Yet another reason why Apple suck.

[river-wind]

$2000 for a 13" 120Gig 2GigRam Macbook...
$1000 for a 15.6" 500Gig 4GigRam Windows Laptop
Its quite obvious why macs suck. Oh not to mention the inferior diversity of applications.

I note you didn't specify the CPU in your comparison. And 13" doesn't mean "less" it means "more portable" - the components are often more expensive for being smaller. It's also why cheap 15" Pentium windows laptops weigh 7 lbs, are twice the thickness of higher-end machines and only cost $500.

There are ways in which windows machines are better than macs. However, unless performance is already beyond your needs or portability is not a concern for you (and thus neither play into purchasing decisions), you are looking at poor comparators.

edit: in addition, what $2000 13" macbook are you looking at? They don't seem to exist. The most expensive I see is the $1500 2.66ghz core 2 duo w/ 4GB ram, 320GB hd, nvidia 320m, and a battery that lasts between 6-8 hours in reality (claimed 10 hours). The cheapest is the $999 2.4 Ghz core 2 duo w/ 2GB ram, 250GB hd, nvidia 320m, and the same battery.

The closest Dell I can find is the Studio 14, which has a smaller battery (55wthr vs 63.5wthr), a slightly higher-res screen (1366x768 vs 1280x800), is .5" wider, .5" deeper, .5" thicker (at the back), .75lbs heavier, a newer cpu but at a slower clockspeed (2.13 i3 vs 2.4GHZ core 2), a larger HD (500GB vs 320GB), comparable graphics (radeon m 5450 vs nvidia 320m), and it costs $933.99. You've saved $66 & have more HD space, but are carrying around an extra 3/4ths of a pound and are missing a hour or more of battery life.

Thanks Microsoft for free, state of the art, visual development systems. There is nothing better.

Three points:
1) I like Visual Studio. It is a very good dev system.
2) Visual Studio wasn't free for a very long time. Even now, VS Pro is $800, while VS Ultimate w/ MSDN renewal is $3,800!
3) VS Express went free for two reasons: the xbox marketplace and the need for a more open dev area for indie teams, OSX's free Xcode environment pulling poor independent coders away from Windows.

 

[Blindman]

edit: in addition, what $2000 13" macbook are you looking at? They don't seem to exist. The most expensive I see is the $1500 2.66ghz core 2 duo w/ 4GB ram, 320GB hd, nvidia 320m, and a battery that lasts between 6-8 hours in reality (claimed 10 hours). The cheapest is the $999 2.4 Ghz core 2 duo w/ 2GB ram, 250GB hd, nvidia 320m, and the same battery.

Machbook Pro 13" and thats 2.4GHZ. Its does not even play blue ray disks, let alone write to one. No HDMI out, with out spending more money.
6hour battery life for a new macbook. But what do you do in 3years when the battery has degraded to 1/3 its power. The batteries are inbuilt and require you to send your apple to a service agent. Very expensive. For most independent laptops you can just order a new battery and just plug it in your self.

Apple Macbook battery 5600mAH around $120au just for the battery not instillation. For full instillation cost for a 17" Macbook $300au
Laptop battery (For my toshiba) 7800mAH $80au and I can just plug it in. I also get to keep my old battery in case of the need for emergency power. I can get a independent 7800mAH for my Toshiba for just $66au.

I used OSX's Xcode. Its crap compared to VS express. Plus if you want support you must pay $99us a year. Apple also reserves the right to control the apps you create for a range of the products (iphone ,iPad....) and all they ask for this privilege is 30% of your sale price.

Apple sux(s) your money. Guess thats why they only hold 6% of the laptop market. Money talks

 

[Stryder]

Iphone 4 users report fault

so Apple issues advice on the subject.

"Just avoid holding it in that way." - Steve Jobs

Ah the modern wonders of Tech Support.

 

[phlogistician]

I tell you what phologistician. If you can configure OpenDAP, GrADS, and netCDF to accurately read Gridded binary on cygwin or even more impressively the standard Windows then write a tutorial for M.I.T. I'll even send you 100 dollars.

Or maybe you were just using the wrong tools?

Data processing isn't my bag any longer, so I'll have to decline your rather specific challenge, but if I were to attempt munging some data, I'd pick a tool such as IDL, which I used to use a decade or so ago, and I'm pretty sure it would would be up to the job.

 

[phlogistician]

'just avoid holding it in that way'

Ah the modern wonders of Tech Support.

I can't believe Apple unload a product onto the public with such a flaw, and Jobs is such a fucking self obsessed jerk, he now thinks he can dictate how people hold their phones, to make up for his companies shortcomings.

Out fucking standing, Steve!

Only Apple fanboys would put up with such a flaw.

 

[river-wind]

heh, the iphone antenna issue is pretty bad. I watched the videos last night, and it's not just a minor drop in signal, but a complete shorting of the antenna. One video on youtube demonstrates this by simply placing a key on the side of the phone (connecting the two antenna sections w/ a conductor), resulting a complete loss of signal.


Historically, phlogistician, while apple has its fanboys who will accept anything the company does, most apple users are notoriously whiny and demanding. Just ask a cross-platform developer which group demands "proper" following of hig guidelines. In the case of Steam's recent mac launch, the user community jumped on Valve for putting game content in the ~/documents/ folder, when it should technically go into /Library/Application Support/. Valve got so much heat from users about this that they changed the install location to /Library/Application Support/ last week.

I agree, only apple fanboys would put up w/ a flaw like the iphone 4's antenna (edit: and only sony fanboys would put up with exploding batteries, and only ms fanboys would put up with red rings of death). However, most of us aren't fanboys.

Machbook Pro 13" and thats 2.4GHZ. Its does not even play blue ray disks, let alone write to one. No HDMI out, with out spending more money.

true, you need a mini displayport to hdmi adapter. ($10 from monoprice.com)
How much is a comparable windows 13-14" laptop with a blu-ray burner?

6hour battery life for a new macbook. But what do you do in 3years when the battery has degraded to 1/3 its power. The batteries are inbuilt and require you to send your apple to a service agent. Very expensive. For most independent laptops you can just order a new battery and just plug it in your self.

rated at 10 hours, realitic at 6-8. Given that industry standard is closer to <5 hours, that's a good number.

Regarding the non-user replaceable batteries, I agree 120%.

Apple Macbook battery 5600mAH around $120au just for the battery not instillation. For full instillation cost for a 17" Macbook $300au

While it is possible to replace the battery one's self, it's not easy. Apple's fee for replacing the battery is outlandish.

I used OSX's Xcode. Its crap compared to VS express. Plus if you want support you must pay $99us a year.

How much is an MSDN membership with phone support?

Guess thats why they only hold 6% of the laptop market. Money talks

Popularity is not an argument for quality. If you want to argue that windows is more popular, then I'll agree with you 100%.

I could argue (though equally poorly) that Apple makes better products based on it's higher market cap than MS (245.04B vs. 218.05B).

 

[phlogistician]

I could argue (though equally poorly) that Apple makes better products based on it's higher market cap than MS (245.04B vs. 218.05B).

Or the market cap could be used to argue the company is over valued. If you invest equal amounts in Apple and MS stock, MS delivers about 2.4x the dividends.

 

[Gustav]

What is your point, anyways?

dont let irrational prejudices get in the way of finding solutions to the job at hand

The criticism I gave of Mac was its insecurity and poorly designed OS Candy WRapper.

who gives a fuck about the average user and desktops? this is csc in sci. we dont need no stinking av proggies protecting us. we know how to hunt and exterminate malicious code manually. we do not require google to inform us of bad neighborhoods. we dont use default applications. we dont........fuck ishit..

/cackle

 

[Gustav]

I can't believe Apple unload a product onto the public with such a flaw.

indeed
our consumer society had a brilliant track record till "steve" sullied the marketplace with defective products

lets demand and force a recall
lets forge new ground and hold manufacturers accountable

/scorn

 

[Blindman]

How much is an MSDN membership with phone support?

$12000us for Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN plus $4000 renewal. But you dont ever have to give microsoft a share of your profit, and microsoft will never deny your release.

This may sound like a lot but for a corporate endeavor you could be paying Apple many times this. For apple the more you make the more they take.

Bottom line, MSDN is online and free, most small business will never need to subscribe.

I could argue (though equally poorly) that Apple makes better products based on it's higher market cap than MS (245.04B vs. 218.05B).

Microsoft is not in the device manufacturing business, you cant compare apples and oranges.

Popularity is not an argument for quality. If you want to argue that windows is more popular, then I'll agree with you 100%.

I argue the many reasons for Microsoft's market dominance in the OS market is pricing.

 

[river-wind]

Or the market cap could be used to argue the company is over valued. If you invest equal amounts in Apple and MS stock, MS delivers about 2.4x the dividends.

You're spot-on here. aapl has a current gross profit of 17.22B MSFT has 46.28B. aapl PEG is 1.23, while msft PEG is 1.48

aapl at $250/share is crazy, IMO.

edit: then again, I thought it was crazy at $150/share prior to the last split. Had I not considered it crazy, I'd be rich right now. Oh, if only my Mom bought aapl at $15 when I told her to. ;_;

 

[river-wind]

$12000us for Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN plus $4000 renewal. But you dont ever have to give microsoft a share of your profit, and microsoft will never deny your release.

For desktop applications, true. And that's exactly how it is for OSX as well.

However, the windows mobile marketplace, MS's app store, requires a $99 subscription for developers, and applications submissions are $99 each (after the the first 5 per year). Submissions can be rejected if they violate the terms of the marketplace, and MS takes a 30% cut of all WMM sales.

MS's submission guidelines are more relaxed than Apples, I will agree.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/161069/microsofts_app_store_heres_the_deal.html

This may sound like a lot but for a corporate endeavor you could be paying Apple many times this.

You *could* be, but *would* you be?

You *could* also be paying Apple many times more for server hardware and licensing. In actuality, however, you aren't: the unlimited CAL licensing for OSX server make Windows server multiple times more expensive once you get above 5 users.

Bottom line, MSDN is online and free, most small business will never need to subscribe.

ADC is online and free, and most small business will never need to subscribe.
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/navigation/

Microsoft is not in the device manufacturing business, you cant compare apples and oranges.

The do produce some devices, such as the kin, their line of IO devices, the xbox 360. (edit: I should clarify my statement; you are right that MS is mainly a software company, one that happens to make some hardware. Apple is mainly a hardware company that also makes some software.)

I argue the many reasons for Microsoft's market dominance in the OS market is pricing.

And you're right. Windows is good enough is nearly all cases, and windows based PCs are initially a bit cheaper than a mac in most situations. Inertia from existing market dominance plays a big role as well, however. Many people will buy a more expensive windows workstation in an office environment in order to keep to a single-os environment; my company does it fairly regularly. Our head programmer saved about $300 by picking a Mac over a Dell with the same hardware; most of the other devs chose windows boxes because that's what the IT group is familiar with.

 

[rvagood]

Yet another reason why Apple suck;