Mac Vs PC

[jdude]

After talking to people for years about Macs I finally have got the chance to use one for about 3 months on a daily basis. I think I'm in a better position than most to comment on the differences now, and even though this is a topic beat to death I'd still like to give my 2 cents. Firstly I'd like to say I came at the Mac with an open heart and full understanding it would take some time to get accustomed to the differences. Generally I use it for web browsing and word processing only, I do plug in an iPhone into it:

 

Pros:

It looks good.

 

The App store syncs automatically between apple products (I don't think this is specific only to the Mac though)

 

If your headphones unplug the Mac goes to your previous unplugged volume.

 

It looks pretty.

 

It has a very nice monitor that has very correct color display and does not change based on angle.

 

The monitor is covered by glass so you cannot damage it as easily as some laptops.

 

The touchpad scrolling is convenient.

 

The two finger right click is much better than 2 buttons.

 

Three finger swipe to view a calendar is nice (but if you had a mouse you could click the time on Windows 7 which would be just as fast).

 

Auto-indexing for searching is convenient for finding docs (I think you can setup Windows 7 to do this automatically though).

 

It has a good wifi range.

 

It has loud speakers built into it.

 

 

Cons:

The keyboard and touchpad sometimes stop responding.

 

It often lags so bad that as I type I can stop and watch the letters catch up with me.

 

Anything I want I need to buy as an app.

 

If you are doing work on it the workflow is severly disrupted by a very poorly thought out alt-tab process which allows you to switch between applications, but not specific documents (IE: pick between 3 word documents)

 

The dock is annoying because if you have multiple word documents open you cannot just quickly visually see which doc you want because they all have the same icon and an extremely miniature image of the content.

 

When you copy and paste to the desktop it places icons ontop of one another on the bottom right instead of where you hit paste, so you get a stack of icons on your desktop in one spot.

 

If you maximize a browser when hooked up to 2 monitors it puts a grey texture on the other monitor (WHY?!)

 

You cannot maximize all windows.

 

You cannot shake to minimize like in Win 7, instead you have to use a 4 finger swipe on the touchpad which only works 50% of the time.

 

Routinely locks up applications.

 

The battery life-time is a lie. If you are using it full-time while it's on battery you get 2-3 hours even though it says 6 hours.

 

If you close the Mac it has lights on it which stay on and drain the battery, so after about 3 days of no use it's dead. This is the case unless you shut it off. (My netbook goes into sleep mode when the case is closed).

 

It heats up just as much as any other computer (another marketing lie).

 

 

Conclusion:

Despite giving it a fair shake, I can't see why on earth anyone would ever think Windows 7 is worse. The only possible explanation is that either they didn't know how to use Windows 7 and never ever multi-tasked or they REALLY hate having to have an anti-virus.

[betpet]

Can't really disagree with that sentiment. Microsoft used to be pretty crappy when it came to quality. They have really pulled their act together and now I'd say that Windows 7 is the bee's knees in as much as it's stable, reliable and relatively smooth and quick. I haven't had a BSOD on it ever and I'm looking forward to Windows 8 to see how it all moves forward.

 

I hate Macs anyway. It's easy to claim reliability when you only allow a limited set of hardware configurations.

[lost_soul]

I'm a Linux user mostly, but I did use someones Imac a couple months ago and now there's a 37 inch monitor sitting on my desk as a result. It was cool to use a computer with such a large screen and I figured "I have to get me one of those" (screens). I found the OS to be interesting. Didn't play with it enough to like or hate it. It seemed to be very responsive, even on a core 2 duo. There was none of this annoying slow menu fading in crap or 5 seconds of thrashing while it started the web browser.

 

The Mac OS mostly reminds me of Gnome 2. It has nice features built in, like full-screen magnification that you can use/increase/decrease with a key press, rather than having to start a program and click buttons to control it (or buy something else). The icons were very nice, not pixelated at all.

 

The reason a lot of us hate Windows is its refusal to get with the times. For example, when I'm working with a KVM and I toggle between machines, my Linux boxes are ready to go instantly, but Windows has to sit for a few seconds and re-detect the keyboard again... and it throws this annoying "toggle sticky keys" message sometimes. Windows was the last platform to incorporate a half-decent magnifier and it still falls behind the other two systems due to its lack of global controls. Up until Windows 7, the magnifier only worked in a portion of the screen, though we had Compiz and the mac had its magnifier too.

 

Then there's the nightmare of prepping a user's Win 7 machine after a fresh install. It takes several reboots and update sessions before things are complete. If I install a distro like Debian, I only have to update and reboot once to become current.

 

Also, (not sure if this happens on 7), but in XP if you do something as trivial as moving your USB mouse to another port, it takes forever to re-detect the hardware!

Edited February 29, 2012 by lost_soul

[Baddcog]

I haven't used Mac very much. But both my bosses have Mac laptops that they continually have to wait for the lag issues, etc... They seem to hate the dock.

 

When I have to use one to do a quick 3 second photoshop job (because they wont buy it for my PC) I am banging my head on the desk for 20 minutes.

 

It's funny because they are 'old school graphics designers' and I guess they were sold on the 'macs are better for graphics' thing a long time ago. But they have constant problems.

It's like the T2/TDM debate, lol. They just refuse to believe working on old max laptops is the issue. I don't see how someone can work on them 40 hours a week (laptops, let alone old slow ones).

 

But it shows, they send me work that I have to enlarge and put on signs/vehicles and I have to clean up every file. They don't zoom in so nothing aligns, etc...

 

Some of that is work complaint, not mac complaint... but still, it only jades me towards mac more I guess.

[demagogue]

We had to use Macs at one of my jobs once, and it drove me a little crazy, although this was years ago now. But the thing about the interface... hard to explain it (& I don't know how much it still applies). Beyond the actual features, into the flow and even the aesthetic, the way things feel as they move and work, the docking and the icons, you can feel yourself getting sucked into it and almost getting brain-deadened and absorbed into the flow, like it's electric soma. I'm sure having to do the kind of work I was doing contributed to that... But it's something I feel with all Apple stuff, and it makes me understand why they call Apple users a kind of cult or zombies. It's a palpable feeling of getting caught up in the flow of the interface that you have to snap out of to realize it's not as straightforward to just do what you want to do. And this feeling it carries some "ideology" with it, like some utopian way to connect people to device, I just congenitally distrust. That's also aside from the features, but you don't want to feel like your interface believes in something you don't lol... You just want it to do its job as neutrally and efficiently as possible. But because it's so assertive in generating that feeling, I feel like whatever suspicion it generates in response it sort of brings on itself.

[Sotha]

call Apple users a kind of cult ..

 

I was once in a home party where I observed (at too close proximity to my liking) a casual debate over PC vs Mac, which turned into shouting and mild violence from the apple fans part. It was confusing why that person felt so strongly about it. The event reinforced my belief that some apple users do belong to a cult or something.

 

Anyways: I've used a mac few times. Not my kind of thing. The apple logo painted in the thing increases the price of the hardware. Everything felt a bit weird and the system was not as fast and responsive I'd like. But I don't freak out if someone likes them or not. Let all the flowers blossom, right?