What would make me want to buy a mac?

EVH said:
There's no doubting you can't do it all on a PC, but it seems weird (to me) how they wouldn't want to teach students on what is classed as "industry standard" hardware :(
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Yeah, I know what you mean. I think on the music side there is an increasing tendency to use pcs, particularly that music production hardware and software is becoming ever more affordable in smaller/project studios. I have no doubt that the majority of big well funded studios use Mac Pros and Pro Tools/Logic. And that's fair enough cuz at the time they were learning/coming up that was the standard. I just think that it's starting to shift a little now, in the music side of things at least at least.

Panzerbjorn said:
Stopstart have you considered the other creative industries? Music isn't the only one :p

It's a fair example and it's interesting to know, but coming from a Graphic Design degree and spending time with people in the industry it's all about Mac. The only department at my uni (Arts Institute at Bournemouth) that doesn't use macs is Finance. :o
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You're completely right, of course, graphic design is a completely different kettle of fish. I was only really using music because its an example that I know well! In fact one of my friends is doing an art degree and after being exposed to Macs for five minutes decided he had to have one despite the fact that he'd been quite happily photoshopping on a pc for three years prior to that. So I understand that.

I just think maybe its a self fullfilling prophecy with macs now. Person does something arty at uni having used pcs all their life. Perception is that macs are the industry standard so they go out and buy one. They eventually grow up, get experience in the industry, and become a teacher. Tell students that macs are the industry standard so students go out and buy.... etc etc.
 
TheVoice said:
Genuine question though, because as you know, that sort of example is used all the time: Why is it the case? Why are Macs considered superior for graphics work etc, when virtually all the major software (Adobe stuff, for starters) is available on PC?
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This is the question I should have asked but didn't :rolleyes: I asked my art friend who went out and bought a mac this and all he said was "It's completely different on a mac." So if that's the case, how come?
 
Phaser said:
I've had quite a few crashes/restarts on here too so don't listen to any of the "ZOMG MACS NEVER CRASH!!" either.

I'm a bit wary of the optical drive too. I'm not sure if it's just mine but whenever I insert a disk it sounds like it's chewing it up! Works fine but it's like i'm waiting for it to die. I've also had stuck disks a few times.

Overall i'm glad I bought the MacBook as it's something different (and it looks cool!) but sometimes I wish i'd just spent say £400 on an equivalent Windows machine and kept the change.
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My opitcal drive sounds like a Jet Airplane when inserting a CD. After about 5 minutes it dies down but its terrible! Two times louder than the ***** XBox 360.

My MAC has crashed once. Firefox crashes near enough everytime i use it. Dreadful, Dreadful, Dreadful, Dreadful piece of software for the MAC.

I do love the Mac though and will be selling my PC and buying a Mac Pro. Amazing OS.
 
Nahema said:
On another note, I saw ppl bickering about iTunes earlier, who cares when you can download a copy of VLC for either platform! I only use itunes to put iTunes on my iPod.
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Apart from the fact that VLC seems to majorly fail at playing anything over DVD resolution for me..
 
Talbs13 said:
My opitcal drive sounds like a Jet Airplane when inserting a CD. After about 5 minutes it dies down but its terrible! Two times louder than the ***** XBox 360.

My MAC has crashed once. Firefox crashes near enough everytime i use it. Dreadful, Dreadful, Dreadful, Dreadful piece of software for the MAC.

I do love the Mac though and will be selling my PC and buying a Mac Pro. Amazing OS.
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I recommend Safari.

Firefox was good until Safari 3 was launched with Leopard ;)
 
iTunes is pants on Windows but the biggest problem for me with itunes is that it is a little more than a copy excel than play music.

I genuinely believe that for a company so proud of it's user friendly UIs iTunes is a shocking clamity. WMP and Winamp handle media libraries so much better and Winamp Remote is outstanding. VLC is good for playing back vids but thats about it.

If iTunes was released by MS know it would be slammed by every Mac fanboy in here. If it wasn't for the iPod we would have a much improved iTunes right about now and a lot more DRM free music stores
 
chesterstu said:
iTunes is pants on Windows but the biggest problem for me with itunes is that it is a little more than a copy excel than play music.

I genuinely believe that for a company so proud of it's user friendly UIs iTunes is a shocking clamity. WMP and Winamp handle media libraries so much better and Winamp Remote is outstanding. VLC is good for playing back vids but thats about it.

If iTunes was released by MS know it would be slammed by every Mac fanboy in here. If it wasn't for the iPod we would have a much improved iTunes right about now and a lot more DRM free music stores
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Well I have to disagree personally, I hate WMP library, I'd prefer just to browse through folders on my hard drive than use WMP to manage my music. Itunes (on Mac at least) is brilliant, I keep the artist and album search pnaes open and just browse as I want, it's quick and easy and I can't think of anything else I'd want it to do.

It was slow and crash prone on windows but it's fine on OSX.
 
The lure of an 8 core MacPro is very tempting even though I already have have a Q6600 system. I am, like many people, resistant to change especially when what I have isn't broken.

I hear statements such as "Application X runs better on Mac" but when pressed as to quite what is "better" then there are few answers. So what is it about an application that is better? Photoshop for example. I would genuinely like to know.

Given that XP64 and Vista64 are both stable enough to run all day every day without crashing then I can't see what more OSX can give me in that deptartment.

People talk about having to mess about with Windows all the time to keep it going. What precisely is it that they are doing? Maybe because I have a limited number of applications and not constantly tinkering that I have OS installs that last as long as the hard disk. Once I have the OS installed how I like it then there doesn't seem much reason to be changing things every day.

I haven't had a single security problem with XP64 or Vista64 either so that's another non issue.

My reason for considering a MacPro is for 3D applications such as Cinema4D and some others. Currently, partly due to Apple having a sudden change of mind and dropping Carbon64 there are still no 64 bit versions of any of my applications on OSX. That is pretty sad considering how much Apple make of OSX and 64 bit.

OpenGL has always been a bit of a let down on the Mac compared to the same GPU on PC. Maybe things are better now? From what I can gather a number of 3D app Mac users moved to PC during the G5 era due to CPU and GPU performance.

I wish Apple would stop their anti PC marketting and instead focus on their own products real strengths. They are trying to maintain an image of Windows from the Win98 era IMHO and the joke has now worn thin.

So I still need a bit of convincing. If I can find out 100% for sure if I can run Vista64 with Bootcamp then it would make the transition easier. The hardware itself (MacPro) seems a reasonable price for what you get.

Is the Applecare worth taking out? I suppose it's a gamble as with all insurances.
 
Rasding the post above that is something i have wondered for a while if Apple and it's fanboy have such a wonderful why do they constantly comapre it to some they see as inferior?
 
The differences between Vista and OS X aren't as much as propaganda makes out to be. Infact, having owned a MacBook Pro for over a year now I would say Vista is better. It certainly was faster on my MBP than Leopard was - and the wireless didn't cut out every farts end.

Apple have a very nice operating system. I think they have sort of gone backwards with Leopard in a lot of ways. I found it to be brilliantly quick on fresh install (especially spotlight) but after a few weeks it was sluggish and the pretty minimizing/maximizing animations for your OS X finder just made it feel less and less responsive as time wore on.

The quality of third-party applications is on a new level with Apple. The little apps you get on Windows that do useful things are not only prettier on OS X, but they more often than not work better too.

Browser-wise, I think it can be poor. Safari is a very good browser but it's not the standard and you run into problems with forms and some websites. Firefox is a good alternative to that but it's no where near as well optimized as it is for Windows (imo). Opera I didn't really give a chance to on my Mac, but the dock icon alone is ugly with its big stupid-shadow.

When I first got my Mac I was very excited about it. I was considering going all Mac and selling a recently purchased PC (which cost me well over a grand) to fund the purchase of a higher spec Mac. There's a great buzz around a new Mac machine, from the packaging to booting OS X for the first time and seeing the nice welcome message that you get on start up.

Over time I found myself wanting to fall back to the PC and Windows more and more - and eventually I bought a PC a couple of weeks ago. It feels so much snappier than my laptop (understandable given it's a hell of a lot better).

I would love to have a Mac desktop computer with a MacBook/Pro for Uni - but Apple's pricing and choice of hardware doesn't agree with me. I want to be able to game at a decently high quality level - no Mac bar the Pro allows me to do that. Even the Pro at stock is out-dated graphically. The iMac should come with a quad core processor and a better graphics package (even a GTS) but it doesn't and yet the prices still are momumental in comparison to a similar specced PC.

Then again, that's Apple. They charge their premium and offer less the hardware for more the price. The claw back factor is OS X (a huge plus) and the design of their products which is usually groundbreaking and the standard for future years (see the iPod).

It would be amazing to think of what Apple could do if they slashed their prices and really competed with PCs, even if they were a bit more expensive to secure their premium. At the moment, they're not doing that. Maybe they don't want too.
 
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chesterstu said:
Rasding the post above that is something i have wondered for a while if Apple and it's fanboy have such a wonderful why do they constantly comapre it to some they see as inferior?
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"English mother ****** ... do you speak it?"

Sorry, I've wanted to post that for a long time.

In answer to your question, in this particular case and in most of these cases, it was a person of the anti-mac persuasion that started comparing things, thus lowering the standard of conversation to their level. :p

I'm not being intentionally pretentious by the way, I'm just in a funny mood.

stopstartstall and The Voice, I'm not really sure why macs became the industry standard for design, there is probably some key point if you look into Apples history where they were the main force for Graphics and it's just stuck. It's possible that design agencies wanted to use aesthetically pleasing machines and so went down the mac route but I doubt this is the only reason because it wouldn't apply to the whole industry.

There was a time when Adobe products ran better on Mac than PC. In fact I think it might have only been as recent as Creative Suit 2 that this changed, if it has at all. That could be part of it.

Now I guess it's a case of "it's the industry standard so why use anything else".

Panzer
 
Panzerbjorn said:
"English mother ****** ... do you speak it?"

Sorry, I've wanted to post that for a long time.
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LOL. My typing is terrible and i don't read what i type half the time which is a shame considering i am a degree educated person who can articulate himself quite well when talking and i spend all day typing as a programming
 
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I can only speak for my experience - but I lurve my macbook...

I agree that its important to not believe 'everything' you hear - but I do know that my mac has crashed less times (a total of zero) in 2 months than my pc has in the last week...and my pc isnt a bad spec...

It depends on your usage I would think... As people have mentioned, macs are ideal for the creative consumer - I'm personally not a creative type(!) but i love iPhoto and iDvd.

Mac OS X is fantastic - everything talks to each other seamlessly - whereas in windows I've found the applications to be a bit hit and miss...

'tis up to you - but I would say go for it!

Just pick your level and go for it!

Tom*

Tom*
 
but I do know that my mac has crashed less times (a total of zero) in 2 months than my pc has in the last week...and my pc isnt a bad spec...
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I haven't had a BSOD in 2000 or XP for years. In fact I don't ever recall seeing one. No total lock ups, the most common is program crashing.

BSOD were common in 95, 98 and especially ME.
 
badbob said:
I haven't had a BSOD in 2000 or XP for years. In fact I don't ever recall seeing one. No total lock ups, the most common is program crashing.

BSOD were common in 95, 98 and especially ME.
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I've had several in the past 6 months and two fresh installs :( (XP Pro)

First I thought it was an iffy memory controller, then out of date SATA drivers (for the reinstalls- NTLDR kept disappearing) and I sometimes get BSOD when multi-tasking and recently, CHKDSK takes it upon itself to run when I boot up.

I went through the possible problems/solutions/tests and no joy. The advice I received in the end was either:

"Buy Vista."
"Buy new RAM." (Already swapped it out for some other RAM I had, no joy)
"Buy a new MoBo."

Sack that.
That's why I want to buy a Mac- I want to switch to OS X. Yes I'll pay a premium- for the equivalent cash on a home-built PC I could have a stormer. But the spec I already have is not to be sniffed at and worked fine up until 6 months ago.

I'll still have MCE on my HTPC (and don't get me started with the problems I've had with that! :p) but for desktop purposes, I'll be switching to an iMac as soon as I can get the whampum saved. Time for a change.

I'm not under any illusions that Mac's and OS X are without flaw and going to increase the quality of my life tenfold, but I'm sick of Windows overall so I'm going to try something different :)
 
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