Why are we using MAC? Is it a religion or there is a true advantage?

I'd trust a pro photographer using Windows about as much as I'd trust a photographer who

turns up in a Lexus. Good taste has to count for something in a creative pro. ;-)

i had two win xp machines die in one year, catastrophic data losses<br>ive had this mac since november, and im still not crashing.<br>i have a pc i keep for gamign(doom3, hell yeah!)<br>but thats all id ever trust it for.

Thanks a lot guys, it really helps. It answered my question, nobody said that they really have more speed when using Photoshop on a MAC, compare to a PC

 

Finaly, it is a very good machine, but I was expecting it to be half the time (if i relate to there processor graphics, printed on the the box and showed on the website).

 

Ex. If I use a 1 Ghz ibook and apply a filter on a 50 MB file and it takes 10 sec., it will not be 4 times faster with a dual G5 2Ghz, it will be 7 sec.

 

There is some kind of a minimum delay that does not come from the processor itself and I dont know what it is.

Sam -

 

I would trust a photographer who shows up in a lexus because you know they gotta be good to afford that. :)

Louis.. yea. Mac do more work per clock cycle and will not be directly comparable to clock speeds presented by the frenetic intel chips (they buzz a lot and get very little done.

These days you can buy a high quality PC and hardware / performance-wise they will be comperable. It mostly comes down to how you work. Some people like a cluttered desk, some like a clean one. Some people study well with music in the back ground, others like it quiet. Some find Window's methodology compatible with their workflow, others find Mac to be more conducive to getting work done.

 

I can get work done in either place, but as a lng time UNIX guy, I find Mac to be more in line with my way of thinking. The only real differentiation I've seen is that Macs have a more coherant hardware picture, while getting a new gizmo for your PC often requires reading a zillion reviews, and having your own hardware knowledge. Nothing wrong with either approach, just different.

I am fine with either PC or Mac. My PC is faster than my Mac but as others have mentioned there are software and OS problems. Most of my probs with the PC have been IE related, which is without doubt a bad reflection on old Gates considering how many years it has been on the market. But, Macs are not so compatible and updatable when it comes to the huge market of 3rd party software packages, not to mention sending out end products on CD or DVD to clients. Although Macs currently have their own version of IE, Word, Excel, Photoshop etc, and there are converting software packages, I find there are still problems crossing platforms.<p>

My personal solution and preference was to use a fast Multimedia PC [with more than one firewall, Mozilla instead of IE etc <i>as Byron Lawrence advises</i>] as the main workstation and use a G4 Powerbook for Mac formatted files.<p>

The way I see it is that Mac cleverly cornered the market with schools & colleges which lead into the industries of media, graphics, photography, imaging & publishing. So, if you are working in any of those environments or industries you'll need a Mac to transfer all your data from home to work, vice versa and to send discs to clients. But Microsoft cornered the home market which spread into the offices and workplace. So, at the moment you need both to accomodate whatever, whoever, whenever.<p>

As to callibration, that's a another topic.... but no Mac or PC is the same as any other Mac or PC.... all computers should be individually callibrated in the Pro setting. I do get fed up of colour balancing and tweaking for viewing on the two different gammas, not to mention the finer balancing for printing or publishing.<p>

ps it is much easier to open PC files on a Mac than vice versa, so perhaps that may be an indication of the more capable model - or more accurately, superior structure OS?

IBM, back when it was a player, cut formal deals with school districts (particularly in CA)...they SOLD AS400 and support and let Apple have the classrooms, GAVE systems...IBM liked the money and needed legal cover against monopoly suits. This by itself explains the Macs in classrooms...

 

PCs dominate business because Apple didn't manage to cut timely deals with the inevitable Microsoft juggernaut. Businesses accepted DOS immediately, after all.

 

Most sports reporters were using Bill Gates-designed software before there was a Microsoft...the Tandy laptop with the built-in 300baud modem, all operating on 6 (?) AA batteries. You could see rows of them in TV reports from Olympics and World Series. In San Francisco EVERY reporter was required to use one in in the early Eighties, bought 600 of them.

 

Apple identified itself with kids and graphics: business is done by adults and words and spreadsheets. PC:Mac

 

XP is wonderful. I used to love System 7. My System 7 files moved without a hitch to Win3.1, then 98, now XP. I don't have printer driver problems, unlike G5 cutsie-animal OS.

 

Last but not least, Consumer Reports should be printed on something absorbant.

For me, it's a reliability issue. I find my Mac trouble free where as when I was using a PC, I constantly fear it crashing or getting hung up when processing a large file.

it's basically a personal choice.

Mac got a toehold in the schools and colleges by offering good deals.

once they were in and most teachers either didn't know the difference or were not techies. educators are different from most gearheads.

the hs where my son went was almost all MAC . when 99% of the students went to the business world , it was 99% pc.

several years ago, the company almost went out of business.. note i said almost.. but not quite.

when the old managemaent came back replacing

soft-drink executives, the company came back to life.

it should survive and prosper.

cheap pc's and the way big companies make pc's like cookies,

will always make pc's cheaper.

a quality pc willalmost be on a cost par with a mac.

Oh, sorry John I didn't realize that you were going to be able to contradict my point about

Sony quality of tech support with such an informed and insightful rejoinder. If you don't

like Consumer Reports, how about last year's PC Magazines Survey of customer

satisfaction? They said,

"Tech support is where Sony falls apart. The tech-support score for all Sony notebooks is

4.8, which barely qualifies as good. It's the worst score in this category. Desktops also get

a bottom-of-the-table 5.7. Users of Sony notebooks at work give the company a 4.5 for

tech support, the worst score in this category?or in any category in the entire survey.

Things didn't get any better when we looked at the more specific questions about support.

The worst areas cited were the company's inability to resolve problems promptly in one

call and the relative helpfulness of the service reps."

 

Perhaps you'd like to come back with more support for your position than just spouting

opinions regarding absorbent material?

I can't imagine why anyone would think Sony would be capable of supporting computers. They are a television company. TV's just work.

MACs are actually becoming more & more like PCs as time goes by. OS-X has finally discovered the right mouse click and soon, all MACs will have Intel chips. I only wish they had shipped my G4 with a paper clip... ;)

 

In reality, MACs have gained an arguably justified reputations in the early days, when the first MAC came out. IT was easier for most users to operate and was soon the platform of choice for campus papers and other desktop publishing & music software. The rest is history and too long to talk about it in here.

 

Today, with chips architecture getting more sophisticated by the month any computer will do fine, whether Intel, Motorola or Athlon. I have both PCs and MACs in my Studio and I really don't see any real reasons to prefer MACs over PCs, for music, graphics or anything else.

 

But, it's hard to teach an old dogs new tricks. So, MAC-fans will always tell you MACs are better...it must be that paper clip thing...

 

Earlier MACs were bogged down by proprietary "everything" (Nubus, serial ports, etc...) which in turn forced users to spend more and get less in terms of choices, competitive pricing, 3rd party peripherals, etc... Now, MACs have finally moved to PCI and most of the new MACs are more forgiving in terms of upgrades and/or user installed cards, etc...

 

The NEW G5 took the MAC closer the PCs in terms of bus speed, etc... in which it was lagging behind.

 

I now make my own PCs and that's something that is still NOT possible with MACs. Many video editing suites here in Los Angeles have replaced their MACs with Xeon machines which one can build very easily.

>>Some people told me that the colors are calibrated<<

 

People who can't be objective will come up with all sorts of fairy tales. New MACs use the SAME graphic cards available in any computer store (GE Force, etc...).

 

Nowadays, it is extremely easy to make your own PC. You only need a minimum of knowledge to do it and can custom build it to suit your specific needs.

JOHN KELLY

 

I like that consumer reports comment. It is partially true and funny. :)

In the disc drive industry we used a code word when classified; then later MAC; before the Mac was released to the public. It is abit funny now how newbies that later used the Mac scorn the older pre-production abbreviations with such zeal. Maybe it fills their egos to change history. There were a hell of alot of Apple products before the MAC; many years well before the IBM PC was even released.

In Optical ray tracing; I used punch cards pon a Univac with drum memory. Later in the 1970's I used several variants of HP 98XX mini computer with cassette storage. In the late 1970's I had a TI-99 at home; it had 14 digits accuracy; in the 4 functions; plus trig functions. The first IBMs with DOS 1.0 had double precison in the 4 functions; but NOT in trig functions. the older TI-99 was radically more accurate. Later versions of DOS had double precision in trig functions. The first rev A board on the IBM PC had the same memory chips as the TI-99. This rev A board started at 16k; and filled to 64k. The later rev B board filled to more; it had different memory chips. The cassette port on the IBM PC was radically more snappy in speed than the TI-99; or Kansas City standard; and bait faster than the HP cassette. I have only used 3 of these cassette variants; all no compatable. The IBM system had a way to quickly sort of fast forward on the cassettes. Some of us use the PC because it has been used alot by technical software; never used as much with the Apple systems.

<i>In the disc drive industry we used a code word when classified; then later MAC; before the Mac was released to the public. It is abit funny now how newbies that later used the Mac scorn the older pre-production abbreviations with such zeal.</i>

 

<p>Interesting point (though completely off the forum topic :-) In my terminology, MAC stands for an ethernet hardware address. Tiger was the codename of Java 1.5 before Apple anounced that OS 10.4 will be called Tiger. All good TLAs and FLAs are already in use and good code names start to be harder to find...</p>

Based on your comment about being in a coffee shop, it sounds like you're using a portable (presumably a PowerBook) for you work. Apple's original TiBooks really led the way in the industry -- they were lighter, faster, and more beautiful than anything comparable from the Wintel world at the time.

 

Since then, as Intel has cranked out the Pentium-M chipsets and IBM has failed to crank out faster G4s or a mobile G5 this advantage has evaporated. In all probability, the lack of a competitive mobile chipset is the primary reason that Apple was forced to move to Intel last week.

 

The performance specs that you're citing were for dual G5s PowerMacs -- they are pretty fast, pretty sweet machines -- but you need to understand something important about benchmarks. There's the old adage: there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Apple only ever shows you the Photoshop benchmarks at which their dual G5s excel. But before you get up in arms, it's worth noting that *all* companies do this. ATI and Nvidia were caught out for optimising their video drivers to perform particularly well on the Quake3 frame-rate test. PC makers will never show you the benchmarks at which a P4 (with its long pipeline) suck compared to Macs.

 

I'm sorry that you feel let down, but no one should have promised you that a Mac would be faster than an equivalent top-of-the-line PC. They are both tools that excel at some things but not at others. What value do you place on needing to reinstall Windows on an annual basis because of the crap gumming up the registry? What value do you place on knowing that your machine hasn't been 0wn3d? Of course, it's possible to lock down a PC to the same extent, but to do that I needed to download and install ZoneAlarm, Spybot S&D, AdAware, Mozilla, Thunderbird, and learn how to use regedit. All I had to do on my Mac was turn it on. However much time I might lose against the latest Pentium-M chipset (an advantage that will disappear when Apple moves to the dual-core Pentium-D chipset along with everyone else) I've more than made it up by not having to download and manually install endless updates to the system.

 

A lot of graphic designers and artist types *do* prefer Apple machines simply because it's what they are used to. You get used to one way of doing things, and as long as the advantages to switching aren't clear

then you're not going to do so. XP *does* have many of the features that were missing from earlier Windows systems in terms of stability, performance, colour calibration, etc., but when your Mac is still doing all of these things perfectly well too then why would you retrain on to a different system without a specific reason to do so? Price is one part of it (and is why some people leave Apple for good), but for many people a few hundred dollars is not sufficient if you've figured out all of the keyboard shortcuts and have an effective workflow (e.g. one using AppleScript or Automator).

 

Anyway, if you have an Aluminium PowerBook with 1GB of RAM and decide to have a garage sale, please let me know and if the price is right I'd be happy to buy it... I'm still working on a 667MHz TiBook but don't want to invest in anything new until I can get a dual-core Pentium-D. :)

 

jon

Oh, and I second the request that we stop using MAC when we mean Mac as a short-hand for Apple.

 

MAC stands for Media Access Control (also known as the physical or hardware address) is the unique (reprogrammable) id for a network card (Ethernet or modem) on an IP network.

 

So: MAC is for networking, and Mac is for retail sales.

 

Cheers,

 

jon

What a long thread, wow. Like many people said, it is in general a personal preference. Both have strengths and weaknesses. I've seen/heard of problems in both. Apple's worst problem that I know about seems to come from breaking backwards compatibility with each major OS X release. Microsoft's worst problem is security.

 

I found it interesting to see that Apple signed a deal with Intel, and we can expect to see the first intel-based macs about a year from now. I hope to see a version of Mac OS X that will run on my current Intel box.

 

BTW, World of Warcraft runs well on both platforms. ;-)

Louis-Olivier:

 

What does the future hold for MACs? Apple can not compete in the computer arena --- they have not made money is their computer business segment for several years --- their strategy would seem to be to abandon all their previous OSs and associated software and develop a high priced, PC like, machine. So, do you want to hitch your wagon to that strategy?

 

 

 

Owning a MAC defines you as being creative --- that is the same as saying you are no better than what you own. How can anyone disagree with such a lovely, consumer-society, sentiment?

Hi Louis,

 

Due to my work needs I use both. In fact, I just purchased a new Dell last month, however I find myself continuing to use my 3 year old G4 Mac (now with 10.4 installed on it) for everything but GIS (which is why I use a Windows machine in the first place).

 

I could easily get away just using Window machines, however I find that the Mac OS has always provided a more enjoyable and arguably a more productive working environment. Whether it was OS 7/8 vs Windows 3.1 or OS 9 vs Windows 95/98 or OS X vs Windows XP, Apple has and still continues to provide a more productive platform for the GENERAL USER. I hate to think of the all time I have wasted trouble shooting viruses, spyware, networking issues, and other Windows OS issues over the years. Sure I've had my share of Mac problems but rarely (if ever) have I had to reinstall the OS to get the machine working again. To me, that worth the extra $$$ for Apple hardware.

 

My advice ... try it for a while. If your still unhappy with it then ditch it and buy a PC. Maybe some of us might be interested in taking it off your hands !

<p>Fred Bonnet wrote:</p>

 

<blockquote>What does the future hold for MACs? Apple can not compete in the computer arena --- they have not made money is their computer business segment for several years --- their strategy would seem to be to abandon all their previous OSs and associated software and develop a high priced, PC like, machine. So, do you want to hitch your wagon to that strategy?</blockquote>

 

<p>Really? That would news to Apple, I'm sure. Last time I checked (admittedly, this was back in the 'dark years' when their stock was trading at about $14 and I picked up a few shares) Apple had something close to $8 <i>billion</i> in the bank. More than their market valuation at the time. I <i>also</i> know that they still make more money from shifting a few million desktops and laptops than they do from their iPod sales (see recent financials).</p>

 

<p>One could also argue that Dell, Sony, et al. seem to have a strategy of shipping an expensive, Mac-like machine. Every time Apple releases a new desktop system (iMac G3, iMac G4, iMac G5, to name the most obvious examples) they have to fend off a half-dozen imitators. Apple was the first company (that I'm aware of) to build a laptop with a metallic chasis and frame.</p>

 

<p>I'd also point out that abandonning an old OS (OS9) to take advantages of such features as pre-emptive multitasking and threading hardly constitutes a stupid decision. In fact, MS could probably have done away with whole classes of security vulnerabilities if they'd been willing to be a bit more aggressive in their rewrite. <i>And</i> I was actually still able to run OS9 for more than two years after making OSX my primary OS. Apple has also already demonstrated PPC applications running on Intel hardware for the next migration. Will it be as quick as native code? Of course not, but it'll work.</p>

 

<blockquote>

Owning a MAC defines you as being creative --- that is the same as saying you are no better than what you own. How can anyone disagree with such a lovely, consumer-society, sentiment?

</blockquote>

 

That's like saying that owning a PC defines you as being stupid. It's just plain dumb. I bought a Mac because it <i>worked</i> for me in a way that a PC didn't. I don't care what it says about me, I care that it works.</p>

 

<p>Now, before you run around panning Apple you might at least <i>try</i> the product. I have 3 OSes at home: OS X, Win 2K, Mandrake Linux, and 2 at work: WinXP, RedHat 9. Of them all, the Mac is what makes me feel like I'm able to do whatever I want most easily. They all work, but one works better for <i>me</i>.</p>

Joey Sandoval writes:

"i had two win xp machines die in one year, catastrophic data losses

ive had this mac since november, and im still not crashing"

 

Any machine can crash, get stolen, or fail. Anyone who consciously fails to adopt a data backup strategy, almost deserves it.

 

My family and I have had a variety of Win95/98/2K/XP machines over the last 10 yrs at home and at work, and yes, several have "died".

 

But I've never lost a single bit of data. Mac or PC, one needs a data backup strategy & then FOLLOW IT.