who likes macs?

[Budman]

I like Macs fine,but I prefer a Whopper.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

MacOS is not built on linux

on a side note, why do people call them MAC's? its not an acronym!

 

[imgod2u]

Macs are better built computers than most of the major x86 manufacturers. Dell, Gateway, etc. It's not so much the computers themselves which I hate, but rather Apple's BS PR and Mac fanatics (oh look, the only people to flame in this thread is..........a mac fanboy). True enough AMD and even some Intel fanboys are just as bad, but the majority of annoying fanboys are that of Apple.
As far as architecturally, the RISC design of the PowerPC isn't exactly a programmer's dream. It crams a ton of execution units and tries to execute a ton of instructions in parallel, however, in many cases, it won't, leaving a lot of the processor die idle. It's not efficiency, it's brute force through a huge load of circuitry. The only reason it's not 500 million transisters is because it's RISC and doesn't need to deal with the mess of x86. It doesn't scale high and it's higher average IPC in only certain applications (not all) doesn't make up for the lack of scalability.
As for end results. Again, it only performs better in a certain pick of applications. Photoshop comes to mind. After Effects? Premiere? VirtualDub? Divx? Is there even Divx for Mac? Let's not mention games.

 

[krackato]

Mac OS X (btw Soccerman, it's supposed to be said as "Mac OS 10" instead of X, but everyone says "OS X" anyways) is built on Unix. Since Linux actually branched off of Unix (hence the similar names) many Linux open source projects have been able to be easily ported over to the new platform. They even have a mailing list available for developers looking to port from Unix, Linux, and BSD variants to the OS X platform.

http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/unix-porting#About

Also, check out this ad campaign that Apple ran emphasizing it's Unix roots: Apple Unix Ad

For basic info about OS X and it's Unix origins, check the links:

Link 1
Link 2

Unix means the operating system incredibly stable, and Apple's GUI and design make the desktop look fantastic and run like you would expect it to. Hey, I've got 3 PC's infront of me, 2 of which I've built, but Apple's makes great computers with a fantastic OS that's only going to get better as time goes on.

 

[EdipisReks]

this whole thread is bs

"g4 is a RISC processor" Bull Sh!t
"intel is a CISC processor" Bull Sh!t
"Mac is t3h n0t g00d"
"PC is not t3h g00d 4s M4c"
"M4c t3h b0m8 in Gr4ph0rz b3st"
"OSX t3h b0mb0rz"
"PC t3h b3st at 4ll"

all crap.

BLAH BLAH BLAH.

 

[LethalWolfe]

FCP=good
DVD Studio Pro=good
Better/easier to get video in, cut it, and get it out=good

Price= not so good
Games=not so good
Custimization/tinkering=not so good


I gues this is why I have both.


Lethal

 

[ProviaFan]

Macs used to suck, because their OSes (up until version 9) were worse than even Win9x, but now with the excellent OSX, the only thing that keeps me from having one is the price tag - which also happens to be the reason I don't have a SGI workstation.
Diversity == good.

 

[mangled]

Originally posted by: krackato

Originally posted by: wfbberzerker
can you choose your own motherboard from a list of hundreds of different kinds? how about dozens of video cards, dozens of soundcards, hundreds of monitors, hundreds if not thousands of cases, hundreds of cd/dvd drives, etc. etc. there is some choices with macs, but you cant build your own customized rig to the extent that you can with a pc.

Yes, you can choose from dozens of video cards, dozens of soundcards, hundreds of monitors, hundreds of cd/dvd drives, etc. No, you can't choose the motherboard but the motherboard they use are hardly something to whine about. All the usual features that you'd expect with 2 standard firewire ports. You can add USB 2.0 with a PCI card and no doubt they'll be upgrading to USB 2.0 standard across their entire line of Powermacs perhaps as early as July. As far as the case, you don't have a choice, but it is one of the nicest case designs in the industry. The latch design really is incredibly elegant and it's baffling that nobody seems to want to emulate it in the PC industry. Being able to upgrade your ram in 20 seconds is almost TOO easy. There evidently was a college or a public school somewhere that had a lab with G3 or G4 Powermacs and somebody stole all the ram from all of the units in only a minute or so and walked out without anyone noticing. I don't remember where I read that, but just goes to show what a nice design the case actually is.

Overall, you can upgrade the Mac a great deal more than you are giving it credit for.

p.s. This thread was obviously started to create a flamewar. "I don't because PC's are more fun?" What kind of justification is that?

A pretty piss poor justification at that.

And you're right, their motherboards are just fine. And why would you ever want another case after seeing one of those? They're much sexier than PC's and as you said, much easier to open up and work on.

Only reason I use a PC is because I'm a gamer. Otherwise, I'd be all over a new Mac.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Well, just thought I'd share my opinion with you all. Granted I don't have too much experience with Macs, I have tested out the newest Apple has to offer.

First off, in the store I went to they had the latest Macs and pc's standing side by side. Without a doubt, all attention is steered towards the Apple computes because of their flashy designs and cool flat panel screens. I started tinkering around with their lowend notebook, I-book i think (it was the all white one). I tried loading up some basic apps and was not too impressed. It was slow to load up the apps, and was generally sluggish when multiple windows were up and multiple programs were running.

I attributed this to the lowend specs of the notebook and proceeded to their top of the line G4 processor systems. I tried playing a dvd movie, surfing the internet, and playing mp3's, and loading photoshop all at once and there was little slowness and everything was generally snappy and responsive. I actually enjoyed using the computer and thought it was just as fast at everyday apps as my own P4 2.4 ghz machine. I thought, i might just pick one of these babies up to play around with at home.......until I saw the price tag. OUCH!!!! sorry but until Apple starts lowering their prices I'm gonna have to pass.

 

[Roddy]

not me

 

[teddymines]

Macs aren't bad as far as hardware goes, there just isn't enough Mac software out there. I think most people chose PC's because of cost and familiarity issues, the PC population exploded, lots of PC software was written, and people are reluctant to give that up to move to a Mac.

I am too familiar with PC's and cannot imagine surrendering 17 years of that knowledge to switch.

 

[thorin]

Charles
"So what's your opinion on Macs?"

I think Macs are great little systems. Unfortunately they're over priced. I've used them for development in both Pascal and C/C++ and std web development and they're great in that respect. I've also done some basic/intermediate PhotoShop and other graphics work on them and find them adequate if not better then most Wintel boxes (no surprise there). I've always like the MacOS and OS X just brings them that much closer to being everyones favorite, and having worked with everything from MacOS 6.8 up I find it much more stable then Winblows. Although gaming on a Mac is sometimes disappointing they do have a few niche games that haven't shown up in the Wintel world. Overall I find them easily comparible to most WIntel boxes but disappointly overpriced.

BingBongWongFooey
"that about sums it up. this thread is a magnet for idiots and zealots, waste of time if you ask me. "

Wow and you had so much insight to add .... good point except that you got involved yourself.

Oh wait not only did you post but you came back to the thread that you tried to put down >

BingBongWongFooey"MacOS is not built on linux"

It's based on BSD.

wfbberzerker"can you choose your own motherboard from a list of hundreds of different kinds?"

No but you don't need to....

wfbberzerker" how about dozens of video cards, dozens of soundcards, hundreds of monitors"

Yes.

wfbberzerker" hundreds if not thousands of cases"

No but you do get some of the best cases on the planet...

wfbberzerker" hundreds of cd/dvd drives"

Yes

EdipisReks
""g4 is a RISC processor" Bull Sh!t
"intel is a CISC processor" Bull Sh!t"

Wow that's a most convincing arguement.

Thorin

 

[cricky]

I had a mac for a short time along with my normal Windows systems. My views are this:

Mac OS is wonderful but hard to adjust to for those of us weaned on Windows. I kept finding myself bumping into the wall of "I'd know how to do this on XP, but how do I do it on osX?" I probably didn't give myself enough time to adjust. I liked what I did learn about the OS, though, and there were a number of things I wish I could do on Windows.

Stability is sometimes a factor. I'm sure a lot of this was due to a Windows user kluding through OSX, but I could not get it to run stable or weed out the unnecessary drivers/extensions. And this puzzles me the most about Mac. Mac users (or at least the one I live with) tend to claim that Windows is horribly bloated code. And in respects, it is, but it pretty much has to be. There are a cornocopia of hardware options for Windows users that must be taken into account with the OS. Just the number of motherboards and northbridge options alone. Macs have a handful of processors and ONE motherboard manufacturer. And from what I saw of OSX, it's not light in the belly either.

Which brings me to my final comment. If I could build a mac with my own choice of motherboard and CPU, or run OSX on the parts I got right now, I probably would. But I can't, so I won't. Mr. Jobs needs to take a cue from Sega, I think, and leave the hardware business behind and concentrate on OS/Software. I think their machines are very nicely designed and aestheticly appealing. But in the end, I want to know that I put it together myself and how the parts I put together click... And I just can't do that with a Mac.

Mac users will demonize Mr. Gates for his business model. And justifiably so. But Mr. Jobs is no angel in that respect, either. Ever try to get information on the hardware in an older Mac? You'd probably have as much luck getting the CIA to release the cockpit recordings of the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania as you would getting information on how to get the sound to run properly in Linux on an early PPC. Jobs keeps an iron fist on "technical information."

I sold my iBook to my roommate. I had fun, but I just couldn't get over that feeling that I'd know how to do things better with a Windows notebook. It's preference and learning, really... I've nothing against Macs and Mac users as long as they have nothing against me...

--Christopher

 

[RanDum72]

The only thing holding back Mac's is whoever makes their CPU's/chipsets and that is Motorola. Motorola has no pressure whatsoever to ramp up CPU' speeds and they can keep their prices high at that. What Apple needs is another CPU/chipset source, one that can spark an 'arms race' just like AMD and Intel are doing right now. At the age where high performance memory technology such as PC2700 and RDRAM are common with PC's, the majority of Mac's are still using good 'ol PC133 SDRAM.

 

[Rick014]

I like them a lot
Add a super sized order of fries and a coke...
MMMMMMMMM good...
No wait, that's a Big Mac

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: RanDum72
The only thing holding back Mac's is whoever makes their CPU's/chipsets and that is Motorola. Motorola has no pressure whatsoever to ramp up CPU' speeds and they can keep their prices high at that. What Apple needs is another CPU/chipset source, one that can spark an 'arms race' just like AMD and Intel are doing right now. At the age where high performance memory technology such as PC2700 and RDRAM are common with PC's, the majority of Mac's are still using good 'ol PC133 SDRAM.

I heard rumors a while back that Apple was going to start using AMD. However, IMHO that's unfortunately probably not going to happen.

 

[MainFramed]

i don't like them :| there to expensive and i can get out of them with a personal pc

 

[MainFramed]

Originally posted by: here4amission
i don't like them :| there to expensive and i can get out of them with a personal pc

sorry my post was wacked there.....

there to expensive and i can get out of them what i can get out of a personal pc...and then some

 

[thorin]

here4mission
"there to expensive and i can get out of them what i can get out of a personal pc...and then some "

Your comment still doesn't make sense. And you should have your parents complain to your teachers because they obviously haven't taught you the distinction between there, their, and they're. Also what is the difference between a personal personal computer and a personal computer?

Thorin

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: jliechty

Originally posted by: RanDum72
The only thing holding back Mac's is whoever makes their CPU's/chipsets and that is Motorola. Motorola has no pressure whatsoever to ramp up CPU' speeds and they can keep their prices high at that. What Apple needs is another CPU/chipset source, one that can spark an 'arms race' just like AMD and Intel are doing right now. At the age where high performance memory technology such as PC2700 and RDRAM are common with PC's, the majority of Mac's are still using good 'ol PC133 SDRAM.

I heard rumors a while back that Apple was going to start using AMD. However, IMHO that's unfortunately probably not going to happen.

This is probably years down the road, but there are rumors running around that Apple will move away from Moto to either IBM or AMD.


Lethal

 

[kazeakuma]

Thought I'd throw in my opinion. I don't like macs, but I don't hate em. I see what there good for and that's it.

I do a lot of 3D design and image work on my PC. And the fact is for the 3D work the PC is far more stable and faster than a Mac. Everything prior to OS X is utter garbage in my opinion, as they have never worked well with large datasets (Poor memory management). NT based OSes however are far more stable than the pre OS X stuff. Image manipulation is not a big thing for me, rather image creation. I use Painter 7 as well as Adobe Photoshop and while my PC may not be as fast as a mac when it comes to photoshop, it's also a fairly old one (P3 733).

I think their case design is great (although I will always hate the iMacs) and is probably one of their better points. But Case design doesn't make or break a sale for me. Unless you're constantly tinkering, what do you care? I've seen some cooler stuff in servers anyway (screwless expansion slots).

Software is not really a selling point as damn near everything you can get on a Mac you can get on the PC. And just about everything you do on a PC can be done on a Mac. So software isn't a major point between the two in my opinion.

I think part of the image mac's have as being a Graphics professional's computer is starting to become less and less true as time goes on. PCs are getting far more powerful and easy to use as well as costing a damn side less. There are all sorts of equivalent tools for monitor calibration on PCs as well which puts them on equal footing in that regard. One reason why the Macs still dominate however is a lot of the big printing equipment is designed to work with Macs. So it's far easier and efficient in that regard. Times are changing however and the mac is slowly losing it's dominance. This is just what I have gathered from talking to people in the industry and the like.

 

[Degenerate]

My opinion. They are nice designs, and from what i heard, the os X dose not crash. (a Ibook would be awsome - 5-6hr batter on a 15" wide screen LCD i think). Any way, since they are a OEM, the freedom is not there to just muck around with it. The software is more limited especially for At'ers since most of us like using little tweaking softare and stuff that simple don't recognise macs.

Any one tried OC a mac?

 

[snidy]

My grandma has a mac and likes it

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: mangled

Originally posted by: kenleung
I don't simply because the fact that it's a lot less fun compared to a PC.

Perhaps you could elaborate a little more on that informed opinion?

BTW, I use a PC, but I don't see the point of starting this thread.

well, i've always wondered what people think of Macs compared to PCs. I've used mac in school for only half a year (imacs). I've seen so many frys ads and i've been wondering do they really worth that much money. I mean, hell, a mac graphic card costs helluva lot more than a PC equivalent.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: Degenerate

Any one tried OC a mac?

Yes you can OC a Mac. And I've seen Mac mods as crazy as PC mods. The only difference is the Mac mod/OC community is much smaller, and you have to be a bit more "creative" when modding/OCing a Mac since it's a rather "closed" system (at least commpared to PCs).

And Macs losing their ground depends on what field yer in I guess. In video/film post production (my area) the Mac is coming on stronger than ever. And thanx to FCP and DVD Studio Pro Apple software is starting to show up almost as often as its hardware at post houses. But, like I always say Macs have uses, PCs have uses, so I uses both.



Lethal

EDIT: spelling