I can't find a competitor more than $80 lower in price that meets that, and that's without throwing in the backlit keyboard, 8GB ram max (not 4), memory card reader, firewire ports, a webcam, and other non-essential "specs" and that's also without any of the software you're going to need to buy for a Windows box (OK, some people buy, /.ers know how to get other ways).

http://www.xoticpc.com/force-3551-built-msi1651id2-gt628-p-2596.html?wconfigure=yes
FORCE 3551 (Built on MSI-1651-ID2 / GT628)
- 15.4" WSXGA+ "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy Screen (1680x1050)
- Standard Dead Pixel Policy
- -Intel® P9700 45nm "Montevina" Coreâ2 Duo 2.8GHz w/6MB L2 On-die cache - 1066MHz FSB 25 watt
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- nVidia GeForce GTS 160M 1024MB PCI-Express DDR3 DX10
- 4,096MB (2 SODIMMS) DDR3 1066MHz Dual Channel Memory (Requires Vista 64-Bit to utilize 4GB+) (Corsair, Kingston or Crucial) (8GB max)
- Standard Finish
- Combo Dual Layer SuperMulti 8X DVDRW Drive w/ Software
- 500GB 5400RPM 8MB Cache Buffer (Serial-ATA II 3GB/s)
- Internal 4-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO)
- Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 5300 802.11 a/g/n
- Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Smart Li-ion Battery (9-Cell) -
- Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit + Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Coupon w/ Drivers & Utilities CD's
- Microsoft Office 2007 SBE - (Word/Excel/Outlook/PowerPoint/Publisher)
- 1 Year Complete Care Warranty - 1 Year Parts with 2nd Day Shipping, 24/7 Telephone Tech Support & Lifetime Labor Warranty

$1888

So, according to your comment I quoted above:

15" or better -- Check @ 15.6"
5lbs - You beat me by 1.2lbs -- the horror!
7 hours battery -- close, but your MB will not run that long, either (no matter what Apple shovel-feeds you)
Full featured C2D -- Check
Discrete Graphics -- Check, nVidia GTS 160M w/1GB RAM
Wireless N -- Check
Bluetooth - Check
Internal Optical drive - check
Memory card reader - check, and more functional than the one in the 15" MBP this system is competing against.

So you beat me with the battery technology and the weight. I have a better machine at $411 less.

You're also wrong about Dell's available options:

Studio 15 Laptop:
COLORS Black Chainlink
PROCESSORS Intel® Coreâ i7-720QM Processor (1.6GHz, 6MB Cache, Turbo Boost)
VIDEO CARD 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-Bit
OFFICE SOFTWARE Microsoft® Works 9
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
SECURITY SOFTWARE McAfee SecurityCenter, 30-Day Trial
HD DISPLAY 15.6â Full High Definition (1080p) High Brightness LED Display with TrueLifeâ and Camera
MEMORY 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz (8gb MAX)
HARD DRIVE 500GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
OPTICAL DRIVE 8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
BATTERY OPTIONS 85 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
WIRELESS CARDS Intel 5300 Ultimate-N Half Mini Card (3x3) with MyWiFi
BLUETOOTH Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Internal (2.1)
SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.2
KEYBOARD Back-lit Keyboard

$1284 -- 1015 LESS than the equivelent MBP 15"

You still get me by a pound (or so) of weight, but both machines pretty well meet your "requirements", WELL UNDER what Apple is asking.

Re:Here's why

[shmlco]

Ah. That explains then, Dell's new Latitude Z ultra-thin notebook with gesture trackpad, solid state drives, etc.. Premium case construction, accessories, components and, oh yeah, a premium price to match. Even more than the 15" MBP, in fact.

Funny how when you build a nice machine the price starts climbing...

Re:Here's why

[Kell Bengal]

I always wanted to make a T-shirt that said "I make Apple uncool", then wear it to Jobs' keynote.

Re:Here's why

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Hmm. My previous laptop was a DELL XPS 1330. It was an OK computer and I had it for a year. The graphics system carked itself just after the warranty expired (known fault in this model), but DELL sent a guy out to replace the logic board, which was pretty good of them, I thought.
Anyway, the point: I watched the guy pull apart the XPS. I have never seen such crappy assembly and quality in my whole life. Everything was plastic, everything. Thebase that held the logic board was so thin that I could easily bend it with one hand.
I then sold it on ebay for about 30% of what I paid a year ago, and bought a MBP 15" just to see what all the fuss was about.
Now, I've been a PC guy all my life, but I work as a developer on windows systems, so I thought it was time for a change. Boy, have I had my eyes opened. Without a doubt, this is the best engineered gadget I have ever seen. It does everything I want to do, with absolutely no fuss, no bother. Now, I know, my anecdote means little, but as I say, my eyes have been opened and I am firmly an Apple fan, not only for the excellent hardware, but the unbelievably good OSX (a real eye opener). Of course, YMMV, I am not trying to convince anyone, I really don't care what anyone else does. But I know I will be buying Apple from now on. Flame away!

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

performers switch to using a pc with ubuntu for all their work
Yeah good luck with that, I haven't yet found the right combo of components that I can use with Ubuntu to do sound at all. Most of the built in sound cards don't work without hunting down arcane driver patches and then I had to degrade a kernel to get that to work. I tried a few USB sound systems but the drivers were worse and didn't take advantage of all the cool stuff that they offered. So after a bunch of crap I went back to the Mac. Like most Mac owners I have a PC as well, I haven't turned it on in a few weeks but it sits there taking up room in my office. Never had a Mac die on me I just got rid of (in the last 2 years) about 13 of them dating all the way back to the original Mac+ they all still worked perfectly. I tried to get Ubuntu to boot on my PPC G4. Got up to something I couldn't read on the screen and blew up refused to load. Have to look for another distro that might work. I don't think it like my AGP graphics card.

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

And last I heard Dell was struggling to stay alive and Apple was growing. So if you sell discount PC hardware you have to struggle and cut costs everywhere you can even on components just to stay in business. But on the other hand if you have consistent quality, good customer service and keep your prices high enough to support the service costs you make a ton of money? Looks to me like the business model of PC makers could use a boot to the head.

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

And what store do you go to to get help with that?

Re:Here's why

[dingen]

The iMac uses "desktop" parts - desktop cpu, ram, hd, optical drive, screen, psu etc etc.

An iMac actually uses SO-DIMM for RAM, which is laptop class.

Re:Here's why

[dougisfunny]

Actually, the budled iPod touch is what convinced my wife to let me get the Mac Pro I'd been wanting, because she wanted the iPod for a PDA. So it was worth it to me ;)

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

It just means that the 4 customers get waited on hand and foot and $1 customers get told to jump in a lake or pony up more cash.

Re:Here's why

[ezelkow1]

Most electronic musicians arent going to be using the built in sound cards as they are crap, but I know the external one I use, native instruments audio4, is supported by linux as is the whole audio line. The article does have the artists solution to all the complexities of linux audio, which basically boiled down to alsa and jack.

Anyway here is the article, http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/08/04/linux-music-workflow-switching-from-mac-os-x-to-ubuntu-with-kim-cascone/

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

Yeah I use Macs because I like to, I use PCs because I have to.

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

The PCs are leftovers from the days when I was mistakenly under the impression that I had to have a PC to get anything done. I haven't turned on my PC for several weeks now and I only did last time because my tax program files were there. The rest of the PCs belong to my Wife who has to use one for work and my son who keeps buying the latest whiz bang gaming stuff. But he keeps borrowing my Mac to play some of the newer games that came out on both platforms simultaneously because my Apple even though it is at least a year older than his PC is faster.

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

You're on let's see it!

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

Hey me too, well my wife drives the VW but yeah!

Re:Here's why

[eggnoglatte]

Two questions:

- how much time did you put in to buy the individual parts and assemble them?

- what is your hourly pay rate?

I don't know about you, but my time isn't free, you know.

Re:Here's why

[turing_m]

I'm curious - what do you have against FTFY jokes? Is it just when they are used against your posts, or do you dislike them in general? At least FTFY is funny sometimes, unlike 99.9% of overlord jokes. So is it just the lame FTFY jokes you have the issue with, or is it your contention that the entire class of FTFY jokes is lame? And when you say that they are lame, do you mean that they are unfunny, or perhaps they are hobbled, limping, maybe even gimpy? If it is the latter, perhaps they are deserving of pity rather than scorn and should be modded up instead - affirmative action for the lame.

I can see the sigs now - 'Any differently-abled "Fixed that for you" jokes will be extended a helping hand.'

Re:Here's why

[Jezza]

Well, you could always use a cheaper display...

Re:Here's why

[s73v3r]

If they made a low end Mac, they probably couldn't sell it at a price consistent with their profit margins. Besides, there's not much money to be made at the low end market, and the brand loyalty just isn't there, which is something they depend on. They've decided that's a market they just don't want to compete in.

Re:Here's why

[s73v3r]

So they're within $50 of each other, which at that level isn't much different.

Re:Here's why

[VGPowerlord]

So they're within $50 of each other, which at that level isn't much different.

Right, but the person I replied to said "you will see that the Dell comes out somewhere between $1000 to $2000 more expensive."

Re:Here's why

[thoth]

I bought a MacBook Pro recently, and am one of those people with a PC (desktop running Windows XP Media Center). I also have a Dell netbook running Ubuntu.

Anyway, why do I have a Mac and a PC? Well, the obvious answer is that I already had the PC and didn't throw it away when I got the Mac. The other reason is I still do use the PC sometimes - for playing games. It's a hobby of mine, although I find I'm putting a lot less time into it now as compared to the past. I've migrated pretty much everything else I do from the PC to my Mac. For professionally related hobby/tinkering purposes, the Mac suits me just fine as I'm getting back into Java programming, and down the road I'd like to dabble in Cocoa and Obj-C. So I don't have as much need to fiddle with C++ or C#/.NET at home (new job was partial impetus, as I had been looking to get away from an all-Windows work environment and it finally happened) but if I really had to on my Mac I could go with Windows in a virtual machine.

When Windows 7 releases, I'll have a choice to make: buy a copy and set my Mac up for dual boot (for games and occasional hobby coding projects) and redo my current 3.5 year old desktop with Ubuntu Linux, or upgrade my desktop XP system to Windows 7. If I go with dual boot and redo desktop, then I'll be able to say I'm a Mac owner without a PC.

Re:Here's why

[stuboogie]

"Of course, if it's a bargin you want you can also go to Apple's web site and buy refurbished Macs and save 10-20%."

If I want a refurb system, then I'll buy the equivalent PC refurb which is still cheaper. I shouldn't have to purchase an older model refurb Mac to get the same price point of a new current spec PC.

"On the flip side, like certain cars Macs also have a fairly high resale value. After a year or so you might be able to resell that Mac for half (or more) of what you paid for it."

I guess that depends on whether you buy new hardware every year or two. Most people do not. Just like most people don't trade in their cars every year or two. Most of us buy a car and use it for several years. I do the same with my computer. I do not work in high-end graphics nor do I play the cutting edge games, so I don't need to upgrade constantly.

In addition, a Mac which costs more up front SHOULD get more when you sell it.

Re:Here's why

[Shag]

Apple's high customer satisfaction rating isn't due to their products never having problems - it's also due to them usually being good about it when their products do have problems. I had a couple problems with a black Macbook (a bad Airport card, and cracks on the top case) that were fixed on a walk-in basis by their retail store "Genius Bars" in under 20 minutes each. Toward the end of its warranty, I shipped it in for a thing or two since I wasn't near any stores (and had picked up its aluminum successor) and they actually fixed/replaced a whole bunch of stuff I wasn't even aware of.

Not to say that I haven't had a gripe or two with their service in the 8 years I've owned stuff from them - but usually they're quite good.

Re:Here's why

[Rewind]

I was just going to point out that the two things you missed are incredibly easy to find... Not sure how you missed them. On the MacBook Pro page you go to specs and click 17" to find the weight. "6.6 pounds (2.99 kg)".

The extended warranty is listed on the buy page (if you don't buy one I imagine you wouldn't need a warranty :P) It is $349 for 3 years. Can find it under Protection Plan which I think is acceptable wording. True it doesn't say EXTENDED WARRANTY, so I could see how you might miss it if you were just scanning the page it quickly come up with that, but meh. A buyer would have the info there easily.

Not justifying their search (I think it is pretty poor personally) but I did want to point out that if you were going at it like a regular user speccing out a laptop all of the info would have been right there in your face.

At any rate I think the whole price debate that comes up around Macs is pointless. Obviously enough people think it is worth it or Apple wouldn't still be in business. I can't say I care where other people buy their computers :P

Re:Here's why

[stuboogie]

The Zune HD supports HD video AND radio. The Touch does not. In fact, you can output the Zune HD over HDMI. Check out the full spec comparison on cnet.

Re:Here's why

[AmberBlackCat]

Yes, but you have Macs, PC's, and a Sun computer and you're on Slashdot with the screen name, "Penguin's Advocate". What about normal people? My take on this story was that "everybody" has a PC, and some of the people bought Macs, which resulted in a lot of people people having both. It's like saying most people with blond hair have ears but most people with ears don't have blond hair. It doesn't really say blond hair is good or bad, doesn't say ears are good or bad. It just says everybody has ears and some people have blond hair, and therefore there is a lot of overlap.

Re:Here's why

[mjwx]

A vanilla Macbook is appropriately priced for what you get.

Oh no it isnt.

A vanila macbook costs A$1580 for an older C2D (T series) 2.13 Ghz 2 GB of RAM and a 160 GB 5400 RPM hard drive.

The top end Dell Vostro 1320 is A$1199 and this has a newer model C2D (P series) 2.4 Ghz with 4 GB of RAM and a 250 GB 7200 RPM hard drive.

Other specifications are the same, 9400M graphics card, 13" 1200x800 screen with the exception of the warranty. Dell gives a 1 year NBD onsite warranty with their business line Vostro laptops, Apple does not. Apple does not know the meaning of the phrase Next Business Day (NBD) they have a hard time with Next Business Week on warranty repairs.

Personally I get the 3 year NBD onsite warranty added on, 1 day of downtime is worth the extra A$200. Lack of a decent warranty is why I can never seriously consider a Mac. Apple does make cheap computers, it also sells them for at least 20% more then most other manufacturers. This difference gets even greater if we compare the 15" models.

Re:Here's why

[adamchou]

First off, Dell isn't exactly "losing" money. Its still profitable. Profits might not be as high as the previous year, but they're definitely not in the red

Secondly, I'm not so sure that its as simple as Apple is making money therefore their computer business model is obviously successful. Do remember that their iPhone and iPod are HUGE money makers. I'd even go so far as to say that those two generate more revenue than their computer business. I've never seen a breakdown from Apple for each of its divisions, but I'm pretty sure their computer business model isn't THAT great. Xserve anyone?

Re:Here's why

[mjwx]

Yeah, that's why Apple consistently has the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry.

Please see post purchase rationalisation, cognitive dissonance and choice supportive bias for further explanation.

When people spend a great deal of money on a product, especially when it is overpriced they need to feel that their choice was somehow superior. Thus Apple's customers have decided how satisfied they are before they have even bought the product. In addition to this you need to look at what people are buying, when one buys from Apple they have been seduced by the marketing and want the image of a Mac, when one buys form Dell or Toshiba they have expectations of the hardware and performance, it's much easier for someone with higher expectation on actual deliverables to be disappointed then one enamoured with an image.

Or simply put, customer satisfaction ratings are no indication of actual performance. Apple does also not have the cross section of customers that Dell would have, if it did it's "satisfaction rating" would reflect Dell's.

Re:Here's why

[mjwx]

Just did this using default configs.

The trick is to overshoot the mac as the better deals are on the pre-configured boxes.

A vanila macbook costs A$1580 for an older C2D (T series) 2.13 Ghz 2 GB of RAM and a 160 GB 5400 RPM hard drive.

The top end Dell Vostro 1320 is A$1199 and this has a newer model C2D (P series) 2.4 Ghz with 4 GB of RAM and a 250 GB 7200 RPM hard drive.

Sorry but higher end PC's win and all of this is before we consider warranties. Even with Mac's their working life is at best 3 years as each new version of CS has higher requirements. So if you expect to remain productive you need to upgrade at the same rate as a PC.

Yes this discuassion has happened a million time and it will keep happening so long as people contest the fact that Mac's are more expensive then PC's

Re:Here's why

[jbolden]

They have them:

1) Used market
2) Mac Mini
3) Apple TV
4) Educational iMac

If by "low end" you mean a low end desktop unit, then that is targeting a different group of people and that would effect the brand.

Pick one of three:

1) Cutting edge
2) Great customer service
3) Low margins high volume

Re:Here's why

[toddestan]

I don't know about you, but I'm on a salary and can't just bill out hours whenever I feel like. Or in other words, like most people here I have more time on my hands than I have money. And besides, I actually enjoy tinkering around with the hardware.

Re:Here's why

[jbolden]

This idea that Mac users are buying an image is simply nonsense. They are buying a feature set:

Quicktime as an OS level data format
Unix
OSX's level of integration
Ease of authoring with iApps

or whatever.

Re:Here's why

[camperdave]

Apple doesn't make a cheaper display. If I want to buy a SYSTEM, I am Straight Outta Luck as far as Apple is concerned.

Re:Here's why

[romanval]

Well last year I bought the cheapest Mac (the $599 Mini. Yes I'm poor).

15 months later the logic board dies. My local Apple store repaired it for free......... even though it was 3 months out of warrantee!

It doesn't feel like cognitive dissonance when you're actually being taken care of.

Re:Here's why

[mjwx]

Well two years ago my company bought a iMac (with extended warranty), the PSU died 8 months in. It took Apple 5 days to replace what should be an off the shelf part.

A macbook (with the same extended warranty) with RAM problems, Service centre could not find any issues and refused to replace the RAM, the business had to replace the RAM out of their own pocket.

As a business we were not taken care of.

BTW, the cheapest Mac Mini over here is A$999. That's for last years model on sale.

Re:Here's why

[mjwx]

This idea that Mac users are buying an image is simply nonsense. They are buying a feature set:

The idea that Mac users are buying a feature set is simply nonsense. They are buying the image:

The "look and feel" of a Mac.
The elitist culture.
Shiny white box.
Smugness.

You'll find Mac users care about Aesthetics then care about Unix or application authoring (which as the iphone attests to, is not easy).

Re:Here's why

[JWSmythe]

    They should.

    Obviously he isn't familiar with the concepts of conservation and advanced planning.

    I guess more importantly, when everything collapses around him, he'd at least have another $700 in savings because he didn't blow it on the "cooler" toys.

    But hey, what Mac Fanboy could ever be made redundant, and let go without any significant warning?

Re:Here's why

[nabsltd]

how much time did you put in to buy the individual parts and assemble them?

Less than two hours, although it did take 3 days for the hardware to show up at my door.

When you know what you want, NewEgg is very fast to navigate...in particular, I just put my entire standard Core i5 wish list into my basket and click "Next" a few times.

After that, putting together well-made components into a "no-tools-required" case isn't even close to the thought required to make a meal from scratch.

what is your hourly pay rate?

I don't get paid for watching football, but that would be cool, wouldn't it? If you can't put together a computer while complaining that the ref is blind, turn in your Slashdot card.

All this, however, doesn't change the fact that your argument is either a red herring or a straw man, but I'm not sure which. If I didn't specifically want a Core i5 machine, I could have ordered up a $700 Core 2 Quad from Dell in the time it takes to read a couple of Slashdot posts.

Re:Here's why

[node 3]

Like I said... the sad fanboy "specs game".

Instead of the sad fanboy "Macs are overpriced" nonsense.

Please, play attention.

Facts:

1. Macs are not overpriced for the hardware they are made of.
2. PCs offer more choice.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. These are two different arguments. You jumped into the discussion about price with the choice response.

But you get even that wrong.

If you're buying a PC, then you have more than one choice.

There are multiple Macs, too. Just not nearly as many as there are PCs.

You don't have to be restricted to the i945 one year and then the nv9400 the next year.

There are current Macs that don't use the nVidia chipset, but more to the point, very few people care, as the chipset is extremely unimportant to most people. This isn't the Windows/Linux world where chipset choice is important to consider with regards to compatibility and driver quality.

I can "tweak" the CPU part of the spec to yield a machine for 1/3rd the price if my INDIVIDUAL requirements allow for that.

Um... The only machine where this is even *remotely* applicable to is the Mac Pro, where the CPU(s) makes up a *significant* portion of the price. Correct, you can't order a Mac Pro sans CPU. You can buy an iMac, or a Mac mini. Sure, *you* might want a Mac Pro with a low-end Core2Duo (actually, why would anyone really want such a combo? But I digress), but most people really don't care. On the contrary, they'd rather have the all-in-one styling of the iMac, or the impressive compactness of the Mac mini, over the expandability of a traditional desktop, as they'll never take advantage of that expandability.

I fully agree that Apple's hardware offerings are sorely lacking for someone like yourself, but you are not representative of the average PC buyer, and much, much more to the point, this has no bearing on the topic of whether Macs are overpriced.

Re:Here's why

[pkphilip]

Mac Mini is overpriced and so also the rest of the apple hardware. If you consider a Thinkpad or a Dell Latitude or any of the higher end Toshiba's, you will see that feature-to-feature, Apple is extremely overpriced. If you consider Psystar's computers, then Apple's inflated pricing becomes even more evident.

Re:Here's why

[michrech]

Way to take bits of my post out of context.

That depends upon which specs you ignore. For example, Consumer Reports shows Apple as having the highest hardware reliability and customer satisfaction of any vendor in there most recent evaluation. Xoticpc, does not show up on that report at all. Do they use the most reliable or the least reliable brand of hard drive in their machines? What about all the other components?

Err.. You *are* an Apple "fanboi", aren't you... I realize this is a difficult concept for someone like you to understand, but Xoticpc will never show up in something like Consumer Reports. They're a reseller, NOT an OEM. Do you also expect your local computer stores are going to show up too?

As to your assertion that they might be using "sub par" parts -- Corsair, Seagate/Western Digital, Intel (for both CPU and Wireless), Kingston, nVidia/ATI, MSI, Asus, Sager -- *ALL* quality hardware (I personally don't like WD, but they still somehow get great reviews, so meh...). Seems like it's *exactly* the same parts as in the Apple machines to me (well, obviously MSI/Asus/Sager are the OEM's of the base notebooks and not individual laptop parts, but they *ARE* well known/respected brands).

If you had to read the source code for the page, your browser is broken.

So, now, Firefox is broken, eh? Yeah... you know what? UH-UH! It's poor design on Apple's part that I could search (with CTRL-F) for "Warranty" on the main MBP 17" product page and watch Firefox zoom right to an area on the page, but have NOTHING highlighted until I actually clicked on a poorly marked "Learn More" link - which was actually connected to their silly extended protection crap. Every *other* OEM page has it clearly marked as "Warranty", why not Appl... Oh, yeah, "Think Different"... "My bad".

Quit being an asshole. I thought we could have a civil conversation, but obviously you have too much of the Apple kool-aid in your system for *that* to happen...

Re:Here's why

[vijayiyer]

Have you even looked at the documentation to write an iPhone app? It's about the easiest APIs to learn that you can find for any platform. The fact that the dev tools are all free is a bonus.

Re:Here's why

[the_womble]

Install a lightweight Linux on them (I use PCLinuxOS LXDE) and use them for guests/kids/anyone else who just needs a basic machine.

Re:Here's why

[gmhowell]

The fact that PC types think that interface is mere aesthetics is why it will never be the year of the Linux desktop.

Re:Here's why

[Xest]

"if anything the problem is that Apple doesn't make CHEAP computers like $300 netbooks so that cuts out the poor/cheap folks looking only at price."

People buy netbooks not simply because they're poor or cheap, they buy them because they realise that when all you need to do is type up documents, make spreadsheets and so forth without having to lug around a laptop case they're best in class. The netbook was a realisation that there is a fuck load of people out there who only need the usual computing capabilities (Office suite, web browser etc.) but found mobile phones/PDAs too small for this purpose and laptops too big. I know a few people who bought netbooks not because they couldn't afford a Macbook, but because it wouldn't fit in their handbag or rucksack like a netbook. Apple does not offer this form factor of laptop, instead it release the air, which is just as wide and long, but thinner, that's a useless form factor to 99% of people because it still doesn't fit well in many casual bags due to it's width.

"Most people own a PC because the workplace DEMANDS it. 12% of people that own a Mac in addition to a PC went out of their way to seek it out because they didn't like Windows.... that's a huge and growing dissatisfaction rating."

Or, you know, maybe many people just like both? I understand that might be a tough concept for fanboys to comprehend though of course, but really, for most people the world just isn't that binary.

People who argue Macs are better than PCs and vice versa and make up stories for themselves about how it's because people obviously hate the other system that they own both are an absolutely tiny subset of the set of people who own these systems. The reality is, most people just want to be able to type up documents, send e-mails and browse the internet, they couldn't give a fuck if they were doing this in Windows, Mac OS X or Linux as long as it does the job well enough. At the end of the day, for these basic tasks, there just really isn't enough between the 3 OS' for people to care, hence why Linux netbooks did so well at first before Microsoft managed to force netbook producers to start sticking Windows on. The fact it's Linux was just no hurdle to most people because they had their web browser, their word processor and so on.

Re:Here's why

[Xest]

Sorry, what has satisfaction got to do with reliability exactly?

I'm a Wii and XBox 360 owner, the Wii has never had any faults or problems whilst I'm on my 4th Xbox 360 due to hardware failures. I'm still far more satisfied with the XBox 360 though because I simply prefer the games on it. The Wii despite looking full of promise at first really has very little for hardcore gamers like myself. As my XBox was replaced same-day in store every time it failed and I was given 2000 MS points free in compensation by Microsoft each time when I contacted them about it also I really have little to complain about, but again, that doesn't mean the system is in any way reliable whatsoever.

Even then there's the issues of how accurate satisfaction surveys are. It's easy to say you're satisfied with something that's unreliable if you paid over the odds for it because you don't want to admit you got suckered into buying an expensive piece of junk. There's also the question of who funds these surveys, can you be sure they are independent?

So to sum up, what has your post got to do with the fact the parent you were responding to made a comment about reliability? Between easily scratched iPod nano screens, overheating and igniting magsafe power adapters, exploding iPhones, discolouring MacBook cases is it any wonder that people question the reliability of Apple hardware? We've certainly seen far more stories of recurring problems in various pieces of Apple hardware in the last 5 years than we have any other hardware manufacturer I believe. I'm sure you'll put it down to media bias or similar though.

I think there are even good reasons why this is the case, Apple is often at the forefront of technology, technology that is unfortunately at times not fully tested because some of the errors arise only after longer term testing which they do not have time to do before going to market. I can understand and sympathise with Apple as to why these things happen, but the important point is that they do actually happen, and reliability is an issue in some Apple products.

Re:Here's why

[Xest]

There's quite a fundamental difference between Dell and Apple. Dell has much stronger ties to the enterprise than Apple, it provides services as well as just hardware, but of the hardware it sells it provides blade servers, networking equipment and so on.

Dell is still profitable, but is much more vulnerable to fluctuations in the economy due to it's large investment in business divisions that Apple simply doesn't even have. Similarly, Apple has a near monopoly in the portable media player market, whilst Dell is not really in this market at all. Apple's strength in portable media players nets it a vast amount of it's revenue, but clearly has no bearing on the quality of it's PCs. iTunes also brings in a lot of money for Apple.

Rather than simply speculating if you're interested in finding out whether Apple's computer hardware business model is better than Dell's you could probably get hold of both companies accounts and compare the strengths of those specific divisions of both companies if they offer accounts in such a form, rather than trying to compare both companies as a whole.

Re:Here's why

[tsa]

I have Windows on my Macs so I can run games on them. That is the only thing I use Windows for. If I couldn't afford the Macs I would have bought normal PCs and ran Linux on it, together with Windows for the games.

Re:Here's why

[Saint Fnordius]

Even the maligned Mac Mini is a pretty good machine for MOST sub $700 machine buyers. The majority of PC users don't open their computers over the life of the machine. The majority don't even add ram or video cards. They pay $600 for Last Year's parts in an empty plastic box that makes them feel good. A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC

All items of which MOST users, particularly anyone buying a "budget" PC, simply don't need. Hell I'm a programmer and aside from the two video ports (more like $50 to add to the Dell), which I only played with briefly (dual monitor just wasn't all it was made out to be), I've never used any of those features.

Also, the Mini and Dell's budget lines simply aren't comparable. The mini is $599 at it's lowest cost. Dell's basic PC starts at $269. That's a 122% increase in price. Not to mention that the Dell at less than half the cost includes twice as much RAM and nearly 3 times as much hard drive space, but we'll call that a wash since the Mini does include a faster processor (though the Dell comes with about all the processor a home user would need - indeed I'd argue that the hard drive and ram are better places to put funds than the processor). Not to mention that if the notion does strike me that I want to play some games on the machine, tossing in a $100 video card and a $50 processor means I'm in business on the Dell. With the Mac? Be ready to replace the machine.

Now personally, I'll not argue that the Mini IS in fact a very good machine for most people's needs. It's just that at what they charge it's overpriced. Compared to similar level PC's, that machine is worth $300-350.

"Worded exactly as intended"? Does that also include maligned tags?

Well, as a home user there are several things on the Mac Mini that home users end up using a lot, like the Bluetooth synch with the phone (my daughter uses this to transfer pictures) or the FireWire port for the video camera. But (bad car analogy time here) many other people have pointed out the little things that make up the price such as the form factor. The Mac Mini compared to the Dell is like comparing a 2009 BMW Mini with a 2009 Fiat Panda.

Re:Here's why

[intheshelter]

I'll just reply to all the rocket scientists who have been posting about building a machine for far less. . . We're not talking about building a machine! This is a comparison of buying a pre-built computer with buying another pre-built computer. i.e. An apples to apples comparision.

And for the reasons behind Mac owners having a Windows machine too, it's easy enough to explain. Mac marketshare has been growing quickly lately. People are hearing good things from Mac owners and they are switching from Windows to Macs, but they have their last Windows machine laying around the house yet. It's sort of a safety net as they switch. Until they realize that all the BS about no software for Macs, etc. is pure FUD. They may have the Windows machine, but I'd be interested to know if it gets used very much any more, or if it's been relegated to a kids computer, or if it's required for doing something for work (probably unnecessarily).

Re:Here's why

[tompeach]

The Mac in your comparison has the most expensive processor and actually looks like something you'd want to put on your desk, that's why it cost more. You don't mention details about the monitors other than size. Apple have great screens, I'd be surprised if the Dell/HP are comparable.

If anything your comparison supports the idea that Macs are fairly priced.

N.B. Not a Mac user.

Re:Here's why

[intheshelter]

And I'll bet it was still not an apples to apples comparison. The studies have been done and similarly spec'd machines usually are within $100 of each other. Some of the times the Mac is the cheaper one. Sorry, but we'd have to see side by side specs to see if they were even close to each other.

Re:Here's why

[Derkec]

The alternative is that people who have the most computers in their house - computer experts - are more likely to have at least one Mac. There's probably some truth to both perspectives.

Anyway, at my house right now I have:

1 sub-$1000 PC Laptap (wife's work machine)
1 $1500 PC gameing machine
1 15 inch Macbook Pro

The MacBook is work machine and I love it. My slightly newer gaming rig is barely used (whoops). Now, for work I need to run Windows and a Unix type system and travel. The Macbook Pro is perfect for travel - thin, light, and powerful enough to be an everyday PC replacement. Also, if you're going to run VMs, do you want to simulate Unix while using Windows memory management or the reverse? Right, you're running linux or a Mac. And let's face it, the Mac UI experience blows away anything out there.

My Mac has had it's share of problems, but the new sub $1k laptop has shown signs of crappy hard-drive its first three months, and the gaming machine is currently out of service. Every machine I bring into my house has a purpose, but trust me, when it's my money on the line, I'm going to give the Macs serious consideration. Particularly for machines that are used most every day for a couple years? Any extra couple hundred bucks is worth a slightly less frustrating, more pleasant experience. It's like spending money on a chair for a home office, yes you can get an OK one for $125 at Staples, but your ass is going to be in that thing 8 hours a day - it's worth getting one that's very comfy even for a bit more dough.

I see a lot of Macs in the hands of nerds these days - at software conferences, work environments, etc. Programmers who have their choice of machines seem to be getting Macs and displaying them like a status symbol. If I was buying a replacement single machine for my parents? Probably a PC because that's what they know. My mom has just become comfortable with right-clicking. The Mac would be better for her, but she'd never expend the effort to learn it. My Dad doesn't have a ton of time either, and knows Windows well enough that I'm not sure where he'd benifit. So yeah, for them their single machine should be a PC but more because their existing machine is a PC than anything particularly good about them.

Re:Here's why

[intheshelter]

The idea that Mac users are buying the image is simply nonsense. It may help you sleep at night thinking that, but you are full of shit if you actually believe it.

Re:Here's why

[intheshelter]

Oh jeez, what utter BS. Well then I'll just say that I'll buy my Mac when a sale comes and get it for the same price as your PC. So now your PC is no longer less money.

Try and follow the discussion please rather than making up very narrow scenarios that don't broadly apply.

Re:Here's why

[intheshelter]

Which version of Vista were you including. It had better be the premium/pro version (I don't even know or care what the versions are any more) so it has the same capabilities as OS X. Also, did you include the software equivalent of iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, Garageband?

Apples to Apples comparisions tell a different story.

Re:Here's why

[MBGMorden]

Well, as a home user there are several things on the Mac Mini that home users end up using a lot, like the Bluetooth synch with the phone (my daughter uses this to transfer pictures) or the FireWire port for the video camera. But (bad car analogy time here) many other people have pointed out the little things that make up the price such as the form factor. The Mac Mini compared to the Dell is like comparing a 2009 BMW Mini with a 2009 Fiat Panda.

I think you're in a minority on using Bluetooth OR firewire (especially firewire - even Apple is dumping it these days on some models), but even if you wanted, they're not hard problems to solve.

Toss $13 at the Bluetooth problem:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156069

and $6 at the firewire problem:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124032

And you're back in business. It'll take a WHOLE lot more stuff to make up the $330 price difference between the two systems.

Now, I realize that the form factors are different, and that does matter to some. If that's you're deciding factor then by all means go for the Mini. It's just that I'd wager that 99% of computer users don't care. Most of the lower cost "beige boxes" (should call them "black boxes" these days as an actual beige PC has become as rare as hen's teeth) are small enough. The systems are still desktops,and so most are under the desk or stashed to the side out of the way anyways.

Re:Here's why

[mdwh2]

But despite these alleged quality parts, it's interesting that they still need another brand of PC running Windows, but not vice versa.

You can get all of that for PCs, anyway. As the OP said, Apple are just yet another brand of PC maker these days, just using the "Mac" trademark. The actual Mac platform died years ago.

Re:Here's why

[mdwh2]

Sure, a completely different argument, but one that's more relevant.

You might as well say "For the same hardware, Amigas aren't anymore expensive", because any 68040 machine would cost just as much today. The point is that, yes, I'm sure that a Mac Mini equivalent by another PC manufacturer would cost just as much, due to its use of more costly and lower performance laptop parts - but why bother with that in the first place? I'd rather either just get a laptop, or alternatively get a desktop that has cheaper and better desktop parts. And Apple have nothing in those markets, unless you spend much more money for a high end product.

Re:Here's why

[Kartoffel]

Ahem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Re:Here's why

[mdwh2]

It never ceases to amaze me how people manage to twist more expensive products into being a good thing. I wish I'd thought of this tactic back in the 90s, when the Amiga was getting more expensive. "Well if you're not able to spend £2000 on an Amiga 4000, you're obviously not in their target market. You're not cool like me!"

Sure you have your guy who buys a car to lord it over people with cheaper cars, but most people who buy the more expensive one just happened to like it and felt the cost was worth it.

Hmm yes, that's why all these people also happen to have a Windows PC lying around. If your car analogy was really accurate, it would be like someone gloating over their expensive car they bought, whilst secretly also having to rely on a cheaper but useful car that they keep hidden away in the garage.

Of course I'm sure that Mac owners thought it was worth it. Just as Amiga owners etc are too. But believe it or not, so are owners of every PC - even those that, shock, don't run OS X. Yet for some reason we have to put up with a continual torrent of abuse, from this small niche of people who evidently do like to lord it over, for some reason thinking they're cool to be different (I mean, Apple once had a campaign over "Think Different", and now look at their insulting I'm a PC ads...)

Re:Here's why

[mdwh2]

A is more expensive than B.

Completely unrelated product X is more expensive, and better, than product Y.

Therefore A is better than B.

That's your argument - and one that is repeated often on Slashdot. I had hoped that people would be less likely to fall for logical fallacies round here.

Re:Here's why

[mdwh2]

Yeah, from people who also have to own a Windows PC...

(It doesn't surprise me that niche platforms will always have higher expectations, it's a fallacy to conclude that this says about the product. The point is that the vast majority don't care about computers, and moan about them - and these will almost all be using the dominant platform, biasing those results. Of course users of niche platforms are more likely to be fans.)

Re:Here's why

[jbolden]

Do you have any evidence for this? The Mac users I know talk about the advantages of the mac not about the advantages of elitist culture.

Re:Here's why

[Gilmoure]

Wife, daughter, and I each have a personal Mac, then there's the Mac Mini as media station/web server, an extra machine in the living room and one in the guest room. And there's my old Quadra 650 that I pull out when I want to scan stuff on an old 11x17 LaCie scanner. Photoshop 2.5 runs great on it.

I've never had a PC but I do have a copy of VMWare Fusion. Just haven't gotten around to getting a copy of Windows to install on it. Works great with RedHat and NetBSD, though.

I guess we just like computers. And yeah, we've video chatted within the house. Felt very WallâE.

Re:Here's why

[intheshelter]

But that is not what the thread is about. I'm not going to buy a computer from Dell that is just hardware and have no software installed. That's a meaningless comparison. The real question is computer versus computer. Similar specs in hardware and software. If you exclude the software side then you've excluded half of the equation.

Re:Here's why

[ifrag]

Wow, this must be a first. A car analogy was marked off topic? I thought I was reading Slashdot. Car analogies are on topic by default.

Re:Here's why

[Gilmoure]

I'd really like to have a mini-tower Mac, with room from 2 HD's, 2 video cards, 4-8 GB RAM, 6-8 USB ports, Firewire (400 and 800), Sata-E, and a decent core2 duo processor. Bring it in for $800-$1200 (iMac w/o monitor) and I'd be a happy camper. Maybe I should just pick up a used iMac with bad screen and replace the guts in my old IIcx? Or build a Hackintosh in there. That would be cool!

Re:Here's why

[intheshelter]

I agree, you can't argue they are equivalent. Because they aren't.

Re:Here's why

[guruevi]

I don't know how come. but here I can't select the 2.26GHz but it goes automatically to the 2.66GHz one, same specs as you: $5643, then I go and upgrade the Mac Pro to 2.66GHz: $4699. Actually it seems that the price goes up slightly for Education or Business store (where I should shop). It seems like Dell can't get it's pricing straight.

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

If you buy into all of Apple's nonsense it is going to be a very expensive proposition.
If you defend and going along with everything they do to ream you, you will be out a
lot of money or in the position of doing without.

The systems are just the tip of the iceberg.

The value of the OS beyond the fact that it is not malware infested is disputable.

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

Alternately, I can get a (PC) machine fit for the same purpose as a Mac mini for $200.

Apples do well in areas that aren't being well served by the PC vendors.
However, once the PC vendors pay attention to the niche in question, the
Apple hardware tends to get blown out of the water.

Trying to argue that Macs aren't overpriced really is a losing proposition.

So ultimately, the choice between the ION or the Mini comes down to the question
of whether or not I want to run MacOS on the given box.

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

iPhoto? iMovie?

You can download equivalents to that crap gratis.

No pretentious buy in is required.

Re:Here's why

[intheshelter]

"include more "Click here to try AOL" crap on the desktop" Whoa, a reference to software. My point is made. It's about the COMPUTER, not just the hardware. Nice try though.

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

You need to be self-satisfied when you spend that much. Otherwise you end up with a serious cognitive dissonance.

Re:Here's why

[jedidiah]

You see a company giving good service.

I see a company that sold a crap product.

You should never need to use the Warranty. It's nice that companies
stand behind their stuff but it's far better if they never have to
do that.

This is what you get out of a Benz or a BMW.

It's not all hype and being overcharged.

Re:Here's why

[jo_ham]

You are making my point, and also trying to turn it around that I'm being "elitist" somehow for justifying the cost of a Mac over a PC.

My whole point is that the price of the iMac on the desk in front of me was worth it for what I need it to do - internet, email, word processing, speadsheets, calendars/tasklists, basic gaming, music, DVDs and other miscellaneous computer tasks like photos, making CDs.

I could have bought a PC to do all of those tasks, but I prefer doing them on the Mac - the machine itself looks nice and is very practical (one cable unplugged, into its box [that has a handle] and I'm off to a friend's house for gaming or any other task like some video editing and so on), and I like the OS. Windows isn't all that bad, but I just prefer OS X. No need for malware protection software or updating virus definitions, no activation after an install or rebuild [and yes, I have done that to my Mac, despite what some Mac users will say about never reinstalling], and most of all, it was extremely convenient.

I have built my own PCs in the past (running W2k) but decided to change platform and never looked back. I have a boot camp install of XP that I very rarely boot up if there is some crucial piece of software that is crucial that is windows only, although the last time I did that was to run the EvEMon skills tool before I left the game [whole thing is in .NET).

I don't have anything against anyone who is building their own, or running Windows, or Linux, or FreeBSD - I am just a content computer user who found that the price of the iMac was worth it for the value I get out of it, in terms of the actual hardware and the user experience.

Just because I use and like Apple products doesn't make me beholden to their ad campaigns or corporate messages. "Oh you use an Apple, therefore the 'I'm a Mac, I'm a PC' Ads must totally represent your feelings on the issue!" - yeah, I'm afraid not.

I once bought a loaf of bread in Morrison's, but I still think their advert with Richard Hammond pulling a shopping cart up a cliff to "look for great meat" is stupid.

If I was in the survey, I would be in the "Owns a Mac and a PC" but I'm not a representiative sample - I in fact own about 5 Macs and 1 PC - the PC being the last box I built myself that has w2k on it. I guess I have 2 PCs if you count the fact that the iMac dual boots XP and OS X.

If you think you have to "put up with a torrent of abuse" as a PC owner for buying a PC with Windows, then try being a Mac user for about 5 minutes. Not only do you face abuse from people who "know" computers and hate Macs, you have to deal with people who are totally computer clueless but who somehow "know" that it's cool to bash Macs. Door swings both ways. Zealots and elitists/jerks on both sides.

Re:Here's why

[camperdave]

Are you seriously telling me that when I compare prices between company A and company B, I should ignore company A's product and buy a cheaper one from company C? Now THAT's being perverse.

Re:Here's why

[NitroWolf]

"...along with the belief that apple has that much better reliability..."

Yeah, that's why Apple consistently has the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry.

It's easy to have a high customer satisfaction rating when you have less than 10% of the market. It's a lot harder to make 90% of the people happy than it is to make 10% of the people happy.

Re:Here's why

[hmar]

Apple doesn't make CHEAP computers like $300 netbooks so that cuts out the poor/cheap folks looking only at price.

Don't you think some people buy a sub $300 netbook or PC because it might meet their specific needs? I have an HP Mini that I got for free but they sell for under $250. It does what I need it and expect it to do. What am I missing out on? What am I doing on it that it is failing to perform because it is "cheap"?

I happen to look at the price of EVERYTHING I buy including a bag a frozen vegetables at the grocery store and make a decision if it will meet my needs for that amount of money, I call it maximising the value for my dollar. How do you buy and compare things?

A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC. You can find PC's that have all of the features of the mini for well under the Mini's price. Sure, I can also find PC's that are the same and even more expensive than the Mini too but if you'd like to only compare to the overpriced PC's, that's your choice. Another note, maybe someone does not need or has zero use for firewire, bluetooth, or two video ports on their specific PC, why should they pay for it?

The point here is that the person who values that dollar amount above all else, or the person with no need for the extra features on the mini, are not in the target market of the mini. By all means, buy what fits your needs/budget. Just afford the same to mac users, without all the hate.

Re:Here's why

[mehemiah]

... get the crappy mac, and use it for a while and you'll realize why Windows sucks. Or, perhaps deal with Linux. I love my linux box primarily because even though I bought it in 2000 (compac presario monitor + tower, p3 clocked at 933mgh, 128SD ram 2 optical drives came up to $1,500 btw THANK YOU VERY MUCH) but I can't sell it because its the only comp I have out side of the 1,200 G5 imac (single core 2ghz) I got in 2005 that I SHARE with my family. If my PC breaks, its ok, if the FAMILY comp breaks, I have to fix it or (if its hardware) pay for it. I couln't afford to deal with Windows or Linux with 3 other users in the house all of which can't tell the difference between Tiger and Leopard minus Stacks and Transparent Menu Bar. I summerise by saying that in ONE year, I was down to ONE optical drive because the second one failed and would Freeze the computer once it got too hot (linux didn't care). Vista Proves that there can always be another ME like release, Snow Leopard proves that Apple is working against that. Vista was like economic "Shock Treatment" of Peru, the developers won't like it but system will be better for it in the end. I still don't see, however, an end to the developer inertia of the Windows developer community. Actually, I don't see that changing because of the smaller user base of Mac OS. It is a more selective market, higher selection leads to more optimized solutions as evolution teaches us.

Re:Here's why

[VGPowerlord]

I don't know how come. but here I can't select the 2.26GHz but it goes automatically to the 2.66GHz one, same specs as you: $5643, then I go and upgrade the Mac Pro to 2.66GHz: $4699. Actually it seems that the price goes up slightly for Education or Business store (where I should shop). It seems like Dell can't get it's pricing straight.

When I click Customize on the Base Model's page here at work, it defaults to the Dual (2) Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processors E5502 1.86GHz,4M L3, 4.8GT/s processors, just like it did when I was at home yesterday.

I've never bought a Dell computer, so I shouldn't have any cookies or other strange things affecting the price.

Again, upon changing the Processor, RAM, HDD, and DVD options to the ones I mentioned earlier, I get $3,241.

Re:Here's why

[Mab_Mass]

As with any consumer gadget, you have to decide on a personal level whether buying a Mac is worth the price of it - as many people on slashdot will tell you, for them they are overpriced and they can do better with a whitebox store and an afternoon building something to slap Ubuntu on.

This is exactly the right point. I have a Mac because I don't want to mess with the OS at all, and of the OS's that I've used, I've found that the Mac frustrates me the least - most of the time the computer just does what I want it to do.

If someone doesn't mind messing with things in exchange for spending less money, good for them.

Re:Here's why

[drsmithy]

10.3? That's way older than Vista - and yet you chose to ignore the whole "Vista incapable" disaster.

That's because it's irrelevant. Even the "disaster" as you put it, was only a result of using absolute bottom of the barrel hardware configurations.

Further, the "Vista Ready" situation was ultimately no different to Apple having standard configurations woefully underpowered for OS X - and it was downright honourable compared to Apple not having hardware *at all* that could run OS X well in its early years.

Re:Here's why

[drsmithy]

the key (I misspoke my statement, sorry) is that each new version runs with improved performance on the same hardware.

Yes, but that's because it started off so horribly, horribly slow that not even Moore's Law could remedy the situation. No version of Windows has _ever_ performed as badly as early versions of OS X did on contemporary hardware. Not even with that whole "Vista Ready" thing.

I can attest that I have had OS 10.4 running on a machine with 128MB of installed RAM, and it did in fact run (and booted faster than an XP box with 1GB).

You're either lying, or your XP machine was comically broken (not that boot time is a particularly good metric at the best of times).

I've used basically every version of OS X, on nearly every piece of Mac hardware made, since 1999. For the first 2-3 years you quite literally *could not buy* a Mac that could run it even well, let alone "like a champ". The situation im proved in the few years after that, and has been mostly moot since the Intel Macs debuted. However, the idea that OS X has meaningfully lower hardware requirements than Windows is simply false. OS X in anything less than a gig of RAM is slow, and the very idea it could run comparably to even a 512MB Vista machine (let alone a 1GB one), in 256MB, is simply laughable.

Re:Here's why

[shambalagoon]

I'm one of those who is primarily a Mac user but also owns a PC, and here's why. I've always loved the polish and UI of Mac OS X. To me it's simple and beautiful, and since I spend so much time in front of a computer, that matters to me. Another factor is that I trust Apple a lot more than I trust Microsoft. I trust them to be more pro-consumer, to produce better software, and to be the first with new innovations. If all other things were equal between Apple and Microsoft, I'd choose Apple simply for the fact that it is innovative and is moving things forward while Microsoft spends its resources crushing competition and playing catch-up.

I own a PC because there are tons of applications available on Windows that aren't available on OS X. Especially the games! Being a gamer, I don't want to miss out on all the great games that are Windows-only. So I have a PC for that. Having been burned on just about every version of VirtualPC that ever came out, I've decided it's just better to have a dedicated Windows PC. That was before Apple went to Intel, so that might be different now, but I don't want to waste a week finding out it's not.

Re:Here's why

[Sandbags]

OK,

1st, Just called my Aunt, had her send me an e-mail from her iMac 300MHz (blue tray load CRT iMac). It has 128MB of RAM and is running OS 9.1 quite nicely with netscape as her browser and e-mail client.

I can also state that the iMac 17" (lamp) G4, running with a "max capable" 768MB of RAM (came with 256) shipped wityh OS 10.2 and ran great on OS 10.4. It booted in about 15 seconds 9including McAfee's boot scan), and played video files better and cleaner than an XP machine with 1GB of RAM and an x600 ATI GPU.

Each Mac OS in the OS X line has shown faster processing performance on the same hardware each release. This is not for dispute, this is fack backed up by nermerous independent reviews. Yes, some older hardware that did not meet the minimum specs of the new OS would fall into that category,

I did not say the mac required less CPU or RAM than Windows, I said Windows runs like ASS on it;s defined minimum requirement, and OS X runs fine on it's own, seperate, minimum requirement. Further, the mac DOES outperform Windows on the same intel CPU with 1GB of RAM in virtually all 3rd party tests of the same software (photoshop, MP3 ripping, DVD decoding, etc).

This is not for arguement, it's clearly covered facts through hundreds of tests and publiches available information.

OS X was ahead of it's time, no doubt, and the 10.0 and 10.1 editions were overburdened and slow, but that same machine that came with 10.0 and ran slow ran 10.2 great, without the RAM upgrade. Vista sucked, and still sucks. XP initially ran fine on 128MB, but today I've got 2GB in a machine with 10 times the CPU horesepower and it takes several minutes to convert fairly simple Viseo diagrams into PDF... XP has gotten worse withage, OS X has imporved, that's all I'm saying.

Re:Here's why

[drsmithy]

1st, Just called my Aunt, had her send me an e-mail from her iMac 300MHz (blue tray load CRT iMac). It has 128MB of RAM and is running OS 9.1 quite nicely with netscape as her browser and e-mail client.

Well that's not particularly impressive. Windows 95 could do that on a 100Mhz Pentium with 16MB of RAM dating from before that iMac was even a twinkle in Steve's eye. *And* it didn't grind to a halt whenever someone held the mouse button down.

I can also state that the iMac 17" (lamp) G4, running with a "max capable" 768MB of RAM (came with 256) shipped wityh OS 10.2 and ran great on OS 10.4. It booted in about 15 seconds 9including McAfee's boot scan), and played video files better and cleaner than an XP machine with 1GB of RAM and an x600 ATI GPU.

Like I said, your Windows machine must be mind-bogglingly broken.

I did not say the mac required less CPU or RAM than Windows, I said Windows runs like ASS on it;s defined minimum requirement, and OS X runs fine on it's own, seperate, minimum requirement.

And you're wrong. OS X (pretty much all versions, and certainly all recent ones) need a gig of RAM and a modern video card to even hit the "OK" level of performance.

Further, the mac DOES outperform Windows on the same intel CPU with 1GB of RAM in virtually all 3rd party tests of the same software (photoshop, MP3 ripping, DVD decoding, etc).

Perhaps you can offer a couple of links to show that, then ?

OS X was ahead of it's time, no doubt, and the 10.0 and 10.1 editions were overburdened and slow, but that same machine that came with 10.0 and ran slow ran 10.2 great, without the RAM upgrade.

Rubbish. A standard Mac in the 10.0 days came with 128MB of RAM, which would barely have been enough to run 10.2 _badly_, let alone "great". Upgrade it to 512MB, and you might start to get tolerable performance.

Vista sucked, and still sucks. XP initially ran fine on 128MB, but today I've got 2GB in a machine with 10 times the CPU horesepower and it takes several minutes to convert fairly simple Viseo diagrams into PDF... XP has gotten worse withage, OS X has imporved, that's all I'm saying.

Somehow I doubt that's the fault of the OS.

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

whoosh!
I said they were struggling to stay alive. Not that they didn't have fingers in lots of business sectors. Apple has diversified the company so that computer revenue is not the solo pony in the stable and does quite fine in the bits of enterprise they have. But Apple has scads of cash and no debt to speak of Dell can't even say they have few debts. And have just returned to profitability after many quarters of huge losses. If Michael Dell hadn't come back to Dell there would only be HP, Toshiba and Sony in the premium PC market.

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

See my reply above. But the company as a whole is the only comparison you can make. If any division goes under the whole company either folds with it or gets knocked back to the small company stage. And no there is no fundamental difference between two computer manufacturers who also have a few other gadgets to sell as well.

Re:Here's why

[adamchou]

whoosh? what? seriously... you must have no concept of finance. struggling to stay alive? according to this, dell posted 2.5 billion in earnings the past 3 years. and according to this, their earnings doubled last quarter compared to the quarter before. thats HARDLY struggling to stay alive. according to this, as of the last quarter, apple had 5.6 billion in cash but and they owe 5.7 billion. thats a net negative cash on hand. as for dell, they have 11.7 billion in cash assets. i don't know where you pulled your claims from but according to the company's SEC filings, you seem to have everything backwards.

Re:Here's why

[Xest]

Of course it's not the only comparison you can make, particularly when you're trying to draw conclusions about the profits of only a small part of the business, I've told you quite clearly how you can do a better more worthwhile comparison.

It's not just "a few gadgets to sell", Dell has a whole global services division. Using your logic you may as well just compare Microsoft and Apple because they both make an operating system and come to the conclusion Apple's business plan is crap because they're not a touch on Microsoft financially.

You can't directly compare businesses that compete only in one single market when the businesses as a whole compete in multiple markets. It's pointless, it demonstrates nothing, you can deduce nothing from it.

Re:Here's why

[Lars T.]

10.3? That's way older than Vista - and yet you chose to ignore the whole "Vista incapable" disaster.

That's because it's irrelevant. Even the "disaster" as you put it, was only a result of using absolute bottom of the barrel hardware configurations.

Which Microsoft had recommended before. But I can see why you say that is irrelevant.

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

Apple also has a whole global services operation, are you daft or being stupid on purpose. What exactly are the multiple markets of which you speak? Which ones does Apple not have a finger in. They are indeed weaker in the enterprise market but that's not significant. They both have fingers in the video entertainment market the only difference between them is that Apple has iTunes which is not a significant source of revenue. They both have or are currently producing a phone and a PDA, iPod like devices, and computers. Apple has the AppleTV, Dell had a TV division (since dropped as not profitable) they both sell monitors with their branding and other people's printers. Dell also sells supplies for everything so does Apple. Dell no longer maintains their kiosks in the Malls but they did have a retail operation for a while. They are both in every market in the world for computers. The difference is that Apple makes high margins and delivers great customer service. There is no other difference other than mere scale but that scale doesn't translate to bottom line profits. Apple has higher profits on the same things that Dell sells. Dell has great customer loyalty so does Apple. Dell has more offerings that make smaller margins. No other difference that I can find.

Re:Here's why

[sbeckstead]

You do know the difference between earnings and profits right!

Re:Here's why

[mjwx]

Have you even looked at the documentation to write an iPhone app? It's about the easiest APIs to learn that you can find for any platform. The fact that the dev tools are all free is a bonus.

Yep,

Also looked at Android, WinMo, Symbian and WebOS. Did some business analysis for getting a mobile client for our GIS server out there. Symbian hardware was too inconsistent so they were out, WebOS isn't even available outside the US so its out as well. We have an old WinMo client that still works but WinMo doesn't work very well so that only leaves Android and Iphone.

Android is harder to develop for, that because you can do a lot more with Android then you can with the iphone, but what scrubbed the iphone out for us was that end to end, it's easier to get an application out for Android. We've got the dev talent to produce on both platforms without an hitch but not the money so our issue became getting Apple to approve our application. This is 10 times more difficult then it should be, especially since this app will be designed to pull down many different types of GIS data from any server operating our server product (as our clients operate their own servers) the chances of rejection are high, as well as future functionality and data types each release would need to go through another approval risking rejection. Given that Android is enjoying a steady rise in usage it made more sense to develop for Android and too risky to develop for iphone.

So whilst it's easier to code an app for iphone then say WinMo or Android, it is far far easier to code and release for WinMo and android. After all, why would we code if we cant release.

Also iphone development is not free. It is US$99 per year. With WinMo and Android it's free with your choice of IDE although MS recommends Visual Studio (paid) and OHA/Google recommends Eclipse (Free and multi-platform) but Android and .net SDK's are free to download. The once off US$25 cost with android is to be listed on Google's Android Marketplace but this is not necessary to get an application onto an Android device.

Re:Here's why

[Jezza]

I think it depends on how you're looking at it. A.C. says "OK, if you think Apple's displays are expensive ignore them" (I think that what he/she is saying anyway). That seems valid if we're comparing computers...

I did like the crack about Dell not making an OS - that made me laugh.

But sure, if you want to be a "laptop hunter" then you'll find a way to discount Apple's products. A rabid Mac-fan will tell you to go compare like for like and you need to find a Dell display with a camera, speakers, charger for the laptop, USB-hub ... you get the idea, and you can't do it - Dell don't make one. You've got to realise sooner or later you're not comparing like for like - the ranges don't match up. So it has to be a judgment call.

Re:Here's why

[adamchou]

ok, whatever. net income is what i meant. the numbers i quoted were from net income. you can nitpick my vernacular all you want but the point is, you were completely fabricating "facts" about dell's well being and dell is hardly struggling.

Re:Here's why

[drsmithy]

Which Microsoft had recommended before. But I can see why you say that is irrelevant.

"This is the barest minimum you can expect to do something resembling work" is not the same thing as "recommended".

Re:Here's why

[camperdave]

A rabid Mac-fan will tell you to go compare like for like and you need to find a Dell display with a camera, speakers, charger for the laptop, USB-hub ... you get the idea, and you can't do it - Dell don't make one.

I'm sure they're right too. However, I am compelled to remind people of my original point. Consumers don't shop that way. When the average consumer goes shopping for a computer, they go with a price range. So I arbitrarily picked $800 and I went to both Apple's and Dell's websites and looked for sub $800 machines. Apple had one (without a monitor (Oh, and here's another gem - without a keyboard and mouse as well. Add $108 to the already bloated price.)) and Dell had several. *THEN* I compared the specs. Dell's machine had a faster CPU, more memory, a bigger hard drive... and a monitor. If I were to ignore the monitor, then it gets even more lopsided. 2.5GHz Quad vs 2GHz Duo, 8G RAM vs 2G, 1TB hard drive vs 120GB

As far as the OS, yeah, I got a bit of a chuckle out of that as well. So what if Dell didn't make the OS? It's still included in the price. It's not like Apple makes everything inside their machine.

Re:Here's why

[node 3]

Sure, a completely different argument, but one that's more relevant.

More relevant? Only because it's actually true, unlike the claim that Macs are overpriced.

You might as well say "For the same hardware, Amigas aren't anymore expensive", because any 68040 machine would cost just as much today.

This is an absurd argument. Macs are made from standard PC components. We can compare directly, and they aren't more expensive.

The point is that, yes, I'm sure that a Mac Mini equivalent by another PC manufacturer would cost just as much, due to its use of more costly and lower performance laptop parts

And lower heat/power, smaller size, and quieter.

Which is yet *another* argument.

The funny thing is that you started off pointing out that the "choice" argument is more relevant, and then go on to deride Apple for providing people with a *choice* that the PC market doesn't even offer!

Re:Here's why

[node 3]

Alternately, I can get a (PC) machine fit for the same purpose as a Mac mini for $200.

You can get a PC, as small as a Mac mini (+/- 1" each dimension, or roughly similar volume), with a Core2Duo, DVD burner, Nvidia 9400m (or better) graphics, 802.11n, bluetooth, for $200? Wow, I never knew. I guess PCs *are* cheaper.

Care to provide a link to such a machine? Or the parts?

Apples do well in areas that aren't being well served by the PC vendors.
However, once the PC vendors pay attention to the niche in question, the
Apple hardware tends to get blown out of the water.

Example?

Trying to argue that Macs aren't overpriced really is a losing proposition.

Only because people such as yourself who seem content to keep arguing a false premise.

So ultimately, the choice between the ION or the Mini comes down to the question
of whether or not I want to run MacOS on the given box.

Are you talking about the Nvidia Ion platform? If so, you are being deliberately dishonest.

CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Gee, I could have deduced that most PC users DON'T also have a Mac. How? Maybe the bloody marketshare? Appologies for the US-centric market data, but I'm sure Apple is less than double-digit in the ROTW.

This is really a story in search of a topic, isn't it? :-)

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[Penguinisto]

No kidding... even from the fanboy front, supporters can easily call out that this is just a natural progression of all the "switchers" out there.

After all, just because you buy a new computer (in this case a Mac), doesn't mean you simply toss out the old one. You give it to the kids, leave it loafing around the house for specific tasks you hadn't transferred to the Mac yet, keep it around for the occasional PC game you don;t want to get rid of, use it for backing up your Mac (e.g. you copy stuff from new laptop to the old desktop), etc.

...plus, I sincerely doubt that Apple gives a damn if users keep their old PC's around so long as they're buying new Macs.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[Draek]

I believe TFA's point, which the headline fucked over, is that most primary Mac owners also own a secondary Windows machine but most primary Windows users don't own *any* kind of secondary computer, even a Windows one.

In fact, if one were a bit fanboyish about it one could say that it's proof Windows is a more complete OS than OSX, as the owners of the latter still need a Windows machine by their side, whereas Windows users have their needs satisfied by it alone. Though of course that's ignoring the myriad of other factors affecting it, such as household income as noted by TFA, but it should serve to illustrate why is it Slashdot-worthy news.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[JWSmythe]

    I was going to say something like that. When most people get into computers, they buy (or are given) a PC. Some people switch to Mac. Those who switch to Mac can likely have two or more, unless they give away their old computer. I'm amazed how otherwise perfectly normal people hold onto old hardware. No, not techno-packrats, but regular people. There could be something on that old hard drive that they need, even though they haven't turned that computer on in 10 years. :)

    I still consider the whole thing silly. I'm sure Microsoft counts me quite a few times over as being a Windows user, because I bought hardware that had Windows installed on it from the OEM, but I wiped it out and put Linux on it without ever booting to Windows. :) I guess in theory, Microsoft could claim almost 100% market saturation, because every household where the people buy OEM machines would have a Windows license in it. :)

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[jimicus]

In fact, if one were a bit fanboyish about it one could say that it's proof Windows is a more complete OS than OSX, as the owners of the latter still need a Windows machine by their side, whereas Windows users have their needs satisfied by it alone. Though of course that's ignoring the myriad of other factors affecting it, such as household income as noted by TFA, but it should serve to illustrate why is it Slashdot-worthy news.

I can think of another pretty good reason which is equally fanboyish though more Apple oriented.

See Apple's marketshare. More accurately, see how it has changed over the last 3 years or so. 12%? That's probably two or three times what it was a few years ago.

See Apple's growth, particularly for laptops. Compare this to every other PC vendor in a market which is generally considered fairly saturated.

I'd suggest that a hefty number of those Apple-owning households are recent converts who never threw out the PC.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[ca111a]

You give it to the kids

you give kids a Windows computer?!!! You are a monster!

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[ElSupreme]

You can PROVE that there will be EXACTLY THE SAME NUMBER of Mac+Win households as Win+Mac households. And given a 90/10 or marketshare that the precentage of Mac+Win will be EXACTLY 9 times greater than the percentage of Win+Mac households!

Now the second computer thing. That is probably more to economic demographics. You would probably see that the number of computers per household where one Computer cost >$1000 to be really similar.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[jonbryce]

They claim about a 92% market share on that basis. 8% or so of OEM sales are macs. About 1% of people wipe windows and put Linux or another operating system on their computer. Probably more than 1% point of Mac buyers put Parallels or Bootcamp on their machine.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[phoenix321]

Did you really state that the number of households having a mac and a PC is equal to the number of households having a PC and a mac?

And then declared the first number to be exactly 9 times higher than the second?

A=A

or

A=9*A

Make up your mind. And they're not ordered pairs, BTW :)

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[saboola]

http://voicetalentproductions.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/captain-obvious.jpg

Yes?

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[phoenix321]

How many computers do you want to manage as a hobby? For web browsing, any computer that can run Firefox is good enough, I suggest - and I know for all real documents, photos and stuff you need, there's probably a NAS unit involved. But either everything just works and you don't need a second unit or you're going to have a several settings, tweaks and tunings to do because it doesn't.

With unlimited free time and a load of cash, I'd rather manage one computer and a flock of hookers.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[jedidiah]

My house has desktops, servers and appliances.

Most of the "PCs" in my house are used as appliances. This includes all of
my Macs. For the most part they chug along doing their thing. They are on
UPS so they don't even need to be sorted out during a power outtage. They
are meant pretty much to be ingored or alternately controlled with a
remote control.

Machines I interact with as PCs I want to keep to a minimum. I don't want
to futz with extra monitors or monitor switching or and of that stuff.

I'm not going to bother with an extra machine to run some Windows app if
I happen to like it. If I manage to find a Mac app I like, I would not
want to have a mini lying around just for the purpose. I would want my
monster desktop to run any of that stuff (in a VM).

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[elrous0]

I have a Mac in the great room to impress women and my artsy friends. But I have a PC in the home office to actually get some work done.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[Penguinisto]

If you need a Mac to do that, err, you may want to look for a better class of women and friends to impress. :/

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[Anonymous Coward]

In his defense, coal is too valuable to give to misbehaving youth.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[phayes]

With one exception, every single person among the 20 odd Mac buyers I know who bought a mac over the past 3 years fits your description. The exception is an actor friend who always found windows too disorganized.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[WCguru42]

Did you really state that the number of households having a mac and a PC is equal to the number of households having a PC and a mac?

And then declared the first number to be exactly 9 times higher than the second?

A=A

or

A=9*A

Make up your mind. And they're not ordered pairs, BTW :)

What was trying to be said, though horribly worded, is that given a 9 times greater market share for windows compared to OSX the percentage of windows owners who own a mac will be 9 times lesser than the percentage of mac owners who own a windows computer. Maybe it made sense to me the first time I read it because my brain was just auto filtering out all the garbage.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[Qalthos]

More like this:

WM = PC + Mac
MW = Mac + PC

Trivially, WM = MW

tM = total # of Mac users
tW = total # of PC users

assuming tW = 9*tM, it therefore follows that tW/WM = (9*tM)/MW

(the first is absolute numbers, the second is relative percentages)

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[gbarules2999]

Maybe if we tell social services that it was a Windows ME computer they're track down this bastard faster.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[toddestan]

That must get expensive after a while, as you certainly won't be impressing the hipsters with last year's model.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[crispytwo]

You are a monster!

You're giving them a chance to be self reliant!

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[gmhowell]

I thought most slashbots belonged to a religion that states A=A?

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[izelrenevato]

A friend of mine teaches and just in case her students send her something that is Windows only she keeps a windows box. I still haven't gone dual-boot although once I borrowed my ex-housemates computer because I wanted to use the Pleading (as in legal) features that one could get in Windows and I did not have time to write my own open source version at the time. Nor am I now, I'd rather stick to hacking climate modeling and that still works best on Linux. Note my friend's kids use my computer which runs Linux to do all those kid and teen thiongs like simpler games and MySpace etc. and they have adapted to Linux very well, the only thing they really miss is Itunes. They like and have learned it and are now teaching their friends how to do things and so I get slightly fewer of the questions like "Steve: How do I do ".... Have Fun, Sends Steve

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[JasonBee]

Another perspective might be that Mac users are connoisseurs of the the OS, preferring to taste multiple experiences, and are far more proficient at the tools unique to each platform, whereas pure windows users are, well unilingual.

Re:CALLING CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[izelrenevato]

Well when the Chicas/hynas that had my computer to pretty much their sole use at the time called COMCAST to get Internet service the service tech that came acted as if Linux was something created by alien reptilians and wouldn't even touch it. They called me "to make it work" by the time I arrived the "I just turned 13...the age of net majority you know;)" had figured out to just try the browser and type "Google" at it and poof it started working and she was happily socially networking away. She still occassionallly uses GIMP when the Myspace Gizmos don't do what she wants. As far as people hanging onto old hardware you have to remember that there are some computer users who have used something for awhile and consider it old and trusty. I have met quite a few writers and librarians like that. Also to mention something that will rattle the Neal Stephenson fan's of the "they did the right thing at the right time and got rich in the wwonderful commercial world from which all good stuff flows. Uh people who have not been so lucky and are of more limited means get stuck with a PC and find that Linux does most things pretty well and doesn't have to have 111 virus malware fixes. Whereas my friendly Windows guru old housemate who fell in love and moved away has reinstalled his Windows Box many times even with latest and greatest anti-virus software.

Horribly misleading

[znu]

This is a survey about households, not individual owners, so the fact that most Macs exist in households that also have Windows machines is largely just an expected result of Microsoft's high market share. Even if one person in a household has a Mac, others are statistically like to have Windows machines because, statistically, most people have Windows machines.

Re:Horribly misleading

[sopssa]

While that is true, there's certainly people who like to have a second pc for other purposes too. If you have a mac, you probably get Windows for its apps and especially games. Most people who have Linux PC (either as a server or a desktop) probably have a Windows PC too because you can't really do everything with Linux. I have a Windows pc and a linux server. I would probably have a Windows pc too if I had only a mac.

You have a point with the household's share, but it certainly counts for individuals too, only a bit less.

Re:Horribly misleading

[BasilBrush]

I've been a Mac user for 8 years. There was a changeover time of about 3 years when I had both on my desk at home, for the legacy PC stuff. I still have a PC just in case, but it's packed away in a box in a cupboard. I don't need it any more, but it's there in case I ever did.

Presumably that would still count me as a Mac user who owns a PC too. Which makes it a pretty stupid stat, even if it were counting individuals and not households.

Re:Horribly misleading

[rm999]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

If we assume that 15% of people have a mac and the other 85% have a windows (I know, a terribly insulting assumption on Slashdot!), and that everyone's computer choice is independent of the other computers in their household, then statistically a 2 computer household with 1 mac will have an 85% chance of having at least one windows computer. A 3 computer household - almost 98%. Likewise, a 2 computer household with 1 windows computer is only 15% likely to have at least one mac.

The one thing all this does not explain is why mac households have more computers than windows households. Maybe younger, more techy people own macs (college students and 20 something geeks) than windows (grandmothers).

Re:Horribly misleading

[0xdeadbeef]

What, exactly, is misleading about that?

Do you think your statistical hand-waving means anything? You don't even know how many people are in the typical household, much less how many are financially independent. But never let reality get in the way of a good fanboy rationalization. (Mac owners tainted with sin! No! It can't be! That's impossible!)

Re:Horribly misleading

[Bob-taro]

... because you can't really do everything with Linux.

(voices hush, piano stops playing)

Re:Horribly misleading

[value_added]

Agreed. Stupid choice of a source as the study is covered in more detail on a number of other sites. A random quote that better summarises the study:

The percentage of households owning both Windows PCs and Macs has been increasing faster than Mac-only, faster than Windows-only," said Baker. "That was a little surprising," he admitted.

Suprising? Hardly.

That facts cited aren't much more interesting: that the Mac presence in households is up 33%, that Mac owners typically make make more than $100K/year, and that Mac owners own lots of consumer electronics.

What would be interesting, useful, and possibly entertaining, is knowing why "mixed households" are mixed.

Re:Horribly misleading

[PouletFou]

Most people who have Linux PC (either as a server or a desktop) probably have a Windows PC too because you can't really do everything with Linux.

Maybe you can't really do everithing with linux, but others can. Today you can pretty much do everything with any major OS, it all depends on your tastes and habits. Having a windows pc is not mandatory.

Re:Horribly misleading

[svendsen]

Agreed....it's all about the software anyway. You will run the OS that supports the software you need to be productive.

Re:Horribly misleading

[cratermoon]

I was going to post that I'm a mac owner that doesn't own a Windows machine, but then I remembered I still have that 386 with Windows 3.11 sitting at the bottom of my pile of old unused hardware.

By the way, can we please stop using the term "PC" to automatically mean a computer with Windows on it? I've owned many Personal Computers, some from before Microsoft even existed as a company.

Re:Horribly misleading

[slarrg]

Not to mention, this is similar to saying, "Most households with a sports car also have a vehicle that is not a sports car but not vice versa." Over time, car aficionados tend to buy nicer cars, such as sports cars, but they don't necessarily get rid of the SUV because of it.

Windows PCs are practically ubiquitous. My wife an I have switched to Macs and have several of them but I've been in the computer industry for over 25 years so of course I still own some old Windows-based systems. I just rarely use them. They sit in storage to be pulled out and installed with Linux if a need should arise. In fact, I suspect far more Linux users own a Windows PC than vice versa, too.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Deosyne]

A few people I know have Mac laptops even though they primarily use Windows PCs. I even know a couple of dudes who bought Macbooks and then installed Windows on them, for the shiny case I suppose. Even my friend who is Apple Or Die (tm) and buys everything that ever comes with an Apple logo has a Windows box running. I've been looking at getting a cheap Mac (relatively cheap; we're still talking Apple here) for iPhone development on a supported platform versus a VM or Hackintosh, but I sure as hell wouldn't use a Mac as my primary computer for the same reason.

For a lot of us to do what we use our computers to do, running anything other than Windows is a matter of convenience or personal preference, but running Windows is a requirement. At the same time there are certainly plenty of people who can get by just using a Mac, but most of them could get by on an eMachine just fine and so have no reason other than personal aesthetics to drop the extra coin.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Chris Mattern]

Start by complaining to Apple: "I'm a Mac." "And I'm a PC".

Re:Horribly misleading

[Whalou]

(voices hush, piano stops playing)

Do I need to have Javascript enabled to hear voices and piano on slashdot?

Re:Horribly misleading

[jellomizer]

Well I found that Running Vista on a MacBook Pro which is 3 years old still runs better then on a New Desktop PC which is less then 3 years old (and with good specs). Macs are good balanced systems with really good specs and are worth the price. Yes you can build your own PC for less. But to buy a comparable prebuilt PC from say from Dell (That matches all the specs. (Including demensions of the case, and other features you say "well I don't need that")) you will find that they are priced comparably +/- $100.00 Apple Computers are not more expensive then their competitor. However Apple does only have a limited line of products that forces to buy features that you don't use. Eg. Glowing Keyboard A feature I have always turned off, so unlike the Dell you are paying for features you may not want or need. However with no pun attended Apple to Apple comparison of the two products tend to show Apple is not overcharging for the product. The apple esthetics probably is only about $20 added to the price.

Re:Horribly misleading

[SiChemist]

Seconded. Anything that I want to use that doesn't run in Linux, I run under wine. (Games, mostly).

Re:Horribly misleading

[lawpoop]

Disabling javascript can make the voices go away...?

Re:Horribly misleading

[beelsebob]

Your points are all entirely valid, but I can't help being a pedant.

A *1* computer house has an 85% chance of having 1 windows computer, and a 15% chance of having 1 mac.
A 2 computer hourse has an 98% of having 1 windows computer, and a 0.28% chance of having 1 mac.

Re:Horribly misleading

[beelsebob]

28% even.

Re:Horribly misleading

[skiman1979]

For a lot of us to do what we use our computers to do, running anything other than Windows is a matter of convenience or personal preference, but running Windows is a requirement.

I get along just fine with Ubuntu as the only OS on my main PC. I'm debating switching to OpenSolaris, but either way, I don't even have Windows installed natively. (I did install Windows 7 RC under VirtualBox just to see what it looked like. I only logged into it twice for a bout 10 minutes)

The ONLY thing that I need Windows for is the headless computer in my basement that hosts our MagicJack. So far I can't get that thing to run properly in Linux (and XP under VirtualBox under Linux doesn't count).

Re:Horribly misleading

[Rick17JJ]

I have also been irritated when those ads by both Microsoft and Apple, say "I'm a PC," as if to imply that all PCs run Windows. Right now, I am using Linux on a PC. I have three PCs, and only one of them has Windows installed on it.

Most desktop Linux users run Linux on a PC, although Linux will run on other hardware.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Sandbags]

It's also important to note 12% of HOUSEHOLDS had a mac, not 12% of individuals. Though households that did often owned more than 1 with many owning 3 or more total machines including at least 1 PC.

Now, combine the 12% of households with a greater than 90% repeat customer rate, and the fact that most of those households with PCs and Macs are in that case because as another poster pointed out, the PC becomes a "hand-me-down." Eventually that PC will fall out of favor (or die) and a new mac will be purchased to replace and older one and perpetuate the chain, in 90% of cases or so anyway. in 3-5 years, we'll see houses with 1 mac and 2 PCs become houses with 3 macs and no PCs, taking a significant dent in PC marketshare.

Considdering last year, only 9% of houses had a mac, a 3% net gain, that's some impressive traction. As an IT systems analyst and architect for a major firm with 14,000 employees, we're seeing a major swing in what people bring with them to work, and IT is looking into offical Mac support in the network (and they like what they're looking at). in 5 years, we could see mac/PC options for employees being fully integrated, and those with Macs at home will also use Macs at work, which by then on the current trent could be over 25% of employees. Since all our suftware is moving to SOA java based serevices, platform of choice is irrelevent. Macs are easier to STIG secure as well, and require less support IT side making their TCO for an enterprise MUCH lower (by $2,500-4K per machine over 4 years per our IS finance folks).

Re:Horribly misleading

[Sandbags]

1) less than 10% of PC owners play games, let alone have PCs that are capable of gaming (excluding the included OS games (solitaire) and web based games, which run on both.

2) Bad place to say linux can not completely replace a PC, i might run were I you... of the 2200 employees in our comainy in IS (of 15,00+ employees with a user account) all the ones who use Linux for more than a casual hobby (those who have made it their primary daily OS) do not have a windows machine at home anymore unless work has ISSUED them one.

3) If you have a Mac, you run Windows in a VM or bootcamp. A second machine is not required to maintain compatability. People that have both Macs and PCs often do because they already owned a PC at the time, and do not care to simply dispose of it (it still has some value to them, and street value on a used PC is so bad they're not worth selling, and most schools only take donations now of NEW PCs due to the depreciation problems, as well as support issues for a random farm of used machines...)

Re:Horribly misleading

[Sandbags]

I have no software i use that requires Windows. I have some games I choose to play in Windows (which can easily be done from Boot Camp, not on a seperate machine, or now with the latest release of fusion, even inside a VM). At the office, we have a few network management clients that only run from Windows boxes, but those who use Linus simply VNC to a machine with it installed and use it remotely. Apps themselves can be virtualized as well now, no longer requiring the underlying OS to funtion. I can easily shed Windows completely at any time, and I'm an IT analyst! 90% of people out there do not use a computer for more than simple very common games, edit basic documents, work with photos and maybe video, use Web2.0, and use messaging. That's it... only LEGACY software, and some highly specialized applications is an issue preventing full fledged migration away from Windows. All of that can be run in a VM, and no second "machine" is required.

in other words, Apple could be the sole hardware provider (including mainframe class grid systems own down), Windows would be needed on maybe 30% of machines, and everyone else would be out of business or niche providers...

Re:Horribly misleading

[donstenk]

In our small business we cannot afford to run anything but Macs. We have five of them working without needing maintenance.

Five Windows pc's need an administrator or so to keep going nicely. We cannot afford that.

Simple.

We use iWork, iLife for all the normal office stuff and an online CRM. We synchronize contacts and calenders between Macs and iPhones using .Mac. Coupled with a Time Capsule for backups it is a really simple and cheap setup that cannot be matched with PC's and legal software for the same cost and functionality and lack of administration.

I know - I tried years ago.

Re:Horribly misleading

[thisnamestoolong]

Ever hear of dual booting?

Re:Horribly misleading

[pmontra]

Most people who have Linux PC (either as a server or a desktop) probably have a Windows PC too because you can't really do everything with Linux.

I used to have a Windows notebook but I turned it into a Linux notebook now because it's easier for me to do everything I need with Linux than with Windows. I still have a couple of Windows virtual machines that I fire up sometimes to test web apps with IE but that's it. My netbook is a Linux machine too.

I never considered buying a Mac, not because of the price (who cares!) but because I never liked the way menus work on Macs. That has been aggravated by the invention of the docking bar. The Mac is probably a good machine but IMHO it has a really bad GUI despite all those shiny things they put in it. There might be a day when I'll have to buy a Mac to tests web apps on it but I'd be much happier to be able to run OSX in a VM without being forced to buy some hardware. Unfortunately Apple is not in the business of selling software but in the one of end-to-end solutions. I'm probably hoping that Apple doesn't get more success that it's having now ;-)

Re:Horribly misleading

[tepples]

A second machine is not required to maintain compatability.

True, but it's probably worth the money. The deep OEM discount means that some PCs that come with Windows aren't much more expensive than the retail copy of Windows needed for Boot Camp, VirtualBox, or Parallels. Dell Inspiron slim PCs start under 300 USD.

Re:Horribly misleading

[TheDarkMaster]

Oh God... +5 Funny is not enougth to this one...

Re:Horribly misleading

[Sandbags]

Or, like me and everyone i know, you sign up with microsoft as a Registered Partner, take a few free online classes, and then pay $300 a year for an action pack subscription, and put up to 10 copies of Windows Pro into VMs and 1 copy of Windows Ultimate into Production, get free upgrades to all the new releases, run a couple of home servers on the outdated PC hardware, and get 10 copies of Office Ultimate to spread around.

Several of us split action pack subscription costs for our "company" (which is a legitimate consulting firm, including business registration and all the proper state and federal forms, we're even members of the Chanber of Commerce, but it generates $0 in revenue anually and exists pretty much solely for training and vendor software access).

My share is $75 a year, and i get the Pro/Ultimate versions of Windows and Office for less than your OEM copy of Home edition from New Egg, let alone the $400-600 throw away intel hardware you suggest to get the licnese that I can't legall use on another machine.

Oh, yea, that OEM license, since you did not get an install CD (only a restore CD) how do you get it into the VM? ...and as I mentioned, doing so violates the license agreement).

Re:Horribly misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Disabling javascript can make the voices go away...?

Not if you still have Flash installed.

Re:Horribly misleading

[BasilBrush]

Hmm, turns out you're rude, stupid AND a hypocrite.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1354925&cid=29279193&art_pos=11

Hoist on your own petard.

Re:Horribly misleading

[ArsenneLupin]

Do I need to have Javascript enabled to hear voices and piano on slashdot?

No, for that you need flash.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Cro Magnon]

In that case, the Mac owner still has a Windows PC. It's just the same box.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Overunderrated]

Well the playback in Linux might be a little jerky.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Macgrrl]

I'm a Mac user, have been since '87. I flirted with a wintel box for gaming a few years back but got so frustrated with having to constantly update anti-viral software, anti-malware software, BSODs, random file corruptions, etc... so I went back to running WoW on a Mac.

I still have the wintel box, it gets run once a year to do my tax because the ATO still don't have a Mac compatible version of their e-Tax application and I haven't gotten around to loading up bootcamp yet.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Arthur Grumbine]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

If we assume that 15% of people have a mac and the other 85% have a windows (I know, a terribly insulting assumption on Slashdot!)

Not as long as you grant that the other 50% of people have a linux.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Mike Buddha]

And right. STFU

Re:Horribly misleading

[topnob]

I strongly disagree, we have 7 computers among 4 people, 2 linux servers, 2 mac laptops, 3 linux laptops. not a single windows box in sight. at work i work exclusively on linux on my laptop and on our servers. I have absolutely nothing I need windows for.

Re:Horribly misleading

[FrankieBaby1986]

Disposable income may also be a factor. Being able to afford a Mac might make one likely to have a (relatively) cheap $400 computer around as a spare / alternate.

Re:Horribly misleading

[BasilBrush]

Childish too, eh. You're impressing no one. When you grow up you'll realise it's better to back down gracefully when you've made a fool out of yourself.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Mike Buddha]

A fool who can't determine the difference between a satirical example from his own logical fallacy lecturing about when to back down? I guess you were too busy looking for ammo for your ad hominem attack (yet another logical fallacy issuing from your fount of ineptitude) to actually read the thread you cited. If you had, you might have realized that the "hypocrisy" you brought up was a response that spundly shot down yet another juvenile example that was being used to prop up a poorly thought out argument. STFU when the grown ups are talking, kiddo.

Re:Horribly misleading

[the_womble]

The average person can do everything on any OS. What does the typical user do that requires Windows? Gamers are a minority (except on Slashdot).

The reasons are clear: households that own Macs are affluent and own multiple computers. If one member of the household wants windows then one of the other machines (most Mac owning households have three or more computers) will tun Windows.

My two computer household is entirely Linux, and I have yet to find anything that any of us cannot do.

Re:Horribly misleading

[JasonBee]

I find it's the other way around for me. One reason: VM usage. I can trick out my machine with as much RAM as I need in order to run the various Virtual Machine scenarios I am working with...Windows 2008 AD setup tests, Visual Studio compatibility testing etc. I have 8GB of Ram and can go up to 32 GB if I like. We can't even use that much on our test builds of Windows at work unless we go Win Server. Keep in mind I'm trying to stay with desktop OSs

The one machine is so productive for me now, that I've just packed up four windows PCs and a Compaq Server (pre-HP, yes old) with an external drive tower and gave it all away. I have so much shelf space left now that I don't need to keep a lab around. I would have done the same with a windows box doing VM work...but quite frankly there were limitations in performance when using more than four VMs on anything other than a bare bones Windows Server setup. I'm a windows systems admin in a large windows shop by day, so there's no fanboy to yell at.

Cheers!

Re:Horribly misleading

[hmar]

While that is true, there's certainly people who like to have a second pc for other purposes too. If you have a mac, you probably get Windows for its apps and especially games. Most people who have Linux PC (either as a server or a desktop) probably have a Windows PC too because you can't really do everything with Linux. I have a Windows pc and a linux server. I would probably have a Windows pc too if I had only a mac.

You have a point with the household's share, but it certainly counts for individuals too, only a bit less.

Or, lets be honest, even if you feel the need for the extras that come in a Mac, you may not feel a second system needs to be up to the same caliber as your main system. Apples has no low end, so if you want a cheap second system, you buy a PC.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Reality Master 101]

having to constantly update anti-viral software, anti-malware software, BSODs, random file corruptions, etc...

Uhh, if you're getting BSODs and "random file corruptions" (!!!!), did it ever occur to you that you had a hardware problem? Say what you will about Windows, but it doesn't randomly corrupt files.

Statistic

[Narpak]

86% of Slashdot readers shown to not care about random statistics. 14% of those said to absolutely not give a shit, with 25% just shrugging and moving on to other topics.

Re:Statistic

[sorak]

86% of Slashdot readers shown to not care about random statistics. 14% of those said to absolutely not give a shit, with 25% just shrugging and moving on to other topics.

67% responded correlation!=causation, and 12% refused to accept the story on the grounds that (86 + 14 + 25 + 67 > 100)

Re:Statistic

[DarthVain]

You forgot about the 312% of Slashdot users who enjoy arguing about the meaning of unsubstantiated statistics that could prove or infer many things or nothing as they lack any significant details.

Rich people buy Macs!
People switch to Mac and still have a PC kicking around!
Mac are not compatible with anything so you need a backup PC!
Due to business use Mac owners need a PC also!
Because Rich people buy Macs they can afford to have more computers!

Etc... Ad nauseam...

Re:Statistic

[Omestes]

Why does everyone insist that people switch TO Macs, but not away from them?

And why do only rich people own Macs? I'm not rich, and I've owned a couple.

obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, someone got PAID to find this out?

Re:obvious

[megamerican]

Seriously, someone got PAID to find this out?

Don't worry, I'm sure it was with money the government borrowed at interest from a bank which was bailed out by the government months before with money borrowed at interest from a different bank. That money was then giving to this person to produce nothing of use, instead of him working at a manufacturing job, which only exist at your local restaurant or shipping center.

This count dual-booting Macs?

[neko the frog]

Just sayin'

Quite simple really

[OzPeter]

I prefer to use a Mac, but I make lots of $$$ with Windows based software (which is s staple of my industry)

Re:Quite simple really

[Gerhardius]

I have a variety of machines, mainly using a powerbook and a desktop PC. The PC is relegated to a few duties and the odd bit of work I can't do on the powerbook, the PC mostly gets used for racing & flight sims. Surveys like this one are pretty irrelevant and misleading: what you use depends a great deal on your relationship to technology. PCs are an easy decision for the bulk of consumers who simply see a less expensive way to get online.

Re:Quite simple really

[NoYob]

I prefer to use a Mac, but I make lots of $$$ with Windows based software (which is s staple of my industry)

Your industry is ....unsolicited direct email marketing?

Make $$$$ with home v1@gr4 sales!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Re:Quite simple really

[CharlyFoxtrot]

I prefer to use a Mac, but I make lots of $$$ with Windows based software (which is s staple of my industry)

Exactly right for the substantial number of geeks that use macs nowadays. Most will have a couple of PC's lying around, maybe a Sun machine or two. And regular switchers would have a PC already (with little or no resale value) which they move to the kids room or keep switched off under the desk in case the mac fails, etc ... In short people who can afford to buy Apple can afford to have several computers.

Re:Quite simple really

[Locutus]

the amount of money made annually off just fixing Windows is more than many countries probably produce in a year. There's probably quite a few who don't like Macs, or Linux for that matter, because it'll force them to not only learn something new but also for fear it'll reduce their income if it does run better, safer, longer. The 'if' is because many don't even want to try the other stuff.

The one thing which keeps Mac PCs going is that Microsoft Office runs on it. If and when they pull the plug on that, Mac PCs get hit hard.

LoB

Re:Quite simple really

[jo_ham]

You're in the typo detection business I assume.

Re:Quite simple really

[hedwards]

Eh, and something like virtualbox isn't an option? Unless you're being paid to test out games, in which case I hate you, there aren't that many applications that really require the computer to be Windows. Right now I'm running Win XP with an Open Solaris virtual machine providing access to my ZFS array. And I'm still not seeing any meaningful degradation in performance.

Makes perfect sense.....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

I would guess that most people who own a Mac just got tired of dealing with all the issues of the WinTel dynasty.

Doesn't make sense to just throw them out though.... yet

Re:Makes perfect sense.....

[BlackSnake112]

So now it is the MacTel dynasty?

I would like to see microsoft make windows for more then the x86 amd64 chips. I think it would be good for microsoft. Make the os (and other software) work on different chips may help them make more efficient code. They most likely will not do that. They seem to have this of thinking, do one thing and do it well. Too bad someone for the 'do it well' part.

Re:Makes perfect sense.....

[Lord Kano]

I would guess that most people who own a Mac just got tired of dealing with all the issues of the WinTel dynasty.

They could have gone to Lintel without the price premium.

LK

Re:Makes perfect sense.....

[Lord Kano]

Microsoft used to make NT for PPC.

LK

So...

[SmallFurryCreature]

People who have both a mac and a windows PC are more likely to have more then one PC?

Gosh, the shock! Can society survive this revelation? The pope is calling for calm, islamic jihadist are calling it a crime of the west. More at eleven, stay tuned!

Re:So...

[jhfry]

Most research isn't done to discover something shocking... its so that someone can say with some certainty that X is true.

Sure this research tells us what we already knew... sure it's stupid that someone was paid to do the research... but even if you "knew" it before, assuming this study was done properly, you can now say you KNOW it for certain.

What this does though is throw the numbers out of wack. If Apple claims ~10% marketshare, and Windows claims ~90%, but there is overlap in most Apple households, you could say that ~15% of households have a Mac. This equates to greater mindshare as a Windows user can also be a Mac user.

Re:So...

[Aladrin]

That's not what they said. They said people who have a mac are likely to have multiple computers. In fact, 85% of them also have a Windows PC.

Re:So...

[Chris Mattern]

And every once in a while, the research turns up that what you "knew", in fact, isn't so. That's when things get interesting.

Re:So...

[jhfry]

I am guessing that you don't count at all... for several reasons:

1. Their survey forms don't have a spot for Linux, and they didn't think that someone might have 11.
2. You probably wouldn't answer their survey anyway.
3. I'd imagine that people like you and I make up a very small portion, so small that we would have an insignificant influence on their data.

Yeah, but...

[HangingChad]

How many Linux households have a token Windows box? There are good reasons to keep a Winders box around for the occasional piece of Windows only software (I use mine for video editing) but there isn't as much compelling Mac software. And you might buy a PC that already has Windows on it and it's a pretty popular gaming platform. So there are several paths to a token PC.

In video editing, the Mac app would probably be FCP. But a full price copy of FCP is over $1,000, plus you have pay through the wazzoo for the hardware. There are several Windows NLE's that rival FCP in features and undercut it in price. And, if you have a PC for any of the other reasons outlined above, that makes the Apple investment that much less attractive.

Re:Yeah, but...

[antifoidulus]

Apple sells something called Final Cut Express, which has most of the features of FCP but at a fraction of the price($200), it does non-linear editing, custom transitions etc.

Re:Yeah, but...

[jhfry]

Any true followers of Linus would consider it a sin to allow such an evil as Microsoft Windows into their home, how dare you speak such filth... your Windows machine must be exercised immediately, let me if you need a High Priest of Linux to assist or some information about a 12 step program that can help.

Honestly though, I don't run a single Windows machine in my home... unless you count my work laptop that I only use to VPN into work. I made it a point to remove all Windows machines in an effort to force my family to adapt to Linux. 3 years later (wow has it been so long) and I haven't once missed Windows at home.

Re:Yeah, but...

[nlawalker]

unless you count my work laptop that I only use to VPN into work.

That counts just as much as keeping a Windows machine around for gaming - "work" is an important reason why people who use other operating systems at home may keep a copy of Windows installed somewhere as well.

Re:Yeah, but...

[spitzak]

I would think dual-boot machines with Windows would be much more common than a second Windows box. Dual-boot lets you reuse the peripherals.

Modern Apples are dual-boot as well but they don't come that way so that probably stops a lot of people who otherwise would want Windows for something. For somebody installing Linux the extra work to dual-boot with Windows is nil, there is a checkmark on the installer (this is assuming the machine already has Windows, which is true for 99% of them).

Re:Yeah, but...

[jhfry]

It counts except it isn't mine and I have no choice but to run windows. Given a choice, that would run Linux too.

I still consider my household to be Windows free... and better for it! I am no fanboi... I have made a very nice living off of supporting Windows, and currently work in a pure Windows shop. However since converting my household, and my parents household to Linux, I actually spend more time at home doing what I want to do rather than continuing to 'work' for my family too.

I feel all of the shortcomings of using Linux, especially the lack of quality modern games and even, cringe, commercial software. But nothing could convince me to go back to Windows today... properly supported Linux will beat Windows in nearly every category.

I just hope that ARM based laptops lead to a large increase in linux market share. The only ARM OS Microsoft makes is Windows CE... and it's crap.

Re:Yeah, but...

[CharlyFoxtrot]

How many Linux households have a token Windows box?

To burn in effigy ? Like the booming American flag export business to Iran.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Rick17JJ]

I am a Linux user who also has a token Windows box. The Linux computer is what I use for most of my day to day activities, such as text editing, email and browsing the Internet. The Windows XP computer gets used once every few months for running a couple of Windows programs such as one that has every topographic map for the state of Arizona. The top map program is also available in a Mac version, but not in a Linux version. Being able to view and print out topo map, for the entire state, is handy when planning a hiking or backpacking trip. Topo maps are something occasionally I need, but only rarely use, so I do not need to use the Windows computer as my day to day computer.

I use just one keyboard, mouse and monitor, with a KVM switch, to control both computers. I can switch back and forth between either computer in about 2 seconds. The Windows XP computer is in a small 6 inch x 6 inch x 2 inch case, has a 1.85 GHz Core 2 Duo and uses only about 23 Watts. My several year old Linux computer is in a tower case, has an AMD 64 X2 processor, and uses about 73 Watts. On the rare occasions when I run both a once, I still use less power than most other desktop computers.

The Linux computer is what is being exposed to most of the threats from the Internet, although I have both computers behind the firewall built into my DSL modem. The Windows box lives a more sheltered existence, by mostly only being briefly connected to the Internet for security updates and anti-virus signature updates. Of course I do updates for the Linux box too and have a firewall installed on both computers.

Re:Yeah, but...

[PitaBred]

I use my Windows box for running PlayOn for my PS3, games, and ripping DVD's. That's about it. I use my Linux laptop and media center for actually watching them and such.

Re:Yeah, but...

[defaria]

Try http://openstreetmaps.org/

As for token Windows box - vituralize it! I use VMWare to run Windows 7 which I use to run Playon (http://themediamall.com) to stream internet content to my TV. I'd use Boxee but Boxee doesn't do UPnP/DNLA and requires that you either sit in front of your computer or move your computer to the living room.

With Windows virtualized I don't have to worry about it screwing up and can pretty much reboot at will.

Re:Yeah, but...

[jo_ham]

Final Cut Express, or iMovie are the "home" editing software for the Mac.

iMovie is free (if your machine came with iLife - don't think they bundle it with iMacs any more, so it would be $70 or something, combined with iPhoto and iDVD), and FCE is about $200 and is much more fully featured - it has the bulk of the tools that a home editor would care about from FCP.

Original iMovie was a bit basic, but the new one is pretty good.

Re:Yeah, but...

[jedidiah]

The household Windows machine serves one purpose: to interface with the iPhone.

If not for Steve dissing Linux, there would be no Windows box here to support the wife's iPhone.

I have 3 Macs, and she won't take one of them for this purpose (dealing with the iPhone).

She would rather tolerate the devil she knows, despite the fact she is no longer particularly attached to it (Windows).

Re:Yeah, but...

[shmlco]

"odern Apples are dual-boot as well but they don't come that way..."

Excuse me? Just run the Bootcamp installer. Or install Parallels or VMWare and skip the "dual boot" altogether.

Re:Yeah, but...

[laurensv]

In this case I would like to say: put up or shut up. There is no way that there are any "Windows NLE's that rival FCP in features and undercut it in price". None, nada, nothing.
If you sincerely believe this to be the case I would advise you to check the features of Final Cut Studio: http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/
I think that a Windows package with features at par with Color alone would be a thousand dollar.

Re:Yeah, but...

[angelbunny]

If I'm working on a personal media project I prefer Final Cut Express over Final Cut Pro. If I'm working on a project with a group of people then I prefer FCP.

FCE may lack some features of FCP but overall it has more features than FCP. The Final Cut Suite is designed to take multiple specialized jobs and split them up into individual programs. One person can exclusively work on the color, another person the sound, another on post production, and so on. FCP lacks features because they are moved out to separate programs. For example, if you want to adjust the color levels you have to use Color. All of the color settings in FCE where stripped out in FCP because there is a separate program for that.

Personally, if I'm working on a project on my own I get overwhelmed with all of the choices and different setups from the Final Cut Suite. This is why I like FCE better than FCP. Of course, ymmv.

Re:Yeah, but...

[BobMcD]

Two hundred dollars is a lot for any piece of home software. A lot.

In fact, in many cases you're talking about a sum that's 50% of the hardware...

Re:Yeah, but...

[spitzak]

"installer" means "it won't be done by most Apple users".

For Linux, you are not going to get it unless you run an installer anyway. That keeps the amount of Linux way down, however the share of them that are dual-boot is going to be much much higher, because the additional work of making it dual boot over just making it run Linux is almost nil.

Re:Yeah, but...

[antifoidulus]

It ships with a free, and quite competent, video editor iMovie, if you are doing non-linear editing, I seriously doubt you are working with a $400 piece of hardware.

I have both...

[commodore64_love]

...unfortunately. One of them has proven itself to be much cheaper to maintain (basically zero dollars), and with the ability to continue using it even after 10 years of age. I won't say which one, because I don't want to get flamed, but I bet you can guess.

Re:I have both...

[characterZer0]

The Amiga?

Re:I have both...

[dword]

Is it a Commodore 64?

Re:I have both...

[alen]

can you load SL on a year Mac? i can use a 10 year old PC as well with XP on it. i just can't do a lot of things that current PC's can do

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

Well at least you can still "do things" on a ten-year-old PC (with Win98, or upgraded to XP), whereas a ten-year-old Mac is completely unsupported. You can't even find any third party software.

Even a 5-year-old Mac is difficult to keep up-to-date, since Apple is so quickl to obsolete old hardware and thereby force its users to go buy new equipment.

Uh oh... here come the Apple fans with pitchforks.

Re:I have both...

[ProfessionalCookie]

Ahem, XP is 9 years old.

Re:I have both...

[CharlyFoxtrot]

There are still people who use original iMacs with OS9 or early versions of OSX. Of course 10 year old macs are more obsolete than the equivalent PC because in that time Apple not only switched the OS they use but also the hardware platform it runs on.

Re:I have both...

[phayes]

You conveniently did not mention that the Mac underwent it's second major change of architecture about 4 years ago & that Apple's backward compatability after these migrations has been about as pain-free as possible.

Why don't you ask those who bought Windows on non-Intel architectures how well Microsoft helped them once they decided that they were no longer pertinant for their bottom line? Hell, why don't you ask them how bad their support was for during the period microsoft pretended to give them support?

I'm one of those who has both Macs & PC's at home. I had an original 68020 Mac II with A/UX, kept & upgraded it it for a decade, then moved on to PCs when Apple abandonned A/UX yet hadn't yet announced OS X. Now that OS X is stable I'm slowly moving back. That may stop if Apple's DRM lockout tendancies on the iPhone backpollute OS X...

My current mix is new Mac & Ubuntu laptops & a few older PCs with a mix of Ubuntu & Windows. One way or another, my household will be windows free within 5 years when the older PC's are no longer useful.

Re:I have both...

[Mordaximus]

I see, so a 10 year old PC IS supported? Windows 98 is?

The problem is, you're equating a Mac (the hardware) and the OS (9 or X) and it doesn't suit your argument. My fiancee is running a nearly 5 year old iMac and loves it. It's running the most modern version of OS X it can (leopard) and doing a great job. A 10 year old mac can continue to run its original OS, or the earlier versions of OS X (mine is running Leopard, which is quite recent.)

Of course, that ignores the various Linux and BSD distros that run on older Macs, too.

Re:I have both...

[yyr]

My 10-year-old beige Power Macintosh G3 will run OS X 10.2, fully supported by Apple. It can also run OS X 10.4 using a third-party utility called XPostFacto.

Of course, you'll need some upgrades (particularly RAM, and a CPU upgrade will help too) before it will work well, and some old technologies like the floppy drive and old serial ports are not supported. But OS X actually runs acceptably on this computer, if you don't mind waiting a few moments for things to happen. Obviously iMovie and GarageBand are out of the question on this old boy but Firefox and Mail run fine, which is enough for most people.

I have a 450 MHz G3 in there now, a 10K RPM UW SCSI hard drive, and I think 448MB of RAM but I'd need to check...haven't powered it up in a while.

Anyway, to get back to the original topic, I think one reason that some Mac users have more computers is because they tend to buy Macs again...but they tend to not want to get rid of their old machine. I have gotten rid of three Macs in my lifetime: my first, a PowerMac 6100, because it wouldn't post any more and wasn't worth fixing, a Power Mac 7600 I obtained secondhand that I had no further use for (and had faulty RAM), and someone else's Power Mac 6500 that they asked me to dispose of. I still have:

• an old Powerbook 180 (still works great but battery is shot, bright 640x400 16-greyscale active matrix screen!)
• the old G3 I mention above
• Mac Mini G4 1.5 GHz, for e-mail, Web browsing and throwing together a few videos...iMovie HD doesn't seem to work as well on Intel.
• iBook G4, which I use for Web browsing during evenings
• white MacBook (2nd gen) I use to develop software (running Windows XP)

And the odd thing that perhaps only other Mac users will understand is that I really enjoy using all of them, each in their own way.

So now I'm curious about this... counting my PC, my fiancee's PCs and our non-Mac laptops and netbooks... we have, in total, 6 of those. So that's 11 computers in total, 5 of which are Macs... wow, that's more than I thought.

Re:I have both...

[Glimmerdark]

primary mac user here, though i have a vista box, a fedora box in a server role, and a dual boot xp/fedora desktop. i deal in tech support with a variety of OS's, find it comes in handy to have some around at home. i agree that you're more likely to run into a situation where a combination of your computer and a given software title "just won't work" on a mac when dealing with an age gap, but much of that is due to the changes that apple's implemented to try and move in a new direction. If they'd had a bigger share of the market 5-10 years ago, i don't think there would have been quite such a steep cliff. that being said, that issue does arise on windows as well. 10 years prior to the release of vista, win95 was the current OS, try running a win95 app on vista, or an app designed for vista on win95. 10 years prior to now, win98 (the first release) has been out for a year or so. trying to update a pc you bought with win95 to vista would be a long slow, likely fruitless process. with some significant hardware upgrades you 'might' be able to have a usable xp installation on an early win98 pc, but even that's unlikely. the move to 64 bit OS's and apps will make things even more interesting for compatibility. basically. if you want things to work, use recent hardware, recent software, and try not to do anything too outside spec with it, or expect to be supporting yourself (which isn't impossible, but not something john q public's gonna do)

Re:I have both...

[jo_ham]

5 year old Mac hard to keep up to date?!

What crack are you smoking and where can I get it.

A 5 year old Mac would be something sold in 2004 (2009-5 = 2004), so that would be models like the iBook G4 (1Ghz), PB 12", iMac G5 (slim white - same case as the 1st gen intel iMac), Powerbook 15" G4 (1Ghz to 1.5Gz), Powermac G5 and Xserve G5.

I have 3 Macs in that range (Powerbook 15" 1.5Ghz, iBook G4 and iMac G5 1.8Ghz.

The Powerbook G4 is running on my desk *right now* with the latest version of 10.5 on it, running just fine. I even installed a security update for it that Apple released not long ago.

Funny that for "obsolete hardware".

10.6 is the first major shift Apple has made to finally put PPC to bed (ie, you can't run it on PPC) - when they switched to Intel they continued to roll universal binaries of everything and even kept the Classic environment running until long after it finally should have died for people who just couldn't let go of OS9 apps. So, up until the 10.6 release, the 2004 era macs on my desk (and even the headless iBook G3 I have that was rumbling along quite happily as a silent, book-sized file server) was untroubled by any "forced upgrades" that Apple was pushing at me - in fact, they have been very accommodating with backwards compatibility where possible (classic, rosetta, universal binaries, X-code dev tools with build settings that could target older OS builds [10.2, 10.3 and 1.4 as I remember]).

You can "do things" with old Mac hardware that is just as vintage as 10 year and 5 year old PCs with just as much efficacy, you just seem to be of the opinion that Apple has been slamming doors unnecessarily to drive hardware sales.

Re:I have both...

[kamochan]

No pitchfork, you are absolutely right. The 10-year-old powermacs in the server room are no longer supported by the latest Mac OS, 10.6, and I need to start to plan for new hardware now. Grr. 10.5 will fall out of support scope in a few years, so I need to react relatively quickly.

OTOH, the Sawtooths are getting a bit long in the, er, teeth. And crusty. Maybe I'll replace them with a stack of Minis...

Re:I have both...

[je ne sais quoi]

I'd like to see the GP put Vista on his 10 year old PC and then come tell us how well it runs. The only reason you can even put an OS like XP on a 10 year old PC is that MS didn't release a new operating system for a little over five years. I have been forced to run 10 year old PCs with XP on them, they run slowly, it doesn't matter that you can technically install the software, the user experience is garbage.

Re:I have both...

[imgod2u]

You're honestly comparing how Apple supports 100% of its customer base moving to x86 to how sub-1% of Windows users got supported? Seems like a foregone conclusion. And really, when has Windows even been on a non-x86 system that wasn't a small side-experiment?

Re:I have both...

[Sandbags]

Family Mac History:
  - original Lisa bought in 1984, stopped using in 1989, sold to a museum in 1998 still working.
  - 512Ke bought in 1985, stopped using in 1993, donated to a school in 1996 still working running OS 6.
  - Mac IIcx bought in 1989, donated to a school in 1997
  - Mac Classic bought in 1991, stopped using in 1997, was still working running OS 7 in 2002?
  - LC II bought in 1992, used as a gaming and VM platform (even ran Windows NT on it) until 1997, donated to an elderly family member who used it until 2003 when they passed. Was still working when sold at the garrage sale for $350.
  - Quadra 630 bought in 1995, donated to a church in 2000, was still in use as of 2004 last i heard. May still be functional today.
  - iMac Blue 300mhz model bought in 1999, ran up through OS 9.x, still in use today by my Aunt.
  - PowerComputing powerdesk, bought in 1996, sold to a business to replace their own matching model (killed by lightnig strike) in 2002, was still in use in 2005 last i heard. i got $650 for that 6 year old machine...
  - G3 desktop, bought 1999, killed by stormwater damage in 2003.
  - Mac Cube, bought 2001, killed by stormwater damage 2003.
  - G4 desktop, bought 2003, still in use in a local school we donated it to.
  - iBook 14" bought in 2003, killed in a car accident 2005.
  - iMac G4 17"/768/1GHz, bought in 2003, upgraded through OS 10.3, sold in 2007 for $750 on ebay.
  - mini bought in 2005, i still use it today as my media server.
  - iMac 20" core 2 bought in 2005, still in use as my Father's primary machine, bumped to 2GB RAM and 10.6 recently. never once in my father's life has he used a Windows based machine more than to borrow web access for a few minutes, or to check e-mail.
  - MBP 15" bought Christmas 2006, still in use as mom's primary machine. Runs XM in a VM, but only for go-to-my-pc for her work.

We also had an iBook G4 for about 6 months that I bought at a tag sale for $50 which sold on ebay for $350; a quadra 9600 I acquired used in 2002 - cleaned up and doneted to a church a few months later; and I've also had an SE30, MacIIsi, LCIII, and an XServeSL for short periods of time (none bought new).

Average lifespan of Macs in our family (includng those destroyed by storm or car crash, and those still in use) is over 6.5 years. Excluding those destoyed by storm or crash it's 7.3 years, and excluding those still in use is 8.5 years.

Of all thos emachines, only the iMac 17", 20", 1st MBP, and the Mini have even had hardware upgrades, and those only RAM, and the LCII I added an ethernet adapter to later in it's life. (the PowerComputing Machine I'm not counting, as it was basically a lab system that I rebuilt about a dozen times and was constantly upgraded with differing components and various drives, and had not less than 10 differnt OS run on it). The iMac Blue 300 and the iMac 17" were the only 2 machines ever requiring a hardware repair. (the CD drive in the Blue sucked ass, and it did blow a mainboard in it's 5th year due to power surge, the 17" iMac lost a HDD in its 4th year).

Quite the longevity in hardware. What's equally impressive is the resale value. I can litterally buy a Mac, and in 4-5 years I can sell it, and the TCO of that machine will be less than that of some cheap Dell machine that has nowhere near the capabilities.

Re:I have both...

[phayes]

I suppose if you're young enough not to have witnessed major corporations following MS's marketing assurances of support by replacing old iron with MIPS & Alphas running NT then you'd discount how good Apple's support of it's old architectures is. You young'uns need to remember that X86 architecture was NOT able to furnish the needed horsepower a decade or so ago so you HAD to search elsewhere. Those of use who watched the whole sordid affair will never forget it. It's kind of burned in you see. When, years later, someone with no memory tries to place MS up on an alter it all comes rushing back... Hmf, "small side-experiment", kind of like dinosaurs, huh? Never amounted to much... The only reason you say that is because the MS marketing machine erases it's missteps better than Stalin & you're too young to know better. No young /.er, Don't look bekind the curtain! There is nothing to see! The Great & Powerful OZ knows ALL...

Re:I have both...

[imgod2u]

I'm pretty sure I lived through the Alpha age. I'm also pretty sure close to 99% of Windows machines was running on Pentiums at the time as well. So again, 1% of Windows clients migrating vs 100% of customer base.

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

>>>Could always upgrade the 10 year old Mac to Leopard [10.5]

Nope. Doesn't meet the minimum processor clock speed. Looking at a 10-year-old Mac, the latest OS you can use is 10.3 (minimum 233 megahertz). And once you have it installed good luck finding any web browsers that will work for it. Opera 6 is probably the best option, and that's woefully out-of-date.

With the Windows systems you can still run XP on a 10-year-old machine, which is admittedly old, but still widely-supported by the latest programs. PCs simply have a longer support life... about 2.5 times longer than Mac.

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

>>>You conveniently did not mention that the Mac underwent it's second major change of architecture

Which has nothing to do with my PowerMac that refuses to run anything more-recent than 10.3. The obstacle stopping me from jumping higher is not the PPC to Intel transition, but Apple's ridiculously high megahertz requirement.

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

>>>A 10 year old mac can continue to run its original OS, or the earlier versions of OS X

Okay. I've got two Macs. One with OS 9 and one with 10.3. Show me a browser that run on either of these systems AND be able to properly render the web. I've looked and looked, but I haven't found anything.

And upgrading past 10.3 is not an option due to the ridiculous minimum megahertz imposed by Apple.

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

>>>I'd like to see the GP put Vista on his 10 year old PC

That's just the point. I don't have to upgrade from XP because it continues to be supported by the programmers. (Heck even Win 98 is still supported by many programs.) Try doing that with Mac OS 9 or 10.2 (one year "younger" than XP). You can't even find a decent browser for those since the supported lifespan for Macs is so ridiculously short.

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

>>>Power Macintosh G3 will run OS X 10.2... you'll need some upgrades (particularly RAM, and a CPU upgrade will help too)

IMHO a computer with a CPU upgrade ceases to be the same computer. I know many people who have upgraded their Commodore 64s to 16-bit/25 megahertz versions of the 6502, and in my opinion that's no longer a C64. It's become a totally different computer... like a brain transplant would give you a whole new person. (Plus if you do spend money on a CPU upgrade, you might as well just buy a G5 machine - the cost will be about the same.)

Anyway you say 10.2 is fully-supported by Apple, but that's simply not true. I tried and failed to find a decent web browser but no luck - for example Safari requires 10.5. The best browser I could find was woefully out-of-date and displayed mostly garbage.

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

>>>No pitchfork, you are absolutely right. The 10-year-old powermacs in the server room are no longer supported by the latest Mac OS, 10.6, and I need to start to plan for new hardware now. Grr.
>>>

(faints)

Wow someone agrees. Just curious what is the latest version those ten-year-old Macs will support (legally, without using XPostFacto or other hacks)? Mine was 10.3

Re:I have both...

[jimicus]

Really?

Can we agree that a 10 year old mac would be one released around Q4 1999?

If this page is accurate, the iMac G3/400 was released on October 4 1999. Which would meet the minimum specs for OS X 10.4, albeit only just. Had you pushed the boat out and bought a PowerMac, you'd have a processor with a similar raw clock speed only it'd be a G4 rather than a G3.

Now, according to mozilla.org, Firefox 3.5 requires OS X 10.4.

Of course, this is taking things to an extreme because few people would consider a 10-year old computer to offer a great deal of useful life, but to claim that PCs have a 2.5x longer support life is just downright lying.

Re:I have both...

[RedK]

You could look into Classilla, which is precisely a modern browser on the Classic Mac OS.

Re:I have both...

[mederjo]

I have a Power Mac G4 533 which I got in 2001. It is still being used for commercial work every day and is running OS X 10.4. Not bad considering it started with OS 9. Any new Mac software which supports OS X 10.4 would run on it.

It's still going strong I recently got a PCI USB2 card for it to connect a new scanner, after our old SCSI scanner finally died, no problems. I think over its lifetime the only hardware issue has been a dead hard drive.

It will be retired in the next year or so, but mainly because trickle down in machines means it can be replaced by a newer machine.

Having used Macs for about 13 years now, the only time I've been "forced" to buy a new machine has been a couple of months ago with the advent of OS X 10.6 because it only supports Intel Macs. I'm a software developer and I need to support 64 bit OS X 10.6. My other Intel Mac is only 32 bit. I would have got a new machine eventually as my dual 2.7 GHz PowerMac G5 is starting to get a little creaky, but 10.6 forced my hand a bit and I had to get one when it didn't really suit financially.

The only other time I've got a new machine because of something Apple did was when they introduced Intel Macs. I "leased" an Intel iMac from Apple before Intel Macs were available for purchase IIRC and they ended up giving it to me. I'm a bit hazy but I think the lease was more or less a deposit which would be returned when Apple got the machine back. In the end we could keep them and although it was a large deposit it was still a fair bit cheaper than buying the same machine retail.

Re:I have both...

[phayes]

Being in Kindergarden doesn't count junior, you had to be working in the field back then. Your "pretty sure" guestimating back to a period you already have shown to have no experience of also carries little weight.

It's true that non-X86 never amounted to more than 2% of windows licences by volume. The figure broken down by value was higher as these were not your momma's consumer word processor PC's but expensive multi-cpu servers.

Now compare how few PowerPC Macs (which were never all that popular compared to Intel Macs) are still around to be penalized by being unable to update to the most recent OS X releases. Easily under 5%. The comparison isn't far fetched at all.

Re:I have both...

[phayes]

So Apple should have pulled a Vista & watered down their requirements so that any old PPC Mac no matter how old would be "ready"? Sorry that you find yourself on the wrong side of that partition but I'm grateful that Apple places reasonable limits that will reliably let me know upon which Macs a given OS X release will function.

Re:I have both...

[kuzb]

...unfortunately. One of them has proven itself to be much cheaper to maintain (basically zero dollars), and with the ability to continue using it even after 10 years of age. I won't say which one, because I don't want to get flamed, but I bet you can guess.

It's nice to hear your PC is still running fine. I have an old PPC ball-and-stick mac here running OS X 10.5.8 that isn't even 10 years old yet which runs dog slow and is hard (and getting harder all the time) to find software for.

Re:I have both...

[pilgrim23]

Funny. I "do stuff" with my older Macs, older PCs even older Apple IIgs and C=64 boxes (which is what this thread started about. For years I have tinkered with networking dis-similar topologies together. As to older tech and newer stuff, there ARE browsers (iCab on 68k based machines for example) that work, ditto other software if you know how to look and what to do. I would not use a older box to run a modern business but if pressed and poor I could figure out ways to make hardware work. Mac vs PC is a nice game, but it is silly. Both have bugs both suck and both are cool.

Re:I have both...

[mjwx]

...unfortunately. One of them has proven itself to be much cheaper to maintain (basically zero dollars), and with the ability to continue using it even after 10 years of age. I won't say which one, because I don't want to get flamed, but I bet you can guess.

Considering that the Intel Mac has only been around for a scant 3 years and has had a plethora of heat issues (the bane of plastics) I can easily guess.

Just rebooted a 10 yr old PIII. Good old girl, I remember when I was poor and studying, this machine ran BF1942 using a Geforce 3. I also have a Pentum 1 which I dragged some old photo's off for my parents a few months back (keeping for posterity, she still has Star Control 2 installed).

Re:I have both...

[ucblockhead]

Huh? I installed Snow Leopard on the old 2003 G4 iBook we gave to our six year old, and it installed without an issue. It's too slow for modern flash games, but the OS runs perfectly...

Re:I have both...

[toddestan]

Even if XP was dead and buried by Windows userbase, it would still be supported by Microsoft. Even Windows 2000 is supported for another year, and that OS will be celebrating its 10th birthday next February. Keep in mind that Win2K supports as far back as the original Pentium processor introduced in 1993.

Re:I have both...

[angelbunny]

A 10 year old PC with standard non upgraded hardware can run Vista or 7. If it was a super high end model (256megs of ram) it might run XP ok. If it doesn't take 10 years to load a browser today it should surf the web just fine.

A 10 year old Mac (also personal computer) with stock hardware can not be upgraded to 10.6. If it was a super high end model (333mhz) it will hopefully run 10.5 and be able to surf the web if flash is turned off.

Realistically, sure after Apple went through a major hardware change it looks like the competing brands (i.e. Dell) have a slight one up and might last a little bit longer for current day tasks, but by how much and for how long?

Your statement is completely biased. I don't claim to know everything but as an overall Apple has a history of having a longer life time and a higher resale rate than its competitors. And really, why does it matter?

Re:I have both...

[angelbunny]

woops typo! sorry... can NOT run Vista or 7

Re:I have both...

[kamochan]

Our Sawtooths got 1 GHz cpu upgrade kits a few years ago while their fans were maintenance'd, so 10.5 Server installed to them without hacks. I recall it requires G4@867 MHz + 1 GB.

Re:I have both...

[gmhowell]

Nevermind c=64love. He's just venting some nerd rage, which is his wont. But if you're bored, poke him with a stick again, and he'll start ranting about how much better the Amiga was and how the world would be peace and bunnies if it weren't for that evil Mac, so beloved by the biased press.

Re:I have both...

[gmhowell]

You ran System 7 on a Classic? Blech, I upgraded to it, then 'up'graded back to 6.0.8.

Re:I have both...

[Waccoon]

Are you sure all the features of OSX are intact and working with your PPC unit?

I bought a PPC Mac to test Java compatibility after a number of people complained that my apps weren't working on the Mac. I would have been better off buying a paperweight.

Re:I have both...

[RMH101]

Rubbish. Snow Leopard is Intel only. It does not install on PPC Macs.

Re:I have both...

[Sandbags]

We had some accounting package (great Plains?) that required it... also, 6.x disks gave up the ghost and could not find new copies after that many years! It wasn't exactly the internet age yet... (though the classic was the first machine we got online. The LCII ran AOL 1.x at some point, had been running compuserve for a while previous, and both had accessed the "true" internet as well via a server we had set up at a local high school).

Re:I have both...

[Sandbags]

it was the file sharing feature we needed... and the ability to support DOS and Mac floppies. That's why we went to 7 initially.

That, and it actually was a much nicer OS experience, if you had the RAM (2MB or more) and a SCSI HDD. Oh, and also freely distributable! (Yes, Apple actually ENCOURAGED people to pirate copies and share with friends. The software was sold for the cost of the floppy disks (or CD, as it was the first OS also available in that format).

Re:I have both...

[foniksonik]

XP is what 8 years old now? I can run an 8 year old OS on a 10 year old Mac with no problems.

Can you run Windows 7 on a 10 year old PC? No.

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

>>>So Apple should have pulled a Vista & watered down their requirements so that any old PPC Mac no matter how old would be "ready"?

Given how efficiently Apple codes its operating systems, there's no reason why 10.4 or 10.5 wouldn't work on my 300 megahertz machine except an arbitrary decision to obsolete it, and thereby force me to go buy something new.

Alternatively Apple could develop programs like Safari that will work on my 10.3 install, instead of saying "you need 10.4 or higher".

Re:I have both...

[jo_ham]

Put it this way, other than choking a bit on BBC iPlayer because the CPU just can't quite handle the HQ setting, I have yet to come across a website (java, flash or otherwise) that doesn't work, and Java with a big J, no script I have not had much experience with (or rather exposure too, I think I had a couple of Java-based apps a while back but otherwise can't comment).

If Java compatibility is broken on PPC 10.5, then it would also be pretty broken on Intel 10.5 since the OS is the same, for most of the high level stuff (comes on the same disc even), unless the Java runtime is a specific PPC build, or it's broken full stop.

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

>>>>> I installed Snow Leopard on the old 2003 G4 iBook
>>
>>Rubbish. Snow Leopard is Intel only. It does not install on PPC Macs.

You caught an Apple fan in a lie. (cheer). It's like dealing with Hari Krishnas.

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

>>>>> Looking at a 10-year-old Mac, the latest OS you can use is 10.3 (minimum 233 megahertz)
>>
>>Really?

Yes really. I've tried and failed to get my G3 Mac to run 10.4 - it doesn't meet the minimum megahertz requirement.

Re:I have both...

[commodore64_love]

Amiga was a great machine in the 80s, producing multimedia movies and games while the IBM PC and Macs just went "beep". Imagine having a Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis, but with a keyboard, and in 1985. That was the Amiga... it ran circles around the competition... and it took ten years for Windoze machines to catch up.

And in the 90s, I enjoyed using my old 68040 Quadra Mac, because at that time the System 7 OS was clearly superior to the Windows 3 crap. But now? The generic PC has become as easy to use as a Mac, and at a significant discount. So that's why the G3 will be my last.

Re:I have both...

[imgod2u]

Being in Kindergarden doesn't count junior, you had to be working in the field back then. Your "pretty sure" guestimating back to a period you already have shown to have no experience of also carries little weight.

It's true that non-X86 never amounted to more than 2% of windows licences by volume. The figure broken down by value was higher as these were not your momma's consumer word processor PC's but expensive multi-cpu servers.

So essentially, after all of that condescension, I was pretty much right within +/- 1%.

Now compare how few PowerPC Macs (which were never all that popular compared to Intel Macs) are still around to be penalized by being unable to update to the most recent OS X releases. Easily under 5%. The comparison isn't far fetched at all.

Way to move the goalpost. What percentage were PowerPC Macs of the total Mac market when they switched and had to introduce emulation? Better yet, what percentage were non-x86 Macs when they switched and had to introduce emulation? That's right, 100%.

Apple had to introduce seemless emulation because there were no x86 Mac users at the time. The vast majority of Windows users has always been x86. There was never a point where Microsoft was threatened with a large loss in their customer base by not catering to non-x86 users. Apple could've lost all of their customers if they didn't cater to non-x86 users.

Re:I have both...

[Pyroja]

That's odd. I was just given a 10 year old iMac, a G3/400. For kicks, two nights ago, I installed OS X 10.4 without a single hitch. My only limiting factor right now is that I need a wireless adapter so I can easily hook up to my network. Point being, OS X 10.4 installs on a 10 year old Mac just fine. Once paired with a wireless adapter, it'll make a fine 'Net terminal that can handle word processing and other light use. Perfectly fine by my standards and about what I'd expect from a machine that old. Here's another upshot: Because it runs 10.4, it looks and feels like a modern machine. Much more than I could say for anything running 98, or even XP.

Re:I have both...

[phayes]

Hey junior, if you don't like the condesension then learn your computing history before showing your ignorance in public. This thread started when commodore64 complained about his jurassic PPC Mac not being able to install a recent OS X. I replied that Apple has migrated CPU architectures twice pretty much painlessly, & at least his systems had some support which is better than MS did when it abandoned CPUs. You come into thread saying that the CPU's MS abandoned were only used by a small minority I pointed out that apple's support of old CPU's was only abandoned after the old CPUs in use had diminished to a similar percentage. Moving goalposts? No. I addressed the points in their original context.

Re:I have both...

[phayes]

Yeah, & while they are at it, they should port all versions of OSX to the 680X0 Macs too! I'm really disappointed that I can't get a recent OS for them. After all, given the ease and few ressouces needed to port OSX to the iPhone the 680X0 macs should be real easy...
</sarcasm>

If the platform is no longer in use by more than a small minority & just doesn't have the horsepower to profit it's dumb to waste the ressources. As has been pointed out here, using a too recent OSX release just makes the machine too slow & you can always use another OS as was pointed out here.

Re:I have both...

[imgod2u]

Such disingenuous backpedaling. Your exact words were:

"You conveniently did not mention that the Mac underwent it's second major change of architecture about 4 years ago & that Apple's backward compatability after these migrations has been about as pain-free as possible."

Ya, sure sounds like the toned-down "well at least there's some support" you claimed you were saying. No, you were doing a bit of worshiping of how Apple did such a good job with compatibility while changing architectures and then:

"Why don't you ask those who bought Windows on non-Intel architectures how well Microsoft helped them once they decided that they were no longer pertinant for their bottom line?"

Trying to make a contrast between the "we do anything to help you" version of Apple you painted to the big-bad-evil-only-cares-about-profit Microsoft.

I pointed out it was complete BS to compare the two situations since during each architectural switch, Apple had to switch their entire customer base; of course they'd spend effort making it painless.

But no, keep trying to change the argument and personal attacks.

Re:I have both...

[phayes]

Junior, the migration bit being well nigh painless you excerpted is true yet I ever backpedaled away from any statements I made.

The comparison is clear between Apple supporting old CPU architectures for a few years & MS cutting & running within 3 months of assuring clients that Mips & Alpha were strategic future development paths. It's not Apple "we do anything to help you" as Apple eventually did abandon the old CPUs, however I never said "we do anything to help you". You set up that strawman so you could knock it down & feel righteous.

Re:I have both...

[imgod2u]

I pointed out it was complete BS to compare the two situations since during each architectural switch, Apple had to switch their entire customer base; of course they'd spend effort making it painless.

Apples and Oranges

[matt4077]

Two thirds of Mac owners have three or more computers in the home, while only 29% of PC owners have two or more PCs.

Re:Apples and Oranges

[cabjf]

True, but if 85% of all Mac users also have at least a Windows machine, it can be assumed that at least 85% of all Mac users have more than one computer in the home. 85% compared to 29% is a very large gap (which is likely even larger if one includes households with two or more Macs or with a Mac and Linux mix).

Re:Apples and Oranges

[Idiomatick]

Sure, if the two and three were switched it would be a statistical problem. But this just shows there is a really big difference. The comparison could be more interesting...

Mac owners more computer literate?

[Foofoobar]

So mac owners own more computers and computers of various platforms? Logically this leads one to believe that Mac owners are more computer literate and proficient than the average Windows user. Of course i expect some to mark this as a troll.

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[rishistar]

No all it implies is that Mac owners have more *money* than the average Windows user. Which we already know, because they own a Mac.

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[Foofoobar]

Thought there might be a smart ass remark like that but regardless, in this scenario, having to learn two different operating systems, the setups, configurations, etc, makes you more computer literate by default. The more you learn about different systems, you naturally become more computer literate. You can make snarky comments but you can't deny the facts. If I used merely a Windows machine compared to someone who used a windows machine and a mac vs someone who used Windows, mac and linux, it is pretty obvious that one leads to the other; more computer literate people generally use multiple systems and multiple systems lead to increased computer literacy.

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[rainmaestro]

That seems like a stretch. There's the old adage of "quantity versus quality". I would contend that a competent user with one properly kitted machine (be it a Mac or a PC) can accomplish far more than a fool with a dozen boxes. With virtual machines and multi-booting, a proficient user only *needs* one box for most scenarios. Now, if you're running something more complex at home, with multiple servers, NFS, etc, that's another story. The real mark of proficiency isn't how many machines they have, it is what they are doing with those machines (ie, are they a large family with 5/6 machines being used by the kids to play games?)

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[CAIMLAS]

Actually I think it's been shown the (rough) opposite (posted to from slashdot, even): Mac users are less critical/intelligent than your average Windows users. Not that it makes a difference in the long run; it's a stupid study.

In a demographic study like this, IT professionals/geeks need not apply. Just because you've got 20 systems in your basement, almost half being older than you yourself are, does not skewer things in any significant way.

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[Steauengeglase]

No, this is Slashdot where anything anti-Microsoft has a good chance of being modded up.

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[amicusNYCL]

Logically this leads one to believe that Mac owners are more computer literate and proficient than the average Windows user.

Not really. These are just statistics, you can't draw any conclusions from them. Maybe it means that Mac owners are more indecisive and don't know what they want from a computer. Maybe it means that Mac owners are more likely to accept unwanted spare computers from others. Maybe it means Mac owners are highly likely to live in the same household as Windows users (this surveyed "households", not individuals). There are about a million reasons why a household would have both a Mac and Windows machine, that doesn't mean that there's any correlation between owning a Mac and being computer literate or proficient, if you get marked as a troll it's because you think you can create a correlation where there's not one.

Take my own house for example: I've got a Windows desktop in my bedroom, there's another Windows desktop in an office room, plus 0 or more Windows servers at any given time, I've got a Linux laptop that wanders around, my roommate has a Windows desktop and a Windows laptop, and I've got another roommate who has his own Windows desktop, plus Windows laptop, and also operates the Windows servers. He also owns a G4 from back when he was doing audio work and wanted to use Protools, which doesn't really get powered on any more. So what conclusions can you draw from that?

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't think that was a snarky comment. It's simply true. My parents use both Windows and Linux, but they're really not all that computer literate. They just click the thingy that takes them to "The Internet" and use the same browser (Firefox). Does this mean they will learn more about each system? Not at all.

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[Foofoobar]

I accept that challenge. I will pit your competent user on a gumstick running linux vs my mom on a beowulf cluster of mac minis. Let the competition commence.

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[YenTheFirst]

The thing to remember, though, is that it was a survey of households, not users. You could easily have a scenario where one person owns a PC, the other a Mac, and neither use each other's computers.

Even by your definition of increased computer literacy, having multiple machines in the same household proves nothing.

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[plague911]

I personally hate using Macs but I am sure the average mac user is more computer literate than the average Windows user. You have to be at least somewhat computer literate to even know Macs exists. Most Windows users don't even know what Windows is. Your comment is almost pointless since windows is the OS of choice for the masses who probably don't even know what electricity really is.

Re:Mac owners more computer literate?

[SleazyRidr]

You make me think of my girlfriends cousin. In Australia I'd call him a cob (cashed up bogan) but I'm not sure what to call him here in Texas.
 
He has a windows desktop (so he can work from home), a Macbook Air, and both of his children have laptops. He has no idea how to use any of them (except for stuff he's been shown how to do.)
 
I'll second the calls from others that Mac owners have more money and can afford more computers.

Duh!

[dougmwne]

Hmm, so affluent households that own an expensive, designer computer are likely to own multiple computers? Shocked I tell you!

Re:Duh!

[crmarvin42]

I'm a grad student and my wife is a music teacher. Between the two of us we make less than 40k/year, and we own 4 macs and no pc's. Neither of us are from affluent families, but we both feel that the cost benefit ratio for a mac is better than for the alternative in the long run.

Also, I can't speak for anyone else but 2 of my macs were bought used on eBay so the majority of the depreciation had already taken place

Re:Duh!

[intheshelter]

Hmmm, so a person who is too stupid to understand why people buy Macs automatically assumes it's an "expensive, designer computer". Shocked I tell you!!

My setup

[tylersoze]

I wonder if my setup is typical as a long time Mac user? Primary machine is a Macbook Pro that I only boot into Windows whenever I want to play games. An old PPC G5 that still soldiers on connected to the TV in the bedroom, and then a couple of super cheap Hackintoshs for family use: a Dell Mini 9 and dual bootPC desktop, and then a bunch of old Mac laptops and desktops that have been given out to family members.

Going forward, it looks like that will be the template. One "real" Macintosh, a Macbook, for primary use and Hackintoshs and hand me down Macs for the rest of the family.

There's no "switching" going on

[dingen]

I never got people who were talking about using a Mac as "switching". Like you would suddenly not use the operating system you have been using for the past 20 years by buying a computer that runs something different.

I don't know a lot of people who are devoted to a single platform. Most people I know use one OS on their desktop, something else on their notebook, something else on their phone etc. So when someone buys a Mac, they just add that platform to the list of systems they were already using. There's no reason to stop using all of your other stuff because a Mac got into the house.

Re:There's no "switching" going on

[kimvette]

You forgot to drink the kool-aid!

Re:There's no "switching" going on

[axlash]

When people talk about switching, they're not talking about switching to exclusively using a new OS/platform... they're talking about switching the OS/platform that they primarily use.

Re:There's no "switching" going on

[cowscows]

You're exactly right, which really just shows how useless this study was, or at least how useless the PC Pro summary of it is. A much more interesting study would tell us what sorts of tasks different people use the various operating systems for.

Re:There's no "switching" going on

[jandrese]

Like you would suddenly not use the operating system you have been using for the past 20 years by buying a computer that runs something different.

Dude, I think it's about time to let go of your DOS 4.01 system and upgrade.

Re:There's no "switching" going on

[dingen]

I have no idea which system I use primarily. Is it the one at work? My laptop which I always bring along with me but never really use for a long time at once? My desktop at home which I use for my business in the evening and weekends? Or my server that connects all of my systems together and stores most of my data?

Re:There's no "switching" going on

[dingen]

That's why I trust Net Applications. They measure something actually useful: what system people use to browse the web.

Re:There's no "switching" going on

[kuzb]

Dude, I think it's about time to let go of your DOS 4.01 system and upgrade.

By jove, you're right! MS-DOS 6.22, HERE I COME!

Re:There's no "switching" going on

[TheRaven64]

It's basically what I did. I was using a Win2K box which ran a couple of Windows-only apps but mainly ran XFree86 running as a dumb client connected to a 'duel processor' machine I'd got cheaply on eBay because no one else had thought to search for typos running FreeBSD with my apps. When I got a PowerBook, I expected to run the two machines in parallel for a bit. I copied all of my data across in the first morning and then realised two months later I hadn't turned the Windows machine on since I bought the Mac. I could use Apple's X11 to connect to the FreeBSD machine and none of the Windows-only programs I had been using was sufficiently compelling to cause me to boot up another computer to run them. I eventually installed Linux on that machine while I wrote a few chapters of a Linux book and then made it dual boot Linux and NetBSD as Xen dom0s while writing my Xen book. I actually have no idea what it runs now. I got a cheap (second hand) ThinkPad to replace the FreeBSD machine when it died, but I've since replaced that with a VM on my MacBook Pro. I probably have a dozen computers around the place, but I can't remember even turning more than two of them on recently (both Macs, the old one is now connected to a projector for playing iPlayer). I also have a couple of colo servers; one of those is a Mac, but neither runs an Apple OS.

Re:There's no "switching" going on

[cstacy]

I never got people who were talking about using a Mac as "switching". Like you would suddenly not use the operating system you have been using for the past 20 years by buying a computer that runs something different.

I don't understand it at all: Emacs runs great on the Mac, too!

(30 years, not 20, anyway...)

Of course more than one computer!

[nortcele]

Just like with firearms and a Polygamy Porter beer... Why would you want only one computer?
When it breaks, how would you google how to fix it?

Re:Of course more than one computer!

[squallbsr]

Thats right! How would you be able to Google for a fix to that broken Windows or Linux machine without a mac?

"Mac/PC divide"?

[sa1lnr]

Can somebody remind what the difference in hardware there is between a Mac and a PC these days. Shiny white plastic boxes don't count. ;)

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[lordandmaker]

Open Firmware.

As I understand it, It's the bit that means Windows doesn't run without help.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[characterZer0]

They make low-end PCs with all sorts of crappy hardware. They do not make low-end Macs.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[Foofoobar]

None. It's just by controlling the hardware to a limited set of hardware, they can control the errors that they will have and build their SDK for a specific set of instructions. Windows on the other hand has to support a million different varieties of hardware setups with software and as a result can have stability issues across different setups. Windows could have the same stability of Mac if they built their own boxes too and geared the OS toward that specific hardware configuration.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[kimvette]

It's the bit that means Windows doesn't run without help.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't help. We're asking for a difference between a Mac and a PC and you just told us how they're alike! ;)

I kid, I kid. :)

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[squallbsr]

Its EFI since they went the route of Intel (btw Vista 64-bit supposedly has EFI support)...

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[Idiomatick]

Spoken like Steve Jobs. Options that we decide you don't need are BAD. /sigh I thought choices were good things.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[alen]

that's not true anymore. most of the hardware vendors of the 1980's and 1990's merged or went belly up and there are a few left for each component.

3 graphics card makers and 2 of them have a unified driver that supports every card going back a few years

seems like 1 or 2 audio makers. every Mac and PC seems to have realtek or soundmax. Creative is a shadow of what it used to be and no one remembers Soundblaster compatibility

only intel, amd and nvidia still make chipsets

i read the Mac forums because i have an iphone and lately Mac's have been a quality nightmare. Apple has disabled fast SATA speeds, 7200rpm SATA hard drives causing clicks, freezes and system panics. bad LCD's, bad graphics chips from nvidia, bad batteries. SL has been out a month and Service Pack 2 has already been seeded to developers with fixes that shouldn't have been in the RTM version. iphone OS 3.1 fixed issues that shouldn't have made it out of QA. Apple should have released itunes 9 and iphone OS 3.1 in the initial release. it takes months for apple to release fixes to Java security issues. my iphone has sync issues that RIM solved years ago. try syncing to exchange and tell itunes to sync MS Outlook and it will create duplicate contacts in your iphone.

the Cult of Steve tells everyone that anything Apple just works, but head on over to MacRumors or the Apple support forums and you will see it's not the case. far from it.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[Foofoobar]

I read Macrumors daily. And you might have noticed that the SATA were temporarily disabled and have been reenabled before snow leopard even went live; you are grasping at straws with an old issue that never was live. Also Bad batteries have plagued every manufacturer; show me one laptop maker that has not had a bad battery.

You are whining just to whine. Don't like your iPhone, sell it. I know tons of people who will buy it from you. Otherwise deal with the fact that nothing is perfect and climb on down from your ivory tower.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[jonbryce]

It has an EFI instead of a BIOS. That's about it really.
There are a lot of things you might find on a PC that you won't find on a Mac, but other than the EFI, everything in the Mac could be used to make a PC.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[characterZer0]

Apple has to support the systems they sell. They do not want to sell things that are difficult to support.

PC makers will sell all sorts of crap because they can blame problems on software, and Microsoft will ostensibly support all sorts of crap because they can blame problems on hardware.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[ajlisows]

I don't know if this holds true for all Mac laptops, but I recently replaced a DC-IN board on a couple year old Mac Laptop. I was amazed as how much aluminum was inside, as I had only really taken apart cheap PC Laptops in the last 6 or so years. It gives the Laptop a more robust frame and feels like it is just made better.

I wish my PC laptops were like that.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[jo_ham]

It depends what you are selling.

If Apple does have what you need, you can buy something else. That is your choice.

Apple chooses not to sell a cheap budget model. Choices are good right?

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[jo_ham]

Like what?

I think it really is hard to distinguish between the two at the hardware level these days, apart from the way the stuff is packaged (and there is a lot to be said about the design and construction of the cases - Apple takes a lot of care with them, in terms of aesthetics and in terms of engineering, while your options in terms of PC cases range from 'it's a box that holds the bits' to "carefully crafted and designed with just as much thought as Apple's cases".

What things will you find on a PC that you won't find on a Mac? All of the various esoteric hardware can be fitted to a Mac too.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[imgod2u]

There's far more to your computer than just the major addons and components. There are literally dozens if not a hundred devices in there that you really have no idea about. The software needs to support them all. Most of them follow some type of standard so you don't need to go out of your way to download a driver. The problem is, Windows still needs to support them all.

Remember PAE? Windows for consumers disabled that because allowing a larger address space screwed up a good number of drivers. These drivers assumed a flat 32-bit address space and didn't take into account extended bits, so they mapped themselves to the upper bits and stayed there.

On the OSX platform, Apple would simply not include devices that contain these types of drivers. Windows can't do that.

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[Idiomatick]

Oh I agree. And that is fine. But GP made it sound like Apple is superior by ignoring a sector of the populace. It is very elitist. And making eletist statements bugs me.

Like saying Honda can't make good track cars because they made the Fit which does 0-60 in 12seconds. Their selling a slow car has NOTHING to do with a race car. And clearly not true since they are competitive in formula one. (Yes I did have to work a bit to think of a car analogy).

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[GrumblyStuff]

Maybe Jobs is a fan of the choice overload theory (I, for some reason, remember it as paralysis of choice but whatever).

It's not like +/- a couple hundred mhz or MB of RAM makes a huge heck of a difference so why not make a couple product lines with reasonably sized differences...?

Fucking toothpaste. Do I need tartar control? Is mine out of control? Is that in "whole care"? Is peroxide in there? WHY CAN'T I GET FUCKING ALL THIS SHIT IN ONE TUBE?

Re:"Mac/PC divide"?

[gmhowell]

On what planet is Honda competitive in F1? Just tell me where they show up in the . Your bad analogy is bad. Try again.

(Although your point that some Apple fans are elitists is well founded. Worst thing about getting my MBP was going into the Apple store and sharing air with those miserably stuckup cocksuckers who own Macs.)

So?

[Junior J. Junior III]

These findings are pretty un-surprizing. Did anyone really think that computer owners could only own one computer at a time, or would typically own only one platform?

Mac owners tend to have a lot of money. They probably have an older PC or two laying, because they still work. Or, perhaps the Mac is older, and they bought a cheap new PC to run games and Windows applications. Newer Mac owners likely run OS X and Windows on the same hardware, if they run Windows at all. But if they have an older PC sitting around, they probably still have it and use it occasionally, or let other family members use it, etc.

The whole "fanboi only uses $platform" thing is probably overblown, with highly visible zealots who only use one platform being much more vocal and visible than those who work on both platforms.

Re:So?

[fyoder]

Mac owners tend to have a lot of money.

Yep. It could probably be used as a metric of how well a country is doing -- what percentage of their population own macs?

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[Anonymous Coward]

the more likely to get fed up with the constant tweaking in Linux and move to a Mac.

There fixed that for you.

999999 out of 1000000 Linux users also

[AbbeyRoad]

When did anybody ever get the idea that this was any other way?

Here at work we have to use a Sun VirtualBox to run IE7 just to access
one web app that doesn't work on Fedora -
IBM Irrational @#$%*&g ClearQuest Web -
the worst GUI interface since the punch card reader.

-paul

Re:999999 out of 1000000 Linux users also

[arcade]

I have a hard time believing I'm that unique. :)

Many, many machines running linux and bsd. Not a single windows computer, nor any mac.

Miss the games, but that's the only thing I've ever used windows computers for.

I wonder

[rinoid]

Did the survey consider that those households with a Mac might "own a PC" but really it's just BootCamp?
Wonder what the uptake for BootCamp is among the unwashed.

More to do with affluence

[Batzerto]

It likely has more to do with affluence than anything else. If you can afford a Mac you can likely afford numerous computers. Less affluent computer owners will only buy one computer and a cheaper one at that.

So what they are really saying is..

[pizzach]

that 85% of Mac owners "swing both ways." *runs and hides*

Re:So what they are really saying is..

[oDDmON oUT]

/nod

/grin

/ducks

Re:So what they are really saying is..

[NoYob]

that 85% of Mac owners "swing both ways." *runs and hides*

And for those of us that use Windows, Mac, and Linux? We're kinky?

*straightens stockings on hairy legs*

Your logic fails.

[DaveV1.0]

So mac owners own more computers and computers of various platforms? Logically this leads one to believe that Mac owners are more computer literate and proficient than the average Windows user.

Actually, no, it doesn't. There is not enough information to come to that conclusion.
One could also conclude that Mac owners need Windows based PCs because the Macs don't do everything the owner needs.
Or, one could conclude that Mac owners own more computers because are more affluent and they can.
Or, one could conclude that Mac owners own Macs because they are more affluent and can.

Also, there is no indication of the number of PCs versus the number of Macs in multi-computer house-holds nor the age of the respective computers. If someone owns two new PCs and one only Mac, what does that say about the owner? What if one has one Mac for one of one's children, but everyone else uses Windows PCs?

There is not enough information provided to come to any conclusion other than what is stated in the write-up.

Re:Your logic fails.

[Nerdfest]

If someone owns two new PCs and one only Mac, what does that say about the owner?

Still in the closet?

Yeah, go ahead ... it was worth it.

Freeware has a lot to do with it

[CdBee]

there's an app to do most things on Mac, but its often commercial. There is a better scope of freeware on Windows (although OSS apps often exist on both platforms, Closed-source free apps are more numerous on Windows, and often a free app exists on Windows where only a pay-for app will serve on Mac)

Re:Freeware has a lot to do with it

[yyr]

This works both ways; there is a lot of freeware/shareware on Mac that has no PC equivalent.

I wish there was something on Windows comparable to GraphicConverter in ease of use and feature set. But there isn't.

Re:Freeware has a lot to do with it

[treeves]

What does Graphic Converter do that IrfanView does not do?
I remember Graphic Converter (and liked it) from the days when i had a Mac, but that's been a while.

Re:Freeware has a lot to do with it

[0100010001010011]

A good portion of Windows "freeware" I've found seems to be complete crap. In addition the noise to signal ratio is rather large. There are very few closed or open source Windows applications I think are great (Putty, Lanchy & FF come to mind).

In comparison there are quite a few closed source Mac Apps I use that look like they could have been made by Apple themselves. Maybe it's Apple building the 'UI Guidelines' into XCode's interface builder that makes it easy, or the fact that most Mac developers are Mac users and know how the stuff should work.

Not to mention with MacPorts/Fink or plain ole GCC I have almost every project ever uploaded to sourceforge at my disposal. Even if it has an ugly X11 interface there has been some progression in getting Quartz for X11 apps.

Re:Freeware has a lot to do with it

[joeyblades]

I use both Macs and PCs, though (for the record) I only **OWN** Macs. I use open source and freeware on both machines. Now I admit that this is a possibly skewed assessment, but in my **PERSONAL** experience, for the kinds of applications **I** use, the Macs have more OSS/freeware options and better quality apps, as well.

I have a lot of freeware on my PC, but it takes me a lot of time to find stuff that's reasonably stable and useable. I have more freeware on my Mac than I do the PC, but I have a lot less time invested in the quest. I can't think of a single PC application that I use that I find myself wishing I had a Mac equivalent. I can think of dozens of Mac apps that I wish I had on my PC.

I've purchased 4 commercial apps for the PC and only one (QuickTime Pro) for the Mac...

So, **MY** experience does not agree with your assessment. Your milage may vary...

Re:Freeware has a lot to do with it

[teh kurisu]

You can't prove that an app doesn't exist. And every time somebody brings up an example of an app on one operating system that doesn't have an equivalent on another operating system, the first reply is invariably along the lines of, "Have you tried X app?"

Aside from stuff like games and OS-specific utilities, I've never had a problem finding a suitable alternative app on either Windows or OS X (although I would contend that the quality of the OS X apps is higher).

Re:Freeware has a lot to do with it

[indiechild]

Can you give some examples? It really depends what field you work in -- are you in a specialised field?

For the average home user, most free/open source software seems to be available cross-platform.

Re:Freeware has a lot to do with it

[remmelt]

On the other hand, have you ever seen a Mac with a virus scanner? Sure, you can get them for free too and they're not half bad, but most users will go for brand names anyway, like Symantec or McAfee. And what about spyware scanners? The good ones are free, but is the time spent scanning for *ware free as well? You could have been doing actual work.

Re:Freeware has a lot to do with it

[Hognoxious]

Windows definitely wins when it comes to disk defragmenters and cleanup utilities.

Isn't that because it needs them?

Re:Freeware has a lot to do with it

[OwnedByTwoCats]

I own a mac, and have three obsolete macs in my "museum". I own a Pentium IV computer, but it runs Linux. Work provides me with a PC. But that's only for work.

Re:Freeware has a lot to do with it

[Bigjeff5]

Contrary to what you may think, and actually contrary to what Apple intended, Macs do need cleanup tools. OSX needs less cleanup than XP does, and will generally will work flawlessly for a couple years before you run into any issues.

However, when you do run into issues, finding programs (actually usually just scripts) to help clean things up is a nightmare. The Mac tools to do the job are built in, but there are a dozen of them, and using them properly is not something an ordinary user could do. Scripts exist that do the job well, but then you have to know what to look for.

I know this from experience, because I (a windows pro) had to help my friend (a mac user) troubleshoot strange errors she started seeing. Fortunately, having grown up with Windows and having used Linux off and on over the years, I have become very good at troubleshooting.

All in all the rarity of those types of problems on the Mac is very nice, but Windows makes the job easy enough that it is not a big deal when you need to perform your regular cleanup.

It's obvious

[sledd_1]

PCs provide vital business software that is important to people who buy computers.

Macs do not. They provide fun media and graphics software that are not essential.

This will continue to be the case until Apple turns itself into a business machine company (and it's not clear to me that they ever will).

Re:It's obvious

[rinoid]

I don't want to sound pejorative but ... this is the most outdated line of reasoning in the history of computing.

Not even worth picking apart.

Re:It's obvious

[intheshelter]

About the only thing obvious was the stupidity of the poster on that one. It was like a line taken out of a Steve Ballmer playbook. 1. Throw chair 2. Ridiculous laugh 3. State that Macs are just used by designers 4. Profit?

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[jaavaaguru]

You don't have to tweak. Just because the option is there doesn't mean you have to do it. I think people grow out of the desire to do it pretty quickly, but Linux still allows them to do whatever they needed it to do in the first place.

Oh, and you can tweak OS X too. You just have to download some 3rd party apps first for some of it.

All in One

[sixtuslab]

Thank god for VMWare + Inter Core Duo 64 which lets me run OSX 10.5.2 Leopard, Open SuSe, Open solaris and XP to name a few favorites. VMW itself runs on X64 Windows Server 2008 (got a legal copy =) the mac ui/performance is a bit jellycovered, though there always is the next tweaking objective.

Does VMWare count?

[wandazulu]

I have only Mac hardware at home, but I do have VMWare Fusion for the extremely rare occasion I need a Windows machine.

I bootcamp'ed my Intel-based Macs on the thought that I would perhaps need to use the machine as a pure Windows box once in awhile, but that hasn't happened; I've been surprised to find that between what I can do on a website, or what Java can provide, or what developers have been good to provide both a Mac as well as Windows version, there's nothing so exclusive to Windows that I've needed to run Boot Camp. If anything, there's just a couple of programs I use for development written in Delphi of all things that are exclusive to Windows.

Re:Does VMWare count?

[TheRaven64]

Out of interest, have you tried Darwine? I've been surprised by how many Windows programs run well on OS X using it. They don't look or feel like native apps, but they won't with Fusion either and you don't have the overhead of running a full Windows install in a VM.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the more money you have, the more likely you are to have a Mac.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[Idiomatick]

The more money you have to spend on a mac the more money you have to buy multiple computers? ~____~ Connection seemed obvious to me.

Or simply after getting a PC people are more likely to attempt a mac? Or mac users decide to try a windows box. I guess boot camp will be cutting into the mac->windows purchases as of late mind you. Since you can try the windows experience without a new computer.

Btw, Computer savvy people may use macs... But techies use windows or linux often both. Why would we spend extra money to have a closed source semi broken non configurable standard hating version of linux? Mostly windows/nix are more tweakable and have more tools/toys for us to use which makes them our targets. And mods, feel free to just read the first part of my post if you are a fanboi.

I dissapoint..

[Seth Kriticos]

I sure must be a disappointment for this statistic, as I have neither a Mac nor a Windows machine.

But than again, I'm a free software loving douchbag, so I guess I don't count.

only value in a Mac is if you want desktop UNIX

[alen]

the hardware is exactly the same except that Apple uses laptop components in everything except Mac Pro's. if you want the only usable desktop ^nix and OSS operating system out there, you get a Mac

Not really surprising.

[djh101010]

I can't say that this is surprising at all. Most Windows people who bash Mac, do so out of ignorance. Most Mac people who bash Windows, do so out of direct personal experience with both. If I was surveyed, sure, I have a PC in the house. 3 or 4, probably. Haven't been on in years, but, by Crom, if I ever need a PII-450 running Windows 98, well, it probably still works. Also, as pointed out, any Intel Mac can run Windows, or Windows apps with Fusion or virtualbox or whatever, so the lines get fuzzy. I haven't used a Windows instance of my own (work laptop doesn't count, I think?) since the Windows 98 I bought back in the day. I love having a Unix box at home, that I don't have to fix. Got enough of 'em at work that I _do_ have to fix.

Macs run PCs

[davidwr]

I assume by "PCs" you mean Windows-compatible computers.

Can't all Intel Macs run Windows? It's been awhile since Apple made a Mac that wouldn't run Windows natively.

Re:Macs run PCs

[Old97]

Exactly which is what confuses me about this survey. I bought my first Mac 3 years ago when I had a Windows PC. Eventually the Windows PC died and I bought a second Mac. One one Mac I run Windows in a VM. So, does that count me as as being a Mac user with a Windows PC or just a Mac user?

It doesn't go both ways

[danerthomas]

It isn't too much of a stretch to assume that most who choose to invest in and use computers from Apple also have some experience using Windows. The same cannot be said for those who only own or use Windows computers, but that rarely hinders Windows users from having and expressing opinions regarding Apple products.

Math

[njfuzzy]

This sounds like it could be explained by some fairly simple logic and math. If (numbers pulled out of my ass for sake of argument) 10% of people own a Mac, and 95% of people own a PC, and each household has more than one person in it... You'd get something like this kind of distribution.

Re:Math

[ChienAndalu]

Thanks. Why do I have to scroll down 50 posts of stupid drivel to find somebody who states the obvious?

What's the assumption?

[macbuzz01]

Is it assumed that the Windows PC Is running Windows? I have a couple of HP d51s P4 machines running different flavors of linux and a Dell Optiplex something running MythTV. All of those have OEM Windows stickers and might or might not qualify as a "Windows PC", while none of them are actually running Windows.

Why does it have to be PC vs. Mac anyway?

[frankxcid]

Each type is just an additional choice that consumers have which is good. I explain it to those who seek my advice like this: Mac - Sacrifice software choice while having less chance of things going wrong PC - More choice of software and hardware, things may go wrong. Linux - Good Luck!

Re:Why does it have to be PC vs. Mac anyway?

[timbloom]

It's really just for the chance for people to bicker about their choice in operating system. I am a pretty big mac fan I'd say. I have a small business that's a member of the Apple Consultants Network. I have 2 Vista machines (one for gaming, one for the girlfriend) and 2 Macs (One server for my business, and one laptop shared between personal use and my business) in use currently. I'm not going to count the numerous old machines I have in the house.

The Mac vs PC debate has been around long enough some people are so entrenched in it, they'll never try the alternative platform. These people are only limiting themselves. If you don't like the platform, fine, but that's no reason to bash the user. If the user dislikes their platform, be a responsible geek and help them either get to know it or help them find what works best for them. As part of my work I evaluate businesses that wish to use macs and, sometimes, as much as a mac fan I am, I have to tell them it may not be the best option for them. It's rare but sometimes it will just require too many changes at one time to make it viable.
My only complaint with any of the common operating systems is that Linux clones Windows too much and should try to move away from that, but that's just opinion.

Re:not here!

[Idiomatick]

I'm sure you are perfectly representative of the average American. I bet you are also thin and well read. And know how to program. Just like everybody else.

Come on gamers!!

[NoYob]

Or how about that some Apple users have a Windows box for their games?

Mac for home/office/media stuff. Windows for games. Or a Windows box for telecommuting because their employer only supports Windows?

Re:Come on gamers!!

[dbet]

If it's a newer machine, you can just dual boot Windows and run your games that way. Plus, Crossover has done for OSX what WINE has done for Linux, and a lot of people are able to get PC games to play in OSX with only minor issues.

Re:Come on gamers!!

[Titanarm]

Except there are still a lot of games that don't work in Crossover and WINE and there are still a lot of games that suffer horrendous degradation when using Crossover and WINE. If you hate Microsoft products and you can't afford another setup then fine, but if you can afford it, why bother with the headache and chagrin when Crossover and WINE don't cut it. On another note, let's face it, most people who own macs are people who are involved with or just know a lot about technology. What comes with that is a good base of knowledge about the competitors and the good and the bad of each, which inevitably leads to some people who hate Microsoft for mostly valid reasons. These are most of the people who buy macs. Despite their hatred however, most are forced to use PC's either for certain games or other programs that they have to use when working from home or other hobbies that just aren't supported on the mac. That's why most mac owners go out a buy a PC as well.

No Windoze for me...

[neurosys]

I own a Mac... and although I also own other PCs... None run Windoze.

Re:No Windoze for me...

[svendsen]

What's Windoze? Never heard of that OS....

Oh wait you are doing a play on words with Windows...wow that is amazing....never knew you could do that. You know what else would be crazy? Instead of having the 's' in Windows you could replace it with a $.

You are good...you should write a book

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[Attila Dimedici]

the more likely you are to have a Mac?

85% of households with a Mac is still less than 29% of households with Windows PC. The first number being the number with two or more computers (85% of households with a Mac also have a Windows PC), the second number being the number with three or more computers in a Windows PC only household (or Windows and other non Mac OS's, the article is not clear if it checked for non-windows, non-mac OS). The conclusion that the article reaches is the only one that the information supports: people who buy Macs have more money to spend on electronics.

I was sorta surprised at the PC ownership #s

[oDDmON oUT]

However, when I consider how many people come to me asking for panic fixes on machines that "I use for my livelihood", and how few of *them* even have a portable HD, let alone a back up box, I guess I shouldn't be.

Does this survey intend to point out who drank the Kool-Aid® that PCs are just another appliance?

Switched with VMware

[Comatose51]

Once VMware Fusion came out, I switched. I converted my old Windows laptop to a VM that runs on my Mac. Surprisingly enough, I rarely ever boot it up anymore. Now that I've stopped gaming and use my computer only for web and coding, practically anything will work. I love the reliability of my Mac and OSX but I think any decent OS would work, including Windows (especially Windows 2003, which I use on my workstation at work). I'm glad I switched though. My experience with the Powerbook Pro has been very, very positive because it knows how to get out of my way. I haven't used Windows 7 but Windows 2003 is a close second in that category, after some initial tweaks and changes.

you have no logic

[Foofoobar]

Your logic makes no sense. Even if they do need a Windows machine, learning about a second machine will still make you more computer literate than someone who just knows one platform. Learning about Mac and Windows makes one proficient on two platforms. By your logic, they might need a Linux box too because Windows doesn't do everything either. This forces them to learn about Linux as well. Now they know three platforms.

The point was that owning two platform increases computer literacy because they have to learn about multiple systems and not only do people who are computer literate buy multiple systems but people who own multiple system become more computer literate by default as a result of having to learn multiple platforms.

Re:you have no logic

[DaveV1.0]

You are making unproven and false assumptions. One is that by owning two computers with different operating systems, one will be more computer literate. In reality, that is not the case. Most people are not proficient with the operating systems they use. Most people are proficient in pointing and clicking to start their web browser, word processor, spreadsheet program, etc. and they may be proficient in the applications themselves. But, by and large, people merely know who to use the operating system to start other programs.

As the little one can do with a Linux machine that one can not do with a Windows machine is often not needed by the vast majority of users, that is a false conclusion based on a false assumption.

Your failure is in assuming people "learn" an operating system.

People use operating systems like they use cars. Most people can start them, and stop them, and point them, but very few understand how they work or can use them in any other than the basic operation. Most people can drive, but very few are proficient drivers.

Re:you have no logic

[Foofoobar]

So you are saying that if I use a Sun station, a Linux box, a Windows box and a Mac box on a regular basis, none of this makes me more computer literate than just using one windows box? Are you seriously that retarded?

Re:you have no logic

[Xtifr]

Even if they do need a Windows machine, learning about a second machine will still make you more computer literate than someone who just knows one platform.

A) That's a pretty funky definition of "computer literate" you've got there. I don't think being able to move the mouse around and click on icons really makes anyone computer literate--I think it's possible to own and use both Mac and Win without ever approaching computer literacy. But, more importantly, B) your conclusion assumes that the same people are using both machines, rather than one person in the household (this was a survey of households, after all) using the Mac while another uses the Winbox.

In my experience, Mac seems to be most popular among two extremes: those who are more-than-usually computer literate and those who are less-. The presence of that first group probably means that you're going to be correct in your conclusions in many individual cases, but the presence of that quite-large second group means that you're going to be wrong a whole lot of the time as well. Especially, I suspect, if the Winbox is kept around just for games.

Of course, I do partly understand your confusion--the all-too-typically-poorly-written slashdot summary leads to your conclusion a little better than the actual facts of the matter do.

Re:you have no logic

[_avs_007]

I have lots of friends that have both Mac and PC... Just because you own both does not mean you are proficient at both. Most people I know, call tech support when they have issues. Most people I know with Macs, take their computer back to the apple store when they have issues... A couple of my friends will call me, asking me to fix their computer, even when they know I don't own any Macs. That being said, One time a friend was having issues with his network on his Macbook, and I was able to figure out how to alter the routing tables on their Mac, so they can surf the net, and connect to their source control server at the same time... That person owns both windows and macs, yet he could not figure that out, and I could, and I don't even own any macs. Was he more computer literate than me? Nope...

Computers are just tools. Tools do not give you computer skills. One with computer skills uses any available tools at their disposal to accomplish a given task. This is the same reason I found it no more difficult to replace the intake manifold gaskets on a Nissan VQ DOHC V6 and a GM Supercharged overhead valve V6.

Re:you have no logic

[jonbryce]

Is there anything that Linux can do that MacOSX can't do, apart from run on a much wider range of hardware?

Re:you have no logic

[Foofoobar]

So lets assume then that I use them both then. Lets then add a Linux box too. And a Sun workstation. You are saying that day to day use including configuring of these machines which an end user does a minimum amount of, adds ZERO to computer literacy? So if I were to have a user who understood all those platforms and how to do basic configuration on all of them and use them all, you are saying they are no more computer literate than an average Windows user???

Are you SERIOUSLY that retarded?

Re:you have no logic

[DaveV1.0]

If you use a computer the way most people do, then yes, you would not be appreciably more computer literate than if you just used a Windows box.

You are trying to frame the argument so that the statements are applied to system administrators and computer enthusiasts rather than average users. I will not let you be disingenuous. Most users do not delve into the internals of an operating system, nor do they recognize what an operating system actually is. Most users are not even power users, let alone technically proficient.

To the average user, the difference between OS X and Windows is the difference between driving a four speed GM pickup and a five speed Nissan coupe. While there are stylistic differences, the technical aspect of the two experiences is effectively the same. Reverse may be in a different place, and the performance may be different, but the actual act of driving is remarkably similar.

For most users, it is the same with operating systems. There might not be a context menu or a second mouse button, but pointing and clicking are the same.

Your ad hominem shows you know you are losing the argument. What is it like to show the world how poorly you can support your positions?

Re:you have no logic

[Foofoobar]

And you fail to understand the learning curve required in understanding a new platform. Clicking an icon may require one mouse click rather than two, pulling up option may require the middle mouse button or you may not even have a middle mouse button. You are using a one platform mentallity which explains your lack of understanding of how learning more that one platforms adds to your knowledge of computer systems and hence computer literacy.

Now slap yourself and go DUH!

Re:you have no logic

[jonbryce]

Seems to be plenty of ports of wget around.

Re:you have no logic

[DaveV1.0]

See, there you go failing again. Your ad hominem and your attempts to re-frame the argument in terms you can win are pathetic. I will not fall for your false dilemma and I will not stand for you trying to put words in my mouth. I did not say that, but apparently you are too stupid to understand that. Perhaps you should learn the phrase "diminishing returns", as in "The basic use of multiple similar tools has diminishing returns on expanding one's knowledge; only through advance usage does one actually expand one's knowledge".

You argue like a child, so I must assume you are one.

Now, run home to momma, little boy.

Re:you have no logic

[jedidiah]

Ask a random Windows or MacOS user to reset their subnet mask. Hell, ask them what a subnet mask is.

Or you could just use a simple example from High School computing. Ask them what RAM and ROM are.

Re:you have no logic

[jedidiah]

Click on a MKV file and have it sort out the necessary extra software and then start playing the file.

Re:you have no logic

[DaveV1.0]

No, that is not what you have said, dumbass. Now, I am tired of your trolling. Go die in a fire.

Re:you have no logic

[Your.Master]

Using more computer systems doesn't make you more computer literate, in the same way that speaking different human languages doesn't make you a better science-fiction author, even if it were shown that great biographical authors benefit greatly from knowing more human languages.

Re:you have no logic

[Foofoobar]

Oh so then a luddite is as computer literate as a basic windows user then? Thats your logic? How retarded are you?

How does that make sense

[zakeria]

Most MAC owners also own a PC but most PC owners don't own a MAC So most MAC owners that have a PC don't have a MAC?

Re:A Mac is a PC.

[dbet]

Not 100% accurate. There's some small differences in the motherboard, and I don't think you can buy a Mac Pro case from anyone but Apple. You can argue that the case is arbitrary, but certainly not the motherboard. Among other things, it defines what add-on cards (especially video cards) you can use.

All the other parts are standard though with the possible exception of CPU fans.

Mac owners own PCs, but NOT VICE-VERSA? Really?

[flea]

So the corollary, that Some PC owners also own a Mac is not true? The not-vice-versa part of the title doesn't make any sense. If I own a PC and a Mac, then I am BOTH a PC owner who has a Mac, and a Mac owner to owns a PC, or, to put it like the title states: "One Mac owner also owns a PC, AND vice-versa."

Need help with Mac problem...

[kemapa]

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a Mac Pro with two 2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" processors and 6GB of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this file transfer, Warcraft will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Safari is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 2x 2.26Ghz 8-core machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.

Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

Re:Need help with Mac problem...

[Me! Me! 42]

I don't want to start a holy war here, but . . .
transferring a file . . .
etc.
Can someone clue me in on this?
I know it's a joke, and yes it is funny in the way "variation on a theme" jokes are, I was just wondering if there is some Wikipedia article or something that explains the history of this joke.

Re:Need help with Mac problem...

[StuartHankins]

Sounds like something is configured incorrectly. I copy a 30GB VM file to a LaCIE Big Disk nightly in around 13-14 minutes. That's on a 2-year-old MacBook Pro running Tiger (10.4). It also doesn't stop anything else from running or slow me down while it does the copy. Since mine is only a Core2Duo 2.4 with 4GB of RAM, your 17 MB file copy should be so fast you don't even see a progress dialog.

My laptop is significantly faster than the other laptops used in our MIS department -- all HP business-grade desktops, some of which are less than a year old. I run Windows XP in a Parallels VM every day at work (although I'd recommend VMWare over Parallels any day).

I played WOW on the MacBook just fine -- the only issue I had was because it's a widescreen I couldn't see as much vertically as I could on my home PC (which has since been given away). I really can't say I've had problems.

I suggest taking it into a local Apple store and finding out what they can do to help, this seems really abnormal. There's no reason your Mac experience should be like this.

Re:Need help with Mac problem...

[jo_ham]

My god, I haven't seen this old meme posted since my early days on slashdot, back when you had to build up a head of steam and stoke the boiler to keep the modem working.

Re:Need help with Mac problem...

[Smurf]

Dude, you have been trolled. That rant has been circulating in Slashdot and elsewhere since I arrived here around 11 years ago.

They have upgraded the specs of the machines, but otherwise the wording is identical.

Sorry!

Re:Need help with Mac problem...

[StuartHankins]

LOL I deserve it

Re:Need help with Mac problem...

[angelbunny]

Ironically, I've been playing Warcraft II on my 2007 Macbook Pro for the last couple of days using DOSBox since SheepShaver runs a bit slow.

And btw, trolls are people too; don't hate, give love! ^_^

You forgot the most revealing number

[StreetStealth]

A whole 31% stated they care about random statistics long as they are related to the personal habits of CowboyNeal!

Windows box as slave to ubuntu box

[Smivs]

...there's certainly people who like to have a second pc for other purposes too. Most people who have Linux PC ... probably have a Windows PC too because you can't really do everything with Linux.

I kept my old windows box when I bought a new computer on which I run ubuntu, which does everything I want very well. The windows box now runs headless (VNC and samba) mostly as a back-up HDD, and as a driver for my old Lexmark printer, for which there are no Linux drivers.

Re:Windows box as slave to ubuntu box

[jggimi]

Your logic confuses me. How is -not- being able to print to your Lexmark printer, part of everything you want?

Re:Windows box as slave to ubuntu box

[phoenix321]

You either don't have to pay for electricity or you're not as honest as you claim you are.

How anybody would use a PC as a backup HDD is beyong my imagination, when USB or NAS enclosures are as dirt cheap as they are, use less than a quarter of electricity, produce less than a tenth of noise and occupy only a fraction of the house, living room or desk. USB drives could use a native Linux filesystem and NAS boxen could operate wirelessly all around the house...

The electricity for driving the full-sized PC probably costs as much as half the price of a new NAS unit with a built-in printserver AND a new printer. Not including the time and effort spent to keep that damn thing running and properly configured.

And who in their right mind would use Windows as the basis for a backup?

Re:Windows box as slave to ubuntu box

[jedidiah]

Let's see...

      He already owns the PC

      The electrical savings are not something he would even perceive.

      The other devices are things he would have to go out and buy.

OTOH, "server appliances" can be spotty at best. Many of them don't
deliver the features they promise and are missing certain key
features that a Linux user might be interested in.

Any PC has the benefit of being a PC and something that is completely
in your control. The likelihood of a PC failing to be a usable SMB
print server is very small. You won't have any bogus device limits and
you can just put a monitor on the thing or use some sort of remote
desktop/terminal interface.

Been there. Done that. Might even have a couple of corpses around the
house that these people would count as another "owned device".

Re:Windows box as slave to ubuntu box

[Smivs]

Jedidiah (above) got it about right. It's already there so why not use it. It's a crappy old Compaq with a Celeron and barely any RAM and is slowwwww! , so it's not much good for anything else. It's also useful as I do a bit of HTML/CSS and it means I can easily check my work on "Windows" browsers, specifically IE6 and Chrome, as well as Safari (I have Opera and Firefox on the ubuntu box). Also it isn't actually On much anyway, I just turn it on when I need it (well, 5 minutes before I need it...it does run Windows!)

Re:Windows box as slave to ubuntu box

[mirix]

I think it would take a decade to offset the cost of a new NAS; Unless of course, it happens to be a flame thrower...
An old PIII or similar is pretty light on power, I can't see it being more than 50W, esp. considering it is idling most of the time. (I think TDP for the later PIII was ~20W).

So say 1.2kWh per day (assuming the 50W figure), for an old PIII. 438kWH/yr, at 10 cents a piece (not sure the cost of power where he is) makes... $45 a year. So maybe not a decade, but it's not that terribly expensive either.


"And who in their right mind would use Windows as the basis for a backup?"

I can't argue with that!

Re:Windows box as slave to ubuntu box

[rdnetto]

Because he doesn't want to use the printer, he has to. Think about the last time you used a printer. Invariably it meant leaving the basement for some reason.

That counts me too

[Orion Blastar]

I got a Mac Plus, Mac SE, Mac SE/30, Mac IIcx, and G3 Bondi Blue iMac, older Macs, but I own a few PC systems as well.

I cannot afford the modern Macs and only own older Macs which I hardly even use any more.

I also have an Amiga 500 if that counts.

The report didn't specify how old the Macs are or even if they are still being used. Every Mac I have still works.

Transition

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that in households with both Macs and PCs, the PCs are older than the Macs.

When people buy their first Mac, they often already have a PC. The Mac is the new/replacement computer, while the old PC is kept around for "backwards compatibility" for a few programs that really need it. This extends the useful life of the old PC, but it also means Windows is getting phased out. Not everywhere, but you don't see many Mac users going back to PC.

True story: A group my business associates were visiting Apple headquarters in Cupertino. As visitors, they wanted to leave their HP notebook computers with the receptionist.

One guy says to the receptionist, "If I leave my computer here, will you keep an eye on it?"
She responds, "Sure, no problem. Nobody is going to want them!"

And what about VM users?

[ducomputergeek]

I have both OS 10.6 and Windows 7 on my MacBook Pro, which I can boot into Windows 7 through bootcamp or Parallels. So does it count that I have both on one machine?

Re:not here!

[mah!]

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment.
Without counting the hypothesis presented in your last sentence, you guessed right on 3 out of 4 counts.

Adobe and others

[hwyhobo]

Like it or not, most people do work for a living, even though in higher income brackets, and some of the software they need to use may not be available on a Mac, or their client may be using Windows, and it is always smart to develop on the same platform. Technical writers, course developers, etc. face the same issue. The de facto standard software package in the industry, Adobe Technical Suite, is now Windows-only. What are you going to do? You can run VMware on your desktop, but more likely than not, you also own a Windows-based laptop for travel and presentations. I am sure there are examples from other fields.

This is also a reason that is stopping me and probably other people from going over to the Mac side - knowing that I would still have to own Windows-based hardware. I tend not to own more than I functionally need.

Maybe it's because

[T Murphy]

People buy Apple, realize they made the wrong choice, then go buy a PC.

(It's a joke. I've never used a Mac so I can't comment on them.)

Re:Maybe it's because

[Microlith]

No worries, you've got about as much experience with a Mac as most rabid Apple haters do.

It's true for me

[dave562]

I have three PCs and a Mac Book Pro. I bought the MBP for my girlfriend to use at school and because after all of the fanboi wars here on /. I wanted to see what the big deal about OSX was. At the end of the day, OSX is just another operating system with its quirks and strengths. About the only gee whiz thing that the MBP has going for it is the multi-touch pad. I really like that feature. The whole 1, 2, 3 and 4 finger motions are really genius. Other than that, I now find myself trying to do Alt-Q in Windows when I want to close a program instead of Alt-F4.

Re:It's true for me

[sqrt(2)]

Just the structure of the new MBPs makes me envious, although not enough to actually buy one. Machining the entire case from a solid billet of aluminium and using a piece of glass for the display makes the MBP incredibly solid, and it just looks better. This needs to become the industry standard. Multitouch is nice too, I just haven't used it enough. I'm sure if I spent a lot of time with it I'd learn to love it. Thankfully for my wallet I don't have the time or inclination to do that.

And all that isn't to say that I'm not extremely satisfied with my new Dell Latitude. It does everything I need, has higher specs than the MBP, and was cheaper.

Re:It's true for me

[dave562]

I will never again spend as much as I spent for the MBP on a laptop ever again. I actually bought the previous generation MBP and also purchased accidental damage protection from Best Buy. Sure enough, after about a year of owning the thing my girlfriend dropped it off of her desk and tweaked the DVI port. We took it back to Best Buy and since the version we had was EOL'd, we got the new version. I have it covered with a policy from State Farm now. I'm of the opinion that if you have to have a real insurance policy against a piece of hardware, the hardware is too expensive. It's nice, but honestly if it weren't for the multi-touch functionality, it would just be another laptop with a different OS on it. I dislike the keyboard layout, and I really dislike the lack of a Function lock. It is nice to be able to run tools like nmap and other *nix programs in their native environment though.

Why?

[Me! Me! 42]

I cannot imagine why any Mac user would intentionally buy a WinPC. If they already had one, inherited it, or it was given to them, fine. OK one other possibility, you want a cheap netbook.
But come on, VMware is a far better and more convenient solution.

don't all Mac owners also own a PC?

[uslinux.net]

Don't all Intel-based Mac owners also own a PC capable of running Windows by using bootcamp?

Vice-Versa, in communist russia...

[Taibhsear]

PC owns YOU!

Captain Obvuious!!

[maharb]

Something with only a 12% market share can in no statistical way achieve: "Most Windows PC Owners Also Own a Mac" when Windows has the market share that it does. So why even bring it up? Arrange the people however you want to and its impossible. In recent news, most jet owners also own a car, and most car owners do not own a jet. Really freakin' insightful, looking forward to more. But really, is this honestly being put on the front page? No one knew this? No "you must be new here"... this is not common knowledge, its common sense.

bad research

[Tom]

If it already starts with confusion between user and household, it can't possibly be a worthwhile study. With Mac's being the minority, it is very probable that in a household of several people, not everyone will own a Mac. A lot more probable than vice versa. And the news is?

Also, since Boot Camp, most Macs also are a windos PC, blurring the line even more.

A more interesting stat would be...

[fooslacker]

A more interesting stat would be how many have a current generation PC. I own both but only because I have previous generation PCs. I do most of my Windows work in a virtual machine on the Mac. What would be telling is if Mac users also had a current gen PC because they Mac didn't suit their needs across the board. Or at least that would be a more interesting stat to me since Apple is the one pushing the "switch" from the de facto standard.

True, but trivially so

[sean.peters]

It's still obviously a cost consideration. If you pay $300 for a Windows PC, or save up $1,000 for a Mac over the next 4 months, you're still spending over 3x as much for the Mac.

And if you're spending $10 for a pocket calculator, and $1,000 for a Mac, why, you've spent a hundred times as much for the Mac! Imagine that! Dude, the point here is that Macs and ultra-low-end PCs are different products. Some are right for some people, and others are right for others. If your budget and needs are such that the cheapest possible machine from Tiger Direct is the right choice, then, as you say, more power to you. People who need/want/can afford something better are not going to bother with the cheapo machine no matter how cheap it is.

If Apple wants a larger market share, they will have to make their pricing competitive. It's still not competitive enough, so they will continue to make a larger profit per unit with a smaller number of units.

As has been pointed out (over and over), Mac pricing is quite competitive when you compare (ahem) apples to apples. Which is why Mac market share in the mid-range and high end continues to grow. The concept of competitive pricing at the ultra-low-end is N/A... because Apple has decided not to go there. Which in turn is fine for Apple shareholders, who are making money hand over fist.

If you have the 1 million dollar customers, if one goes away, that hurts a lot. If you have the 1 dollar profit customers, a whole bunch can jump ship, and more will come in because your prices (and profit margin) is smaller.

Apple has (wisely, in my view) decided that they don't want to and/or can't beat the Dells of the world in making the cheapest computers. And that's ok, because making a higher quality/higher priced product is also a perfectly fine way to make a profit... it's working for Apple.

But hey, if you want to save up your pennies and buy a Mac, more power to you. It'll be a nice fixture in the back of your car, when you get fired in the next round of downsizing next week, and you find yourself homeless.

Yeah, and not only does Mac ownership lead to homelessness, but also asteroid strikes and cannibalism! I mean, come on. If I bought a computer this week and became homeless next week, I doubt the first thought on my mind would be "Alas! If only I had bought a cheap PC!". If people are that nervous about being downsized, they probably shouldn't be buying PCs either. Probably your remark was meant to be funny, but it comes across as overwrought.

Re:True, but trivially so

[nabsltd]

As has been pointed out (over and over), Mac pricing is quite competitive when you compare (ahem) apples to apples.

This is only somewhat true, since you have huge swaths of product that isn't available from Apple.

In particular, to get a decent, expandable desktop Mac, you need to pay literally a $1000 price premium over a functionally equivalent product. This is because they chose to base their system on a dual-socket Nehalem architecture, instead of offering a single-socket system. But, if you don't need the second processor, you still have to pay the $730 extra for a processor that can be used in a dual-socket system, and about $200 more for the dual-socket motherboard itself, and $20-40/GB more for RAM.

So, technically, the Mac Pro is a much more expandable system, but with a Core i7 or Core i5 processor at 3GHz, you really don't need more than one socket for 99.9% of applications, and all the other options (24GB+ RAM, lots of PCIe slots, etc.) are available on all the single-socket motherboards. Unfortunately, with Apple, your only choice is to either buy a Mac Mini or iMac (with years-old technology inside and no way to expand or upgrade) or buy a MacBook of some sort. If you want a desktop computer, any laptop is a poor economic choice, as you are paying for a box with no upgrade potential, plus a screen, keyboard, and pointing device that you probably will end up not using.

Re:True, but trivially so

[jedidiah]

> Dude, the point here is that Macs and ultra-low-end PCs are different products.

No they aren't. At least at the hardware level, they are the same crap. Their
component parts even came out of the same Chinese factories. The only real
difference is the "BIOS" and the ability to easily run MacOS. Beyond that, an
i945 Mac is pretty identical to any Dell laptop that uses the same chipset.

Re:True, but trivially so

[sbeckstead]

As has been pointed out (over and over), Mac pricing is quite competitive when you compare (ahem) apples to apples.
This is only somewhat true, since you have huge swaths of product that isn't available from Apple.

Ok what part of "apples to apples." did you fail to comprehend? It is completely true, as he did not include anything that Apple did not make!

Re:True, but trivially so

[mjwx]

As has been pointed out (over and over), Mac pricing is quite competitive when you compare (ahem) apples to apples.

You are joking right? A vanila macbook costs A$1580 for an older C2D (T series) 2.13 Ghz 2 GB of RAM and a 160 GB 5400 RPM hard drive.

The top end Dell Vostro 1320 is A$1199 and this has a newer model C2D (P series) 2.4 Ghz with 4 GB of RAM and a 250 GB 7200 RPM hard drive.

Please tell me how the Dell with a faster HDD, newer and faster processor and twice the RAM is inferior to the Mac which is made out of the same off the shelf components as the less expensive Dells?

Maybe you meant if we compare it to another laptop brand that is selling an image rather then hardware, like the Sony Vaio. Maybe then you have a point and while I've found Vaio's to be as drastically overpriced as a mac the hardware is not lacking (also smaller and lighter then the Macbook), also no-one who buys a Vaio pretends that they are cheap.

Re:True, but trivially so

[walterbyrd]

But the $300 PC is all that most people need.

There are probably a lot who think: "I wouldn't mind having a mac, why pay $1000, when the PC does what I need for $300?"

If you are saying that Apple does not charge a premium for it's hardware, then why no $300 laptop from Apple?

BTW: the $300 Acer laptop, is not a bad machine, from what I have seen.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[znu]

Why would we spend extra money to have a closed source semi broken non configurable standard hating version of linux?

Your obvious personal bias aside, the Mac is an alternative computing platform. People who go out of their way to choose to use an alternative platform are likely to be more interested in computing (and therefore probably more tech savvy) than people who accept the "default choice" of Windows.

Obligatory car analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people with money enough to own a cool car also own a working car. Most people who own a working car don't own a cool car.

Where working car = a car that isn't very cool but takes them were they need to go, and is also more reasonably priced.

- anon who owns both a windows pc and an imac ;)

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[not-my-real-name]

Reality isn't quite so one-dimensional. I have some Macs, some Linux boxes, and an OpenBSD box. Each one is used differently. When I work, I have to use Windows. I'm not a big games. The nice thing is that when friends or family call for help on their Window boxes, I can quite honestly tell them that I have no idea.

Anecdotally, my mother has called a lot less about computer problems once she got a Mac, but she would fall into the "less computer savvy" rating.

Bad Math

[spock_iii]

When the size of Set 1 dwarfs the size of Set 2, the intersection of Sets 1 & 2 must always demonstrate the properties discussed in the article. Sorry to be a troll, but this just isn't quality science like dolphins with freakin' lasers on their heads.

Say what ?

[mbone]

I know dozens of people who own Macs, and I can't think of any who own PCs. (Some might have one in their basement or closet.) Or, do they mean at the office ?

Some of them run bootcamp or something like that from time to time, but this is so discrepant from the 85% that I suspect something with this survey.

Mac's can't do everything, thats why

[jwhitener]

The few relatives I know with Macs need a PC to run proprietary software for their work. That software might work in a virtual machine on the mac, but their work place IT will not support it.

Others I know want to game and so buy a PC, but prefer the mac for web/email/etc..

So, either not supported, not running the software you want, not being able to play a particular game, there are numerous reasons a Mac owner would want a PC. The reverse would never be true if you have the above issues to deal with.

that's my big gripe with the Mac

[sean.peters]

I have a Powerbook G4, bought a year or so before the Intel Macs came out, so it's, what, 5 years old? There's nothing wrong with it at all, but it's had its last OS upgrade, because Steve won't release Snow Leopard and followon versions for PowerPC Macs. And even before that, Apple started crippling versions of the iLife products for PowerPC Macs. It really pisses me off that a computer that's otherwise fine is doomed to obsolescence years before it either became too slow to use or physically broke.

10 years, well, that's maybe pushing things as far as I'm concerned. I've got a Windows box of that vintage too (upgraded to XP at some point in its life). It's so behind the times that I just don't find it that useful anymore. I do like to wring as much use from my machines as I can, but at some point I do want to replace them.

Re:that's my big gripe with the Mac

[jo_ham]

Unfortunately, you bought at precisely the wrong time - right during a major architecture shift, and I was expecting them to drop PPC builds at the 10.5 stage.

Same thing happened when OS X came out - some OS9 machines just couldn't handle it.

I have a Powerbook G4 15", 1.5Ghz that will have to live out its life with 10.5 - it's just the nature of the game with a change from PPC to Intel chips. Since the equivalent 5 year old PC laptop is still going to have an X86, Windows doesn't have to face that issue - you just have to convince Windows 7 to install and run on that thing, which is the equivalent requirement to 10.6 on a G4 PB.

Re:that's my big gripe with the Mac

[crmarvin42]

It really pisses me off that a computer that's otherwise fine is doomed to obsolescence years before it either became too slow to use or physically broke.

Sooo, your trying to tell me that all macs not running snow leopard are going to stop working? Of so it's news to me.

Because I've got an 800 MHz TiBook running 10.4(wife's machine), and a MDD G4 tower running 10.5(iTunes media server) in addition to my MBP running 10.6(primary machine) and none of them have exploded because they're not all running the latest and greatest.

Would I prefer it if they all ran 10.6? Of course, but I'd prefer it if they ran different versions quickly, which oddly enoAugh they all do!

Re:that's my big gripe with the Mac

[commodore64_love]

>>>right during a major architecture shift

It doesn't matter. Even if Snow Leopard 10.6 supported PowerPCs, it still wouldn't work on a G4 since the clock speed is too slow. That's the problem I have with my Mac - it was declared "too slow" by Apple and therefore is two OS versions behind. It's not obsolescence due to old age, but a forced obsolescence by edict. ("Your perfectly usable Mac slower than 1000 megahertz? Too bad. You can't install.")

Re:that's my big gripe with the Mac

[commodore64_love]

>>>running 10.4, and a MDD G4 tower running 10.5

And what happens when Safari, Opera, and other browsers announce you have to have 10.6 or higher a few months from now? That's the problem with my Mac where I have a browser but it shows mostly garbage due to extreme age, and I can't upgrade because my OS is not supported.

Re:that's my big gripe with the Mac

[crmarvin42]

I really have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe I'm missing something, but my browser has never "announced" that I have to run anything. My wife's laptop (10.4) is running the latest version of Safari. In fact, she avoided updating for almost a month after it was released because she really liked the Tabs On Top arrangement.

Opera might dictate higher OS, but AFAIK the latest and greatest version of Safari runs fine on a machine in 1/3rd the clockspeed of current models and 10.4. It's possible that you are visiting sites with higher requirements than my wife is because if her sites were not rendering correctly I'm sure I'd have heard about it by now.

Re:that's my big gripe with the Mac

[commodore64_love]

>>>My wife's laptop (10.4) is running the latest version of Safari.

Well MY mac can't run the latest Safari because it's stuck at OS 10.3. I'm forced to use an older browser, which fails to render webpages properly. I hope this example is concrete enough for you to understand my point. For comparison my PC, which is older than the Mac, has no problem running the latest browsers. QED Wintel PCs have a longer lifespan than macs.

Re:that's my big gripe with the Mac

[crmarvin42]

Ok, for starters you are complaining about the browser not being the latest and greatest on a machine running an OS that is now 3 versions out of date as if that is a big surprise. What hardware could you possibly be using? I had 10.4 running on a 400 MHz machine for quite a while before replacing it with the MDD tower.

Also, I haven't personally owned a PC in years, but it was my impression based on comments of my PC using Peers that in order to run recent Windows versions the hardware needed to be less than a year old when the new OS came out (with the exception of the top of the line machines that were probably too powerful when first bought). I guess your mileage was different than my friends, sorry to hear that. However, your PC being able to run a more recent web browser is a small part of what goes into determining the lifespan of different computers.

Finally, using "QED" after giving a single piece of anecdotal evidence to support such a broad claim on a message board is incredibly pretentious.

Re:that's my big gripe with the Mac

[bill_mcgonigle]

It really pisses me off that a computer that's otherwise fine is doomed to obsolescence years before it either became too slow to use or physically broke.

Fedora 11 or Ubuntu 8 LTS should both work fine. Your hardware is fine, Apple just abandoned it.

Correcting Signatures since 1993

[b4dc0d3r]

You might want to update your sig. "--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov" is a bit outdated. By "a bit" I mean 5 years. I think you're looking for "SPAM[at]UCE.GOV"

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/07/newspamemail.shtm

2 + 2

[__aazsst3756]

We have 4 computers in our house, 2 Macs and 2 Windows boxes. In essence, we try to find the best tool for the job at hand, whether that is PC or Mac (or something else).

• Mac one: an old unit that is relegated to the kids.
• Mac Two: My wifes newish Macbook Pro we travel with, and use for family pics, videos, etc..
• PC one: A used dell we picked up for $50 and made into a media server feeding our HDTV netflix, Hulu, and ripped movies so our kids don't destroy the original. (and canceled our cable).
• PC two: My 17", 1920x1200, dedicated video Dell Laptop I use for some PC only software. It cost $1200 refurbished, and a 17" mac is 2.5 times that, and not even possible to purchase this screen. Plus the added pain of running a vm or duel booting made a PC the best choice for this use.

Re:A Mac is a PC.

[blind biker]

C'mon Apple fanbois, you're just proving that the truth hurts you like hell! Just because you're buying a PC every time you buy a Mac, doesn't mean you have to feel personally offended by this fact.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[Penguin's Advocate]

Techies eh? I know this is all anecdotal crap that is utterly useless, but I'm a programmer and a sys-admin and I have been for 15 years now, and after spending the first 12 years working on and administering everything *but* macs, I finally tried one, and loved it. Last December I started migrating some of the Linux and Solaris boxes of my current employer to Xserves and it's been great. We still have a bunch of Windows build servers because our build targets for most of our projects require it, but apart from a few in-house-built high performance NAS systems, all of our Unix boxes now run OS X.

Also, you can keep your Visual Studio. I use it all day at work cranking out C++ code, but I always go home to Xcode these days. I have a lot of machines at home, mostly running Solaris or Gentoo at this point, and one Windows XP x64 desktop I had before I ever considered a Mac. I might as well sell most of them, because I spend 99% of my time on my Macbook Pro now.

And just for anecdotal completeness (cause that makes sense...) most of the best coders I know have switched to macs in the past 3 years, and I know *a lot* of really good coders.

I'd say "trust me," but this is Slashdot.....that would be horrible advice.

Well, Duh!

[commodoresloat]

Of course we Apple users are upper middle class, it's because we spend our time actually getting work done on our computers rather than spending our time figuring out how to remove malware!

That, and the lack of games available for the Mac enhances our productivity immensely. Steve Jobs figured out a long time ago that if he wanted to stay rich he had to make sure his customers got rich, so he did that by ensuring that the only game we would ever play is Photoshop.

Re:A Mac is a PC.

[blind biker]

That difference is just as small as what there is between any two other PC motherboards. It's insignificant. It doesn't prevent one from installing Windows on an PC sold by Apple (AKA a Mac), nor does it prevent one from installing Mac OS X onto any other PC.

And yes, the case is completely arbitrary to this debate - you can have a PC with a transparent case, a glass case, a case made of wood, one made with steam punk style case or one with an Apple logo. All those are PCs regardless of the case. I hope you're not going to start arguing that a case is what makes a PC.

News?

[heri0n]

How's this news? It's pretty common knowledge that > 90% or even 95% of home computers 10 years ago were PCs, there weren't many alternatives. OS X was released in 2002, about 7 years ago and since then Macs have steadily gained popularity... Also, whenever there is a Mac/PC article why do we always get into a flame fest of, "an equivalently specced PC would cost the same" or "no, Macs are way more expensive". Who cares!? Just buy what you prefer and shut up about it.

Macintosh PC's aren't PC's?

[filesiteguy]

Since when?

Not really

[commodoresloat]

Most of us are just iCurious.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[CannonballHead]

Yes, you do have to tweak.

Examples: audio playback (ALSA worked but PulseAudio is gaining traction without working terribly stably yet, and not all common apps seem to use it well, either), Flash video (never did get full screen flash to play decently), DVD playback (you have to install those decoding things, and I had to install them twice to get it to work), video drivers (the open source/community ATI drivers didn't do too well, although it's definitely much better than what it was before; still not there, though)...

Windows? Well, I installed it. I had to download and install flash, but after that it was perfectly fine. No problems with audio or DVD playback. Video drivers were installed automatically. Most difficult thing I had to do was download Chrome, Acrobat, and OpenOffice.

Versions I'm comparing are Ubuntu 9.04 and Windows 7. Same hardware (an older Dell E1505 laptop).

Re:A Mac is a PC.

[filesiteguy]

Oops! Sorry, I didn't see your comment before I posted mine.

I still cannot fathom why people want to differentiate a Windows-running PC from a Macintosh-running PC.

AFAIK, neither are midrange boxes nor are they mainframes.

Yes, my Mac SE/30 has a motorola 8000-series chip, but mewer macs have intel chips and run a variant of UNIX, just like windows-based PC's.

This is bogus and indicates nothing

[spitzak]

This is bogus, it has nothing to do with affluence or computer savvy or need for a Windows box, and is simply an effect of Windows market dominance.

Lets assume that Apple has 7% of the market, and that 80% of the computer owners in the world decide to get a second computer, and COMPLETELY AT RANDOM 7% of them buy an Apple and the others buy a Windows machine. Now lets see what the results are:

    a = .07 # number that buy Apple
    p = .8 # number that buy 2 computers
    W = (1-a)(1-p) = .186 # have 1 windows machine
    A = a(1-p) = .014 # have 1 apple machine
    WW= (1-a)*(1-a)*p = .692 # have 2 windows machines
    AA= a*a*p = .004 # have 2 apple machines
    WA=2*a*(1-a)*p = .104 # have one of each

    allA = A+AA+WA = .122 # have at least 1 apple machine
    WA/allA = .853 # fraction that also have a windows machine

This is exactly what they are getting.

Every PC user that migrates to MAC has an old PC

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Mac users that have a Windows PC as well, can probably be attributed to the fact that they migrated from an older windows PC, to a newer Mac.

The Windows PC is simply the older computer in the house.

Mac users play games on their iTouch/iPhone

[JuSTCHiLLiN]

I know one mac user that plays "real" computer games (and I had to install and enable a special codec on our ventrilo server so he could hear). The rest show me craptastic versions of guitar hero on their iProduct that are awkward to play.

Try 100% of all Mac Owners also own a PC

[iamthetru7h]

Ever heard of bootcamp?

Ok.. and?

[Thyamine]

I don't see this being a story as much as just being a statistic that someone wrapped a story around. It sort of falls into the 'duh' category, although I think it's always interesting to have real numbers about things. In this case though it's about as surprising as saying that most motorcycle owners also own a car (differing reasoning, but similar idea). You have people who switched (me) who have other computers, or use a Windows computer for work (also me), or have a kid that is a hard core gamer and uses Windows for it (used to be me), etc etc. I think it's more interesting to ponder who only has a Mac.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[�berhund]

Yeah, especially on a laptop. I just switched from Linux to Mac. Got tired of trying make wireless drivers and power management work. And yes, I still keep mulitple Linux PCs around.

If I try to use Windows, I always end up booting back into Linux so I can actually do stuff. I hate not having a decent shell. (And don't say Cygwin. That doesn't cut it.)

But when I switched to Mac, my maintenance problems went away, AND I got a real shell!

Re:mac are over priced next to pc mac pro takes th

[Penguin's Advocate]

Yea, but HD, Video card, and Ram are all cheap. Xeons, on the other hand, are not. People constantly fail to realize that the Mac Pro is not comparable to a normal Core 2 or Core i7 desktop. No Mac is. Apple doesn't use any of Intel's desktop chips. The Macbooks, iMacs, and Minis all use mobile chips, and the Mac Pros and Xserves use Xeons.

You can certainly argue that Apple is missing an entire market segment, but I'd say they pretty much specialize in that.

Hey, that's us!

[jc42]

Our house has had Windows, Mac, and linux (ubuntu, knoppix and OLPC right now) systems for a long time now. The interesting case is my wife's machines. She has long worked for several local medical organizations (HMOs), and at work everything is Microsoft (with IBM mainframes). She has also worked part-time from home for several years now, because she gets so much more done there where the schmoozers can't reach her). So she has always had to have a Windows machine at home. She hates it, and loves her Mac(s).

But for the past year, she has no longer had a "Windows machine" at home; she just has "Windows". The reason is that she replaced her creaky old Mac Powerbook with a new iMac (with a huge screen). While talking to the folks at the Apple Store, she learned about that new "virtual" stuff, and along with the iMac, she took home disks for the software that would install a virtual XP. After it had been working for a couple of weeks, fully networked via VPN with her office network, she donated her old Windows box to me, and I reformatted it as a linux machine that's our firewall/gateway/etc.

So, while she has a Mac and a Windows machine, they're the same machine, her iMac. A couple of months ago, she decided that another laptop would be really useful, so she got a Mac Powerbook - and installed a virtual XP on it. A month ago, we were on vacation a couple thousand miles away, and she impressed the folks at work by connecting to the office network from her Mac/XP via VPN, and helped them out with some problems they were having. Actually, it didn't impress everyone, because most of the employees are Mac users at home, and several of them had already followed her lead when they got their new Macs.

There are a couple of interesting possibilities implied by this. One is that, if you like Macs but "need Windows for work", there's no need to pay for any hardware for your Windows machine. You might want to get an extra GB or two of memory, since Windows is a bit of a hog. And you'll have to learn how to get one of the Mac's several virtualization schemes to work. You will have to pay (somebody ;-) for a release of Windows. But you can run it on your Mac., and you're free of the hassle of dealing with the Microsoft-based hardware market. She has also found that the Apple Store people and online Mac forums can answer questions much better than, say, Dell Customer Support can. In a few years this might have an, uh, "interesting" effect on the PC market.

Another thing to think about is the problem of crappy security on Windows. It's hard to get a straight story on this, but there are hints that the "jail" (or "sandbox" if you prefer) that Windows runs in under OS X is significantly more secure than Windows on a bare machine. We'd like to learn more about this, because as I mentioned, my wife does computing work for medical organizations. Here in the US, people are waking up to the serious problems with the (overly slow) computerization and networkization of medical data. Some fairly stringent security requirements are being written into law for medical data. And the medical industry almost everywhere runs on MS Windows, the most insecure system on the market. It doesn't take a genius to see the problem here.

Virtualization has the potential of at least limiting the damage from the latest exploits, since Windows is run under the control of another system that has better security. We know from the history of IBM's VM system that this can be effective, assuming that the low-level system is accessible to knowledgeable developers (which isn't always true in the small-computer market). But imposing security on an insecure system that has "no user serviceable parts inside" isn't easy, so we can't really say how effective this will be.

Her management never allowed upgrading to Vista, in part because they learned about the network-update (discussed here on /. several times) that can't be disabled for some portions of the system software. They und

Re:Hey, that's us!

[tchapin]

This is very interesting. Does she use Parallels and do a "side by side" virtualization, or does she use a more traditional "windows in a box" type"?

I'm contemplating that my next machine will be a Mac, but I still have to run some Windows software. I am researching alternatives though, but I suspect that I won't be able to find them for everything.

Thanks.

Re:Hey, that's us!

[Magic5Ball]

Virtualization increases the attack surface if done incorrectly.

No criteria given for their 8 out of 10 stat...

[sponglish]

So commonsense says their research is likely only correct if by "own a PC" you mean "run Windows in emulation."

Stat 101

[vandinem]

This is a biased sample. Windows PCs dominated the market for a long time, and people don't throw the things out the moment the new machine is set up. I have a new flat screen TV, but I didn't throw away the Mitsubishi, even though I don't use it. The relevant test is, when users buy a new PC, which do they buy? As has been observed, the old inventory will get to the town dump eventually.

PC, but not Windows

[spaceyhackerlady]

My main day-to-day computer at home is a Mac. Macs are cool. :-)

I have a PC at home. It runs Linux. Slackware, of course. If you can't do it with Slackware, you don't need to do it. There is an XP partition on it, but I don't remember the last time I actually booted it.

I also have two old Sun boxes at home, an Ultra 5 (which runs Linux) and a Netra T1 (which runs Solaris). Do these enhance my nerd cred?

...laura

Re:PC, but not Windows

[Rick17JJ]

"I'm a PC," and I use Linux on my PC instead of Windows. I have three PCs, only one of which has Windows installed. My main day to day computer is a PC running Linux. The Microsoft or Apple commercials say "I'm a PC," as if to imply that all PC users use Windows.

The PC that actually does have Windows installed on it, is my least used computer.

As I mentioned in another comment elsewhere, I use only one keyboard, monitor and mouse to control all 3 computers. I controll all 3 computers with a KVM switch. However, most KVM switches are now being replaced by something similar which uses USB cables and the newer type of video cable (whatever that is called). Another alternative would have been to run Windows inside of VMWare. Most of the time I have the Windows box turned off, but when I have it and an my favorite Linux box turned on, I can jump back and forth between Windows and Linux in about 2 seconds.

My rarely used, Windows XP PC has small 6 inch x 6 inch x 2 inch case, which only uses about 23 Watts (not counting the 20 inch monitor). Since the Windows computer is used so rarely, it is good that it does not take up much space or use much power.

MOD PARENT UP Re:Horribly misleading

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Don't start with Arch or LFS, start with Ubuntu. As you use it, realize the speed doesn't go away due to a website you've hit, or a longstanding problem with defragging. Think about how no website is dangerous anymore, and how loading programs happens with a click, no dependencies, no BS...and you'll agree with me: if it can't be done in Linux, don't do it.

Amen to that. And/or the converse: any task which can only be done in Windows, isn't worth doing. I've been Microsoft-free for over a decade now and have loved every minute of it.

Re:MOD PARENT UP Re:Horribly misleading

[Overunderrated]

Don't start with Arch or LFS, start with Ubuntu. As you use it, realize the speed doesn't go away due to a website you've hit, or a longstanding problem with defragging. Think about how no website is dangerous anymore, and how loading programs happens with a click, no dependencies, no BS...and you'll agree with me: if it can't be done in Linux, don't do it.

Amen to that. And/or the converse: any task which can only be done in Windows, isn't worth doing. I've been Microsoft-free for over a decade now and have loved every minute of it.

I can honestly say I've never been exposed to that level of fanatical fanboyism, even on slashdot.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[Time Ed]

> Btw, Computer savvy people may use macs...
Check.

> But techies use windows or linux often both.
Bold statement. I've been in the techie game for 25 years.

>Why would we spend extra money to have a closed source semi broken non configurable standard hating version of linux?
I spend the money because its worth my time to carry a platform that not only runs the odd Windows app, but gives me all my unix goodness in the same package without a load of sourcing/tinkering/forum-combing. Media player, document writer, network troubleshooting platform, development box, fun toy, there's nothing the Mac won't do. Its no less standards-hating and semi-broken than any other proprietary OS.

>Mostly windows/nix are more tweakable and have more tools/toys for us to use which makes them our targets.
Says who? Here's a quarter kid. Go buy yourself a good computer.

Actually...

[mister_playboy]

From Wikipedia: "NT was written in C and C++, and is reasonably portable, although (as of 2009) only three architectures are currently supported. That said, it proved far more difficult to port applications such as Microsoft Office which were sensitive to issues such as data structure alignment on RISC processors. Unlike Windows CE which routinely runs on a variety of processors, the lack of success of RISC-based systems in the desktop market has resulted in nearly all actual NT deployments being on x86 architecture processors. In order to prevent Intel x86-specific code from slipping into the operating system by developers used to developing on x86 chips, Windows NT 3.1 was initially developed using non-x86 development systems and then ported to the x86 architecture. This work was initially based on the Intel i860-based Dazzle system and, later, the MIPS R4000-based Jazz platform. Both systems were designed internally at Microsoft."

I have always had a Mac since 1988

[realkiwi]

There has always been a Mac in the house since 1988. Before that there was an Atari 512ST.

But since 1997 we also have PCs running Linux. We had one Windows 95 PC for a while so that I could play Monaco Grand Prix.

Well, Sure

[stalky14]

Because Windows boxes make great single-purpose machines: PVR/HTPC, Gaming, File/Print Server, etc...

If your Mac is your primary multipurpose machine, you don't want to tie it up with stuff like that Conversely, you don't want to spend Mac-money on a grunt-machine.

Macs suck.

[HerculesMO]

Unless you're doing audio or video editing, and that's not because of the OS, but the software.

One thing for sure...

[PopeRatzo]

There are definitely more Mac owners who have Windows installed on their machines than Windows PC owners who have OSX installed.

Trickle Down

[iCharles]

When I got my first Mac, my daughter (almost 5) inherited my old PC. I twas good enough for light web surfing/educational games. If/when she needs more power, we'll revisit it. However, a six-year-old Pentium IV seems to be good-enough for her. So, I suspect that a chunk of the "Mac-and-Windows" households have an older system that has been displaced by a newer one.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[jedidiah]

No you don't.

Here's more of this "linux sound nonsense" that creates more churn than
anything else as people listen to the idiots. ALSA did very nicely with
common desktop apps. The fact that musician wannabes might have had some
problems is not and has never really been generally relevant.

DVD playback: You will have to install this yourself if you install Windows
                            from scratch. It's odd that someone that claims to have installed
                            Windows would bring this up.

Flash and codecs are automatically installed in modern Linuxes and this is smoother
than it is in Windows. ...and the fact that you are intentionally using a poor choice of video driver is just
you trying to sour the results so that you can have something to complain about.

      I use the binary nvidia drivers. Having full 1080p VC1 acceleration on a $200 machine is the bee's knees.

My experience does not agree...

[joeyblades]

I'm a Mac guy. I'm also a PC guy... and a linux guy... I use PCs more than I use Macs because my employer requires it. I own Macs (and no PCs) because I have a choice.

I know a lot of Mac guys. Of the Mac guys I know, about 60% of them only have Macs. Of the 40% who also have PCs, most of them have PCs because they used to be PC guys and they kept their old machines. I only know 2 guys that have up-to-date Mac and PC hardware for doing cross-platform development. I doubt that these two would be considered mainstream Mac/PC users. I do know one guy that has 4 or 5 PCs and one Mac (the Mac is for his wife and kids, so I don't really include him in my list of Mac owners - he never uses it).

I'm not saying the survey is wrong, but I suspect that the data sample might be skewed in some way. For instance, maybe the sample was all Google developers... Or maybe the survey was stated in such a way that it was interpreted as "what do you USE", rather than "what do you OWN".

Re:My experience does not agree...

[gujo-odori]

I agree about the data sample; there may be skew.

My home: four Linux machines (kids', mine, file server) and one Mac (MBP for wife).

My office: 1 PC running Kubuntu Karmic, 1 MBP that I mostly only use for running Entourage. My real work is done on the Kubuntu box. The MBP goes home with me at night and is occasionally used for after hours work or working from home over VPN.

Most people I know who have Macs or Linux are like what you've observed. They may _still_ have a Windows machine around (not going to say PC because none of my PCs have Windows installed), but it's the minority platform and is just kept around for some specific purpose (gaming, or a critical Windows-only app). Except for the ones that are dedicated gaming rigs, most of them probably won't be replaced when they die. It's much simpler (and cheaper) to run Windows in a VM on Linux or Mac if you really need it.

Anecdote vs Anecdote Death Match

[Omestes]

And then there are people like me, who "switched" to a Mac only, and had one exclusively, until I realized that even if OS X is better than Vista (in particular), I missed having control over my hardware, so "reswitched" back to PC. So now I have a Mac media streaming box, a big PC, and a laptop running Vista/Ubuntu.

Or my girlfriend, who grew up in a Mac only house. Who at some point after the Intel switch realized that Macs took a nose-dive, and now only runs Windows.

So in our household, 3 Windows PCs, 1 Linux PC, and 1 Mac PC (not counting the dead MacBook pro that was eaten for parts, or the defunct and broken iMac G3, which is really being "repaired" for her mom), after xmas, this will be 3 Windows, 2 Linux, and maybe 1 Mac (thinking of converting it to Linux).

In my girlfreinds parents house, though, there are NO PCs, and 2 Macs. So...

Oh wait... none of this means a damn thing.

Re:Anecdote vs Anecdote Death Match

[BasilBrush]

That's odd, I have control over my hardware with my Macbook. You know, in the usual meaning of the term - when I tell my printer to print, it does so. When I connect up mu iPod or Camcorder to sync, it does so. Equally I've done DIY upgrades for HD, memory and optical drive for my Macbook.

Did you mean control in some other way? Like wanting to write drivers for fun perhaps?

Re:Anecdote vs Anecdote Death Match

[Omestes]

Sorry for being a bit vague.

I meant the ability to upgrade things freely. You can do this on most Macs to a limited extent, but they are not quite as customizable as a "PC" (hate that term, Macs are also a PC). I'll give MacBooks and MacBook Pros a discount, since they are about as upgradable as any laptop, but iMacs are TERRIBLE to upgrade, Mini's require paint scrapers and around 4 hours of disassembly time to even upgrade the HDD or RAM. I found this limiting since I manage to keep computers around for 10+ years with yearly, or biyearly upgrades. I like to dig around inside my computer, and incrementally make it better.

A bad experience in this drove me to buy a Mac, but I found I missed it, and didn't like the fact that my $1k+ computer was drifting farther and farther out of date, and their was nothing I could do about it except buy another $1k+ computer, when a measly $200 of upgrades would have fixed it.

By control, I meant I have control over the contents of my computer.

Did you mean control in some other way? Like wanting to write drivers for fun perhaps?

Nothing wrong with wanting to do this. Not to my tastes, but people enjoy it.

I'm not flaming Macs, or Mac users, I'm just saying that computing isn't one size fits all. I loved OS X, but found the hardware problem to be a game killer (and needlessly expensive). Just my opinion. I had other problems with OS X that didn't meet my workflow, but these problems might be bonuses for others.

Conclusion is...

[Cheech Wizard]

The conclusion I draw is that you live in an apartment with a bunch of room mates. Sounds too crowded for my liking.

Re:Conclusion is...

[amicusNYCL]

It's a 4-bedroom house, hence the extra room for an office. To each his own though.

Re:Conclusion is...

[Cheech Wizard]

I didn't mean it as a negative. I should have put a trailing ;) in my post. I'm 60 years old. I went through the communal living gig years ago. It was a lot of fun at that time in my life. These days I cherish my privacy. Even the kid is grown and on her own (glad we only had 1). Nice and peaceful!

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[jedidiah]

>>Why would we spend extra money to have a closed source semi broken non configurable standard hating version of linux?
> I spend the money because its worth my time to carry a platform that not only runs the odd Windows app, but gives me
> all my unix goodness in the same package without a load of sourcing/tinkering/forum-combing. Media player, document
> writer, network troubleshooting platform, development box, fun toy, there's nothing the Mac won't do. Its no less
> standards-hating and semi-broken than any other proprietary OS.

Except for the dubious "tinkering" remark, you could be just as easily talking about Linux.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[jedidiah]

Linux C - I am a NERD and like to try everything. I might have a Mac "just for the hell of it" or because it met a particular hardware requirement.

Why keep a Windows Box around? Virtualization makes the separate Windows PC seem rather pointless. ...or.

Linux D - I got tired of Windows BS and found that I don't need Windows anymore.

Not true

[commodoresloat]

The real difference between Apple and Dell (or HP or whoever) is Apple doesn't offer an equivalent to the low end, thick, heavy laptops that Dell or HP offer.

That's not true; Apple used to offer a model that is comparable in design and form factor to these Dells & HPs.

Re:Not true

[slart42]

Dude, that was 20 years ago. Technology has evolved!

Re:Not true

[commodoresloat]

My point exactly ... Dell and HP need to get with the times ;)

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[imgod2u]

I honestly doubt it's that complicated. From all of these posts I've gathered a few trends:

* Most people who are Mac owners own a Macbook.
* These people have desktop PC's.
* It seems a minority have a desktop Mac.

Considering how popular Apple's notebooks are, this makes sense. People buy a Macbook because it's nice, shiny, does what they want a notebook to do (mostly email, word, etc.) and let's face it, they really aren't priced that badly compared to equivalent Dells.

On the desktop side, things are a bit different. Very few own a powerhouse desktop. Most likely they got some sub-$500 machine to do basic computing tasks.

As much as the Prophets of Jobs exclaim, it really isn't a big deal to "switch". You don't realize some epiphany when using OSX for the first time; some technically nearsighted guy putting on glasses for the first time. You find which buttons to push to start up your browser, Word, mp3 players, etc. and you double click. To your average person, they're all just computers; they're to be used for computer stuff like listening to music, watching movies, writing documents, surfing the web, etc.

So when they go to buy something, they see the shiny Macbook and want it. They then want a secondary computer and see the cheapo desktop PC (and let's face it, you don't care about what those look like) and buy that.

Bingo, you have both a Mac and a PC in your house. And guess what, most people don't care and don't think the two are going to somehow attack each other in a battle royal during the night.

Title update: ... But not Vice Vista.

[Hmmble]

"Most Mac Owners Also Own a Windows PC, But Not Vice Vista"

Another way that Mac users have Windows machine

[starglider29a]

I, a Mac User, have several Windows machines... because they were given to me. When they get too crufted as to be inoperable, someone will say "Hey, I have this old Dell I'm going to throw out. Want it?" Sure. It's a 2.4GHz, with 1GB of RAM and it takes Firefox 2 minutes to open from cold start. I can BOOT my G4 1GHz, 768MB of RAM, open Firefox and surf faster than that.

Sad that a machine which last year was fast enough is now mothballed. Sadder still that they will buy another, faster machine which will suffer the same fate in a year or two.

I use that machine everyday. I have it beside my Mac-holding desk, and I put my Diet Dr Pepper can on it, to save desktop space.

Apple's refurbs seem to be pretty good

[name_already_taken]

How is purchasing someone *elses* previously broken Apple at a "20-30% discount" a good deal? I'll buy certain things referbed (routers/switches, cable modems, some audio equipment, etc), but a computer? No thank you.

I've bought a few refurbished Apple products, including Macbooks, and apart from the packaging they're indistinguishable from new - including in terms of reliability.

I have someone in my office who just returned a brand-new Toshiba laptop because "the wrist rest rubs on my wrists wrong". There's nothing wrong with it, and it will be resold by the manufacturer as refurbished. Not everything refurbished is "previously broken", and my experience has been that after the second pass through Apple's quality control, the refurbished stuff is just as good as new. Just without the fancy packaging and the extra 20-30% on the price.

Re:Apple's refurbs seem to be pretty good

[ciderVisor]

"the wrist rest rubs on my wrists wrong".

Was the wrong rubbing wrist rest made of red leather, yellow leather ?

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[Idiomatick]

Well, that and the money. And the standards ... and the loss of function because it has been deemed from on high. And windows apps without bootcamp...

Don't want to be attacked by Apple Fanboys

[FrozenFrog]

http://www.photobasement.com/apple-fan-boy/

Um.... nice package?

Frog

The RAM is definitely not the same

[tlambert]

The RAM is definitely not the same

It has been burnt-in and certified to operate within manufacturer specifications. The RAM that fails certification for things like amount of time needed to switch frequencies up immediately after switching down in order to save power, etc., is what people buy when they buy "cheaper than Apple RAM".

One of the reasons a Mac Book Pro can operate within the battery budget that it does is that the OS knows what the hardware is capable of, and runs it right at the edge of that capability. Windows, on the other hand, assumes lowest common denominator. This shows in the relative difference in battery life on Windows on a Mac Book Pro vs. Mac OS X on a Mac Book Pro.

-- Terry

Why no $300 Mac laptop?

[walterbyrd]

I can get a fairly decent PC laptop for $300 at the local microcenter. Why doesn't apple make a starter system, like that, and prove that Apple can make a decent system for the same price as a PC?

Aspire AS5516-5474 - Black
# AMD Athlon(tm) 64 TF-20 Single-Core Processor
# 2GB DDR2-667 RAM
# 160GB Hard Drive
# 8x SuperMulti Double Layer DVD±RW Drive
# Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader
# ATI Radeon Xpress 1200
# 10/100 Network
# Acer InviLink(tm) 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®
# 15.6" HD Widescreen WXGA High-Brightness Display
# Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic

http://microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0312136&utm_source=mcol&utm_medium=leader_bnr&utm_campaign=hmpg_aspirentbk158691

The future

[bmajik]

when i am a grandfather, and my grandkids are eating dirt, and WW3 has come and gone, and we're living in caves because they're a reasonable way to avoid nuclear winter..

Or in a slightly different scenario... after alien life has completed the invasion of earth... i'll be up on the ship, doing whatever menial labor they figure they can wring out of me before it is more energy-efficient to eliminate me... and they'll be asking me questions about why my species is so stupid.. why we were so easy to conquer.

In either case. I'll have to stare at my feet. I'll have to muster up the courage to tell them that lots of ostensibly intelligent humans...spent 25 fucking years arguing about PCs vs. Macs.

And then I will slump over and cry.

Re:The future

[Rick17JJ]

I think that future generations will be more likely to wonder why we spent so much time thinking about Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan (at least here in the U.S.). They might have preferred, that we had done more thoughtful in depth thinking about long term problems such as the federal budget deficit, the trade deficit, how to pay for Social Security and Medicaid, how to reduce topsoil erosion on farm land, and how to slow the increase in overpopulation.

Our failure to do much about global warming might also be a gripe of theirs, but at least we did talk about that problem.

Although you are probably half joking, I do not really think that making an informed decision, as a consumer, about Mac vs. Windows is a total waste of time. In your alternate scenario of space aliens conquering Earth, perhaps their initial attack was will have been on the millions of inadequately secured Windows computers around the world, with viruses, trojans, and malware. They might have launched that attack on computers, just after a financial collapse of our civilization had occurred, due to the federal deficit.

Perhaps, they might have then done an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack from space to physically damage the delicate electronics in computers and other electronic devices. Devices attached to long wires would have been especially vulnerable. As our civilization temporarily collapsed, they might have chosen that moment to attack.

If the alien masters asked why we were so stupid and easy to conqure, I might mention the amount of time our news media spent on the problems of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, instead of on real issues the voters needed to know about. I would also criticize the news media's tendency to show overly simplistic short sound bites of what politicians and other important people had to say.

By the way, I use Linux on my PC, but also have a Windows computer which I occasionally use.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[CannonballHead]

First, I don't think I'm an idiot. I work with AIX, HPUX, Solaris, Linux (RH 4-5, SLES 9-11, all update versions) as my day job, including Veritas. I use Windows and Linux at home. I disliked Vista and found it slow and bulky. I used XP until I required 64 bit, then used Vista x64 only until I was able to use Windows 7 RC (x64) and now the RTM build.

I don't consider myself a musician wannabe, either. I was a composition major and have been performed many times. The most I tried to do with Linux, though, is run Amarok, Songbird, or Banshee and Firefox at the same time. No notation software, no JACK stuff. I used Audacity on occasion, but only to edit stuff, not really for recordings. I use Sibelius on a Windows box and briefly in a VM under openSuSE 10.3. I tried it in Wine once, but it didn't work too well.

ALSA did do nicely with common desktops apps. I switched BACK to ALSA from the default PulseAudio in Ubuntu (8.10 is when I made the necessary config file changes) because of the problem. I was not complaining about ALSA; I was complaining about PulseAudio. However. I still ran into issues where one application would tie up sound and not let any other app do that.

DVD playback - I did not have to install anything, and I have installed XP, Vista, and 7 from scratch in the last 2 years (as well as Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04, openSuSE 11.1, and a few others).

Define modern Linux? I had problems in Ubuntu 9.04. I tried various drivers given in the repo's. No luck with any of them/

Intentionally using a poor choice of video driver? I tried both the open/community version and fglrx (which took a little bit of work to get going well, too... sometimes xorg didn't like it too much).

I don't have an nVidia card in that machine. I've heard their drivers are better... but that doesn't help me with my ATI card all that much.

:) Hi

[realisticradical]

Like you would suddenly not use the operating system you have been using for the past 20 years by buying a computer that runs something different.

Umm... I did exactly that. About five years ago my PC met its end in the form of a hard drive failure that came after a whole series of smaller problems. I bought a mac and haven't looked back since. The only "PC" I've owned since then has been the windows partition of my new(ish) macBook that I think I've booted into fewer than five times since installing it.

Do I still use PC's? Sure, sometimes at work... and I think the library's card catalog is on a PC. That's it though.

Re::) Hi

[dingen]

Well to tell you the truth, I've replaced all of my Windows-based PC's with Macs too during the past 6 years.

But I'm sure most people aren't that radical. When I look at what systems people around me are using, it's a mixed bag really and almost noone runs one platform exclusively on everything.

other things to do with old PCs

[Gary W. Longsine]

Recycle them, so the raw materials can go into making more iPods.

My new Mac is my new PC

[mederjo]

While I'm mainly a Mac guy, I own 7 of them ( one only used for nostalgic gaming ), I do also own a PC. I'm a software developer and I have the PC because I develop for both Mac and Windows. I started off doing Windows development with Win 98 running in Virtual PC on a Mac ( actually compiling on the Mac using Codewarrior's Intel compiler, just testing on Windows ), but inevitably the time came when I needed a real PC.

With the introduction of Intel Macs my need to get a Windows PC has dropped off. I was considering getting a new PC to run Vista but in the end decided to try it using Bootcamp ( Apple's Windows installation/dual boot solution ) on the Intel iMac I already and it's worked fine. I've just recently got an 8 core Mac Pro ( dual quad core Xeon ) and it now has OS X, Vista 64, Windows 7 64 and Ubuntu installed on it. They all seem to be peacefully coexisting. My Mac is also my PC - and my Linux box.

Dual booting isn't actually the greatest solution when you're doing cross platform work. It's much better to have separate machines so you can check in changes on one platform and test them immediately on the other platform. I may still end up getting a 64 bit PC but because I work on a renderer it will probably have to be a pretty grunty one. I may get another Mac Pro to run Windows on, because speccing up a Dell workstation ends up being roughly the same cost ( the Dell is more expensive but has a Quadro graphics card and comes with a monitor ). If I get the Mac Pro I can use it as a Mac rendering slave, plus I get a developer discount!

This is completely silly

[kuzb]

If you own a mac and a windows machine (I'll avoid the term 'PC' here, as it's a stupid connotation all on it's own), you own both. This makes you both a mac and a windows user. I don't understand why this article attempts to split the camps in to "mac users who happen to own windows machines" and "windows users who happen to own macs".

Bottom line here is use whatever you prefer to use for whatever task you prefer it, and stop turning it in to this kind of a silly "one side of the fence or the other" kind of debate.

What?

[okmijnuhb]

If I was a PC owner who also owned a Mac, wouldn't you call me a Mac owner?

Re:only value in a Mac is if you want desktop UNIX

[mjwx]

if you want the only usable desktop ^nix and OSS operating system out there, you get a Mac

Mac OS X is not OSS. Despite the amount of "liberated" BSD code in there the majority of the OS including the GUI and display manager is locked down and proprietary then any Microsoft product.

Apple has no part of software freedom.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[mjwx]

Actually, the more money you have, the more likely you are to have a Mac.

Actually, the less disposable currency you have left, the more likely you are to have a Mac.

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[jedidiah]

> Intentionally using a poor choice of video driver? I tried both the open/community version and fglrx

Yes. And you changed your tune as soon as you got called out on it.

While ATI is certainly not "great", it will certainly do for pedestrian desktop duty. Using the
binary drivers with Ubuntu isn't even terribly difficult either. (IOW, it's automated)

There, I fixed it

[Magic5Ball]

I am a grad student, do not have a lot of money because along with my girlfriend we have 3 Macs in the house.

/Made on a Gateway hackintosh

No, that's not it

[fyngyrz]

It's not the hardware. It's OSX, and the applications that run under OSX. The hardware is nice, sure, but it really isn't the point -- computing is the point.

I use linux, windows and OSX every day, and it is Apple/OSX I've chosen for my main workhorse, hands down. If I need windows or linux, I just run them concurrently in virtual machines under Parallels.

Re:No, that's not it

[mdwh2]

What things can OS X do better, than no other OS can do?

Honest question - this is what people ask of other niche OSs whenever they're covered on Slashdot. But for Macs, we only hear criticisms against Windows, as if that somehow meant OS X was therefore the best. So let's ask the question for OS X?

Re:No, that's not it

[J.Y.Kelly]

What things can OS X do better, than no other OS can do?

Can't speak for anyone else, but in my case my reason for having an OSX laptop is that hibernate/suspend works better than on any other laptop I've ever seen. It's quick and I never have to mess about with restarting services/programs/networks when it restarts. That alone is enough to get me to use it.

Re:No, that's not it

[Ant P.]

WYSIWYG output. The GUI is based on Postscript, the horrible blurry fonts that I personally don't like are actually close to how they'd come out on paper. I think Mac OS has had >24bpp colour support since before OS X too.

What? Independent events are independent

[AniVisual]

Anyone who has taken a Stats class will know that these can be abstracted as independent events. Whether a person has a PC or a Mac does not affect the decision of their next purchase. It can be seen here, that of the 0.12 of the population that own a mac, 0.85 own a PC, and that is approximately the 0.88 who do not own a Mac. From here, we can also calculate the population who own a Mac, given that they already own a PC. This is (0.85)(0.12)/(0.88) = 0.116 = 12% = Percentage of population that owns a Mac.

What is interesting is that users of the Mac are more likely to have another computer, as opposed to the 0.29 of PC users who own only one computer. Now, when we compare the 0.29 of the More-than-one-PC-owning population against the 0.12 of the Owns-PCs-and-Macs population, it shows that of the people who own several computers, the group of people who owns Macs is overrepresented. Therefore, we can conclude something that has actual weight, unlike the conclusion the article hints at. We now know that the dominant household force giving Windows its disproportionately huge market share are people who own only one PC. By inference, these people are probably the group of people who also do not spend much of any time using computers.

Oh Lord ...

[mix77]

... Won't you by me, a big shining 21" Mac. All my friends have PC's , but I could do with a Mac!

Is Apple Software really that easy to use???

[Insipid Trunculance]

I haven't much experience with Apple's products.My wife has a very old 512 MB Ipod Shuffle which she doesn't use.I wanted to use and downloaded iTunes and thought it would be easy to just drag and copy my mp3's to the ipod but I couldn't make it work!!!! I don't know about others but i am not really impressed with used friendliness of apple's software.

Re: Most Mac Owners Also Own a Windows PC, But Not

[jaq1an]

Thats because if you can afford to buy a Mac its only pocket change to pick up a PC. It doesn't work the other way around.

Could be refering to provisioning

[Tony]

I'm writing iPhone apps -- they are *very* easy to write. Extremely easy. Special effects and other eye-candy is automatic. The APIs are very clean, and well-organized, and (most importantly) extremely well documented. For the iPhone, the controls are built for MVC, and the design patterns are well-done. Objective-C (which I haven't used since the NeXT days) is one of the best OO languages around (far better than the complex mess that is C++, IMNSHO). Interfaces files are saved as XIB, making them easy to CVS and edit by hand or via a pipeline. Everything is developer-friendly.

However.

Provisioning an iPhone can be a pain in the ass. Sometimes it just fails. Now, maybe I just don't understand all the nuances of provisioning. But if *I* don't get understand it completely, how is a customer supposed to be able to test interim releases? Every release requires me to personally install the update on their iPhone.

Anyway. I love developing for the iPhone. I hate the restrictions on it.

It's pretty much true

[Tony]

Seriously.

When family members ask me which computer to buy, I tell 'em to get a Mac. Their refurbs are fairly well priced, and look brand-new.

I get lots of support requests for PCs. None for Macs. There are several Macs in the family, usually with the less-computer-literate folks, and I never get calls from them.

This is just anecdotal, of course. But I've heard the same from other people. Macs just don't seem to require much support at all.

Re:It's pretty much true

[nabsltd]

I get lots of support requests for PCs. None for Macs. There are several Macs in the family, usually with the less-computer-literate folks, and I never get calls from them.

I suspect you've hit the nail on the head.

If you don't care to stretch yourself much and just want a machine that does e-mail and web browsing, pretty much anything will do. If you want a bit more, then the built-in apps for the Mac will cover you better than 3rd-party software for Windows.

But, if you really want to stretch and need to do something different, chances are you can't do it at all in within the limitations of the Mac (no worries about how to make 3 monitors work, for example), but you might have a problem doing it on Windows, so you'd ask for help.

Most Mac owners own a toilet, but not vice-versa

[Gorbag]

What an inane title.

No.

[sean.peters]

What I'm trying to tell you is that there are certain features I'd like to be able to have that are found only in Snow Leopard, and certain applications I'd like to be able to run (e.g. the latest version of iMovie)... but I can't. Not because my machine wouldn't be capable of it, but because Steve J. has decided he'd rather have me buy a new Mac. This is nothing more than forced obsolescence.

Re:No.

[crmarvin42]

How do you know that your machine could handle it? Did you somehow install snow leopard onto you PPC machine and see what the performance was?

Feel free to believe what you want, but unless you've got data to back up the claim of forced obsolescence instead of genuine obsolescence I'm not buying it. I cheated and installed Leopard on my wife's laptop that was 67mhz shy of the official cut off (by using target disk mode and a mac that made the cut exactly). The machine ran like crap because Leopard expected certain things of the hardware that it was incapable of doing acceptably. I ended up restoring the machine to its pre-Leopard state and she's been much happier. Leopard was originally set to have a cut off of 800mhz, but shortly before release the minimum clock was bumped to 867. I was unhappy at first, but saw the sense after my experience.

I actually had a lot of problems with the machine that did make the cut, although it never got to the point of restoring to the older install because I used the machine primarily as a server and it performed well enough in that limited capacity.

You've got to remember that while Intel was putting the pedal to the medal as far as chip performance, Motorola was dragging its feet on the PPC chips for Apple. As much as I hate to admit it, the Mac hardware was not comparable to the top end PC hardware of the same manufacture date. Prior to Motorola getting sidetracked with game consoles Apple hardware had a comparable, and in some cases longer half-life than it's PC peers.

Does this say anything??

[mccabem]

We've had Microsoft/Wintel hegemony for pushing 20 years now. (I was first denied purchase of a PC without Windows in 1991. OS/2 rulez!) Apple runs their own OS on the Intel side now for crying aloud.

That many Mac owners also have Windows should be surprising to no one....it's called "survival", and this far into the story I don't see how it's news. Many long-time Mac people have Windows around just to cope. Many, many frustrated Windows users simply keep their old systems around after making the switch. Duh. :-)

On another front, just to answer all the followups about what's cheaper: Apple's are cheaper that (e.g.) Dell's if you're comparing like systems. Dell offers lesser systems for less (junk IMO), and they even offer greater systems for even more (worth it only to a tiny segment of people). It is not accurate, nor has it been for years now, to say that Apple's are more expensive than Dell's.

-Matt

Re:So the more computer savvy you are...

[CannonballHead]

I didn't intentionally use a poor driver - I tried both, and I wanted them to work... I eventually used fglrx and used Ubuntu for about a year on that machine as the only OS installed. It wasn't a change of tune; I mentioned the non-proprietary driver specifically, however, because when I mentioned video issues a while back in another slashdot comment post, the immediate reply was "did you try the open source driver?" - because fglrx isn't the best ... and with openSuSE 11, I had to try numerous drivers before I finally got one to work. Had to be a relatively older version that was difficult to find, had to disable pretty boot screen stuff and do just a normal console boot, etc.

Using the binary drivers with Ubuntu wasn't that difficult, no, though I did run into some display issues. Actually, the Ubuntu experience with installing proprietary drivers was quite refreshing after some of the other distros.

That is because:

[Domini]

Once a Windows PC User also has a Mac, he is either considered a Mac user (think: one drop blood rule), or he just becomes a Mac user (with a Windows PC) because Macs are just too cool.

Hmm.. either way I still think the Slashdot article title is flawed.

As a mac user...

[sitarlo]

I own a PC but it sits unused and collecting dust. So statistically I'm a PC (I've owned dozens of PCs), but I prefer a Mac.

Fair enough

[fyngyrz]

What things can OS X do better, than no other OS can do?

I think it does most thing a little better, a few things a lot better, and the occasional thing windows can't do at all.

In my experience, OSX provides the runs-for-months reliability that linux does, at least until Apple forces me to reboot because there's an OS update; has a wide variety of applications I've found useful, and misses only one that I actually need (my security DVR monitoring software.) These applications share with (possibly because of) the OS a reliability I find startling after years of Windows use.

The GUI is nice, I have some gripes, but far fewer than with Windows -- system control via prefs is far less complex and more obvious than via Windows various control panels up to XP (I stopped upgrading Windows at XP, so that's where my observations end.)

I really like the way my 8-core machine is fully utilized by my photo software, Aperture; my camera, a Canon EOS 50D, produces 15 mp images and being able to do live adjustment on the entire image is pleasant, to say the least, as is the ability to create a full res JPEG from a RAW using all the cores. As I understand it, the graphics processor is involved as well at times; I have no way to measure or estimate when or where, but I can tell you my 8 core, 3 GHz, 8 GB MacPro *rips* through my imaging work.

I like being able to run linux and XP in virtual machines, sharing my desktop; I write code for a large windows graphics application, and it's very pleasant to just rip open a window, fire up the MS developer system, pound out some C code, and go back to the Mac. I keep the Windows machine in a no-network sandbox, and that's kept it clean and relatively reliable, which is also nice. If it were my primary system, I'd have to have it on the net, and I know that's not a good idea, my oldest (35) makes a living out of the consequences of taking Windows online.

Similarly, I do support for an e-commerce system I built some years back, linux based, and its very handy to open up linux and work from there in that case. I can hop around all I need, SSH over to the installation, it's all very smooth.

I enjoy not ripping adware and worms and viruses out, or even really giving them a thought. My Mac online experience is wonderful.

I enjoy the system's built-in ability to constantly back itself up via time machine without any attention from me at all. It also never gets in my way, yet is backed up every hour.

I'd sum it up as a mostly positive experience incorporating power, flexibility, reliability, a broad range of useful application software, and smooth concurrent cross-platform capability.