OS market

anything I don't mind

anything I don't mind

anything I don't mind

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I am not trying to start a flame war. I am just wanting to discuss the improvements of osx in contrast to windows 10. It is more around the economic situation or the current os market in general and what people thoughts are on it. Especially now that mobile OS is also playing a part in the desktop world.

I have always been against mac products because they are over priced for the hardware that you get compared to building a pc from components and I never liked osx in spite that it is was built on freebsd which i always liked.

Recently this guy at work was telling me about the latest osx. It syncs with your phone and you can send receive calls and text messages from your pc. I have not looked in to how that works but it is very useful. There is also an application called parallels that allows you to run windows as a vm and open applications natively on the desktop. Vmware workstation can do the same in windows.

It is a shame there is no official support from apple for pc components as i think that would realy open up the os market. I am not going to buy a mac any time soon though.

If linux and freebsd had better driver and game support then i would already use that as main desktop os years ago.
 
The reason why the Mac platform can do things like integrating with an iPhone for handoff of calls and app content is because Apple don't allow their OS to run on every random collection of parts that were lurking at the bottom of the bargain bin on a particular week. Mac OS isn't an open platform, it has never pretended to be one, and the user experience is better because of it.

Comparing the price of a high quality Apple desktop like an iMac to a PC that you built yourself is pointless, unless you shift the goalposts by claiming that the compact all in one design adds no value. If you look at laptop hardware then where an equivalent exists the pricing isn't much different. The MacBook Airs are a great value laptop. Don't be confused into thinking Apple computers are overpriced simply because they ignore the cheap end of the market.
 
Don't get exactly what you're asking?

All OS's are different and have there plusses and minuses. The question you want is do you really want Apple copying your SMS text messages, converting them to iMessage and then sending them to you. No doubt each and every text will be artificially read. I imagine law enforcement agencies are rubbing there hands at this one. It's the same with the photos just being in cloud storage which you can easily do with Microsoft OneDrive / Dropbox /etc.

I like Windows - there isn't another OS that gets near the functionality and applications available. I can pretty much find software for anything and the support information available is second to none. With Windows 10 new notification center it wouldn't surprise me if they did something very similar.

I'd also rather build by own PC as I know what components are going in it and it's very easy to replace the graphics card, hard-drives, processors, RAM, etc. without being forced to go down a very specific update route.



M.
 
Caged said:
Don't be confused into thinking Apple computers are overpriced simply because they ignore the cheap end of the market.
Click to expand...

Not sure if you're serious. The Macs are notoriously overpriced. People thinking the OS is free as well are far from wrong with users having to pay to upgrade the software.

21.5-inch: 1.4GHz

Specifications
1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz
8GB memory
500GB hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 5000
Dispatched:
Within 24 hours
Free Delivery
£899.00


I don't find that particularly good value. £900 for essentially a dual core, 500GB HD, 21" Screen and onboard graphics seems ridiculously high.



M.
 
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So for £900 you get an all-in-one desktop with probably 5 years of not paying for annual OS upgrades. Where's the PC equivalent?
 
m4cc45 said:
The question you want is do you really want Apple copying your SMS text messages, converting them to iMessage and then sending them to you. No doubt each and every text will be artificially read. I imagine law enforcement agencies are rubbing there hands at this one.
Click to expand...

You need to do a bit of research if you think converting an SMS to an encrypted format to deliver it to your Mac somehow makes it easier for law enforcement to intercept.
 
if you ham stringed most pc's so only certain hardware worked on it, made it less user friendly and open and stopped development and backwards compatibility etc, a pc o/s would be a lot better also.

a mac is a mac, a pc is a p/c, first find out what pc stands for a personnel computer, which is not what a mac is.

Only the Windows world offers true variety. Devices v prices etc

Games.
Value.
customization and options.
software, do you need any more?

don't take my word on it either, the facts speaks for itself, But remember - Mac is one company. Windows is backed by hundreds, if not 1000's.

then look at o/s sold, pc v's mac :)

Microsoft Windows: 57.12%
Linux kernel based: 20.12%
Apple: 18.04%
Other[a] 4.74%

correct at September 2014
 
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Caged said:
So for £900 you get an all-in-one desktop with probably 5 years of not paying for annual OS upgrades. Where's the PC equivalent?
Click to expand...

I could build the equivalent for far less and I could buy the OS every 3year (or upgrades there on). I would have a far superior machine - having not upgraded my current PC for ages it's still far better than the newer ones on there shop.

Have a look at any HP / Dell / IBM PC for an equivalent spec for <£500.

Is an all in one actually a good thing?



M.
 
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Caged said:
You need to do a bit of research if you think converting an SMS to an encrypted format to deliver it to your Mac somehow makes it easier for law enforcement to intercept.
Click to expand...

If you think that the law agencies don't have a back door into Apple I'd be flabbergasted.





M.
 
That was never my point - you can't compare an iMac, supported for two years by someone that isn't yourself and a collection of web forums, with a machine you built yourself that is a completely different form factor and then draw conclusions as to whether one is overpriced or not. All you can say is where you see the value in each (completely different) product.
 
m4cc45 said:
If you think that the law agencies don't have a back door into Apple I'd be flabbergasted.





M.
Click to expand...

All I have to go on is Apple's privacy policy that states they don't work with government agencies and never will. I have to take that at face value because I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary. Regardless of whether that is true or not, it's almost impossible to make SMS less secure, so deciding that converting a text message to an iMessage somehow makes it more likely to be intercepted is a bizarre statement to make.
 
It makes the data more accessible. Confiscated iMacs for example would view all of your text messages though I'm sure everyone encrypts there iMacs.

The US has hooks into everywhere - your data being in the US as well doesn't help.



M.
 
You're right, data stored on a computer is less secure than data that isn't stored anywhere. But SMS isn't much different to just writing the message on a piece of wood and wearing it like a sandwich board. It's a strange position to take on a feature which is hugely useful and works well.
 
Skeeter said:
If you've been paying for Windows once a year your doing something wrong.
Click to expand...

Aye, so very true.
Windows 7 was released in July 2009 - so if you're still on that there has been no cost for the past 5 years.
Windows 8 was August 2012, so even if you upgraded to that, you've made one upgrade purchase in the last 5 years.
 
Caged said:
You're right, data stored on a computer is less secure than data that isn't stored anywhere. But SMS isn't much different to just writing the message on a piece of wood and wearing it like a sandwich board. It's a strange position to take on a feature which is hugely useful and works well.
Click to expand...

True to a degree. It's more about the move that takes your UK based SMS and converts it into a US message which then makes the US legally able to view it - I have nothing to hide but the massive open powers that the US law agencies have and the massive data farming that goes on is disturbing to me - I don't want to make it easy for them.

Also agree with Skeeters and Stoofas points. Especially as when I bought Windows 7 it was @ £35-40 and Windows 8 @ £25.



M.
 
m4cc45 said:
Not sure if you're serious. The Macs are notoriously overpriced. People thinking the OS is free as well are far from wrong with users having to pay to upgrade the software.

I don't find that particularly good value. £900 for essentially a dual core, 500GB HD, 21" Screen and onboard graphics seems ridiculously high.
Click to expand...

It's about having access to a particular eco system and experience, not zomg amazing hardware specs.
 
Caged said:
So for £900 you get an all-in-one desktop with probably 5 years of not paying for annual OS upgrades. Where's the PC equivalent?
Click to expand...
£900 for a "desktop" pc?
You can build a high spec gaming PC for half that, and will be good enough as a dektop for 10 years.
I've never been forced to pay for annual upgrades either, and Windows 8 came out as a $15 upgrade.
 
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I put togther:
Intel i5-4690 (3.5GHz - Devil's Canyon)
Gigabyte Motherboard
8GB Kingston RAM
Radeon R9 280 Turbo Graphics
Antec Case & SuperFlower PSU
Crucial 256GB SSD
Pioneer DVD-ROM

For £650inc VAT. Already had my "cheap" Windows 8/8.1 from previous. So OK, no monitor and peripherals here, but they can be cheap as chips.
£900 gets you....well...certainly "more than needed".
 
I use an iMac at work and a PC at home. While OSX is nice, especially now they've added Aero (but no window snapping) I find the Windows 10 technical preview to be better.
Plus as a gamer and a poor student PC's are the only choice for myself.

As for the feature to have messages appear on the iMac? While quite handy I don't overly enjoy being in my office, as the boss peeks in on me only to have a notification displaying the latest text from my partner on screen.
 
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