Why do people buy "Apple" computers?

[LoCache]

Here's my Beef: A couple of years ago I switched to apple and bought a G4 thinking it was a badass computer. I thought the operating system rocks, and it looked cool. I also told people my computer was better than there PCs.

After a few days of use, I realized that it has it's own problems, mainly scalable issues. You can't upgrade you computer excepty add more RAM. You also have to pay top-dollar for everything you buy.

Being a MacHead is something like being in a cult. You believe everything that everyother mac head is obsessed about, how there computer is the best. Its like a luxury item, that people identify themselves with. FOR THE MOST PART. There are exceptions, but they are sadly RARE in the Mac Community.

I sold my G4 on egay 3 months later for more money than I paid for it...

 

[PCMarine]

OS 9 = Worst OS Ever!

At school we have a computer lab with moslty e-macs and a few imacs (The weird orb w/ a LCD model). The e-macs running OS 9 freeze SO often, I have to reboot SEVERAL times a class period! I mostly program on the macs at school, and the "Force Quit"(Aka Control+Alt+Delete wannabe) is weak! If my program gets caught in a loop, the machine hard locks up. On my windows 2000 comp @ home, if my program gets caught in a loop, all I have to do is close the window or use control alt delete (in otherwords, it just works on a PC).

 

[Sxotty]

My statements were too quick that is fine, but you misquoted what I said, and perhaps that was an accident.

The reason I said AMD, or Intel is because they are the top two cpu manufacturers for high quantity high end chips. (that is why I said anything that is not slow at the end)

Mac is like ATI was two years ago, that does not mean they will fail it means they need to get their crap together. They are trendy now well great, they pay to get silly endorsments and be in movies well great, I am glad they can save the world.

Macs are not progressing like they could and should, that is all I have to say

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

I'm sorry but the fastest PC obliterates the Mac in video editing benchmarks. I forgot the link but someone did a recent comparison with the latest Mac and latest PC and the PC was twice as fast in some cases. Did I mention the fact that the apple computer still costed more $$$ than the PC did. For mundane tasks you'd hardly ever notice between a Mac and a PC. But if we are gonna talk like that go trade in your Pentium 4 2.53 ghz for 400 mhz PII which will do all the basic things you want.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Sxotty
I am sorry anyone who thinks windowsXP is harder to use than a mac is retarded. (if they have never been exposer to either)

I think Windows XP is harder and I have been exposed to both, although not as much with XP because none of my options are in the same place as they were in 2k and I dont have time to dig for them.

Windows did copy mac, but the lawsuit has been settled a long time.

Macs are simply absurd right now, if they use AMD chips then I will respect them again (or Intel, or anything that isn't pathetically slow).

The chips are not pathetically slow. What is "pathetically" slow (and this is really up to the user because I know I dont need a poorly designed 3.06ghz processor) is the memory bus. It is 100/133/166mhz. When DDR is taken advantage of you will see much better performance. But the Mac performs fine in everything but gaming pretty much.

Macs performance/price ratio is pathetic, there might be one in a hundred things that the top of the line mac does faster than the top of the line PC

Prices are high, but why should that matter? You pay for quality (Im sorry, but cheap x86 hardware is still usually crap). To me quality might mean a Mac, to you a Dell.

Macs were pretty spiffy and produced a lot of innovations, that is why people are still using them, brand loyalty. The macs haven't done them wrong yet afterall.

Prettiness is not an innovation to me I am sorry, it is an application of a previously known fact.

No one is saying it is an innovation (well the limp wristed people might be amazed at how well the new iMacs go with their curtains or something). It is nice to have a nice looking iBook rather than a plain boring huge black notebook with purple wrist rests.

Dell's are very reliable, I hate them because you cannot always upgrade like you want, but comparing that to non upgradeable macs means there is not problem.

Macs are certainly upgradable. Name a part you cannot upgrade. Please.

If a person buys a PC with WinXp from a reputable place (not compaq lol) then it really will work fine and not screw up until they decide to install viruses or drop it out of their car or other things like that.

Or the typical hardware malfunction which plagues pretty much any vendor. Of course you get wierd problems like SB Live! cards with certain VIA chipsets and other tiny mistakes that should have never left the lab. But thats life.

Of course there are companies out there that have a reputation for having bomb proof machines.

I have an old dell laptop (celeron 700mhz or so) with WinNT that goes months w/o shutting down, it is really no big deal.

My iBook 500 does that too, but with a modern OS

 

[Eug]

that is why people are still using them, brand loyalty.

Errrr... Before my OS X iBook a year ago, I NEVER owned a Mac.

After a few days of use, I realized that it has it's own problems, mainly scalable issues. You can't upgrade you computer excepty add more RAM. You also have to pay top-dollar for everything you buy.

Errrr... The main things you can upgrade are the RAM, optical drives, hard drives, the video card, and sometimes the CPU. The video card requires a Mac firmware (or you can flash a PC version to a Mac version if you can find the firmware somewhere). The RAM, optical drives, and hard drives are standard off-the-shelf parts. And of course you can add PCI cards. If you can't change anything besides RAM, then you wouldn't be any better off with a Windows machine. Ironically though, most of my drive upgrades on my PC these days have been Firewire external drives. More convenient, and I can share them with multiple machines (including my Mac).

Being a MacHead is something like being in a cult. You believe everything that everyother mac head is obsessed about, how there computer is the best. Its like a luxury item, that people identify themselves with. FOR THE MOST PART. There are exceptions, but they are sadly RARE in the Mac Community.

Speak for yourself. While I do know a couple of die-hard Mac zealots, most people I've met that use Mac actually are perfectly comfortable using Windows as well, and do so. Sounds like you got in with the "wrong crowd".

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: LoCache
Here's my Beef: A couple of years ago I switched to apple and bought a G4 thinking it was a badass computer. I thought the operating system rocks, and it looked cool. I also told people my computer was better than there PCs.

You start this post poorly. Showing arrogant ignorance is a bad idea

After a few days of use, I realized that it has it's own problems, mainly scalable issues. You can't upgrade you computer excepty add more RAM.

And hard drives, and processors, and you can throw in some PCI cards, or even switch out your video card.

You also have to pay top-dollar for everything you buy.

Or you can buy from someone other than Apple! :Q

Being a MacHead is something like being in a cult. You believe everything that everyother mac head is obsessed about, how there computer is the best. Its like a luxury item, that people identify themselves with. FOR THE MOST PART. There are exceptions, but they are sadly RARE in the Mac Community.

I sold my G4 on egay 3 months later for more money than I paid for it...

;roll: And you x86 zealots are any better?

 

[sandorski]

I didn't read the whole thread, but anyway, some thoughts:

1) Most people don't upgrade very often and usually don't need to because they are just surfing, e-mailing, and other non demnding thingies.

2) As already mentioned, Mac software will(usually) just work out of the box. Mac's have the same advantages that Gaming Consoles have.

3) That shore look purty! PCs, for the most part, are fugly. Apple has shown that PC's can look good and that people like them to look good.

4) Reputation. When people think of Macs, they think of artists, musicians, and other creative types. PC's(IBM Compat/X86) are seen as the tools of anal retentive accountants and the oft overworked Data Entry Clerks.

Of course most of us here don't recognize any of the above points as possible, that's just my read from the last 20 years or so. BTW, I've never owned an Apple, but if I was only going to surf the net and stuff, I would seriously consider an Apple based PC.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: PCMarine
OS 9 = Worst OS Ever!

At school we have a computer lab with moslty e-macs and a few imacs (The weird orb w/ a LCD model). The e-macs running OS 9 freeze SO often, I have to reboot SEVERAL times a class period! I mostly program on the macs at school, and the "Force Quit"(Aka Control+Alt+Delete wannabe) is weak! If my program gets caught in a loop, the machine hard locks up. On my windows 2000 comp @ home, if my program gets caught in a loop, all I have to do is close the window or use control alt delete (in otherwords, it just works on a PC).

Do not compare Mac OS 9 to Windows 2000. That would be like comparing Windows 95 to Solaris for high end database servers. Its stupid and ignorant.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
I'm sorry but the fastest PC obliterates the Mac in video editing benchmarks. I forgot the link but someone did a recent comparison with the latest Mac and latest PC and the PC was twice as fast in some cases. Did I mention the fact that the apple computer still costed more $$$ than the PC did. For mundane tasks you'd hardly ever notice between a Mac and a PC. But if we are gonna talk like that go trade in your Pentium 4 2.53 ghz for 400 mhz PII which will do all the basic things you want.

Yep, for certain tasks, a PC will be much faster. This includes a some video encoding apps, 3D, and gaming. OTOH, a lot of people prefer many Mac versions of 2D apps.

Personally, for some stuff I do, I'm more productive with a Mac regardless of the speed of the PC. For other stuff I do, the PC saves me time. Also, for some stuff I do, I CAN'T do it on a PC easily. Similarly, for some stuff I do, I CAN'T do it on a Mac easily. Get the best of both worlds - ie. get both.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Sxotty
My statements were too quick that is fine, but you misquoted what I said, and perhaps that was an accident.

The reason I said AMD, or Intel is because they are the top two cpu manufacturers for high quantity high end chips. (that is why I said anything that is not slow at the end)

WTF are you smoking?! High quality? High end? I think not! You want high quality/high end chips you talk to: Sun (ultrasparc), Fujitsu (ultrasparc), IBM (PowerPC), HP/Compaq/Dec (Alpha, PA-RISC). AMD and Intel chips are basically midrange at best. Hammer may be a different story, but I will reserve judgement until AMD releases them to the public.

Mac is like ATI was two years ago, that does not mean they will fail it means they need to get their crap together. They are trendy now well great, they pay to get silly endorsments and be in movies well great, I am glad they can save the world.

Macs are not progressing like they could and should, that is all I have to say

You create a platform that is fast, stable, easy to use, and gains a following that is considered a cult. Not going to happen. Evolution helps stability, revolution causes chaos. I would like to see DDR be effective, it wont happen till the 7475 or the PPC970. I can wait. I have been waiting for, what, 15 years for x86 machines to stop using BIOSes? I can wait another iteration or two for DDR.

Yes, development could be faster, but at what cost? Jobs is not willing to pay it.

 

[gf4200isdabest]

"I'm sorry but the fastest PC obliterates the Mac in video editing benchmarks"

That's the most retarded thing ever. Who the hell does video editing?? About .00000001% of computer users. Don't be such a n00b.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Umm video editing used to be Apple's biggest selling point. So what I said is not pointless. The fact is that Apple can't even win that battle anymore. There really is no compelling reason to buy Apple anymore unless you really think that you will be more productive using and Apple and have cash to waste to buy another computer.

 

[krackato]

3 words. Final Cut Pro. Simply THE killer app on the Mac.

 

[ElFenix]

why do people buy "Dell" computers or "IBM" computers?

they all think that maxes their benefit given the cost constraints.

 

[holdencommodore]

Graphic designers still stick to Macs in general. I've tried to convince them that PC's have come a long way, but it's no use. I still don't mind Macs, and OS X is a doodle to use, and I love the design of the new iMac. OS X ofcourse is WAY better then the Windows 98SE that I use on my PC's... I'm not ready to give Micro$oft more money for XP.... I'll squeeze my last dollars worth out of 98SE, and wait till it's either unsupported my hardware or software that I use.


Cheers

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: IHateRequiredNicknames

And OS X is pretty cool. Imagine if your PC came with Apache server software pre-installed, and used a Unix-based system.
.

Umm, mine does. It's called Red Hat 7.2. And what about IIS on Win 2K.

People buy Apples because they are trendy and cool and different. Apples make people feel special, unique, and elite. It's the same reason people will spend $3.00 for a bottle of water if it has a fancy name and comes in a cool bottle.

HELLO PEOPLE, just because it's color is "purple passion" doesn't make it a better computer. If it was better, Steve Jobs wouldn't have to resort to marketing them based on the pretty colors and shiny plastic.

 

[blackhawk]

If you're serious about an answer.......

1.............Looks-this pulls in a lot of people as they certainly look good & decor is important

2.............Ease of use-this is what Apple is known for and its for good reason

3.............Support-they look after you



They make good computers & look after them-they're expensive because they use very good quality parts and support them.

Never owned one btw. Just from people at work who swear by them.

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: mjolnir2k
Hi,
I am curious about what makes people buy Apple computers (aside from the fact that they are the BEST looking computers I have ever seen and their monitors make me drool like a pavlovian dog)?

It seems odd that in an age of 6 month (or less) extinction plateaus on CPU speed, that people still would pony up a considerable amount of $$ for "old" technology (eg. 1.25 ghz CPU's).

explain the benefits of this platform, I just can't fathom it.

ps. What is the deal with them always using a twin cpu (The new G4 uses twin 1.25 ghz chips)? Is this marketing b/c they think people will consider that 2.5 ghz of processing power?

Not a flame war plz. Just curious as I know little of the Apple mystique.

1. They look cool
2. The person may have grown up with Apple
3. Easy to use, compared to a DOS base PC from the old days.
4. Macs are what everyone within a specific group or profession, for example graphic artists, uses
5. Wintel and IBM are evil. Apple is good. (The people I have known who run Macs seemed to have a moral issue with PCs)

 

[LH]

4. Macs are what everyone else, for example graphic artists, uses

Everyone else? You mean like professionals?


Animators, majority use Win, some use Irix. Mac is just now getting Maya, doesnt have 3DStudioMax or XSI.
Video Editors, its about half and half these days
Graphic Artists, its getting closer to half and half these days(it seems PCs are catching up, from people finally converting from Macs)
Sound, Macs have a substaintial lead apparently

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: LH

4. Macs are what everyone else, for example graphic artists, uses

Everyone else? You mean like professionals?


Animators, majority use Win, some use Irix. Mac is just now getting Maya, doesnt have 3DStudioMax or XSI.
Video Editors, its about half and half these days
Graphic Artists, its getting closer to half and half these days(it seems PCs are catching up, from people finally converting from Macs)
Sound, Macs have a substaintial lead apparently

Yes

 

[Lucky]

After a few days of use, I realized that it has it's own problems, mainly scalable issues. You can't upgrade you computer excepty add more RAM. You also have to pay top-dollar for everything you buy.

That simply isn't true. These days nearly everything inside a (tower) mac is upgradable. Most, like optical drives, RAM, hard drives, etc use the same standard PC components found cheap at places like newegg.

 

[Sxotty]

Sorry if I pissed youguys off, put I said processors in mass quantity that are cheap and fast, that is why I did not include IBM, or sun.

I think a dual pentium 3.2 Ghz machine or amd 2800+, or opteron when it comes out would be pretty nice for mac heads, I would think the faithful would like it instead of being sutck with slow processors.

I like my 5 button mouse and that is another example, sure apple now lets you have many buttons, but they were the ones that first bundled mice to the masses, they should have been the ones to make nicer mice, not have PC's do it and then copy. They always have neat ideas and then rest on their laurels, it seems silly.

edit added below
My pentium 3 450 (abit bx6) takes 40 secs to boot into windowXP from the power button. That is pretty quick actually and the reason is I did not add useless trash to it. That is why I like to build my own computers, not buy from anyone. I use this computer for writing papers and web browsing, but my pentium4 2.4GHz is for games, and my amd 1600+ is also for games. Since I cannot build (i wrote "buy") Apple's I guess I compare them to what I make. What i make tends to last and seems high enough quality to me. My first computer I made myself was in 1998 and I painted it b/c the case was boring, It is not all cut up and modded just looks pretty to me.

XP is quite stable, but the problem is that software for windows is often buggy. And people tend to accumulate spyware on their computers right after they get them and wonder why they are slow.

Apple's are much like consoles as was stated earlier and as such have good software but less. PC's have an amazing amount of trashy software for them, they really do it's crazy, and a pain to wade through and find what does what you want and is cheap w/o paying $400 for photoshop or something.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Sxotty
Sorry if I pissed youguys off, put I said processors in mass quantity that are cheap and fast, that is why I did not include IBM, or sun.

Without quoting its tough to know what you are responding to at first. But anyhow, you did not say fast and cheap, you said high quality and high end. Sun, IBM, Fujitsu, MIPS, and HP are the makers of high end high quality chips. Intel and AMD make cheap chips. Period.

I think a dual pentium 3.2 Ghz machine or amd 2800+, or opteron when it comes out would be pretty nice for mac heads, I would think the faithful would like it instead of being sutck with slow processors.

PPC processors are not slow though. Plus, those processors will not run my Mac applications or my OS of choice.

I like my 5 button mouse and that is another example, sure apple now lets you have many buttons, but they were the ones that first bundled mice to the masses, they should have been the ones to make nicer mice, not have PC's do it and then copy. They always have neat ideas and then rest on their laurels, it seems silly.

What is wrong with their mice? That one button thing? They dont need more than one button. ctrl- click is the same thing as a right click. Anyhow, Windows machines generally come with 2 button mice, where as Sun machines need and come with 3 button mice, Sun mice must be better.

edit added below
My pentium 3 450 (abit bx6) takes 40 secs to boot into windowXP from the power button. That is pretty quick actually and the reason is I did not add useless trash to it. That is why I like to build my own computers, not buy from anyone. I use this computer for writing papers and web browsing, but my pentium4 2.4GHz is for games, and my amd 1600+ is also for games. Since I cannot buy Apple's I guess I compare them to what I make. What i make tends to last and seems high enough quality to me. My first computer I made myself was in 1998 and I painted it b/c the case was boring, It is not all cut up and modded just looks pretty to me.

What does this have to do with anything?

XP is quite stable, but the problem is that software for windows is often buggy. And people tend to accumulate spyware on their computers right after they get them and wonder why they are slow.

Apple's are much like consoles as was stated earlier and as such have good software but less. PC's have an amazing amount of trashy software for them, they really do it's crazy, and a pain to wade through and find what does what you want and is cheap w/o paying $400 for photoshop or something.

Both systems have access to a wonderful library of free software. Of course, on the x86 side y ou may have to give up Windows, but really it shouldnt be a problem for someone that does more than play games.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
I'm sorry but the fastest PC obliterates the Mac in video editing benchmarks. I forgot the link but someone did a recent comparison with the latest Mac and latest PC and the PC was twice as fast in some cases. Did I mention the fact that the apple computer still costed more $$$ than the PC did. For mundane tasks you'd hardly ever notice between a Mac and a PC. But if we are gonna talk like that go trade in your Pentium 4 2.53 ghz for 400 mhz PII which will do all the basic things you want.

Major pet peeve here. There is no such thing as a "video editing benchmark." You can benchmark how fast a computer renders the FX and files. You can't bench mark how well a machine edits video because the machine doesn't edit the video, the user does. Rendering speed isn't king in the editing world. Working speed is. How fast and comfortably<sp?> you can edit is what counts. I can enjoy the 8 hours a day I spend editing and wait a few more minutes on a final render, or I can hate the better part of the 8 hours a I spend editing and save a few minutes on my final render. Hmmm... which am I going to choose?

Umm video editing used to be Apple's biggest selling point. So what I said is not pointless. The fact is that Apple can't even win that battle anymore. There really is no compelling reason to buy Apple anymore unless you really think that you will be more productive using and Apple and have cash to waste to buy another computer.

I can say, w/a great amount of confidence, that at least 95% of what you see in the movie theaters and on TV is cut on a Mac.


Lethal