Does anyone have an Apple Computer?

I have a G4 733 MHz and about 4 or 5 Windoze machines. I got the G4 just to learn the environment and to find out what was so great about the new Macs. From a hardware standpoint, the G4 was actually playing catchup to Intel/AMD/Windows boxes in terms of technology. I think Apple recently added DDR support. My G4 was still using PC133 memory when DDR had been out on PC's for months. My G4 came with a 5400 RPM hard drive when 7200's were becoming somewhat standard on PC's. The video card that came with it wasn't as fast as the video card I had just bought for my main PC. I had to think... what the hell was I spending so much on then? lol. Anyway, the answer is the processor. But still, it's too damn overpriced.

I love the OS X environment on the Mac. It's as good, if not better, in terms of ease of use as Windows XP. I hate the 1/no button mouse.

I still think the G4 is way overpriced for what you get in comparison to the PC platform. You can get iMac's, eMac's, or whatever they're calling them now, which lower the price, but still...

One thing I hate about Mac hardware is that it seems overpriced in comparison to PC hardware. At least that's what I remember from looking at some of their products a few months ago. There's more variety, more competition, etc. in the PC realm. Of course this is what Apple is trying to downplay when you see those "averge joe" people telling everyone how they love their new Macs and hate their PC's and would never go back to them. Apple is so much about hype and marketing!

Regarding software, there really isn't that much variety in the everyday software you may use when it comes to the Mac. For example, I tried finding a good IRC client for the Mac and they had about 2 or 3 major ones. None of them had the functionality, support, external scripts, etc. of mIRC on the PC. If you're getting into things such as video editing, the Mac is apparently superior (that's what they say - I don't know from experience or anything). All the major Adobe products exist on the PC platform as well as products from hundreds of other manufacturers, so it's not like you'll be left out in the cold.

As for gaming - if you're into games and want the latest and greatest the fastest, there's no doubt - stick with a PC. If you want an everyday computer to check email, browse the WWW, and play some games every-so-often, then either of them will do.

I'm in the process of building a video-editing machine and haven't decided on whether I want a 2 processor or single processor machine. I looked at the Mac's 2 processor model and um... at that price, no thanks. The Macs are purty though.

My experience with the Mac has been the following :

1) Beautiful operating system in OS X. I can't believe they're charging what they're charging for a minor version upgrade, however. What the upgrade offers doesn't seem to be worth the price of the upgrade.

2) The one thing that makes PC's rock is the thousands of vendors and products you can have for any given type of software. You actually have a choice - a real choice. Apple counters this by saying they are more stable (part of this is because of their proprietary nature).

3) If I knew what I know, and need a computer for what I need it for, and was about to buy my first computer, there's no doubt in my mind it would be a PC. The upgradability, the choice of hardware, the choice of software, the number of games and not having to wait for them is always a plus in the PC's favor.

4) I hate Apple's advertising. They almost prey on people's ignorance. Such as when they released the iPod. Devices similar to it and with more capacity had been out months prior to it, yet they made it sound like they had invented portable mp3 players. I hate the fact they're making people think that PC's explode when you touch them or something with their commercials. Although I do tend to laugh when those commercials come on.

Anyway, find out what you want to do with your machine, find out what you want to spend, and then make a decision. Based on what you stated, I'd still go PC. Especially with how cheap they're getting. Good luck.

 

I'm a graphic designer so I'm a little biased.

I've had both over the years and I would stand firmly behind my mac.

If it's games you want get the pc.

Macs are a little more user friendly.

OSX rocks.

I do digital photography, digital video, manage my music, graphic design, managae my home finances, and play games and my mac hasn't crashed in 2 months. Not 1 restart.

At home I use a G3 powerbook at work it's a G4 tower.

DOD is right they do cost a little more, but IMO it's worth it.

 

Go to Radio Shack and get a Tandy.

 

DUDE ... get a DELL

 

I haven't turned my XP machine off in over three months.

Granted, I'd be lucky to make it three days if it was Win 98.

 

Speaking of DELL, I saw a commercial yesterday, and there was no annoying DELL kid. Have they finally figured out that everyone despises that idiot?

 

How can you hate the Dell guy. j/k!

I actually heard this no talent ass clown has signed a multi year contract with Dell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why I don't know.

 

I'll echo what Dr and VooDoo essentially said: Macs are great with graphic programs but they are more expensive and less flexible then PCs. For example, Macs have always displayed color very accurately. PCs were terrible at this (they are getting better). If you are a graphic artist, the exact shade of red (for example) has to be what you expect it to be or else you and your customer aren't happy. Plus, Macs really do well in the friendliness department. I don't think you can customize the OS very much but it's pretty simple to start with. Macs do not have very secure or robust networking built into them (although this is not an issue at home).

Do Macs crash? Sure they do. Can Macs get viruses? You bet, although not many people write viruses for the Mac because it wouldn't be any fun as very few people would catch them (it is a Windows world). BTW, UNIX machines get viruses and are hacked ALL the time. In the "old" days, all you did was hack UNIX boxes because that’s all there were. Now that Microsoft is so prevalent people target that OS.

One thing to remember is that the hardware you run you operating system on has a LOT to do with that system's stability. The MAC OS is designed to run on a very controlled set of hardware (remember you can't just install the Mac OS on any old clone). That way the Apple people can ensure that there are no hardware incompatibilities.

Windows, on the other hand, can run on an almost infinite variety of hardware and the developers have really no way of knowing what combination of hardware the OS is going to encounter. Plus, Windows has to take hardware and software backwards compatibility into consideration while Apple designers don't. I'm actually amazed that Windows works as well as it does given the unpredictable nature of the hardware.

There are plenty of Windows NT/2000/XP OS's that have been running for quite a while without crashing because they are running on a hardware base they OS is happy with. There are, of course, plenty of installs that crash all the time as well but I'm willing to bet that it's because some combination of Hardware and/or software on those PCs just doesn't "click" with the OS.

The most advanced OS from Microsoft is a W2K Data Center server. You can't buy the OS in the store, you have to go to a vender (like Dell) and purchase a server with the OS already installed. In order for Dell to sell it, they have to work closely with Microsoft to ensure that the hardware is compatible with the OS. What you get is an incredibly stable system. Or course, it will cost you...

 

Ok, as the owner of a TiBook 550 I'm biased, but I couldn't let that one go by. What sort of secure and robust networking would you like? OS X has everything you could want. It can happily live in a Windows SMB-based, Unix NFS-based or Mac AppleShare-based environment.

FWIW, I really like using my Mac, and it is the perfect fit for me. I can code in Perl and Java straight out of the box, trial changes for my website on my own web server, and ssh/telnet to servers at work just fine. If I need to work on Office documents, Word, Excel et al, I can do that just fine. My digital camera, iPod and Handspring all work perfectly with it, and I get to do all this inside a very intuitive OS. Games? I've got a PS2 for those, and that's just fine for me. DVDs play great (useful for those long journeys), and I've heard that iMovie is excellent for basic video work.

Not too much help with your decision there

 

It is all about the software, and PC wins that Hands down.

Macs are great for desktop publishing, but PC's do everything a Mac does and has far more software options.

Just my .02

DD

 

What work can you do on a PC that I can't do on a Mac?

 

Apparently there's not any cost-effective true 24fps video editing solutions for PC as of yet. Supposedly, Apple's Final Cut Pro has such a feature.

I use PCs for video editing, though, and I've not yet had a need for true 24fps. I suspect that by the time I do, there will be a PC solution.

I'm actually using a Mac right now, and I have to say it's a piece of junk.... Of course, it's a PowerMac 6500/250MHz, so it's exceedingly out-of-date. Not so much fair to compare it to my P4 Dells at home. I'm sure it was fine when it was new.

I made the switch from Macs to PCs back in 1997 primarily for cost reasons. Once I got the hang of the differences between the Mac world and the PC world, I never really looked back. And I have to say that XP really is a huge improvement over every Windows OS that has come before it, especially in the ease-of-use department (the biggest improvement I've noticed comes when installing things like my digital camera or extra hard drives or whatever).

I've not used the newest MacOS (I haven't really used anything after MacOS 8.1), so I don't know how much it has improved.

If it were me, I'd choose PCs... as a matter of fact, that's what I did. I was able to buy two Dell P4s and give myself a dedicated video editing machine for not much more than the listed price of one G4 tower. But I'm not going to say anything bad about Macs because I think they have a fine product, too.

And come to think of it, I should probably stop recommending products after my kudos for the 2002 Nissan Altima (still loving mine, by the way) helped lead someone to make a purchase that has caused them great aggravation.

So disregard everything I wrote.

 

Hi, this is mrs. rimbaud.

Considering that the PowerMac 6500 will be celebrating its sixth birthday in Feb 2003, I think it's pretty telling that you're still able to use it even if it is junky. Anyone else got a six-year old PC running Windows 3.x that they are still using to get on the Internet? Probably not.

I was a Mac user that switched to PCs because that's what we were using at work. I made the switch to PCs in 1997, and went through three of them before switching back to Macs in 2000. I got tired of reformatting the PC every time it started to barf and act funky.

I've had the same Mac (iMac 400/128 MB RAM) since then (rimmy has one too), and I just bought an iBook to round out my little Mac farm. I can honestly say that I never had to reinstall the system software. You just can't beat them for stability, ease of use and staying power. They can be prohibitively expensive at the outset, but you also tend not to switch them out every year.

Another thing that makes Macs worth it is Steve Jobs's vision of the Mac as your digital hub. Jaguar includes tons of free software so that people can be productive with a Mac right out of the box. iTunes, iPhoto iMovie, iCal, iSync, I could go on. And it will only get better from here. The integration of these applications with the OS, with each other and with the Web (if you happen to have purchased a .Mac account) is amazing. Plus, since everything is built on open standards, you have a very active development community that is constantly extending and enhancing the things you can do with your Mac. (So whoever said that you can't customize a Mac is either blind to the facts or just not well-informed.)

Don't let people pressure you into buying a PC just because that's what everyone else has and there's tons of software out there for it. If you're not going to buy all that software, who cares? If you want to burn CDs, edit and print digital photos, make movies, watch DVDs, surf the web, check email and do stuff for work or school, you'll be fine with either a Mac or a PC. But, you'll have a better experience with a Mac, and you won't have to throw it against the wall in frustration.

 

lmao @KingCheetah

 

After about 4-5 seconds, his laugh becomes annoying as bell!!! I’m fluent in Spanish and I could only understand about 10% of what he said... I give @KingCheetah props for putting it in da write place doe!!

Can only imagine how a 2002’ computer would feel like compared to what we’re used to now....I guess it would be similar to riding a stagecoach...

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Except the iMac still comes with that 5400 RPM hard drive.

 

I found Mexican Spanish and Spanish Spanish to be very different.