8 Reasons Windows Users don't Switch

[Nothinman]

I don't see how anyone could disagree. If you're given a position that requires use of a computer then you learn to use the computer. It's not like a company would hire a delivery person that can't drive or a carpenter that can't use a hammer.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: Wonderful Pork

Originally posted by: jagec
9)Right-click. Seriously. One of my few consistent complaints about macs is the neolithic mouse. Maybe a single button was great back in 1980 when people still had to get used to computers, but we're past that now. Yes, you can get another mouse (and you should for a desktop...the mouse is one of the weakest pieces of the Apple hardware lineup), but even so the OS isn't as completely set up for multi-button mouses as the PC. And you're kinda stuck on a laptop.

New iMacs that come with a Mighty Mouse have right click, as do the laptops. Its enabled in the mouse preferences. In fact after using my Macbook Pro 2 finger tap as right click i find my work Thinkpad almost unusable without an external mouse.

same here, the mighty mouse can be set up as a two button or single button mouse. i have it set as two button + clicking the scroll ball is the third button which i like to use to open new tabs n stuff in FF.

on my MBP you can set the track pad to either double finger tap (for right click) or double fingers+trackpad button click... along with the two fingered scrolling, this works very very well.

its pretty effortless to say the least

 

[0roo0roo]

honestly with todays hardware normal computing minus gaming doesn't really require constant upgrading anymore. so those imac owners who franklyweren't playing games in the first place couldn't care less about that. its much less important than it used to be. we have dual core imacs now, soon quads, these things will be excessively powered for web/desktop duty and unless some other killer desktop app comes along they are set for quite some time. anti mac gripe used to have more substance before macs switch to intel. now it mostly boils down to gaming.

esp now with bootcamp/parrellels,the mac is two desktop machines in one.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: TheStu
They would also get a lot of backlash if they were to sell the OS openly. The OS is built to run on specific hardware, and has some freedom when it comes to printers, external drives and all the jazz, but if a person has a sort of off the wall system, and installs OS X, and then it isn't as stable as their friend's Mac Mini they will get peeved, trash Apple to high heaven, and then Apple gets bad press. Since Apple is a corporation they want to avoid bad press.

I apologize if any one else said this, i didn't notice it, but it isn't exactly an original argument.

yup apple controls the hardware and thus the experience.
no bluescreens of death because of people building systems with cheesy psu's and such nonsense.

as for the mouse, apples supported normal mice as well for a long long time. pc users take it to mean that the system is dumbed down because thats all they see. the reality is the os is filled with as many keyboard shortcuts and tricks as windows is. but all most windows users see is that one button mouse

 

[Nothinman]

esp now with bootcamp/parrellels,the mac is two desktop machines in one.

Every machine is an infinite number of machines then because Parallels, VMWare, VPC, VirtualBox, etc or plain old dual-booting can be used run any number of OSes. The only restriction being licensing since you have to pay to legally run another copy of Windows and you have to have official Apple hardware to run OS X.

yup apple controls the hardware and thus the experience.
no bluescreens of death because of people building systems with cheesy psu's and such nonsense.

No blue screens, but there are kernel panics from crappy drivers which is the main cause of problems on Windows as well. I seriously doubt stability would suffer much if at all if Apple decided to open up OS X to non-Apple machines.

 

[0roo0roo]

well yea sure, but i'm talking the two o/s's MOST people would want to use.

anyways, some retro fun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f6ja-rgmoE

 

[Nothinman]

well yea sure, but i'm talking the two o/s's MOST people would want to use.

Right, because we've not seen any general interest in Ubuntu recently...

 

[TheStu]

Heck, I installed Ubuntu 7.10 into a VM the other night.... or at least tried to. Unfortunately, the newest version of VMWare Fusion, 1.1 is a beta, and I am running it on Leopard, also a beta. And I was installing a week old copy of 7.10, so therefore a beta. So I was installing a beta OS, in a beta program, on a beta OS. The keyboard didn't work in the VM.

Turns out that this was VMWare's fault since the keyboard also didn't work in my XP Pro VM that I have had since well before the 1.1 beta. So before I can sample Ubuntu any more significantly, I have to wait for VMWare to get fixed.

 

[Nothinman]

Or you could remove the beta and install VMWare Server for the time being, although you won't get the extra stuff that Fusion comes with.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

well yea sure, but i'm talking the two o/s's MOST people would want to use.

Right, because we've not seen any general interest in Ubuntu recently...

right...grab some random person off the street and i'm sure most won't know what ubuntu is.

the simple fact is having the option of booting to windows xp or using virtualization is a nice bit of backwards compatibility during a mac switchers transition. it makes the jump much less difficult. if they were interested in ubuntu they would have just bought a pc for the most part

 

[Nothinman]

right...grab some random person off the street and i'm sure most won't know what ubuntu is.

And if you grab some random person off of the street and ask them why they don't buy a Mac and they'll probably tell you because it's expensive and incompatible with everything so what's your point?

the simple fact is having the option of booting to windows xp or using virtualization is a nice bit of backwards compatibility during a mac switchers transition.

And it's kind of ironic that Apple only lets it go one way while MS has a more open policy. Since you can't run OS X on non-Apple hardware you can't run OS X in a virtualized environment.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

well yea sure, but i'm talking the two o/s's MOST people would want to use.

Right, because we've not seen any general interest in Ubuntu recently...

not from normal people.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

right...grab some random person off the street and i'm sure most won't know what ubuntu is.

And if you grab some random person off of the street and ask them why they don't buy a Mac and they'll probably tell you because it's expensive and incompatible with everything so what's your point?

the simple fact is having the option of booting to windows xp or using virtualization is a nice bit of backwards compatibility during a mac switchers transition.

And it's kind of ironic that Apple only lets it go one way while MS has a more open policy. Since you can't run OS X on non-Apple hardware you can't run OS X in a virtualized environment.

point is this, more and more people are actually buying macs. almost no one would pay for ubuntu..which frankly is why its free.

and no, people don't think apple is that expensive anymore. its why apples market share has increased to 8%
more importantly its way up among students who like the laptops. thats the future market building right there. http://www.dailyprincetonian.c...10/05/news/18871.shtml
60% of princeton choose mac

ever see this pic?
http://www.gearfuse.com/got-a-mac/

 

[TheStu]

That pic you posted is from a school that recommends, strongly, macs. We can use my Software engineering class as an example.

1 Alienware
4 Dells
2 Apples
2 Toshibas
1 HP

So in that class alone, we had 20% Apple, but that was definitely consistent across our school campus.

But, Apple is on the uptake. I don't think they will ever see huge market share, but they don't need it, nor would they necessarily want it. Daring Fireball had an interesting piece on it, where basically, in the time between Win95 (don't remember the Apple OS version) and OS X pretty much everyone that was going to jump ship to Windows had, and Apple was left with a truly hardcore devoted fan/customer base. As such, they sort of knew that certain things that they made would always get purchased, and furthermore, they could continue to not dabble in the ultra-inexpensive market ($400 Dells, with monitor) since their customers wouldn't want to buy them anyway. And the people that would buy them wouldn't be longtime customers.

Basically what DF was getting at, was that now that they are on the up, even if they only go up 2% in market share, that 2% will likely be composed of people that will stick with Apple, and will continue to recommend Apple to the people they know, so that 2% will be the best 2% to have.

 

[Nothinman]

not from normal people.

And your definition of normal is?

point is this, more and more people are actually buying macs.

Maybe I'm not looking hard enough but I don't see "more and more people" buying Macs. The market will always fluxuate and with the popularity of the iPod Apple's getting more face time but off the top of my head I can only think of like 3 or 4 people with Macs and one of them runs Windows on his.

almost no one would pay for ubuntu..which frankly is why its free.

If you really believe that's why Ubuntu is available for free then you really have no clue about the philosophy and licensing behind Linux.

60% of princeton choose mac

And as soon as they graduate and join a corporation they'll have a Windows box to do all of their work on. Either that or they'll do 90% of their day to day stuff via Citrix or Parallels.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

not from normal people.

And your definition of normal is?

point is this, more and more people are actually buying macs.

Maybe I'm not looking hard enough but I don't see "more and more people" buying Macs. The market will always fluxuate and with the popularity of the iPod Apple's getting more face time but off the top of my head I can only think of like 3 or 4 people with Macs and one of them runs Windows on his.

Normal is the masses, general public. As much as I like the effort, it is FAR far less likely anyone even knows of ubuntu. And I personally think they still have a long ways to go for the "average consumer."

And the mac sales numbers pretty much show the growing number of mac users.

And as soon as they graduate and join a corporation they'll have a Windows box to do all of their work on. Either that or they'll do 90% of their day to day stuff via Citrix or Parallels.

And ain't the truth. Apple does not have an enterprise market, and I don't see them going that way. They have a better chance sustaining their home market. They are not priced for it. Sure, you can go w/ a mac mini, but you can also go w/ a dell contract and have that enterprise 5yr warranty.

Originally posted by: umrigar
I just tried VNC to my home PC box.

CTRL-click = right click. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

there's a better method... get a real mouse

 

[Nothinman]

Normal is the masses, general public. As much as I like the effort, it is FAR far less likely anyone even knows of ubuntu. And I personally think they still have a long ways to go for the "average consumer."

I know what you meant, I just find it funny when anyone tries to describe a group of people as "normal". Now that Dell is selling boxes with Ubuntu more people will be hearing the name even if they have no clue what it is.

And the mac sales numbers pretty much show the growing number of mac users.

As I said trends fluxuate so while I don't doubt that they might be up now it probably won't stay that way forever. Once the iPod loses the spotlight Apple's growth will most likely slow significantly.

 

[Randum]

All I have to say is...
theres a reason windows is the dominant OS and not many offices use MacOS....

Macs are for people who like toys, and a computer that is functional.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Randum
All I have to say is...
theres a reason windows is the dominant OS and not many offices use MacOS....

Macs are for people who like toys, and a computer that is functional.

Make up your mind, are they toys, or functional?

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

Originally posted by: Randum
All I have to say is...
theres a reason windows is the dominant OS and not many offices use MacOS....

Macs are for people who like toys, and a computer that is functional.

Your reasoning is poor.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Randum
All I have to say is...
theres a reason windows is the dominant OS and not many offices use MacOS....

Macs are for people who like toys, and a computer that is functional.

if there wasn't gaming on the pc the market share for windows would be much smaller. to be honest the "toy" label applies to many more pc adopters. hell it was the driving force for most of us to tinker with pcs in the first place. you think most kids would struggle with dos boot disks juggling upper/extended memory bullsh*t if it weren't for a game?

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Normal is the masses, general public. As much as I like the effort, it is FAR far less likely anyone even knows of ubuntu. And I personally think they still have a long ways to go for the "average consumer."

I know what you meant, I just find it funny when anyone tries to describe a group of people as "normal". Now that Dell is selling boxes with Ubuntu more people will be hearing the name even if they have no clue what it is.

And the mac sales numbers pretty much show the growing number of mac users.

As I said trends fluxuate so while I don't doubt that they might be up now it probably won't stay that way forever. Once the iPod loses the spotlight Apple's growth will most likely slow significantly.

It'll really be interesting where ubuntu goes IMO. So we'll see.

As far as a fluctuating market, yes, that is true. But more mac users now are still more mac users now. At least compared to when OS X was first released. I agree that this recent spike is not sustainable though. So we'll see.

 

[The Raven]

Originally posted by: randomlinh

It'll really be interesting where ubuntu goes IMO. So we'll see.

As far as a fluctuating market, yes, that is true. But more mac users now are still more mac users now. At least compared to when OS X was first released. I agree that this recent spike is not sustainable though. So we'll see.

The funny thing is that this spike in Mac sales seems to be related to the fact that Mac can run Windows now :laugh: I don't think it's a coincidence.

As far as Ubuntu goes, I love it. My big problem w/ Mac users saying that people should switch from Windows to Mac is that they should be telling them to switch to Ubuntu (or any other user-friendly Linux distro) for free instead. They can try that out, if they can't hack it, they go back to Windows or give Mac a shot.

I work with both Macs and PCs and complain about the Macs at work only because my boss is such a Mac fanboy. I can tell you now that I hate Macs and Windows (note one is a computer and an OS, and the other is an OS) equally as far as business practices, marketing methods, etc. go. I think these John Q. Publics that everyone is talking about would be much better off with Ubuntu. My wife for example just checks her mail, MySpace, the Target ad, types up a flyer/invite, uses the DVR and Picasa. This is the user that the guy in this article is talking about (I think). My wife has started looking at Macs to see what is up with them because of the increased popularity and advertising. I telll her that if she was going to get a new system that she would be better off using Ubuntu for free on a real cheap machine. What's the point of going to another company that does the same thing a in a different way if you have to pay for it. (And in this case, more.)

People spells Microsoft (M$) and hate them for a reason. They should spell Mac like this (Ma¢) for the same reason. It seems like everyone that works for Mac can afford an iPhone . Who do you think really paid for that? That's right, their customers that pay for overpriced machines. As other people have said before: both have their purposes and I think that both OSes are equally overpriced. (At least Windows gives you the choice of not using an overpriced machine. Oh and not to contradict my point or anything but BTW you can run OSX on a PC using an Ubuntu live CD Text)

So I agree with those of you that say this guy is off base saying that people should switch to Mac now. He comes up with 8 reasons not to be afraid to switch, and there is still really no point in doing so. Especially when pretty much any reason you can give to switch to Mac applies equally to Ubuntu (again, for the average person).

 

[TheStu]

I agree that Ubuntu is looking better and better lately, if it wasn't for the occasional games that I like to play, I wouldn't use Windows at all... ok and Netflix Streaming movies, but that should be corrected by next year.

I did however see an excellent article recently that was talking about the fact that the common (and now outdated) idea that Linux has no driver support is wrong. However, to say that Linux has complete drivers is incorrect, and should be examined. The author has a very nice Logitech mouse, one that apparently cost him $80 and would under OS X or Windows have full functionality for all 13 buttons/features that it has. However, in even the latest version of Ubuntu, getting any functionality past left/right/middle clicking and scrolling is quite a chore. The same can be said about using his sound card beyond simple 2.1 playback, and his list went on.

My personal experience with Ubuntu is this. My old desktop has a 6800LE (my friend now has it) and I have never, ever, ever been able to get it past 1024*768 resolution on any monitor, with any drivers, even after manually rewriting the Xorg.config file. This is an nvidia graphics card, a company that I have heard actually provides decent drivers for linux.

And getting those drivers were a remarkable chore indeed. I could not get them from nVidia's site directly, instead I had to access the site via the command line, and then, IIRC, had to compile the drivers myself, or some such nonsense.

Now lets say that I am on a widescreen monitor, with that graphics card, and am trying to set it up for my mother or niece, and they ask me "Why are the circles not circular?" And I will have to try to explain that regardless of all my efforts, drivers could not be found, in this day and age.

So, I disagree with you respectfully, and stand by my reasons for someone to switch to OS X, and that it is, in my opinion, an excellent OS that lets me accomplish my work quickly and effectively.

 

[Nothinman]

However, to say that Linux has complete drivers is incorrect, and should be examined.

Yes, it varies a lot. But the same is true for Windows and in general the quality of Windows drivers is lower than that of the Linux equivalent so even if it presents more overall functionality you'll probably run into problems into other areas.

This is an nvidia graphics card, a company that I have heard actually provides decent drivers for linux.

They do, compared to ATI at least. Free drivers will almost always be the better choice but nVidia is the lesser of the two non-free evils. I personally can't remember the last time I had a problem with nVidia's drivers but fixing things like that is as second nature to me now as adjusting the resolution in Windows so I can't say that I would've even noticed.

And getting those drivers were a remarkable chore indeed. I could not get them from nVidia's site directly, instead I had to access the site via the command line, and then, IIRC, had to compile the drivers myself, or some such nonsense.

Then you likely did something wrong because Ubuntu has provided packages of the nVidia drivers for quite a few releases.

So, I disagree with you respectfully, and stand by my reasons for someone to switch to OS X, and that it is, in my opinion, an excellent OS that lets me accomplish my work quickly and effectively.

Linux does too once setup properly. Your mother or neice would likely have similar questions if you gave them OS X, except instead of asking about the resolution they'd be asking why they can't use/install any of the children's games, cookbook apps, etc on the shelf at CompUSA.