Apple computers are so yesterday!

[Andy BB]

Sinclair Spectrum with micro-drives.

Back in the old days, I could turn it on, write a memo, get it printed out on a dot-matrix, tear off the side-strips and put it in an envelope in less time than it takes my current PC to go through its start-up routine. Fact!

 

[Biker]

The great thing about a mac is they keep going and going and don't need to be upgraded every other year like a pc. They do what they're meant to do and do it well. When using a pc for music they stall and sputter and grind to a halt to have their nappy changed on a regular basis for no real reason. Every year the specs get better on pc's but each year the software gets more and more demanding. I still see the same problems today running a pc as I did when I first got one to record music on 12 years ago. Mac all the way if you've got the coin for one. We've had the same mac for 8 years at my work for designing and it's still going strong. 8 years!

I hear what you're saying Chad. Maybe I've been lucky with my desktop PC then, because I'm using a motherboard I upgraded my Mum's PC with 9 years ago, she upgraded hers yet again and binned it back my way. All I've done is added larger capacity hard drives to store stuff on. the operating system is still Windows XP and it does all I ask of it.

The one we go online with is a much newer machine, which I got for free, with 1gb of RAM and a 2.5ghz processor and added an 80gb hard drive with WinXP on it. Again does what we ask of it. However, like I said above, the time will come when I will have to be dragged screaming an kicking into the 20th century and have a laptop, so it seems logical to have something that won't need an upgrade before I've walked out of the shop.

Thanks, Sandbender, for that UK equivalent Apple dealie thing. Your laptops sound like an endorsement to their longevity. I'm impressed. My mate's laptop from new 2 years ago is already going slow and his wife's one has had some serious issues too. Both run with Vista I think. But that's a whole other story.

 

[swright81076]

Mine is actually a 2010 MacBook pro. The reasons I went to the Mac side were, the design, the bright clear screen, the magsafe power adapter, long battery life, stability and finally ease of connection to the apple TV.

Like I say though, most of my 'on line time' is on my phone. I'm tempted with a chromebook now.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[kard133]

I'm running a Macbook air with Linux Mint 12, couldn't get on with OS X Lion, just felt like I could do anything I wanted as long as Apple wanted me to do it. Now I can really do anything I want, even play 720p MKV's without changing them to an MP4 format or jumping through hoops.

To be honest, I like the hardware, just not a fan of the software.

 

[udamiano]

, they are no faster than a PC, doubt there is a mac on the market any quicker than the PC I'm typing this on, not sure many if any mac lappies are faster they are poor gaming machines.

eerrm, thats actually not true, by the very nature that a dos os system has to break programme in to usable kernels as it cannot run single programmes larger than 640k due to the position of its Graphics card at A00000 -D000000 (this has not changed since the 70s, and was decided by IBM, who still own the patents on the board architecture, that why PC are referred to as clones) and then link these programme portions via Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) means that its processor overhead is vastly larger than a similar size in a Mac (these run a programme as a single programme) this is the main reason that graphics, and core data processors like using a mac. It doesn't run out of system resources just by running the OS and a couple of programmes which uses protected mode to limit each programme from using to many system resources. So cycle per cycle of processor function the Mac can devote more to the actual execution of the programme and data being worked on and with. so is faster.
THis is not a fan boy version. this is a computer system engineer benchmarked fact.. THat why we would never run real time data polling on PCs they just ran out of resources, and just couldn't handle it and run windows as well, unless we ran totally in DOS.

I will concede that Mac are not games machine, however the main reason for this is the lack of games publishers wanting to foot the cost of re-writing their games on two different platforms. But saying that, most Mac users are not as much into games, more into graphics and music. It is worth noting that during my time working in the industry I was often at games developers, and surprising all the PC games were actually written on Macs!!

Da

 

[udamiano]

CPM rocks LOL

 

[sasquatch]

I hear what you're saying Chad. Maybe I've been lucky with my desktop PC then, because I'm using a motherboard I upgraded my Mum's PC with 9 years ago, she upgraded hers yet again and binned it back my way. All I've done is added larger capacity hard drives to store stuff on. the operating system is still Windows XP and it does all I ask of it.

The one we go online with is a much newer machine, which I got for free, with 1gb of RAM and a 2.5ghz processor and added an 80gb hard drive with WinXP on it. Again does what we ask of it. However, like I said above, the time will come when I will have to be dragged screaming an kicking into the 20th century and have a laptop, so it seems logical to have something that won't need an upgrade before I've walked out of the shop.

Thanks, Sandbender, for that UK equivalent Apple dealie thing. Your laptops sound like an endorsement to their longevity. I'm impressed. My mate's laptop from new 2 years ago is already going slow and his wife's one has had some serious issues too. Both run with Vista I think. But that's a whole other story.

I have no idea what you use to do your art with Aaron, all I know is dozens of WAV files running at once with VST's and instruments plugged in eats normal computers and spits them out for whatever reason. No point going in circles here, like so many things it's down to what you want to do with it that should decide which one you go for...

 

[rik_uk3]

eerrm, thats actually not true, by the very nature that a dos os system has to break programme in to usable kernels as it cannot run single programmes larger than 640k due to the position of its Graphics card at A00000 -D000000 (this has not changed since the 70s, and was decided by IBM, who still own the patents on the board architecture, that why PC are referred to as clones) and then link these programme portions via Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) means that its processor overhead is vastly larger than a similar size in a Mac (these run a programme as a single programme) this is the main reason that graphics, and core data processors like using a mac.


Da

But we are talking about home users I thought? I'm currently using a i7 based system with 12Gb ram and an OK graphics card and to the naked eye its fast and to an enduser the mac won't beat it; its a pretty much high end PC and came in at less than a grand; my lad uses the same base system but he's a gamer so blew an extra £500 on a graphics card (which dad will inherit when the boy upgrades xmas...he's worse than me). I'm an old fashioned chap and like being able to lift the lid and upgrade, can't really do that with Apple, they have the majority of users by the bits that dangle. SSD drives are getting bigger now and although I've only got one of them in a PC and one in the Vaio in use they do make a difference to boot times and overall performance.

PC reliability is pretty good these days, has been for some years, remember Apple uses a lot of off the shelf stuff too. A lot of PC failure is down to poor user use, they don't install AV programmes etc, fill the hard drives with crap/spyware etc and I suspect that if they had spent £1000+++ on a machine they would tend to treat it with more respect lol plus a lot of the cheap PC's you see cut corners on things like the PSU et al. What happens with us is that I upgrade and my old base unit goes into the lounge and the family can use the net on the big TV, old base unit from the lounge goes to the master bedroom, master bedroom base goes to sons room, his old base goes to the grandsons bedroom, his old unit goes to the guest room and we have then the oldest in the chain spare which I then pass on to someone else. Thats my bit toward recycling done Pro's and cons for both the macs and PC's, its your choice; I am extremely lucky in that at this stage in my life I can afford either to be honest but don't like being tied down which Mr Jobs did and his company still do and enjoy the diversity of PC software.

 

[Adze]

eerrm, thats actually not true, by the very nature that a dos os system has to break programme in to usable kernels as it cannot run single programmes larger than 640k due to the position of its Graphics card at A00000 -D000000 (this has not changed since the 70s, and was decided by IBM, who still own the patents on the board architecture, that why PC are referred to as clones) and then link these programme portions via Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) means that its processor overhead is vastly larger than a similar size in a Mac (these run a programme as a single programme) this is the main reason that graphics, and core data processors like using a mac. It doesn't run out of system resources just by running the OS and a couple of programmes which uses protected mode to limit each programme from using to many system resources. So cycle per cycle of processor function the Mac can devote more to the actual execution of the programme and data being worked on and with. so is faster.
THis is not a fan boy version. this is a computer system engineer benchmarked fact.. THat why we would never run real time data polling on PCs they just ran out of resources, and just couldn't handle it and run windows as well, unless we ran totally in DOS.

I will concede that Mac are not games machine, however the main reason for this is the lack of games publishers wanting to foot the cost of re-writing their games on two different platforms. But saying that, most Mac users are not as much into games, more into graphics and music. It is worth noting that during my time working in the industry I was often at games developers, and surprising all the PC games were actually written on Macs!!

Da

Has it been a while since you were 'in the industry' udamiano?

 

[mountainm]

My post got modded for bad taste? Seriously you didn't get the reference to godwins law?

 

[sandbender]

I'm running a Macbook air with Linux Mint 12, couldn't get on with OS X Lion, just felt like I could do anything I wanted as long as Apple wanted me to do it. Now I can really do anything I want, even play 720p MKV's without changing them to an MP4 format or jumping through hoops.

To be honest, I like the hardware, just not a fan of the software.

I can run 720p MKV's but I know what you mean, I have noticed quite a few things that my machine doesn't readily allow me to do. A fairly straightforward thing like moving my 'Downloads' folder to where I want it to be, it wouldn't let me! and all the flashy razzmatazz, such as the icon for every file or image appearing as a mini thumbnail of that file rather than a generic file icon. Apple think they know whats best for my 'User Experience' mostly they many be right, but when they are wrong I shouldn't have to fight to get my machine to behave the way I want.

"...the magsafe power adapter...I'm tempted with a chromebook now..."

Actually the power adaptor is a weak point in Apple's design, the magnet part works well and would probably stop your machine being accidentally pulled off your lap or desk, but if it fails it cannot be fixed as readily as a conventional fitting. Additionally the power supply itself is designed to be thrown away if it fails, even if that failure is simply a damaged lead. To fix my own PS I had to hacksaw the plastic case in two simply to re-solder a lead, which was a pain. It is definitely worth having a spare.

I like the idea of a chromebook as most of my day to day computing makes use of Google services, I really liked the look of the original CR48 machine, however the new ones from Samsung and Acer look a bit tat and apparently are a little underpowered.

 

[Adze]

I shouldn't have to fight to get my machine to behave the way I want.

It's just like having a Linux machine! Only without all that tiresome cash weighing your wallet down... perhaps Apple could market that as a feature?

"Introducing iWallet the new lifesaving feature associated with every Apple purchase. Should that puddle you're about to step in turn out to be four and a half feet deeper than you were expecting there's NO NEED TO WORRY! Your lifesaving iWallet acts as a flotation device as it's now actually lighter than air!"