Considering a mac

Hey all,

I've been considering purchasing a mac sometime this summer. I'm normally a Windows/Linux guy, but I think a Mac might be an interesting experience. I'd need to get a MBP for my requirements, but I have a few questions.

First, between Boot Camp and Coherence, can I use the same install for both of them? You can do this in VMWare by telling it to use a physical drive (the install you boot into is the same you can virtualize).

Second, since I'm just looking to get one sometime this summer, how do I go about getting the best deal? When's the best time to buy? I have a hard deadline that I _must_ have it by, so how long does it take to ship a Mac?

Third, I don't see this mentioned anywhere... on the 15" version of the MBP, what is the max resolution?

Another thing that's not mentioned, is there a VGA or DVI output for a second monitor on the MBP?

Also, an MBP would support a normal two-button mouse, right?

Last, is the multitouch stuff ever actually useful?

Thanks for your help!

 

You don't want a Mac.

 

Well, I can answer a few of your questions. My sister has a 15" MBP that she bought last fall. The display that came with it has a 1440*900 resolution. There is a DVI connector built into the laptop and Apple provides a DVI to VGA converter cord. Lastly, you can use any external 2 button mouse and Mac OSX lets you use the right click (normally ctrl + click for the single mouse button).

-J.B.

 

That's not very helpful...at least state your opinions and reasoning behind your reply, please .

That is correct, you can install Windows using Boot Camp, and using VMware Fusion you can direct it to use your Windows partition .

Usually a Mac ships around two weeks, from what I've heard. There really isn't a specifically good time to buy, Macs rarely have sales (not directly from Apple at least...occasionally at places like Best Buy), although there is an expected MBP update around June-July for Montevina, and possibly a redesign.

The 15.4-inch MBP has a max. and native resolution of 1440x900 .

The MBP has a DVI port for output, and yes, basically any mouse you connect with the MBP will work fine and give you right-click. Multi-touch is useful if you use it . That's a personal preference...some would love it, some would never use it. For me, I know for sure I love the limited multi-touch on my MacBook, especially two-finger scrolling!

 

Sure he does, if for no other reason, to try something new. He has already stated that he's a Windows/ Linux guy, so my guess is that learning a new OS is at least part of his attraction to the MBP (though, for all I really know, he may already be an OSX expert).

Good luck to you, Megiddo. I believe you'll be a very happy switcher.

 

Bought a new mac about a week ago. Got everythig up and running, and don't think I will ever get another PC. This thing is amazing. Wife reads at night and I take my MBP and surf. thing last for 3-4 hours easily. I am truly enjoyin the boot camp. I have Vista X64 installed and it runs fine. Even better then my Dell M90. And much much better my returned M15x rubbish.

I really don't think you can go wrong with the MBP. Very nice system. Get's a littel warm but a nice slim cooler helps a bunch while light gaming.

I hope this will help you out.

 

Thanks for the good advice and tips everyone!

It's a shame that I can get pretty much the same hardware from Dell for $600 less though...

 

Key phrases bolded.

 

There was a thread around recently, as to dismantling the myth that Macs cost "twice as much" compared to Dell, etc.

Well, I don't have the time to provide an accurate list of numbers right now; but just to add my $0.02: Every now and then, just to procrastinate real work and kill off time, I do spend time at PC vendors' websites, customizing notebooks and having fun seeing how prices can get inflated, etc.

Whenever I configure a system which I FEEL (no *strict* ghz correspondance here, though the numbers are often fairly close, or identical) would equal the performance/elegance of my MacBook, the price on Dell or HP or Sager or whatever, more often than not, is higher than what Apple charges for the MacBook. Besides, it's no mere "fanboy-talk" to say that OSX and software native to it is more elegant and efficient----from streamlined dialogue boxes and preferences and screen layout, to the "number of clicks" it takes to accomplish any given task.

The Macintosh is a harmonious whole; while other systems, especially Windows, appear to be a haphazard pile of functions and cool visuals. In how many Mac native applications can you discern eye-candy *just for the sake of it*??? Despite that, it's the Mac that gets derided for being "all about looks". Nonsense!

 

I just spent a day in "Are you sure?" Hell. I'm selling off my old windows pc's now that the family has all switched to Mac. Before selling the machines, I wanted to get all the files backed up. This is where I spent many hours in "Are you sure?" hell. Thumbs.db is a huge reason to dump windows for good. Every read only file required me to dismiss an "Are you sure?" box and answering "Yes to all" was just a tease. It really meant "Yes for a few more seconds". I moved about 12 gig of data off the old machines so people could still get to their old stuff if they needed it.

After getting the files off, I decided to wipe all the machines so our personal info wouldn't be easily recoverable by perfect strangers and reinstall XP home and XP Pro as required. On 3 of the machines, this wasn't such a big deal. They came with "recovery partitions" and it was pretty much a matter of hitting F10 during boot and only having to answer "Are you sure?" a few more times (As if I wasn't already sick enough of "Are you sure?". Two were Compaq and one was HP. But then came the Dell. The Dell required me to go fishing for an XP restore cd to do the wipe. Unlike Leopard, which clearly offers a wipe or upgrade choice, the setup of windows was so murky I actually ended up doing it twice. Since I launched setup from within windows, I was never offered a wipe option and had to sit through 90 minutes of hooey and typing in serial numbers and M$ activation only so I would have to do it all over again. All I can say is 2 of 5 machines are sold and I am SOOOOOO glad to be rid of these albatrosses. And you complain about a $600 penalty for Mac hardware versus Dell hardware? Sadly, the cost of entry kept me away from Mac for too long. Now that I'm in, I'm in. I regret that it took so lon. DON'T THINK MERELY ABOUT THE MONEY! DON'T SWEAT THE COST (within reason of course). I'm so sorry I waited so long and spending a half day fighting windows so I could sell off that old hardware reminds me vividly what I so happily left behind.

I replaced a Dell with a Mac Mini. The Intel Core Duo Mini cost $600 and it replaced a $400 compaq followed by a $200 Dell. I should have spent the money on a mini in the first place. Even an older G4 Mini would have handily beat the Dell or the Compaq. The reason? Windows.

I replaced an HP with a Mac Mini. The HP cost around $500 and the Mini cost $600. Once again, the extra cost would have been worth it.

I used those low end examples to illustrate that the cost is not out of proportion to the benefit. Apple does not distinguish itself on price with the exception of the Mini. Yes, there are cheaper options. But not wasting time every day dealing with driver issues, viruses, expired subscriptions to anti virus, anti spyware, anti adware, and the dreaded "Are you sure?" is WELL WORTH IT.

Edit: More woes...
Unattended installation. Can't happen under windows. From clicking ok to crap like daylight savings time. I mean who the hell doesn't use daylight savings time? Even Indiana has it now. To clicking ok to crap like "typical network settings". To digging up key numbers. To activation. And if you aren't there to click it, it sits there forever waiting. So it said 32 minutes remaining to install XP. That was an hour ago. Then I returned and clicked some stuff and it said 31 minutes remaining. That was 45 minutes ago. At this time scale, I may never get it installed. If I thought my garage sale buyers were Linux literate, I'd throw an Ubuntu cd in the drive and get that windows crap off of there.

 

Really? Head over to HP right now. The dv6700t with Vista Home Premium x64, C2D T8300, 2GB of RAM, GeForce 8400M GS, fingerprint reader/webcam/microphone, 250GB HDD, blu-ray reader/DVD burner, and high capacity 6 cell battery (I can vouch for the 3.5 hours of life it claims) is $1,351. $50 more than a MacBook with the same processor, same RAM, NO blu-ray (no ability to play blu-ray either), Intel GPU (no HDMI either), smaller screen, and similar battery life with similar screen brightness (HP on the lowest setting is about the same as the MacBook on 50% brightness). Go down to the DVD writer only on the HP and it suddenly becomes $1,159.99. Get rid of the fingerprint reader and its down to $1,127.99. Go down to the 2GHz Core 2 Duo and you're suddenly down to $977.99.

Go over to Gateway right now. $999 gets you a 15.4" screen, 2.4GHz C2D, Vista Home Premium, 3GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, DVD writer, HDMI output, ATI Radeon 2600 with 512MB of GDDR3 RAM.

Don't give me the "MacBook is smaller, more portable" argument either. The vast majority of people buying the MacBook are NOT buying it because it is smaller. They're buying it because they can't afford the $2,000 MacBook Pro with the larger screen. If Apple had a reasonably priced 15.4" system I can guarantee you that it would be the top seller, not the 13.3". Besides, I have my MacBook sitting right next to me as I type this on my HP dv6500t. The MacBook is NOT significantly smaller in any way.

The whole "OS X is more efficient" argument isn't realistic either. Expose is nice, but thats about it. The random lockups Mac OS has always been known for are extremely annoying. I've had two MacBooks in a little over a year and with both Leopard and Tiger I have had more full system lockups than I have ever had with Windows going all the way back to Windows 3.0. However, XP and Vista on the MacBook have been completely rock solid.

Oh please, don't spread FUD. Driver issues? What driver issues? With the exception of nvidia and ATI drivers, you only ever install drivers once and that is it. With dedicated GPUs you simply run the installer whenever a new driver is released. At least Windows gets regular driver updates that improve functionality and performance. How often does OS X get driver updates? I'd rather have my hardware and software improve through regular updates rather than crossing my fingers and hoping that Apple decides to grace us with an update.

Viruses? Sorry, but that is also FUD. XP SP2 made it very difficult to download and install viruses from websites. This applies to spyware and adware too.

Besides, there are legally FREE anti-malware programs out there.

And UAC? The "cancel or allow" box? Yeah, once you get the system up and running and all of your software installed you'll almost never see that box unless something tries to run as an admin. So you'll see it about as often as you're prompted for a password in OS X.

I also wanted to point out that you did NOT wipe the information from your HDDs when you sold those computers. You need to do a 7 pass DoD wipe on them. Just reinstalling Windows (or OS X or Linux) does NOT wipe the drive. Your information is still there for the taking.

On another note, I do find the "I just got my Mac and I'll never go back to a PC" posts amusing. Why? Well, they remind me of me a year ago. I was so happy with my Mac. Then after the honeymoon was over I realized I had spent $1406 on a system with no dedicated GPU and that OS X was lacking in software and there are simply no equivalents for many pieces of Windows software (like good DVD players and Nero). Boy do I wish I could have that $1406 back.

I also find the Apple commercials hilariously ironic. Like the one "I've been error free for a week" and when PC tells Mac "your super stable operating system". I saw that second one about an hour after OS X had locked up on me in the middle of a Skype call.

 

SauronMOS, I made some comments months ago, trying to debunk your arguments. I'm going to apologise now, and say that my honeymoon is over, and Mac and I are getting a divorce. OS X is like Linux, but without the program compatibility.

 

Leopard locking up more than windows all the way back to 3.something? Who is FUDing who here?

Sorry you regret spending $1406 on Apple. Sorry it didn't work out for you. In all honesty, windows worked out well enough for me for many years. Or so I thought until I moved everything over to Mac. I have had a mixed network Mac/Windows for several years now. I have also been a Linux user a lot longer. While I loved the stability of Linux which only rebooted for power failures, I always wished somebody (even Microsoft) would write a decent GUI on top of it. With OSX that has happened.

Now that OSX has Unix running underneath it, there is no way it is as unstable as Vista, 2003, XP, 2000, Me, 98se, 98, 95 or 3.something. No way. Yes, I've seen a Kernel panic under OSX. Once in about 90 days. In the same period of time, I've been in the room when bluescreens have happened a half dozen times under XP Pro. And I think XP Pro is about as stable as windows ever got. If I had to use Windows, I'd pick XP Pro. But it is simply not as robust as OS X. You mentioned a freeze running skype. I have it installed but run it only rarely when I need to make low cost international calls. I never had a problem with it.

You aren't the only person I've heard say Windows runs fine on Apple hardware. That's great if you're into that sort of thing. In my perception, putting Windows on Apple hardware feels like duct taping a propeller to an F-15.

Lastly, you mentioned Apple updates. Well, I must be living right because 10.5.3 had several items on the list that directly addressed issues I was having and sending "quit unexpectedly" crash logs to Apple. These ranged from Parental Controls crashes to Time Machine glitches.

 

No need to apologize I was probably a little harsh myself. I do go a little extreme when discussing the Mac because of the disappointment I feel and the price paid. I'll probably be divorcing my Mac soon as well.

When you first get the Mac, everything seems perfect. But as time goes on things change. I know at first I was disappointed by how awful DVDs looked in DVD Player. DVDs in Tiger looked like garbage. Plus some of the other software, like Toast, just doesn't cut it. So I found myself booting into Windows and repressing my disappointment because I kept telling myself "it's a Mac! It's better!". Then around this time a year ago, I was randomly looking at notebooks on newegg. I had found a system with a GeForce Go 7600 512MB and a 17" screen, DVD writer, the works for like $800. After I picked my jaw up off the floor I realized just what I had purchased with the Mac and how there was much better hardware out there for much less money.

I do love the design of the MacBook. It is a great size. It just has three issues. 1) It needs to be priced about $300 less. 2) For that $300 cheaper price tag it needs to have the same specs it has now but with at least a GeForce 8400M GS. The Apple TV gets a dedicated GPU, why can't the MacBook and Mac mini have them too? The iBook and G4 Mac mini did! 3) OS X needs to actually take advantage of that dedicated GPU for video playback. Video quality between OS X and Windows with a dedicated GPU is night and day. The CPU use is drastically different too. 1080p blu-ray discs on my HP only spike the CPU up to 10% on one core. 720p playback on the MacBook hovers around 60% of 1 core.

Anyway, yeah. I'd love my Mac if it had been more reasonably priced. But, even now, all of the Macs are ridiculously overpriced for what they are. Theres no way a $2,199 desktop (the iMac) should be using mobile parts (except the HDD). Or a $1,999 notebook not having a high definition disc drive or ONLY a 256MB GeForce 8600M GT.

Heh, it's not FUD at all. If I had video of all of the crashes I'd be more than happy to upload every single one.

Sorry, but I am telling you exactly what happened. The freeze didn't just occur during Skype use either. It has happened many other times. Sometimes I'll be using Safari and not even clicking a link. I'll be browsing well known sites like CNN, NBR, Fark, Digg, etc. and for no reason the entire system will just lock up. I've had it lock up when I created a burn folder, filled it with files I wanted to burn, then clicked burn and boom it was done. I had a few pictures my friend sent me. Clicked "Empty Trash" and system locked up. All times have been extremely random, not able to repeat. All the while Windows has been 100% stable on the system.

I've also had this HP dv6500t for about one month less than my MacBook. In that time Windows XP nor Vista has given me a single BSOD. Not a single lockup, moment of instability. Nothing.

Except that Windows does a lot more that OS X does not. Don't get me started on software selection. Theres hardware accelerated video playback (full decoding, deblocking, deinterlacing, etc.), PROPER handling of external displays, games, proper high definition movie playback (HD DVD, blu-ray), the list goes on. One thing thats funny about OS X is how it handles external displays. Why, for the love of God, can't I hook a monitor up and then just disable the built-in display like I've been able to do on Windows for how many years now? No, on my MacBook I have to hook up the display, hook up an external keyboard and mouse, close the lid, wait for the system to sleep, then wake the system back up and then I can use the external monitor. Of course I can just turn the display brightness off on the built-in display, but then you see "ghosts" on it because its still on! With Windows I only have to tell it to disable the built-in display once and from that point on it will disable the built-in display upon connection. Windows will also properly detect the native resolution of the external display and adjust accordingly. Or I can set custom resolutions. OS X? Doesn't properly detect the resolution of my HDTV (Windows does!) and I can't set the custom resolution without buying a 3rd party app that hacks the resolution support into OS X.

I'm sorry, but Windows is far more capable than OS X is in every aspect. The only true advantage Macs have is battery life. But they get so hot that you can't sit there and use them that entire time. At least, not on your lap. Plus the displays get so dim on the lowest setting that you have to bump them up to 50%, which cuts the battery life down to what you'd get on an HP with a high capacity (same physical size) 6 cell battery.

10.5.3 introduced more problems for me. Did a fresh install too.

Mainly, if I want to plug my Mac into my HDTV, I have to hook the optical cable up BEFORE I start the Mac. If I plug it in while its running (OS X only, Windows is unaffected), the system will not eject DVDs nor will it shut down.

 

Well my MBP runs my 1080p tv quite fine. And I agree that not being able to shut down my Laptop display while watching it on my TV is kinda simple.

I would also like Mac to Fully support BR and High def codecs. To me I love the ability to run Wndows and Mac, I don't think you could ask for a better match. I have Vista X64 installed with Bootcamp 2.1 and Visat SP1. It is amazing how much better vista runs on my Mac. LMAO. And please don't tell me all teh stories about how bad Vista is. I was a beta tester for Vista long before it was ever released for Public beta testing.

Vista has alot of Bloat actaull it has a massive amount of bloat. With a few tweaks that can be found here on NBR it will fly right along. I use Mac Osx for all my buisiness needs and it does an amzing job. I am way more productive on OS x then on windows.

If I need to game I just boot into Vista. I find myself booting less and less into windows. OS is such a more solid os. It does have limitations, so don't think it will be the fix for everything. But if you want a stable os that that JUST WORKS then OS x is the one for you.

And again it will always be your choice of what you want in any OS. I know after being on the fence for a while, and switching to Mac I couldn't be happier. And vista isn't as bad as people make it out to be. You just need to decide what you wnat in an OS, plain and simple.

 

Sorry to hear you might be divorcing your Mac, but if it isn't working for you move on. Absolutely there are better hardware deals available if you don't buy a Mac. I've never had any doubt about that. Apple is using the ease of use and reliability of OSX (for the average user) as a selling point to move hardware at a higher profit margin.

...

Multiple freezes, even sitting Safari doing nothing? This is not consistent with my Mac experience. If it were windows, I'd say have a look at recent hardware with possibly substandard drivers. Have you let Apple take a look at the problem? On several windows boxes I had particular trouble with, it turned out to be hardware that was causing the issues. In your case, that doesn't seem likely as you indicate windows runs solid on the same hardware but checking the hardware is still worth a try.

The reasons I say Mac is more reliable are not mere opinion. It has to do with the software architecture. Since Windows NT, Windows has had a protected kernel. However, drivers run in kernel memory space and can bring your OS to a blue screen or kernel panic. Windows drivers are not exactly a thing of beauty. By taking the unpopular stand of limiting the hardware, Apple has time to write drivers that really work and won't take you to a kernel panic on a regular basis.

The windows kernel has become so huge it is measured in hundreds of megabytes and approaches the available physical RAM. The OS X kernel is a fraction of the size of the Vista kernel and leaves plenty of room in physical RAM for essential things like the applications you are running. When Windows 7 comes out, perhaps the playing field will be more level. For now, Vista is more like Windows Me than it is like XP. It is a stopgap attempt to bring essential security technology to an already overextended OS. Windows 7 will have a smaller kernel and a ground up rewrite. Apple already went through that when they brought us OS X. Microsoft has yet to deliver a fundamental rewrite of their OS focusing on security and stability. XP is very good, but it's architecture can't compare to the stability of any flavor of Unix, whether it's Linux or OS X.

As with any technology, YMMV but in terms of software architecture, OSX has greater potential to provide robustness and stability.

...

Have you complained to Apple about the HDTV TV opitcal cable issue? This sounds like a defect Apple should fix. I don't use an external monitor so I have no opinion on how OSX handles external monitors. I do, however dislike the way windows does it. Once you've picked "extend my desktop onto this monitor" you are stuck forever amen. Ok, it's not windows so much as it is the crappy Dell drivers but in the end I have to fight to get what I want to show up on a projector.

You mentioned Windows being "more capable" and in light of the sheer amount of software available I must reluctantly agree. I am a Mac user not so I can do everything imaginable but rather so I can do a few things well and without hassles.

I don't even have Office 08 on my Mac and I suffer through OpenOffice and Numbers which are not as capable as Excel but for my purposes "good enough". I became even more set in my Mac ways when IT rolled out Office 2007 to us and I found that if I received a spreadsheet containing a graph and tried adding a simple thing like one more row of data, the default settings for COLOR are designed to make the file only savable in xlsx format. This is bullying on Microsoft's part. I don't need no stinking teal lines instead of blue on my graph if it means I can't send the file back to the guy who sent it to me without forcing him to upgrade simply to deal with a non value-add feature like COLOR ?!?

So I grant you that there are some real advantages to windows, but my reasons to be happily in the Mac camp are also influenced by a Microsoft business philosophy I cannot abide. I choose not to allow my money to contribute to the success of file format bullying.

 

Was just reading through this thread and I thought I'd mention this, since it doesn't seem like your IT team is aware (or hasn't rolled this out):

Office 2003 Compatability Pack for 2007 Formats:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101686761033.aspx

 

And yet Apple are worse in this regard than MS.

 

OMG ITS A JEDI!

 

I honestly don't see the "ease of use" aspect though. If you have a BSOD on Windows you simply restart. On OS X if something happens you better hope you don't have to repair disk permissions or anything like that. I will say that software is easier to install on OS X. But that doesn't matter too much when there really isn't much choice of software to install. And you still need Windows to do a lot of things beyond basic functionality.

Apple is selling really well right now. But theres going to be a lot more people like me out there who get upset when they see what kind of hardware they could have gotten for a lot less money.

I mean, what's cooler? Using iPhoto (as opposed to one of the many knockoffs that come with Windows or digital cameras) or being able to watch and record HDTV on your system from a cable or satellite source? Can't do that on a Mac. Systems able to play blu-ray for under $1,000 are starting to poke their head out too. A lot of people are going to start thinking "hey, I can't play any games on this!" then look at their friend's system that is basically a portable PS3 and cost several hundred less than their MacBook. Pretty soon you're going to see a lot of people start to realize this and be very unhappy. Suddenly saying "well, I have iPhoto!" isn't going to mean much when their friend is switching from a blu-ray disc to playing GRID.

But it is consistent with other Mac users experiences.

Windows is fine. It runs 100% rock solid. It's certainly not the hardware at all. I can run Windows on it for days and it is super stable. Ironically, running Windows makes the Mac as stable as Apple advertises the Mac is!

I've had no driver issues with Vista. With XP I only had an issue with a several year old parallel port scanner when XP first launched. But if I installed the drivers in Safe Mode, everything worked.

I mean, honestly, people can talk about architecture all they want. But it's easy open up google and find just as many instances of OS X taking a dive as XP or Vista.

You do realize that Vista caches the data you use the most, right? I mean at startup. The memory isn't being used up by the kernel, it's being used by Vista caching the data you use most. As a result, after boot, Vista is faster than OS X when it comes to opening your most used programs.

Vista on my HP with 2GB of RAM runs every bit as "snappy" and as fast as Leopard does on 2.5GB.

Heh, I made that argument when I got my first Mac and had only used Vista as a tester.

But now that I've been using Vista for almost a year, I can say it IS better than XP. With recent updates it runs faster on the same hardware, my games play better and look better, Vista takes better advantage of my GPU for video playback. I can set custom set the resolution for my HDTV. All I have to do is plug an HDMI cable in and I get digital audio out to my receiver and digital video to my HDTV.

Despite the poor launch, Microsoft really went the distance in making Vista better and nVidia got off their butt and got their Vista drivers up to the same level as their XP drivers.

Theres no way I would go back to XP now. Not at all.

If you read recent news, Windows 7 is just an extension of Vista Screenshots and demos have shown it as 6.1. So the next version of Windows after that will probably be a rewrite.

But you have to keep in mind that a lot of Vista was "rewritten" from Server 2003. And that all of it is based off of Windows NT, which was a "rewriter" of Windows many years before OS X.

Apple needed OS X. OS 9 and below didn't even have pre-emptive multi-tasking! Vista is good as it is, as long as Microsoft keeps improving things through updates as they have been. I'll say it again, Vista runs better than XP on my same system. It's faster to start, faster to launch programs, faster to run things in general. My games look and play better, my videos look MUCH better. And its easier to use than OS X in many respects. Again, connecting to an external monitor or HDTV.

Use GPU manufacturer drivers.

In Windows (XP or Vista), you can go into display properties and change the way you want to extend the display, clone it, or kill it. You're not stuck with your decision at all.

As another poster said, Apple is just as bad at this. Look at the iPod and iPhone. Why are they stuck with MP3, AAC, H.264, MPEG-4, .WAV, .aiff, and Apple Lossless when the hardware they use supports practically every format under the sun? You weren't using a Mac back in the 90s either, were you? Remember the .pict format? If you want to talk about incompatible file formats, you need look no further than before Apple was forced to adopt ISO standards.

You can also speak badly about Apple's business philosphy. Sell marked up hardware that is not user serviceable, force expensive upgrades when that hardware breaks out of warranty due to the lack of easily available and reasonably parts to fix the system. Transition transition transition, so people can never stick with a certain piece of hardware or software too long and they have to buy all new. Charge money for iPod game upgrades, charge money for iPod touch software upgrades.

Don't give the users what they want (dedicated graphics making a return in the "consumer" notebook line, headless Mac that is upgradeable), tell them what they want and sell it to them at a higher price than other people and hope they are satisfied with hearing "its the most advanced!". Be late to the party with standard features like pre-emptive multi-tasking and then call yours more advanced than the others, etc.

Apple may be riding high right now. But they have to realize that the majority of their customers are now former PC users and will not conform to their nickel and diming ways. Once this begins you're going to see people go back to PCs just as quick as they left them. Especially with Dell, HP, Gateway, and others putting as much emphasis on design and all of that nonsense as Apple does.

 

hey just for reference, what do all of these really obscure problems and issues have anything to do with a general question about considering a mac?

don't vent and argue Mac vs. Windows in threads like this please.

Apple has a system that they are following, a massive majority of people absolutely love it, making good products, and not really worrying about what other hardware companies are producing, because it is an entirely different situation. No computer company is in Apple's situation, Apple doesn't just sell computers, they develop and sell the entire experience, who else does that? The biggest selling point of any computer is never the hardware, it is the package of tools you are actually getting and what they will allow you to do.

the things you guys are complaining about are obscure issues that I am sure don't really effect your workflow at all, they are far to specific to provide an overall view on Mac or Apple in general.

as far as Apple pushing people to buy new hardware software? Leopard works extremely well under some pretty old systems, and iPod touch is an iPod, not an iPhone, which people are paying a monthly subscription for service, so the software updates are provided, and both are portable devices that actually run an OS to some extent, and most software is not free.

 

Obscure problems?

So it's okay for people on this board to make up lies about Windows to push Mac OS over a Vista, but it's not okay to speak the truth about OS X?

If someone wants a Mac they need to know both the good and the bad about it. Simple as that. These are not "obscure problems" it is how life with OS X really is.

A massive majority? I don't know about that. I mean, 6% market share isn't exactly "massive". HP and Dell sell more systems separately in a year than Apple has users.

"Sell the entire experience"? wow, no offense, but you really bought into the hype. I had too. But thankfully I was slapped back into reality by hardware prices.

Anyway, what "experience?" There isn't anything OS X does that Windows doesn't do. Let's look at the pack-in software, shall we? Most people never use Garageband. Never. Not to mention it is no different, functionality wise, than software that came free with a few soundcards I purchased over the years for my custom built PCs. The interface is nicer but they all did the same thing. If you're someone who wants to seriously use Garage Band you have to buy more loops, etc. so it ends up costing more anyway.

iMovie? It's okay. Most digital video cameras ship with versions of well known video editing software for Windows, so thats a moot point.

iDVD is more annoying than useful. Nothing you can't do with Windows DVD maker.

iPhoto? It's okay for basic photo storage. But so is Windows Photo Gallery. Plus many digital cameras ship with software that offers similar functionality to iPhoto but tailored to that camera for advanced functionality.

Theres other things to think about as well. Vista Media Center is light years ahead of Front Row. It offers better DVD playback (full hardware support), you can setup multiple HDTV tuners with it, the interface is MUCH better, etc.

It's easier to connect most PC notebooks to an HDTV. Most from the last year and a half or so have HDMI outputs. Single cable does digital audio and video. Plus Windows is better at detecting odd resolutions like 1366x768.

Apple's lack of hardware support has kept the Mac mini from being the ultimate HTPC. It also keeps movie buffs away. Apple's refusal to support things like WM-DRM has kept other major services like Netflix and Unbox away as well.

Apple's refusal to use dedicated graphics in the MacBook and Mac mini keep many people away too. I can't even begin to count how many people I know that would have switched it Apple would have put a GeForce 8400M GS in the MacBook a year ago. But now? Now you can get 3GB of RAM, 2.4GHz Penryn, GeForce 8600M GT 512MB/ATI Radeon 2600 512MB for under $1,000 from many manufacturers.

And there are many things that interrupt the way I use the computer if I am running on the Mac. Let's say I want to watch a movie while doing other things. Oh, can't do that on the Mac because the video is terrible. If I had a MacBook Pro I'd have to reboot into Windows. But since I have a MacBook, I have to stop everything, shut down, move the computer out of the way, bring the HP over, start it up, wait, then start everything again.

Want to watch the news? Same thing, have to switch over to the HP.

Let's say I have some files I need to delete. Better hope Finder doesn't crash when I click Empty Trash!

Gotta burn some data to a DVD? Cross your fingers when you click Burn!

My problems are not "obscure" or isolated. Head over to other Apple related forums and to places where Apple owners speak outside of the fan world. You'll see that full system lockups and all of that are quite normal for OS X. More so than Windows.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about how the hardware is designed to not be user serviceable. Let's say you have a Mac and the DVD drive dies out of warranty. On a MacBook or iMac, having it replaced will cost almost half as much as a new system would. On a Mac mini you might as well just toss it out and buy a new one. It costs more than 1/4 of what a new MBP was. What happens if your HDD dies on your MBP? Even though HDDs are cheap, the labor is not. On most PC notebooks, $50 and a single loosening of a screw will get you a new drive.

Apple's hardware is designed not to be repaired but to be replaced entirely.

I'm sorry, but the iPod touch costs $299, $399, and $499. There is absolutely NO REASON Apple should charge for updates. Nobody else does. There is absolutely no law that states they have to charge for updates. It's just like with the charge to enable 802.11n networking on the Core 2 Duo Macs prior to the mid-2007 updates. They tried to say there was a law that stated they had to charge. But basically the entire financial world said "WTF? no there isn't".

Microsoft provided an update on par with both of the iPod touch updates to the Zune for free. Microsoft also provides Xbox updates that are even more significant for free. You do NOT have to be a paying Xbox Live Gold member. Sony does the same thing for the PS3 and all of their digital audio players.

Look at Creative too. They brought out significant firmware updates for their MP3 players in the past that enabled functionality that they never intended when originally shipped.

And, again, Apple isn't adding any new features to the iPod touch, except Exchange Support. But they could keep that separate. The January update SHOULD have been the original firmware. On top of that, the 2.0 update (aside from Exchange Support that the vast majority of people do NOT need) will bring functionality to the iPod touch that has ALWAYS BEEN THERE.

There is no reason Apple should be charging for these updates. Absolutely none. Especially when you consider the cost of admission. When I buy something that expensive, I expect all updates to it to be free.

Apple is going to be in for a serious wake up call when the sales of the iPod touch aren't what they should be because of people not wanting to be nickel and dimed.

If you realistically look at things, Apple is THE ONLY company that DOES NOT offer free functionality updates to their products. Everyone else does. Apple charges for them and offers less than what competitors do for free. Look at Creative again. They brought out a firmware update to the Zen Xtra that was 3 years old at the time of the update. It brought Audible support and Janus DRM to play subscription music (why doesn't Apple offer subscriptions yet?). However, 5.5G iPod owners who bought their iPods just weeks before the iPod classic get screwed out of movie rentals. Look at games too. The PS2, Game Boys, DS, PS3, Xbox360, Wii all have some form of backwards compatibility. Yet what did Apple do when it came to backwards compatibility for iPod games? "Sorry, you have to buy all of them again".

The true "experience" Apple sells is one that consist of nickel and diming the consumer to death. They do not sell an experience that you cannot get on Windows.

 

SauronMOS I tried to give you rep again but I have to spread it around more before I can.

That was probably the most spot-on post I've read in years. Personally im getting sick and tired of people telling me I shouldn't be attacking Apple for their failures. If people encounter an error or a series of serious issues with an OS then they complain and (idealistically) the producer takes note of the problem faster and pays more attention to it = problem resolved. All these pathetic Apple fanboys telling people their problems are 'obscure' and we have no right to/should not complain are actually assisting in slowing down the progression of OSX and stopping developers and Apple making the so-called 'Apple experience' better.


Circa1986: I love OSX, if I can avoid Windows I will. Unfortunately in terms of office applications OSX users are still playing 2nd fiddle to Windows users selection and quality. That means I cannot complete my changeover to Mac. As for the 'obscure' reference as an example Apples update to 10.5.2 caused countless musicians using pro and semi-pro equipment and recording rigs incompatibility issues which have resulted in extreme damage to the marketability of Leopard and OSX as a platform in this field and a professional solution. And Apple ignored the problem. Thats certainly an 'experience' if your livelihood depends on a useable OS. I'm sure you would call that an obscure issue, I call it one in a series of failures of Apple to admit that problems exist and address them.

Apple have chosen to develop and evolve both their hardware and software designs in a closed controlled environment. If it goes wrong it is Apple who are responsible for its resolution. They created the bonds and chains between itself and its developers, if they're strategy ends up strangling them then tough s**t. If they take the money they take the responsibility. Its called a contract and market product support. You can't put the letter 'i' before that and sell it back to me, I paid for it at the start and demand to be placated.


To the OP. What applications do you need to use as if you can afford to stay inside OSX using native mac alternatives in the long-term this should result in more stable operation. I went Mac in November after over 10 years on PCs (and others for another decade before that) and never looked back but every OS is very individual for everyone and should be tailored to suit them. As for Dell I personally don't rate them as highly as Apple. I certainly wouldn't be prepared to spend the same (very high) amount for a Dell laptop as I would for my MBP. This is about design, aesthetics, overall feel and certain intangibles which make me 'feel' better on my MBP than on any other laptop. I would advise you to get a chance to do the old 'touch and feel' with a Mac before making any decision. Specs are not everything, don't focus on them to the exclusion of human experience and perception. If specs were the be-all then we would all be using the same square shaped laptop black box with different components inside, but we don't. Sometimes its the little touches that add up to become the killer punch.

If you are a college student the current deal is very good and may be worth your while.

 

All of this Apple bashing isn't entirely unjustified. Apple is a big company that would cheerfully charge us for breathing air if they could get away with it. However, there are fundamental differences in philosophy at work here. On the Windows side, the attitude has been to make a platform accesible to the masses. It had to be easy to use and graphical based. Bloat was a good thing because it forced hardware upgrades and everybody made money.

On the Mac side, elegance and simplicity were sought after at the expense of flexibility. Software selection on the Mac side is poor because before iPod and more recently OS X, Apple was on a track toward extinction. How did they march back from the edge? Solid focus on a vision that has real merit. Simple, elegant and well thought out design.

Is Apple intrinsically "better" than Windows? Yes. That's because I'm a long time Unix user and I appreciate the way things are done in Unix. Is this relative? Can both points be right? Not really. From a software architecture point of view, Unix is better thought out and more robust. No amount of emotional spin can change that fact. I have heard that Windows 7 will feature a smaller kernel and a major rewrite. I doubt it will achieve what Linux has had since the late 1990's and what OSX has now. Of course, superior architecture means nothing if you can't get things done with it. So another perspective of "better" needs to be examined...

From a user perspective, the argument that Windows is "better" than OS X has a lot of merit. This is partly because it is literally everywhere. Easy to find, easy to buy software and chances are it came on your machine. Heck, even Macs can run it. For me, the answer is that OS X is "better".

This time it is relative. I don't need thousands of Windows apps for what I do and I'm perfectly happy with the very limited selection available on OS X. I'm also tolerant of Apple's mistakes, provided they fix them in a timely fashion. So far, they seem to do so. Time will tell if they will continue to do so.

I would hate to see this thread closed because it degenerated into my dog's better than your dog. Can we please turn our attention to objective reasons a user should consider Mac or Windows and not spin our wheels calling one another liars, fanboys, etc, etc?

Thanks!

 

Wow, never expected this thread to generate so much passion! It's a tough choice, but I think I'm leaning more toward the Dell now because I can get a similar experience in Linux (and it's improving all the time!) without investing $600 into it.

 

Linux is definitely a good choice. The up front cost is low but the user experience will not be quite as seamless as OSX would be. Be prepared to go to the newsgroups and forums with questions about how to get this or that feature working from time to time.

We had a power failure yesterday. Over the years, the only time my Linux boxes ever got reset was for poser failures. And they always came back up without intervention. Meanwhile, it seemed there was always some annoying issue either with my lame routers or with one of our Windows boxes whenever there was a power failure. I sat down at my Macbook and started using it and never realized there had been a power failure until this morning when my wife's non battery backed alarm clock was off in the weeds. No trip to the basement to reset the router or cable modem. No ugly dialog boxes to dismiss. Well, there was one. There was a dyndns updater complaining it couldn't see the internet. No biggie. I'm sure my Macbook ran on it's battery during the power failure and while the 'net was down the updater popped up a compaint. One complaint. Not 47. Just one.

Let us know how you get along with Linux. BTW, just about everything you learn on LInux will be applicable to OSX.

 

After owning a Mac, this is exactly what I'm doing, except I'm buying Asus this time.

 

We sold off two of our XP Home windows boxes at a garage sale this past weekend. This leaves us with two fresh installs of XP on halfway decent machines. One has XP Home and one has XP Pro. Each have COA stickers on the side. I had forgotten how quickly XP can boot after a fresh install.

I will offer them for sale for a few weeks and if there are no takers, I will put on the Ubuntu I downloaded the other day. I would much rather have a heterogenous Linux / OSX network than a Windows / OSX one. I picked up a copy of vmware for Linux a few years back and I might use it on one of the boxes I convert to Linux. Perhaps I will put XP in a bottle on a Linux box so my family can get their windows fix via "Chicken of the Vnc". For me, this would be a better option than wasting Mac disk space on Windows with Parallels or BootCamp. I know gaming over VNC would be suboptimal but gaming is not my primary motivation for providing computers to my teenagers. Our game consoles are all relegated to the basement and include a PS/2, Xbox and a Wii. That's enough gaming for our household, thankyouverymuch.

Speaking of Asus, I'm seriously considering a Linux/EEE as my "road machine" as it is even lighter than an Air and less than 1/4 the cost. All I need is email and office docs. I don't really care about video and audio but rather the ability to take notes and enjoy long battery life.

Yes, Linux is improving all the time. I started using Linux back in the days of Slackware 2.something and I never used to install the GUI. I did everything from the command line. I still rely heavily on the command line in OS X. I have an add-on called Visor that brings down a semi-transparent command line console over my desktop very similar to the console in the old FPS Quake I. That console trick is the closest I ever get to actually playing an FPS. My last active Linux experience was on Redhat 8.something as I have been using OSX for some time now. I can't wait to see what has improved since then.

 

I've had a subpar Apple experience, too.

The feeling I get is that Apple is about features and flash at the expense of stability. I'm constantly hearing even fans complaining about some (often egregious) bug or other.

Over the course of the past year, I've used OS X fairly heavily, along with Windows and to a lesser extent, Slackware (my favorite, for what that says about me). OS X has been a solid third in terms of stability. Before I reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled Leopard, I'd pretty routinely have random program crashes. The Finder is so long overdue for a complete overhaul that it's not funny anymore. I'm talking about general performance, offensive .DS files, random bugs, lack of features, clunky interface, the whole shebang. Spaces lost a number of my windows on two occasions, so I stopped using it. iTunes was occasionally throwing away the playback position on my audiobooks and podcasts when I'd sync my iPhone, though that seems to be fixed now (knock on wood). Expose has been randomly failing to work with my fourth mouse button, for reasons unknown, but fixed by restarting.

Though I haven't seen any blue screens recently, when I do, they present me with a usually useful stop error. OS X gives me... nothing, except a patronizing line to stay calm and breathe slowly, because nothing is wrong. I've seen two gray screens since the last (and only) blue one I can remember (which was a driver issue. Thanks, Nvidia.)

The Macbook has a really annoying fan, which comes on at the slightest provocation. Not only that, but it doesn't even come close to keeping the laptop cool enough for the processor to run at its full 2 GHz. It toggles between 1.6~ and 1.8~ under load. That's a step away from false advertising.

Unix might be a better operating system philosophically than Windows (I'd say it is, certainly). But I'm not sure that translates into a better OS in the case of OS X. How about the Safari bug that was used to crack the iPhone, and stayed in Safari on OS X for a year, eventually being used by a hacker to win a Macbook Air at a competition, long after the code the bug first came from (in its open source project) had been fixed? (story here) That's outright irresponsible, and demonstrates a marked lack of care for quality, or at least of quality that isn't flashy enough to be visible in demonstrations.

Windows has "just worked" for me. Linux (Slackware, specifically) has "just worked", once I got it working OS X "just worked" until it stopped working at seemingly random intervals.

--------
(edit)
I thought I should add some things that I like about OS X, just to be more balanced:

OS X has a lot of open source software ported to it (google MacPorts). Some of my favorite things from Linux are available in OS X, which can allow a "have your cake and eat it too" situation where you can use a commercial OS that, at least ostensibly, works without your intervention, while still benefitting from some of the stuff that's available. OS X ships with Apache, and with X11 even.

Apple got a lot of nice touchy-feely details right. I think this is the first OS I used that let me scale wallpapers with a fixed aspect ratio. This is a theme in the OS. Expose is classy (though it doesn't really expose any functionality above what XP gives you). It comes with some pretty decent computerized voices that do a passable job reading text. The local Dictionary.app gets nearly as much use from me as my web browser. (no idea why one of those isn't in every OS I use by default.)

To whoever was complaining about the external monitor issue earlier, you can install InsomniaX, turn it on, close the Macbook's lid without it going to sleep, plug in an external monitor, and then click "detect displays" (from the monitor icon you can put in the taskbar area) to turn off the internal one. I know that's not perfect, but it works really well for me.

OS X does have a uniformity among its programs for the most part, that tends to make you feel like you're using one large program. You may like that, or may not. Check out the Services menu, under the main menu of any given application. Some of those are surprisingly useful.

There. Balanced

 

haha thanks I will admit, I do get a little extreme at times. But the way people treat others is just frustrating.. which brings me to:

You hit the nail on the head right there. The Apple fanboy community is worse for Apple than Apple's own faults. The fanboys try to silence anyone who has issues so the problems never get properly reported to Apple and those who need to know. As a result, things don't get resolved.

One thing I find funny is that if you have a problem with Windows it is automatically "oh its Windows fault". But if you have a problem with a Mac its "well what did YOU do?" heh.

I could certainly live with OS X's faults, assuming they get fixed. Windows has its faults but Microsoft does fix them. My only real problem is with the community. The way some people are treated is terrible. The other is the lack of a dedicated GPU in the MacBook. I thought I'd be okay with it but man... that $800 17" notebook with a GeForce Go 7600 in it (a year ago) just killed it for me.

Your response to Circa1986 is one of the best I've seen in a long time too.

Well, I wouldn't say Windows is better because its "everywhere". For me its all about capabilities. On Windows I get full hardware support for video playback. This means my $900 machine can play blu-ray discs from an external drive over the HDMI connection on my HP to my HDTV. This means I don't need a game console for those rare times I want to play a game. My HP also has more hardware features. It has a full size ExpressCard slot that I can use for a number of things (including my TV tuner). It has a memory card reader. More USB ports. HDMI, VGA, and S-Video out without any adapters. A dial-up modem. An easily replaced optical drive. Firewire. A fingerprint reader so I can just swipe my finger instead of always typing my password in for websites or logging into Windows.

The real problem I have with Macs is the choice of hardware. You don't get nearly enough for what you pay for. I can live with OS X's faults. But what I can't accept is that you pay more than twice as much for the equivalent hardware.

But it still doesn't properly detect the resolution of the external display. For example, if I connect it to an LCD screen with a 1366x768 resolution, I have to run it at 1280x768. No 720p, no support for custom resolutions, nothing.