Why do PC users dislike Apple?

[K1LLSW1TCH]

Hello all, I'm not trying to start a flame war in the least and I don't want this thread to escalate into that so let's try and keep it clean. I've just spent a fair while being slagged off on Facebook of all places for having a different opinion to 3 or 4 other chaps.

I was told that Mac's and OS:X is "Rubbish" and that it's not to be taken seriously, I was also told it's for computer illiterates and that Apple's products are "Rubbish because they cost so much for so little".

I countered this with my argument that you don't need all the grunt of a PC on a Mac because the operating system is more efficient and it utilises the hardware better than Windows. I also told them that Apple's products have a premium on the because of the brand, build quality and obviously the OS.

I was then told that I'm an idiot, well, actually it was a bit stronger than that but nonetheless that I was wrong, nobody takes Apple seriously and that I made myself look a tit by suggesting anything otherwise.

Anybody care to discuss? And for the record I use a Vista 64 system alongside my MacBook every day and find that both have their good and bad points.

 

[snowdog]

I detest it for the prices, my mate bought a macbook pro for 1500€ or more, in that he only got some rubbish geforce 9400m GS and a Core 2 Duo.

That is Quadcore + GTX 260m + 6GB ram + bluray + 1TB HDD laptop budget.

I simply can not grasp how he can spend so much on something ''because it's cool'' ( OSX) and how on earth he can keep telling me '' it's not about the specs''.

In my eyes most machines in life are about the specs: cars, computers, electronics, sound, etcetc. I want the best specs/performance for buck, not spend a lot of premium because ''it's cool''...

utilises the hardware better than Windows.

But it can do far less, you can't even play a directx game on OSX .

 

[Ross1234]

I find most PC users dislike apple because they are a niche market yet they claim to be the be all and end all of computers.

 

[bhavv]

WTB your friends.

Apple = overpriced for what you get and not worth the money. Also, I cannot believe any justification as to how apple products are any better than my PC - The last I checked, all of their Macs from the top to the low end were being sold with 533 Mhz DDR2 modules back while I were enjoying my £99 1150 Mhz kit.

There is nothing better in terms of quality or specification, you pay a premium for a bog standard underspecified system inside a pretty case with apple branding.

Also, their 'Im a Mac, Im a PC' adverts ****ed me off too much.

Also, with a Mac, I cannot self build my own dream system. Can you get ATI 5000 cards for macs yet? Can you upgrade the Motherboard to a top quality Asus or Gigabyte and buy high end ram modules? What you get inside the box is so basic and low end, but just overhyped beyond belief by Apple.

They currently have a £1900 system that their fans are going crazy over with a HD 1080p 27" inch screen... But a single ATI 4850???

...

...

Can it run Crysis? Oh hell no.

And if you arent buying a high end PC for home use for playing games on, what exactly are you doing spending £1900 on that mac for? Just to surf the net, watch movies, and play solitaire?

 

[PardonTheWait]

I want the best specs

That's why there's a thread running to several pages in Motors where they're all trying to talk you out of buying a sub that's a total piece of **** because it's got the highest RMS.

 

[Rroff]

Don't have a whole lot of experience of mac personally and intended to keep it that way... but I know a whole lot of people - a good proportion of them media students - who have bought macs and once the novelty has worn off 99% of them have said they wish they'd bought a windows PC instead...

I think a lot of the hatred comes not from the actual merits or otherwise of the mac directly but from people who didn't realise what they were buying - were swayed by the hype and then found it wasn't what they expected.

 

[snowdog]

That's why there's a thread running to several pages in Motors where they're all trying to talk you out of buying a sub that's a total piece of **** because it's got the highest RMS.

Yes, because to me, how loud it can go is more important than ''quality''. I have different requirements...

 

[Slogan]

I find most PC users dislike apple because they are a niche market yet they claim to be the be all and end all of computers.

But that's just standard marketing. Every company out there claims to be the best - it's sort of in the whole marketing technique.

Saying you can't run DirectX games on OS X is a bit like saying you can't run Final Cut Studio on Windows 7. I agree that gaming is strongly underdeveloped for the Mac side of things but to be honest the market there is relatively small - otherwise we would have seen bigger strides.

People dislike things that are different. A lot of Apple's bad rap seems to be from people who have had little to no experience of the platform. Naturally the bandwagon grows and grows and people incapable of forming their own opinion, take on someone elses (right or wrong).

In honesty, Microsoft suffer from a similar type of thing. Point in case, "Micro$oft". Nothing to get too upset over if you're on either side of the fence.

 

[K1LLSW1TCH]

I hate to burst anyone's bubble but people don't spend £900+ on a system because it's cool, they generally know what they are going to be using it for, ie. graphic manipulation, sound engineering, something along those lines.

If I wanted a computer just to browse the net and listen to music then there's no doubt I'd buy a netbook, they're way, way more cost effective and although I can see what you are saying with the cool thing, there's definitely a sub culture where Mac's are regarded as cooler than owning a PC but I don't think that's the reason most people use one.

Also, games, Mac's are not designed to play games. That's one of the arguments I hate the most about Macintosh. Steve Jobs has never really shown an interest in supporting games or really turning Apple Macintosh products into gaming machines. Although the iPod touch and the iPhone do play games that is certainly not their primary function, and the same is to be said with the desktop and laptop lineup. If you want games then definitely buy a PC, it'll be cheaper and you will be able to get a much more powerful system for less money.

While I agree with the hardware argument to an extent I think that what you are paying extra for is the Operating System, and not because it's cool, but because it does what it's meant to do. I find using OS:X far more pleasurable and stress free than using Windows. And I'm honestly not biased, I use Vista every day to play games on, I happen to use my Mac for everything else though.

If you accidentally download something that contains a virus on a Windows machine then there are usually no second chances and you probably end up reformatting, which is one of the drawbacks. Mac's don't have this problem and I don't know if we can say that's down to the Unix platform or the fact that there are many, many less Mac's around than PC's. Microsoft run Unix servers so I don't know what that says when they have their own server software.

The only thing that Apple generally does worse than Windows is games. Virtually everything else is comparable to Windows and in most cases either faster or easier to use based on the amount of "professionals" who use Mac's for their audio and visual works.

I can still see where the PC users come from with the hardware side of things though. And there's no escaping the fact that you can get a far better specced PC for far lower prices than Mac's retail at. But the big thing is the software.

 

[MikeHunt79]

You can't run Logic 9 on a PC, unless you're naughty! This would be my main reason to buy a Mac...

 

[Ross1234]

But that's just standard marketing. Every company out there claims to be the best - it's sort of in the whole marketing technique.

Apples marketing is far from standard. Not many companies have complete digs at and make outright lies about their opposition.

 

[Tute]

I bought my MacBook because in terms of build quality, nothing comes close. Also I wanted to learn and get used to using a different OS, in case I ever needed to. I can now get around OSX with good speed.

My iPhone was a bit more complicated. I came from a touch screen but I had had my eye on one for ages. At the time it was a bit of an impulse buy but i've not regretted it for one second since. It's fast, functional, and despite the way people go "OMG what a waste" when they see me with it, I can tell from the look and tone it's just jealousy.

 

[zetec452]

Apples marketing is far from standard. Not many companies have complete digs at and make outright lies about their opposition.

In NA it is more common.

 

[bhavv]

Back when I were at uni, EVERYONE were buying IPODs. It was a huge student craze, just like marbles, pogs, and yo yos back at school. The particular interest was in the £150 IPOD mini and its bright pretty colours. Everyone had one and it looked so cool, so I went onto the Apple website and had a look ...

And the shiny lime green one made me wet my mouth and pants. I wanted it badly, like everyone else, so I bought one.

Two weeks later, I got bored of it and dumped it in my bottom drawer. Now it makes a purty paperweight or doorstop, but I really wished I could have that £150 back .

And in all seriousness, all my friends who owned macs and apple products didnt know a single thing about PCs - neither what a CPU was, nor how to defrag their hard drives. I found that a lot of people who went to macs because their PC was too unreliable were the people who had never ran disk defrag or scandisk, nor ever cleaned their PC interiors for years on end.

Macs were better for them because they run a lot better with zero maintenance.

 

[Rroff]

I hate to burst anyone's bubble but people don't spend £900+ on a system because it's cool, they generally know what they are going to be using it for, ie. graphic manipulation, sound engineering, something along those lines.

I kinda disagree there - I know loads of students starting into media studies, etc. who have bought into mac coz it was the "cool" trendy option for the kinda course they were doing without really knowing what they were doing and finding out too late once the money was spent that it wasn't really what they were expecting.


EDIT: That said they probably are better off with the mac (RE the point above) and probably deserve it - had they bought windows it would be infested with malware with a week, a million entries in startup and system tray, etc. and constantly crashing from being badly maintained.

 

[muon]

I hate to burst anyone's bubble but people don't spend £900+ on a system because it's cool, they generally know what they are going to be using it for, ie. graphic manipulation, sound engineering, something along those lines.

Yeh that's clearly most Macbook Pro buyers.

I have no problem with people buying it because it looks good. At least admit that's the only real reason.

Go up to most of the buyers and find out if they even know what the specs even mean.

I have a 3.5 year old laptop, which I bought for £350 at the time. I put in an SLC SSD drive for ~£70 a while ago. Boots into windows so quickly, it always surprises people. Programs load instantly with clicking. Because its running Windows 7, they think the OS is amazing. I can never be bothered to explain why my crappy looking laptop is so much faster than their £1k macbook pro.

Most people use laptops for things which just require fast access.

edit:

I should add, there is nothing wrong with the specs apple use. A bit pricey and it is not suitable for a lot of the people that buy them. Do some video processing or gaming, and my laptop will lose. But a dual core laptop with 2GB RAM and an SSD is the combination for most people imo. A lot of students do genuinely believe that Macs are de facto best.

Also the more efficient use argument is bs. You think software made for macs are better optimised? Why would a company waste extra time to make software on a niche OS perform better? Perhaps the OS is faster, but that would be it.

I think this is my first ever rant against a lot of the people who buy macs. I doubt ocuk is really a forum which will have the correct representative user base to apply my comments though.

 

[mr.sly]

One thread already got closed, so hopefully this one can stay open.

One reason I'd choose an Apple machine over anything else, is the thoughtful choice of hardware. I know designers and engineers have worked hard to make the best possible product. They haven't just filled their shopping basket with the shiniest products available at the time. For example GTX 260m, Blu-Ray and a Quadcore CPU is going to last 5 minutes in battery life. Complete waste of money and would have made a lot more sense buying a desktop machine if you need that sort of power.

The build quality and design of their products are unmatched by anyone else in the computer industry. The design adds value to the machine and to the overall user experience. Before I got my Macbook I looked at a lot of Dell and Asus machines and the case and the trackpad were always shocking, which made the Macbook an easy choice.

I can't legally use OS X with any other machine and even though Windows 7 has improved a lot, it still doesn't match OS X in the finer details and consistency in UI. And all of the best applications are available on OS X.

The price also includes support and it's nice to know I can walk into any Apple store and receive support from people who know what they're doing when I have a problem. Whereas the experience is just awful trying to receive any sort of help from the purple shirt brigade.

 

[Slogan]

Apples marketing is far from standard. Not many companies have complete digs at and make outright lies about their opposition.

One of the benefits of having a Mac though is directly related to that of PCs - so the comparison with competitors is unavoidable. We're talking things such as "no viruses" which is a constant theme amongst the adverts.

I agree that the tone of the adverts in recent years has got very childish - personally I'd prefer the pettiness was kept out but Microsoft have been just as bad with their 'Laptop Hunters' ads - only I think the Apple ones are far more effective.

 

[bhavv]

EDIT: That said they probably are better off with the mac (RE the point above) and probably deserve it - had they bought windows it would be infested with malware with a week, a million entries in startup and system tray, etc. and constantly crashing from being badly maintained.

Yea, all the people who were into macs were usually on media / film + tv / music courses and prefered to buy 'cool shiny' things. Very fun to talk to and hang out, but shockingly as thick as bricks.

Heading over to all the science, technology, and computing courses, just about everyone used PCs and would scoff at the thought of ever using a mac.

But the first lot of students would have likely ended up with so many viruses and malware from installing loads of random junk off the internet, but with Apple, they are catered to by the increased security and App store and get to fill their computers up with useless junk that entertains them.

I remember we used to have mac vs PC debates in my music classes (minored in music), and everyone just adored macs, one girl in particular stated 'because macs are pretty and PCs are just ugly' continuing on into how much she liked the silver and white colour scheme. I were just too overwhelmed with 'DURRRFNESS' to go into any more discussion with her or anyone else. I wanted the cool people to like me so I just STFU and bought an Ipod mini lol.

I actually felt like some people would have been completly suprised and dumbstruck to find out you can build your own PC, and would have labeled me a geek and such and such if I argued too much about it.

 

[K1LLSW1TCH]

But not all Mac users are as ignorant as the girl in your music class. The fact they look good is just a bonus to me. I much prefer the functionality over the looks.