Yet another reason why Apple suck.

In my experience, it's not so much because everyone has Windows machines, but because everyone (else) uses MS Office. The Windows itself is ancillary.

Well, yes and no. The degraded performance stuff can be fixed if you're serious about it (although 95% of users, even in commercial settings, are not). As far as hangs and crashes go, I haven't had any real issues along those lines that were really Windows issues per se in a long time. That's not to say that there have been no crashes or hangs, but that they've all been issues with other, non-MS software, or with the hardware. I can't say I've ever lost a file, other than in cases of hard drive failure (which, again, is not a Windows problem). The thing is that Windows has to deal with a vast range of third-party hardware and software that MACOS does not (and cannot), and the OS ends up getting blamed for any hiccups there. On the other hand, one can go down to one's local electronic supply store, scoop up a couple hundred bucks worth of off-the-shelf parts, and by the end of the day have a brand new Windows machine, without any more skill than is required to turn a screwdriver. That's pretty impressive, and not something that Apple has ever even dreamed of supporting.

That having a single company produce the OS, the machine itself, and the bulk of the software - and also tightly control any third parties that want to participate - results in a more relaible, consistent experience should be taken for granted. The question is what you gave up by allowing Apple total control of all levels of the system. And the answer is: a huge amount of software options (including older Mac software), an even huger amount of hardware options, and a big pile of money. And perhaps more than that, an open, scalable system that allows issues to be dictated by the user/application, rather than by design geeks at Apple. This inability to play on an open, chaotic field (which is what the software and technology industries really are) is exactly what reduced Apple from being a contender for PC dominance into a luxury smartphone company. Now maybe smartphones will end up being more important than PCs in the long run, but to the extent that we're discussing PC systems this stuff is relevant. Apple PCs are fancy end-user terminals and little more - comparing them to Windows is like comparing a BMW to a moving van: sure, I'd rather drive the BMW. But if I move furniture for a living, it's not what I'll be purchasing for my business. Those of us who are really just end-users that need a nice terminal, however (which is like 95% of users) should probably buy Apples, if they can afford them.

Yeah, menu creep is out of control on modern MS software (both office and visual studio), and their suites are generally becoming bloated monstrosities. Which is ironic, since these things are the backbone of their user base. You'd think they'd take the time to make them really nice. I find the issues with visual studio particularly galling, since that's marketted to actual computing professionals.

My impression is more mixed. The Macs I've used have worked great so long as you didn't want to do anything that was in any way not explicitly planned for in the design. The second you try to go outside the bounds, it becomes an arcane labrynth. And when things do finally break (and they do, eventually), I had vastly more difficulty figuring out what was going wrong and what (if anything) I could do to address it. Windows seems designed assuming everyone is going to be looking under the hood regularly (and this is a bad assumption for many users), while Mac is designed to make it impossible to even open the hood without being a wizard (and this is a very bad assumption for anyone other than computer-illiterate end-users).

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

pardon

elaborate
the apple os is darwin and chunks of freebsd, yes?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

My big issue with Apple (and these are recent discoveries of mine) is that the company is run by pretentious snobs who do not do what's best for the customer first. They do things for image and style. Take, for example, Apple's idiotic and selfish refusal to allow Flash onto the iPhone (which, sadly, I have--I'm contractually bound until this coming January) and iPad. Then you have their asinine "patenting" of "pinch to shrink/enlarge". Yes, Apple, Inc. has attempted to patent touch-screen's ability to sense two fingers at the same time to adjust the proportions of an image.

I guess this thread isn't here for me to defend Microsoft, which I wouldn't and couldn't even if it were germane, but taken on the whole, I'll run with Microsoft any day instead of Apple.

~String

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

i like to echo string's sentiments.

microsoft cares about the consumer. the company is run by humble and down to earth joe's quite unlike those pretentious liberal kooks in cupertino lording over us redneck retards

/runs with bill and melinda

 

That is not an echo of my statement. That is an echo of your twisted thinking. In fact, I state that I would not and could not defend Microsft's business practices, even if this were the right place and time.

But. . . since you brought it up.

Liberal and Conservative ideologies aren't an issue I remember mentioning. Both companies are markedly liberal in their general social attitudes and treatment of [American] workers. Both companies are die-hard capitalist firms.

Microsoft doesn't care about anybody but Microsoft. And Apple--who builds its iPhones in Chinese factories run so shoddily that workers have committed suicide there--is hardly a bastion of leftist ideology. Taken on the whole--and as a consumer and avid investor--I just prefer Microsoft's selfish business practices to Apple's selfish business practices.

Ethics don't play into it. If they did, then I guess we'd have to factor into the equation that Gate's is a liberal too (a slightly more blood thirsty one) who's determined that his entire charity--to which Buffet has pledged all his stock upon his deathbed--should return its entire endowment (through investment in health, education and social infrastructure) back to society within a decade of his death. That's roughly $100 billion.

But, I won't be seeing any of that money. So, it's my preference for the product and long term stock price & its impact on my retirement that most concerns me.

~String

 

Oh? And how would one define this job?

I don't think there are many other appliances that are expected to perform as many disparate tasks for as many disparate users with as many disparate expectations. It's not a toaster or vaccum.

All data should always be backed up, regardless of the operating system. This is for the simple reason that the hard drive is the most failure-prone part of the system. So I don't view the necessity of doing back-ups at an enterprize level as a criticism of any particular OS.

Meanwhile, I've worked for longer than 2 years at a company with an extensive set of Windows infrastructure, and never experienced any missing files or problems with the numerous shared drives. I have experienced issues with page file fragmentation and registry bloat, but both of those were easily fixed with off-the-shelf applications provided by our IT department. Again, I suspect that a lot of the shoddiness that's imputed to Windows is actually located elsewhere in the system: cheap drives, misconfigured/crap 3rd party software, failure to apply new patches, etc. In cases where proper attention has been paid to those factors, I haven't had significant problems. So, again, I see this as a pitfall of the open nature of Windows: they exercise no quality control over the parts you put inside the machine, nor of the third-party software you hook it up to. That doesn't mean that Windows itself as any less reliable than MACOS - it just means that Apple has avoided these issues by charging a bunch extra for quality parts and then prevented any such third-party software from being available in the first place. So, from my perspective, that works out to paying a bunch extra for less features, although I can see where such would be justified to a layman with no use for such features and a crippling inability to manage his own system.

Let me also mention that Windows has come a long way in terms of reliability over the past, say, decade. A lot of gripes that held a lot of water in the 1990's really aren't so pertinent these days. I've had a Windows 7 machine at home for about 6 months now without a single hiccup to speak of. I've also been relatively happy with XP, provided it's kept up to date. The only issues I've had there have ultimately been traced back to cheapo hardware I got from Fry's when slapping the machine together.

Maybe you just had crap systems and support to begin with? I'm in a building of over 500 people, each of whom has at least one Windows machine, and all of which are connected to various back-up, data sharing, and communication systems, and the support guys are rarely, if ever, called upon. The only time I've ever had to use them was to downgrade from visual studio 2005 to visual c++ 6.0 (and Microsoft does deserve the blame for that clusterfuck, which still only took about 2 hours to address). But in terms of day-to-day stuff, it's been a non-issue for years on end now.

It really depends on who you're marketting to. For embedded devices, it's probably the right way to go. But for, to take an example, my PC at my present job, it makes Macs a non-starter. Quite a bit of information technology is marketted to information technology professionals that need to do custom, under-the-hood type stuff with it that necessarily cannot be anticipated and designed for ahead of time back in Cupertino.

For your average consumer that reads email and browses the web, on the other hand, sure.

Perhaps not "universal," but the limits on, for example, hardware connectivity on Apple machines have nothing to do with technical or practical limitations, and everything to do with Apple's exerting control over their markets. And while I recognize that backwards compatability comes with costs, there are good reasons that Microsoft has continually decided to pay them. Their market share should tell you why.

I'm neither a little boy, nor playing. There's real work that requires the sort of open platform Windows provides, which would be impractical if not outright impossible on a Mac (even if costs weren't prohibitively high). The various third-party software that is crucial to my job simply does not exist for the Mac, and attempting to recreate it would be more work than I am capable of (and still fail to produce any progress on the stuff I'm supposed to actually be working on).

It's not a question of being a computer geek - this is not just a matter of ease of tinkering with the parts for the sake of fun. It's a serious question of functionality.

But, yeah, I'd reckon that there exist an 8-digit number of Americans that do need these features, for whom an Apple computer would not be workable. In my company (which employs tens of thousands), the only people who have Macs are executives that do zero technical work but need to have the latest gadget with them to impress customers and rivals at meetings. Back in their offices, they have Windows machines like everyone else. Amongst the actual technical workers, the only debates are whether to use Windows or Linux - nobody even considers working on a Mac.

Also, there's probably 10 million American PC gamers running custom overclocked systems with third-party video hardware.

On the contrary, I'd expect that a high percentage of users in developing countries are tech professionals that can't work with Apple's closed platforms and limited user base, even if they could afford them. The rest of the populations there can't justify the cost of a computer at all. The phenomenon of people building their own computers (and using free OSs like Linux) is much more widespread in developing countries, by necessity. It's the cheapest option - those markets can't pay the extra $1000 for the shiny Mac.

Err, didn't I just recommend that said 95% should buy Macs, if they can afford it? In fact, the price probably has a lot to do with why more people don't.

Only if you want to build them yourselves. Otherwise, your choices are Apple's way, Microsoft's way or Linux's way (in increasing order of flexibility).

I don't think anyone finds the interfaces in question intuitive. They're just plain bloated, no matter which way you look at them. I work in an office full of programmers, and they don't find this stuff any more intuitive than anyone else - quite the opposite: as programmers, they see no excuse for such poor worksmanship. Just seems like poor design on Microsoft's part.

Yes, and those are single-use appliances that only have to do one thing. That's a very poor model for an information appliance - the entire point of a computer is that it can be programmed to do whatever one likes, and so the purpose of a system is to facilitate that flexibility (although I'll mention that I enjoy fixing the parts of my car and other appliances, when I'm able to). Apple markets to a certain segment of the consumer computing market that only wants to do certain common, well-defined things with their computers - although I expect that within a few years such people will not be part of the PC market at all, but rather subsumed into smartphones/convergence devices. Windows, meanwhile, is targetted as much at enterprizes, offices and tech professionals as at end-users, and so can't afford either the closed approach or the high sticker prices.

Yeah, I agree. But for many of us, too many is better than not enough. An unwieldy system is still preferable to one that won't do the job at all.

Again, that's great for a lot of people. But there is a substantial segment for whom it's not, and an even more substantial segment for whom the cost is simply too high anyway. The fact is that Apple gave up on being a mass platform a long time ago, and so I don't really get the frustration about Apple not being a major common platform. They achieve the aspects people like about them exactly because they intentionally stick to certain well-defined niches that facillitate that approach. Apple doesn't want to be used by more than 5-10% of the population, and their strategies reflect this. They have given up on the gamer market and made a conscious decision to price themselves out of the affordable computing market, and so it follows that they're going to remain limited to a minority of users indefinitely, by their own design.

 

I know I'm far from alone on this, but among the many tasks my Windows 7 based machine does, I listen to my music on it, watch television and movies on it (I don't have a stand alone entertainment center), play a combat flight simulator, run Folding@home, and of course all of the web surfing, and arguing on PIAFs.

 

here's my new phone (I bought it at a pawn shop 4 months ago for $30 USD)

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Blah blah. Have you ever tried to remove MS Office products from a workplace, and replace them with alternatives? That's the arena where you are lacking experience. Even Mac users, use MS Office productivity software. Try and get rid of MS, and the world stops working. I've used many and various alternatives, StarOffice, Lotus products, and they all SUCK compared to MS Office.

Quadrophonics summed up the alleged 'crash' problem. It's because MS aren't restrictive assholes. You can buy their OS and install it on kit you have lashed up yourself. It is unfair then to blame the OS for a failure. MS OSs have to contend with a HUGE variety of hardware and firmware levels. Apple restrict everything so tightly, so they do not have to do this, and guess what? Instead their hardware failure rate is poor.

Odd that, because at one time I was leading a team who were the biggest users of a certain MS product in Europe, and we met monthly with MS, discussed potential improvements, new features, and new products. MS listened to us.

When you bash MS without having the experience of attempting a non-MS workplace, as I have, you need lecturing.

Dude, I've got 20+ years IT experience myself. Put your dick away.

More uninformed bias. I use a dedicated Windows Vista machine as a Media Centre, and it works very well. It's an appliance. I used it to record TV shows, watch DVDs, listen to music, stream movies from my rental outfit, and surf the web. It's a tool, and it works, period.

And the time you worked for a multinational that used Macs exclusively, what were the failure rates there? Ah, you never have, have you? I don't think anybody has, because you cannot build an infrastructure solely with Apple hardware and OS. Also, I've never worked anywhere with such a huge MS based failure rate as you describe, and I have worked for some pretty large companies. Also, Mac hardware is amongst the least reliable kit. If they ever sold as much product as Microsoft, they'd be the pariah, but while they are a small fish, their failures seem to be tolerated.

So simply, Apple sucks, Macs suck, and they cost more than an equivalent PC have a higher failure rate, and you can't build your business on them. All of this is true, and please, feel free to try and debate these points, rather than waxing lyrical about your childhood engineering feats.

 

I used to have an LG that looked like that. Well, still have, it's in a box somewhere.

 

Exactly. Apple make products for hipsters. I hate hipsters more than I hate hippies.

 

Well I would hardly call my mother a 'hipster'. Truth is that she couldn't even manage an email on Windows never mind anything else, she simply had no experience with computers. I recommended she purchase an Apple and after a few days of showing her the features she is skyping, typing, emailing, collecting pictures and browsing the web without my being around to help her. Sure it helps that it all looks 'nice' but that wouldn't have meant diddly if she wasn't able to get a handle on it for herself. Fraggle is right there are a lot of people out there who need a simple interface to go about their simple business without having to call a tech guy. It gives her the independence she needs so its a good thing.

I also use Mac and wouldn't change it for anything. Its just easier:shrug:

A beautiful design is always nice but for many people who are not computer savvy a Mac is just user friendly.

 

I bought the iPod because it is generally a great phone/PDA. In the USA the service is provided by AT&T who's service--I now know--is unreliable. Terrible in fact. Later on, I discovered that they are snobily refusing to allow Flash on the phone because they consider it "low brow" and that they are suing any other company that allows any feature similar to "pinch to shrink/expand" because they actually patented (and think they'll get to keep it) such a concept.

I own an iPod because they are not that expensive, look nice, and have a great number of features I want (and, realistically, none of the ones I don't).

But a Mac? I see no need to spend all that money for a computer that charges me oodles of cash for what has been for me (in the past 8 years) a machine that is no more reliable than mine**.

~String

_________________________________________________________
**Okay, I admit my newest notebook from Gateway has given me the BSoD a few times, but that was due to a hardware issue, not the software.

 

I have to admit that the iPhone 3G is actually a good phone/PDA. But it doesn't stop me despising Apple.

I'm customising my HTC HD2 at the moment, I just treated it to a leather flip case, and now I'm looking for apps and games. I can just download apps people have written, and I don't need a permission slip from Bill Gates to do it ;-)

And yeah, the BSOD is usually down to hardware, or at least, a driver problem. MS platforms being highly customisable are prone to this. It's the small price we pay for freedom. I've no idea why the PCs Fraggle uses are so error prone. I've supported IT for a company with 20,000 employees and and had fewer niggles that he said he had in a company of 500. More recently I've supported vast servers farms of nearly 2,000 Wintel servers, and only ever got called out for one crash in two years, and it was clustered, so it could wait until morning. I guess it depends on the quality of the hardware, and the privileges you give to your users. Let users have admin rights and an internet connection and things are going to get messy. Lock down the desktop, secure the OS, and stop those users from installing trojan infected toys, and everything will be fine. On security btw, it was a Mac that got busted into fastest in a recent hacking competition. They aren't as secure as people make out, and Apple send out updates on the sly. They aren't as open as MS about the vulnerabilities.

 

I don't see why you think using an email application under windows is any harder than it is on a Mac? That makes NO sense whatsoever.

Two days of tution on a PC and she'd be just as adept.

Again, that doesn't make any sense. If it were true, Apple hardware computers would be more prevalent, because there are more regular people than tecchies. But the converse is true, the alleged more complicated Windows based options are more popular amongst regular people, and Apple have only a small market share.

No, it really isn't. The hard part is setting up your email, your pop3 accounts, attaching to your WiFi, and that is exactly the same under both OSs. Using the apps after that is equally easy.

As the majority of the populace aren't tecchies, why are macs so unpopular vs PCs then? Your statement does not bear out in reality.

 

Ha ha ha...Glad to know you dont need us programmers. Hope you enjoy sitting in front of useless pieces of metal, glass, and plastic. Without programers computers are useless.

My car I have not modified but my bike (Honda Shadow 750) is very modified.From the exhaust to the chip, suspension, seats, handle bars.. etc......

Guess we should still be throwing switches to enter data, and software. Reading lights to decode output.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

I still love you and will do my best to make software for you...

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

oh yeah, if you dont feel like playing with an OS for hours then get a mac. i dont see how an operating system can be bad either though.

 

Ask my mother. She couldn't figure out Windows at all. She's not a young woman and she is very intimidated by new technology. There was someone who did try to school her on a pc and IT DIDN'T WORK, she gave up and just left it at that, it simply wasn't user friendly. At the end she has a mac and she's doing simple stuff she couldn't manage to do before. I think the interface is easier on her eyes, I think it helps to have the bar above listing all of her favorite sites readily available at the touch of a finger. The mac comes with a 3 year warranty with telephone tech support and servicing but she has never had to use it.

My mother knowing nothing about computers would have purchased a windows run dell or something like that which she had before and finally gave away when too frustrated with it and left it lying in the corner. She would never have thought of a mac nor knew anything about Apple specifically, the suggestion was mine. I think that the average person probably wouldn't purchase a mac because of cost considerations which I can quite understand. I also think that there is an idea that the interface is so different you have to learn something new, which I think is hysterical because you don't have to learn anything new you just have to forget all crap you had to know before. Now everything is as easy as 'Finder' and 'systems preferences'. Now I just drag files in documents and they don't get lost

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

As for myself I can honestly say that I have not once had to sit around wondering what was wrong with my PC since I purchased a Mac, it is soooo much easier. I love Pages much more than I ever did Word. Why? Its easier. I'm not sitting around playing with anti-virus programs, I'm not trying to figure out how to have more than one page up at a time without the whole thing stalling. A whole page of work may suddenly disappear but then it re-appears with a click and I could figure out how to do it intuitively without making a phone call. Nothing was lost and that's what is important to me, having it there somewhere under some strange name nestled somewhere in the PC I would never think to look is not my idea of a good time. In short I don't have to know much about computers nor do I have to take a two day course to figure it out. Why should anyone have to take a 2 day PC course just to figure out how to use a computer?:shrug:

I mean you say the hard part is setting up email etc. Why do I need it to be a difficult task to set up email? Right now all I have to do is click on Yahoo at the top of the bar and its all there and I don't even have to add my password:shrug:

Installing software on Mac was one of the easiest exercises I have ever done before and I didn't need any help at all to get it done and it didn't take that much time at all, and when it was finished it was good to go. And I don't have all these software cd's to deal with.

I'm not discounting what you have to say about the uses of Windows, I'm just saying that for the everyday person Mac is a god send and I would never want to go back to a PC ever again as long as this remains as simple as it is. So yeah I agree with Fraggle.

I don't know why or even if Mac's are 'unpopular' as you say. Actually I would say that its not so much that people purchased a mac and were unhappy as much as that they have never had a mac in their hands to see the difference. All I know is that when I was asking what new kind of a computer I should get two people told me to buy a Mac and I am glad I took their advice. I think that Mac's are more expensive but I don't believe they are unpopular. I see more PC's than I do Mac's but I do see Mac's quite regularly so....

Like I said, now that I have had the experience of one in my hands I will never go back to a PC. As for the ipods and ipads and iphones, I haven't the slightest interest in any of those products as I don't see the need.

 

Jesus woman, how long did it take you to learn to ride a bike? A computer is a little more complex, why wouldn't you invest a little time learning how to make best use of it?

Web mail? Please, that's identical under any OS, being independent of it. You seriously telling me your mum can't click on the IE Icon in Windows, but she can click the Safari Icon on her Mac? Too many buttons on a PC mouse are there?

And you think it's harder on a PC because,.....?????

Clearly not. Clearly most people don't want to fork out the extra cash to buy less reliable hardware.

7.5% market share is pretty meagre.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

The price puts most people off. That's deliberate. There is nothing in a Mac that justifies the cost. It's the same marketing idea that keeps bars exclusive, you simply make the drinks expensive and therefore only the affluent patronise you.