Either way I would be without a computer for weeks at a time.

The decision is very challenging and I have no idea what to to do.

also, i think because of steve jobs, apple computers will always stay as a niche market (for developers, creatives, families and students).

I tried making xp/vista better with docks and such but it was forced. I've also tried ubuntu with kiba-dock and other unneccesary eye candy but it lacked essential software support (photoshop, dreamweaver)

For any web developer/designer/programmer work an extra month save the money and make the move to mac. The elegance and simplicity of not only its OS but its software (textmate, transit, xtorrent, newsfire etc) will make your sound like a fanboy more than I am at the moment.

btw the learning curve was not an issue

I myself is both a Mac user and shareholder, I LUV MACS!!!!

But I also love the underdog position that Apple is in, I feel like one of the few lucky ones that actually has discovered Apple. ;)

Thanks!

Alex

Here's what I want in a PC:
Internet, Email, Excel, Word.
easy to use for Photos and Ipods.
easy to write to DVD's and CD's
Fast to startup, Quiet, and doesn't take up too much space
Less hassles with spyware and antivirus

I'd say I'm not alone in just wanting a PC with less hassles. I don't really care about how flash the OS looks.
I just want it to be faster and less buggy than Windows XP

That said... my biggest worry is compatibility issues with MS Office. I think Microsoft is discontinuing support for VBS for Macs, and as Om Malik said, we're waiting an update for Office 2008:
http://gigaom.com/2007/07/15/where-is-mac-office-2008/

Hum, many things:
- Web 2.0 is built on Open Source (1)
- Willing to buy a high-end, free-software-only laptop (2)
- Freedom (3)
- so cool with the free software community...

Ref:
1) http://www.venturecake.com/web-20-is-built-on-open-source/
2) http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/131
(3) http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

The reason people say that Mac's are more expensive is that they don't offer $500 bargain box computers.

While there was a learning curve to convert, it was helped that my 7 year old daughter knew how to use it along with knowing all the shortcut keys from school. She can navigate Garageband with the Midi interface to compose her own music and uses iMovie to make movies. My 7 year old also has a Windows notebook, where every program requires constant hand-holding. So using a Mac has ultimatly been easier and I am not sure why people would have trouble making a switch aside from corporate app support and pricing.

P.S. My favorite part of the Mac is actually being able to ssh into it :)

So for now i'll stick with XP or perhaps even get both.

Here it is: People in the "real world" who aren't techies and don't read the A-List blogs don't know, for the most part, that:

1) Macs can run Windows through Parallels, Bootcamp, etc and thus Windows programs
2) Macs rarely crash
3) Macs don't get viruses

It may be hard for readers of this blog to believe that people don't know these things but they don't. Take it from me - I come with news from the outside world.

Apple's recent commercials have obviously been superb. But they just need one more to really spark a revolution: the commercial that plainly tells the rest of the world - sick of virus software and crashes with unintelligible error message - that Mac users don't have to deal with these annoyances and that all their Windows software can still be used on a Mac. One commercial. That's it.

This is a 30-second commercial that can change the balance of power in the consumer arena (and business would likely eventually follow).

You can thank me later, Steve.

My question is; who wants Apple to win this battle? Apple is much more monopolistic than any other company. Therefore is much less cool for me. Their ads discriminate some people. I think these questions will arise whenever Apple takes a little more shares in the market.

However I couldn't live without Skitch (http://plasq.com/skitch) so until that goes PC I'm staying.

_________________
http://www.freeopenmoko.com

Professionally it's the lack of love and support from my IT-department that's the issue. And there's also problems with working in a small professional field (small in Sweden that is :) )like libraries then you want the standardised software available for a different OS.

On a technical side I thought Apple didn't update th packes often enough. The Apache and mySQL delivered with the system were old. Installing your own meant breaking the balance. This should be more seamless. But thats a tech point of view.

why I might switch
- more programming is now web-related, and thus is not tied to the PC.
- the games consoles seem to be overtaking the PC, especially now they are online, so I might not need my PC for gaming.
- those big screen all-in-one macs are very nice.

http://www.ebooksbay.org

And that's what Apple will continue to do, rather than artificially lowering prices to create a new monopoly.

That said, they make great machines and I respect what they've done with OSX. They've brought unix/linux to the masses. They just make them pay out the ass for it. Also their marketing is annoying. Too smug and not really accurate. They equate personal computers with windows whereas nowadays just about any new windows, osx, or linux pc is running on x86 hardware with essentially the same architecture. It's all the OS and the case. For me that's not worth another $700.

In a global world, Apple should think in a global strategy.

Have "official" tutorial courses that are taught for free in a few major cities so as to get people used to the way it looks and feels (you have to undo years of people using Windows and being comfortable with only that).

Last step is for Linux to quickly jump in and take over, let Apple and Microsoft battle it out. Apple can spend some money getting people to stop using Windows, and then Linux can profit from this by jumping in at the last second and promoting its products instead..hehe. Go Open Source!

P.S. AppleCare is excellent support! and Apple Store offers personal training!

If you want to work, but a Mac. If you want games, but a console system. From what I can tell, work and play cover 100% of my time, none of which is spent messing with crappy hardware or software.

They crash. Often. They're hilariously uncompatable with each other and PCs (my PC doesn't exclude their Macs). The amount of software available for them is poor, and if you ever want to play a game, don't bother.

They come across as fashion items more than computers to me. They are all style over substance, and I still can't believe you have to buy a new one if you want to upgrade it.

I hate Macs now. But only because people buy the hype. And one more comment about them never crashing is going to make me violent - my PC hasn't done that all year! Those Macs do it when two things are done at once. Or if a programme has been installed for a long time, in one case... *coughVLC*.

My PC also runs Linux and never crashes. Sometimes I some programs are not responsive and I just close them using the task bar.

I don't think I'll ever switch to a MAC. I have no need to.

The most amazing thing is that with macs, there really is a loyalty. Someone developing software for a mac, even if it is simple free-ware software, make it beautiful, and follow the guidelines that make it easy to use.

I hope however that mac doesn't gain a significant increase in share - I like being the minority. Having the ability to say "100 000 viruses, no way" is cool. Without the comparison, mac wouldn't be great, it would be standard. Shudder, what a word.

I think Mr Jobs would think similar to this. If you have read biographies, watched movies (pirates of silicon valley), and read the books related to the history of computers, you will note that it has never really been about the money for steve. Its always been about "we have some really great stuff for you this afternoon". Ie, the revolution.

Good article, you have definitely hit the nail there.

Historically there have been significant differences between Mac and Wintel workstation hardware. Not so much these days. Intel multi-core CPU? Check. SATA drives? Check. DDR2 RAM? check (actually, current Mac Pros run 667 MHz, I'm currently running 1066MHz in my PC rig).
Support of multiple PCIx ATI/Nvidia GPU's? Check (ok, Apple has NV 7300 and I have SLI'd 8800's).
Color management? check. Support for high end video/audio editing systems? check.

My wife uses a Macbook. I've had one Mac or another since my 170 laptop. My main rig is and has been a PC, though. Why? Field servicable by me. Field upgradable/customizable by me. Lack of games for Mac.

I think the problem with the large chains is they forfeit those traits that sets Apple apart from the others. Apple has tried time-and-again with chains like Best Buy, Circuit City, often even going as far as having dedicated Mac stores-within-stores. But every time, the Macs are poorly maintained, ignored by staff and often outright abandoned. Sales people will often steer customers AWAY from Macs, in part because Apple, unlike for example HP, does not pay additional commission on their products, beyond what the store might pay. Further, the sales people are often happier to sell PCs which are more familiar, have a greater range of handy compatible up-sell items and can be more-easily shackled with the store's in-house extended warranty (the highest-profit item the store sells). So to make an impression under these circumstances would be to sacrifice everything that makes Macs different.

As for the foreign markets, the countries you mentioned (notably China) are often going their own route. The Chinese government has developed its own Linux distribution and office suite and is working with Chinese companies to create ultra-low-cost reference platforms, in addition to China-specific standards; for example, they are working on an HD disc that's totally incompatible with Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. In all cases, the goals are extremes in low-cost systems and a push towards things developed in-house. I don't think Apple could penetrate that curtain.

20 reasons why PC are better then Mac

"Note that NPD tracks only the U.S. retail industry; those numbers include PC sales at places like Best Buy and Circuit City, but they don't include direct sales, meaning that Dell's totals are excluded."

So, not only are those 10%/15% numbers for the U.S. only, they don't include ANY direct sales, which means *none* of Dell's sales or any other company's online/over-the-phone orders (granted, this means Apple's own online sales aren't included either, but it still skews the numbers terribly).

If you're looking for total worldwide sales (which is the only real number worth looking at in terms of this particular article), you have to look at either Gartner or IDC's worldwide quarterly sales figures, which are compiled here:

http://www.systemshootouts.org/mac_sales.html

Yes, Apple's total market share *has* been increasing slowly over the past 4 years, but not by nearly the dramatic level you've portrayed--they've gone from a low of around 1.8% up to around 2.4% as of last December. The site doesn't include the first half of 2007, so it's possible that the percentage has gone up some more since last winter, but I guarantee you that it won't be higher than perhaps 3% at the most.

None of this is to rip on Apple--they've been kicking major ass lately, and everything that they're doing right now looks like they'll continue to do so, but mixing misleading numbers like that is a disservice to your readers.

Again, these probably don't matter for your average consumer, but I can see them being problems among the more geeky computer users out there.

1)Macs are way too expensive.
2)In my experience, macs are NOT more reliable than Windows machines, especially Windows XP.
3)Support for macs is way more problematic than it is for Windows machines.
4)There is far less open source and otherwise free software available for macs.
5)The mac community reeks of elitism.
5)You have to pay far too much for a mac. (That's worth saying twice.)

MS has lost billions trying to be the dominant platform for gaming. To what end?

- price on a new system
- software support

Every time I go check out Macs they are always fairly more expensive than I'd like to spend especially since I'm not sure I'll be able to run everything I want to. I don't care about MS Office stuff as I've already switched over to Open Office but occasionally a game comes out I want to play and it worries me that I may be left on the outside.

Why?

I mean, lets be honest. MAC vs. PC is like McDonald's vs. Burger King, Starbucks vs. Dunkin Doughnuts.

(continued here: http://yishaym.wordpress.com/2007/07/17/why-i-hate-apple/)

What a joke! Having a Vista machine has cost me nearly 3 weeks in loss time due to crashes and software incompatibility. Almost every bullet point you list is blatantly false.

I have an Alienware SLI laptop with XP, a Dell Tower at work with Vista Business and an iMac at home. By far, the iMac is the superior machine. It has far fewer problems (requiring me to be tech support for my family far less often) and offers a far better usable experience than the Alienware or Dell. It simply works.

As a game developer, I've been deeply inolved with PCs, hardware and software for nearly 20 years. Now with Vista, I've decided that it's time for me to make the switch to a Mac for all my work (yes, including PC game development).

Thanks,
nXain

i was a switcher for professional reasons.
when i was enrolling in college around 2002, i literally had no knowledge of macs, coming from a small school i had an advanced knowledge of computers over my classmates, but simply had no exposure to differing IT systems, or hardware.
when purchasing my college computer it was windows based because i did not know at the time of the graphical benefits. i gained heavy mac exposure at college and upon graduating purchased a G5, i have never once regretted the switch.

the only downfall was that i got in prior to the intel switch. however it would not make me want to go back to windows.

i have also only once found a desire to run windows, and that is quicken. although there is a mac version, it was not as robust feature wise as the windows version, albeit windows is far less visually appealing, i can do more with my money by using the windows version. the only reason for this is because corporate it structures are slow to adopt mac as a platform, so for me, my bank doesn't import to mac.

Is this just my computer? Or some nefarious Windows vs. Mac plot? Any ideas?
--Nick

There is a large portion of the world's economy that relies on PCs breaking, being infected by viruses and spyware, and just teaching people that you must click on Start to Shutdown your computer.

Not that Macs don't have their idiosyncrasies, but I want to share a personal story with you.

There was a point where my parents were calling me frequently -- not to say "hi" but to ask about PC problems. They never called for other reasons. Finally, I convinced them to buy Macs to replace their PCs. Now they call me not to ask about problems, but to tell me their success stories in getting relatively complex tasks done with no assistance from me.

It's nice having my parents back.

yes apple charges a lot.

for example. the 30inch display started at approximately $3000, but hp and dell both sell 30 Inch displays with the same resolution (and often times better response times) for around $1700, when i purchased my apple 20inch it cost almost $800, target sells similar models for less than $300 currently.

macbooks - the black version vs the white version, if you customize the white to equal the ram, hard drive, etc of the black model, you pay an additional $300 just to have your macbook made in black.

when you look at the consumer level hardware, a $1000 laptop seems excessive by today's standards, but apple makes it worth your while in performance, experience, software and hardware integration (jobs mentioned this in his keynote switch to intel, apple makes the all inclusive experience) i don't forsee mac clones ever being an option again, i would love to be able to put OS X on any intel box i own, but i don't see apple doing this, they can provide far better support by limiting the number of possible configurations and pre-testing all hardware they sell as a "part" of the said system.

that being said, on the pro level, macs exceed windows boxes, and are often cheaper. about 6 months ago a studio was done between prices for a high end mac pro and a high end dell, and the mac with better components, and including a monitor still came out to be $400 cheaper than a dell. but when you have 12k to spend on a professional workstation i suppose the cost really wouldn't matter to you.

I think that STEVE JOBS will not leave this world until he sees that Apple has the number one OS in the world.

P.S. Using a mac and a PC is easy, on a mac buy a mouse with two buttons and on windows install and update your antivirus and spyware programs.

You dumbass. Have you ever watched television or visited an Apple-related blog? Everybody knows that. My grandma knows that. STFU.

However, that lack-of-right-click seems to be the biggest problem for new Mac users. It's funny that something as simple as a mouse could keep a person from choosing a quality Apple product.

Apple either needs to bluntly tell people (in a commercial) that they can control-click to right-click, or they need to switch to two-button mice for those n00bs who just don't get it.

Simple example:
When I pull in my Bluetooth Adapter into my PC - it took my a lot of time to get the Bluetooth working incl. installation of software, disable Windows Bluetooth - which doesnt work and so on... On my Mac, I simply pull in the adapter - and done! it works within seconds and the connection to my mobile phone work too.

I have many such examples that made my life easier in the last six month.

Here is another one:
Did you ever try to print from Windows to your printer while the printer is turned off. You get a waste lot of dialogs and warnings from windows. Worst scenario you need to restart the PC. On a Mac I started printing to a printer that is connected via an Airport Express WLAN Adapter. After starting the printjob I realised that the Airport was not plugged in and the printer has no power. Meanwhile the printjob was going on at my Mac... then I plugged in the power and Airport Express station and tadaaa... the document has been printed without any hazzle or problems - that was far the best experience that I had and this is impossible under windows!

People Should buy computers to enable them to do specific tasks. Most people are sold a computer (wintel world anyway)that does not do what they want it to do, has software they do not want, and does not have the software they need. The Mac experience aims things more squarely at the individual, and things work together on a fairly integrated interface style.

I've not tried Vista, and frankly, with the price points and restrictions (No virtualizing Vista? Excuse me?) Microsoft has lost me as an OS customer. Vista is bloated and has a high hardware cost for me to adopt. I'm not replacing half my hardware just to get the vista "new car smell" experience.

I Will, however, get a MacPro to replace the G5 at some point where my requirements dictate and not the marketing machine in Cupertino wants me to.(And for that matter, not when the marketing machine in Redmond forces the issue by taking XP unsupported).

Just went through the list of ALL the applications I use.
The ONLY Apple-made apps I use are:

Calculator
Preview
Activity Monitor
DigitalColor Meter
Disk Utility
System Preferences
Safari (only to test web pages I build)
Terminal (on the rare occasion that I need to install Apache, MySQL, & PHP locally...maybe once a year)

As for price there is NOTHING with more bang for buck than the Intel Based Mac Mini. Nothing.

Apple is not a "lifestyle" it's a company that sells stuff. You "lifestyle" morons are idiots.

For those of your trying to decide between Mac or Pc. Find someone who builds all their own PCs and get their in depth opinion on bought pc's vs. built PCs to get an idea of how much your typical Dell sucks.

As for the learning curve. This only matters for people who've actually _learned_ something about Windows to begin with. Yes most people commenting here _know_ something about windows. But the average user can't remember the keyboard shortcuts for copy/paste. They know nothing. And they can switch to using the mac and fudge their way through until they figure out the important bits they actually use. Just like they had to do with windows. I've shown people keyboard shortcuts on the mac only to have them react as if OS X was the best thing ever because it had these shortcut things that windows lacked (so they thought).

to: missenlinx
The average housewife knows more about CV Joints, spark plugs, coolant and gas mileage than about computers.
So "If you know enough about computers you can run an XP machine without it crashing." isn't a good argument.

I should probably point out that my pc hasn't crashed since before christmas. But, Ubuntu on my system boots perfectly every time unlike Windows that seems convinced that my ram is broken or somethinge. A dozen memory tests have proven my ram has no problems. And even though windows doesn't "crash" if often just "screws-up" so bad it makes me want to hit the reset button (audio glitches, gui glitches, mouse getting stuck every 18 seconds, windows unable to close unless I quite explorer.exe, programs locking up and not being able to kill their process etc).

As for games that was for a long time my main reason for not switching but I've seen many quake3 and UT2k3 engine based games running at 100+ fps on intel mac laptops in parallels and doom3, prey and quake 4 running well in windows via bootcamp so at least all of the current/previous generation games will be playable now.
Also MAME and other classic consol emulators work fine.

If you have doubts about reliability and don't like the price of modern apples then go on ebay and buy a mac that's been to hell and back and still works. My powerpc laptop was rolled over by a jeep and it was free ;)

Windows PCs run faster, from everything I've seen after owning a couple Macs and PCs. They're cheaper too, especially if you build your own. If you don't want to pay for Windows...DUH Linux? It's the fastest and most reliable. With Mac you are literally paying for UNIX (should be free) with a bunch of GUIs and features that you could easily get for free with either a Linux or Windows-based OS.

Of all the articles I've seen praising Macs, I haven't heard the same thing only once, and I haven't heard one thing to change my mind.

It was very easy to do, seeing that I am quite tech-centric and loved to explore gadgets. That said, I have also been somewhat evangelistic and managed to "convert" 2 buddies, 2 collegues and 1 boss :P to Mac...

But it's not all rosy and there ARE those who cling onto their PC platforms for a variety of reasons but most apt would be the point somewhere in the article about learning curve. It will take a lot more than smart ads to convert this legion who seek comfort in knowing where their DLL files are and sleep better knowing that they can tweak their registry .. (oh oh.. flame coming..)

Anyways, choice is good and I see that my switch is part of a bigger chain of events, .. Yay :)

Many have compared Apple to Mercedes or BMW. Both have relatively small pieces of the car market but still enjoy loyal (some might say Apple-like loyalty :-) users because of the high quality of their product. Neither makes a competitor to the low priced starter cars because they know they couldn't do it with quality and still make money.

So, Mr. Jobs, continue to make great products and price them fairly (and Apple's prices are very fair for the high quality), and I will be there to buy them, along with many other people who don't want to compromise on something that has become an essential part of life.

Thats why I believe , the apple computers are slowing entering into a rampage of switchers, as a personal example that I've seen: since i got a macbook pro and started showing my friends all the things that they could do with one , about 15 of them have switched , and yet non of the has complained about anything , they are all happy with their macs and willing to stay like that.

Well i know noone is probly going to read this so ill just go somewhere else with my happiness ;)

The only thing I can complain about is the option to replace really means replace. I like the way windows does it better that when you have a folder with the same name it just adds the new items to the folder instead of deleting the old ones and only keeping the new ones.

I am not taking away from what Apple has done over the past 5 years, but know your history.

Read the story of Apple, 1976 - 1996 and get a real inside view of the dysfunction and almost bankruptcy that was apple until they got lucky with iTunes, yes, not the iPod, but iTunes. Back in 2001 or so, iTunes and the Ipod were realeased, but it wasn't the iPod that took off, it was iTunes, and only after it was made available for Windows as well. iTunes was adopted by the 'cool kids,' those that create a tipping point and when they realized that the only way to listen to their music was on an iPod, it, by way of closed programming became the default MP3 player of all users of iTunes.

First Point
Without making iTunes available for Windows, Apple and its iPod would be nothing

Second Point
Apple got lucky, that's it

Third Point (which I'm just making now)
Apple, will never rise above its current market share, why? Because if it does, it will lose its cult status and with that, it's user base.

Still Apple is managing to grow much faster than the rest of the PC industry, in a year that saw the launch of a new major PC OS, which is traditionally a growth factor.

It's a site dedicated to switching and all the hoops that come with it. Great resource!