Everyone's Switching to Mac's

[Darconf]

Wow, last I heard it was a 15/85 mac/windows ratio. Everyone you know? This sounds like you'll only have friends who do what you demand they do, or they're not your friend.

Reminds me of that south park episode where they all buy green cars and pretend they're better then everyone else :blink: :blink:

Edited October 22, 2007 by darconf

[Mr. Dee]

1. XP was far better than Vista, however after shelling out for Home Premium, I find it to be extreme bloatware that brings my dual core to its knees compared to the fully retail copy of XP that I have in the drawer.

Well, its pretty much the same with Leopard:

Media Center - Front Row

Instant Search - Spotlight

Media Player - iTunes/Quicktime

Windows Collaboration/Live Messenger - iChat

Internet Explorer - Safari

Windows Mail - Mail.app

Windows Backup/Previous Versions - Time Machine

Tablet PC - Ink well

Photo Gallery - iPhoto

DVD Maker - iDVD

MovieMaker HD - iMovie HD

XPS - Preview

Aero Glass - Aqua/Graphite

Encryption - File Vault

Sidebar - Dashboard

So all the bloat you refer to in Vista is also in Leopard and Linux. I am running Vista Ultimate on a Pentium 4 class system and I my CPU does not experience any performance hits, I think you are just being biased.

2. Why not go back to XP? Well that would be like asking an OS X user to go back to OS 9. Why regress when progress is inevitable, however at Microsoft, they aren't listening to real users any more, they listed to the bean counters that say they only need to sell *** numbers of licenses to make it profitable.

Strange, you just called XP good and reliable, now you are calling old and obsolete. Please pick one and stick with it.

3. Mac's software is more limited than Windows, but lets face it, when we find the programs that we have to invest money, time, and patience into learning them, we really don't want to change. Well, OS X has the software I need for the programs I want to run.

So does Vista, in fact, when you upgrade to Vista, common applications like Photoshop, Office, Quicken, QuickBooks, Mathematica work just fine. On the Mac, you have to run them through Rosetta, a slow translation software and if you are migrating from Windows you have buy new versions of those programs for Mac.

4. As for gaming, well, for that reason I will have to dual boot the dang thing and I will be running XP on that system and not Vista. XP was a good operating system that MS had no business "upgrading" the way they did. From the delays you can tell it was an exercise in futility and was poorly planned from the beginning.

No ones stopping you from using XP, its still available on the market and still supported by Microsoft, in fact a new Service Pack will be released in the first half of 2008 for it. Compared to OS X, your support options become obsolete with every new version.

5. What I will enjoy? Being able to tell the myriad of people who call me with problems (I am the resident guru, or rather most helpful guru at work) that I can't help them as while I remember the problems I had, I took the steps necessary to ensure I didn't have to deal with it anymore. I will suggest they do the same. I will also enjoy not having to deal with Microsoft and their punishment they deal to the consumer. I am tired of having to call India to activate my software that I purchased. Oh, so sorry, that you are dealing with pirates, seems to me it can't be hurting that bad as your Market Capitalization is twice that of apple and quite frankly I have seen pictures of Mr. Gates home. He isn't starving, but his company is not responsive to the consumer.

What kind of punishment? They are not a dictatorship ya know? You can choose many different operating systems other than Windows to run on your x86 PC such as Linux, Unix, BeOS, SkyOS, FreeBSD.

6. What was the last straw? Well, my favorite game crashing to a blue screen instead of the desktop when I quit the application. Stop error 0x0000010e. Too many of those with vista and I don't want to regress!

The application was probably not designed to take advantage of the new security technologies in Vista or just needed a patch to enable proper compatibility under Vista. Did you even check the developers website before jumping to a conclusion?

7. Lastly, I think the differences between the two operating systems are not insurmountable and I wish the two would get over their egos and collaborate rather than conspire. The way it is now, we are in the crosshairs and there is no winner.

Keep on dreaming, they are businesses first and last. The are operating systems, but both share different philosophies. I just think you setup yourself not like Windows and you are riding on the new momentum being built in the Mac community along with release of Leopard this week.

What will my new mac be? Well, it will be a Penryn based Mac Pro hopefully with an upgraded video card, or it will have the X1900 and maybe I will finally lose interest in games. Won't know though until next month.

Get ready to pay for over priced hardware and quick to die nostalgia. Good luck.

[simmorya]

I just moved from a Vista Ultimate system and bought a MacBook Pro. Im NEVER going back.

[Slimy]

Um...good for you and the people you know? I dislike it when people act as if Macs are flawless when, for example, two of my professors this year who use Mac's for their lecture presentations have had their laptop completely freeze up for no reason, one of them multiple times on different days.

Yeah, I've notice a lot of Mac users (not saying the majority) tend to talk about their computers like they cannot crash and are absolutely perfect. Then they go to tell clueless noobs this information and it gets really out of hand. I'm not saying these clueless noobs shouldn't buy a Mac, but they should use one extensively before buying one instead of having someone tell them "it's just better. buy it." - something I've seen happen way too often.

I agree with Slimy, also (about the color, not the promotion) :p

Actually, I would consider such a move as getting demoted. I wouldn't be able to stand not being able to post news!

[fuBar.]

Damn people, this thread is nothing but an OS warzone (another thread down the drain). If you are happy with an OS, good. What's the point of comparing, arguing, and wasting your time about franchise coding, no one is going to care.

[NEVER85]

I just moved from a Vista Ultimate system and bought a MacBook Pro. Im NEVER going back.

I want a MacBook Pro, but I also plan to keep my Vista Ultimate desktop, and maybe have another desktop (a lower end machine) with Linux. Have all 3 major operating systems. Seems like the best way to go (if you can afford it), not this "Mac is better, Windows is better, Linux is better" bull****.

[Win2Mac]

Well, its pretty much the same with Leopard:

Media Center - Front Row

Instant Search - Spotlight

Media Player - iTunes/Quicktime

Windows Collaboration/Live Messenger - iChat

Internet Explorer - Safari

Windows Mail - Mail.app

Windows Backup/Previous Versions - Time Machine

Tablet PC - Ink well

Photo Gallery - iPhoto

DVD Maker - iDVD

MovieMaker HD - iMovie HD

XPS - Preview

Aero Glass - Aqua/Graphite

Encryption - File Vault

Sidebar - Dashboard

So all the bloat you refer to in Vista is also in Leopard and Linux. I am running Vista Ultimate on a Pentium 4 class system and I my CPU does not experience any performance hits, I think you are just being biased.

If you have used Mac OS X, you would realize that bloat doesn't exist in Unix as the program loads and unloads completely, unlike in Windows where .DLL applications, and the hive keeps resident the programs recently loaded. While that does speed things up if you happen to reload the application, it doesn't help the current programs in the least.

Strange, you just called XP good and reliable, now you are calling old and obsolete. Please pick one and stick with it.

I said that it was far better than Vista of which it is! Solid for its time and in need of a makeover that vista is not up to the task. That doesn't make it great, it was just more stable and less prone to issues that vista has. While XP is not great, it is far better than vista and for that, I will say that it still remains a viable option for many people. So many in fact that most major vendors are allowing their customers to go back and reconfigure their machines with XP instead of vista.

So does Vista, in fact, when you upgrade to Vista, common applications like Photoshop, Office, Quicken, QuickBooks, Mathematica work just fine. On the Mac, you have to run them through Rosetta, a slow translation software and if you are migrating from Windows you have buy new versions of those programs for Mac.

Fallacy! Once these programs are universal binaries, they run natively just like they do on windows with an INTEL processor. Most of the major applications have gone to universal, so they install the version that is specific to the OS...kind of like how a program that needs Windows vista or XP and can't be installed on Windows 98.....

No ones stopping you from using XP, its still available on the market and still supported by Microsoft, in fact a new Service Pack will be released in the first half of 2008 for it. Compared to OS X, your support options become obsolete with every new version.

Yes, but the versions cost less, have family packs so I can install for the entire family (and this is because I would want to and with Vista there is no want), and since they do SUPPORT the software, you don't have multiple versions of OS in the wild causing all kinds of havoc, like when MS said they would no longer support windows 2000.

What kind of punishment? They are not a dictatorship ya know? You can choose many different operating systems other than Windows to run on your x86 PC such as Linux, Unix, BeOS, SkyOS, FreeBSD.

Do you live in a shell? Come on, I AM USING WINDOWS RIGHT NOW and even I can tell that MS uses unfair business practices that should be charged under the RICO act. And people think that baseball is the only thing left in this country that is exempt from the US Antitrust Statutes. Linux in any distro won't succeed because it won't get shelf space in stores or support in stores because the stores are pressured to put all the MS products and their lemming friends front row. Then, MS fans put out "spin" how leopard was delayed so long! What was that? I mean, wow, at least Apple was truthful and said it was to deploy iphone, and then voila, in October it is released like they said it would. How long was Vista delayed? How rushed was it? How bad is it that 87% of all software installs are still XP? No one wants it, MS keeps hyping it in hopes that they will believe their own BS, and through it all, the consumer again suffers.

The application was probably not designed to take advantage of the new security technologies in Vista or just needed a patch to enable proper compatibility under Vista. Did you even check the developers website before jumping to a conclusion?

It's a game that has been on the market for 3 years (hint MMORPG)! It works flawlessly in XP, however, I fell for the 98ME trick and after outlaying 160 bucks, well, atleast it will be the last $160 MS gets from me for any of their operating systems.

Keep on dreaming, they are businesses first and last. The are operating systems, but both share different philosophies. I just think you setup yourself not like Windows and you are riding on the new momentum being built in the Mac community along with release of Leopard this week.

Well, the hype is getting to me, that I will admit, however I did have a chance to use Tiger for about 3 weeks with Boot Camp and I have to tell you, in the beginning I used BC quite a bit, but after that I didn't need to as I found equivalent software to get the job done without the problems usually associated with Vista. If Leopard has made improvements to Tiger, I have a feeling that if we had this discussion the same time next year, Apple will have made considerable inroads to MS dominance.

Get ready to pay for over priced hardware and quick to die nostalgia. Good luck.

Quick to die? Do you realize that Apple once had no Market Capitalization but is now half of what MS is and twice what Dell computers is? Don't believe me, look it up on Yahoo Finance. Apple could buy Dell and would still have 1/3 the MC as MS! Amazing how they went from nothing to something in 10 years!

If you say I am a "fanboi" well, so be it....I am not other than I have used both. Is Mac perfect, no...is MS perfect...no, but for me, I don't want to live the MS way anymore. I am tired of their products and half arse way of doing things.

[giga Veteran]

You know what I hate about people you know switching... They figure since you're a mac person you'll be their tech support bitch for life... It sucks :( trying to explain the same thing over and over.

I renamed my Home folder--what now!?!

I feel your pain.

[Win2Mac]

I renamed my Home folder--what now!?!

I feel your pain.

DOH! That would be bad!

[xpablo]

I plan on getting an MacBook Pro, probably this time next year, unless something better comes out.

[DerChef]

I love this term "switching" ;)

I still have a PC at home dual booting XP and Vista (to play with it). I guess I should have poured an accelerant on it the day I got my first Mac being a "switcher" and all that

At work I have to use XP pro for our in house software

My last two computers purchased were a Powerbook and now a Macbook

Macbook now has XP Home and Ubuntu on it running through parallels.

So is it the hardware or the software that makes you a switcher :laugh:

I would love to see me going into work saying I am now a "switcher" asking me to use that would be like asking a jew to eat a bacon butty.

Not being silly I just think its an meaningless term

[Guest]

Well... im getting a mac book pro, just because apple make good hardware.

I'll be dual booting with vista so i wouldnt really say i was switiching as i never had "microsoft" hardware.

[shadowmatt]

I think if you want to compare OSX and Vista you have to use them both for a while.

After a while OSX "just works", you forget about drivers, updating virus definitions at boot, all the ie bugs that lets certain websites / banners take control of the window, resizing it, poping up constant messages. You turn on the computer, do what you need, turn it off. Simple with no hassle.

After a while of using Vista, UAC drives you mad, the 3 week wait for a folder to decompress or copy to a network, constantly updating drivers to try to get a stable system, all the missed opportunities, constant warnings about, virus definitions, firewalls and other things. And the general slowness. From boot to shutdown its an anoyance.

Thats while people go on about OSX after switching, they are trying to explain there is another way. They want to share their experience.

Hardware will always fail, if its a dell or a mac. If the intel chip is faulty it doesnt matter which supplier you get it from.

Visual look and feel, while important, it quite refined in both OSX and Vista so thats personal choice.

Drivers, Apple wins by far.

Viruses, obviously if Apple had a greater market share then it would be attacked more, but it still has unix underpinnings and access control which are there to stop / make it hard to do.

Upgrading, windows wins by far, but whats that worth?

I tend to look at Macs as a unit, might put more memory and hard drives in but thats all. I buy for a 2 - 3 year life and it works well in that timeframe. The OS and apps generally are wrote to work well on a system 2 - 3 years old. I am on a Dual G5 1.8Mhz at work and its still doing fine. Soon I will get a new one with the latest intel processor and that will be that for another 3 years.

[Leddy]

Drivers, Apple wins by far.

WTF! Are you out of your mind?! OS X probably comes with drivers for 30 devices or so. Windows comes with drivers for millions! How can you say Apple driver support is better?!

[crazzyyfool]

WTF! Are you out of your mind?! OS X probably comes with drivers for 30 devices or so. Windows comes with drivers for millions! How can you say Apple driver support is better?!

Errm. OSX comes with drivers for literally hundreds of thousands of peripherals. How can you say it only has 30? :blink:

Edited October 22, 2007 by kraized

[Damian]

WTF! Are you out of your mind?! OS X probably comes with drivers for 30 devices or so. Windows comes with drivers for millions! How can you say Apple driver support is better?!

Errm. OSX comes with drivers for literaly hundreds of thousands of drivers for peripherals. How can you say it only has 30? :blink:

lol 30 :laugh:

[shadowmatt]

WTF! Are you out of your mind?! OS X probably comes with drivers for 30 devices or so. Windows comes with drivers for millions! How can you say Apple driver support is better?!

You miss understand, or I didnt explain correctly. As the OS is locked to a few machine setups and generally 3rd parties that do support OSX either bundle the driver with OSX or on a CD you get a system that doesnt conflict.

Apple write / provide most drivers with OSX, software updates every 2 months provide the latest versions and the OS seems to figure out many other devices without drivers (like a bluetooth dongle) you dont need to worry about drivers. Generally you need to buy smart, not from some chinese manufacturer thats never seen a Mac.

Generally

Graphics cards supported by OSX - included with OSX and software update

Printers - Epson / HP etc inc OSX on CD with printer

Phones - Updates with software update / isync

Cameras - software update even with latest RAW support for new cameras

TV Cards - Buy EyeTV

Software - There will be a Mac version of whatever you get on the PC (not games)

External Disks - Apple generally invents or supports new connections before most other PC manufactures

Sound cards - most made for apple

Screens - buy smart but they just work

Otherhardware - Usually built in so no need to buy seperate, like webcam, speakers, bluetooth, microphone

Halfway through an installation I dont need to go looking for the latest motherboard drivers. Infact Ive seen XP machines still loading drivers in dos trying to get the Installation running while OSX is finishing its installation.

That is what I meant by drivers, most normal people, not Neowin users, people like my Mum (iBook G3, G4 and now MacBook), my girlfriend (iBook G4), students, teachers, company secretarys, and many other people dont have the time, knowledge or patience searching for drivers and thats where OSX wins.

For instance Vista kept having problems so I had to go hunting for beta drivers from Nvidia, which took a little time and knowledge. My mac just turns on, and will still turn on when I upgrade to leopard next week.

What people need to understand is that most normal users dont want to be bothered about drivers, conflicts, viruses etc and expect things to be taken care of.

And if like me you like getting under the hood, OSX has many unix based drivers, such as GIMP print, many unix / terminal apps and X11. I find OSX to be more fun than windows if you want to pull the OS apart.

Infact you can get OSX running on most PC hardware with a little hacking. I had it running on an Asus R2H using 3rd party drivers and it still ran faster than Vista on the R2H, found all the hardware, expect the camera, and booted quicker.

[kazuyette]

lulz ! I'm not switching to apple anytime soon. How can I play the soon to be released Crysis ? or EverCrack 2 ?

[Guest ID2]

I would like to get a top-of-the-range MacBook or MacBook Pro with all the specs, (if I could afford it).

They're so stylish!

Probably the main thing that puts me off though is the mindlessly devoted fan factor.

Apple devotees are nearly as bad as Firefox fans, and they're so bad I almost feel embarrassed for them.

Then I come to my senses and just want to vomit.

So I'll switch . . to Mepis and Gentoo.

[BlueBlood]

im saving up to switch to a MAC, i cant wait to get one.

[shadowmatt]

lulz ! I'm not switching to apple anytime soon. How can I play the soon to be released Crysis ? or EverCrack 2 ?

With Bootcamp and a copy of Vista or XP maybe?

[Titoist]

If u want best of both worlds, get a mac and install Vista. Ive never seen Vista run like crap on a Mac... it runs better than XP.

[dud]

A year or so I was the only one with a Mac. With my brother getting one today, and most of my friends having purchased one recently most everyone I know has an Apple Computer now. Its funny how quickly things have changed, and I love the fact that I don't have to remove spy-ware on a monthly basis from peoples PC any-longer.

Your sample is kinda small.

[KeR]

If u want best of both worlds, get a mac and install Vista. Ive never seen Vista run like crap on a Mac... it runs better than XP.

Vidi to, jos jedan Bosanac :)

[sundayx Veteran]

I think it's not the matter of sample size or stereotypes, its the fact that Apple is gaining market share, and it's good because people realize there is a choice in the market, and where Windows is failing, Apple is picking it up.