[gift]MacBook Air vs. PC Notebook

The real answer is not yet. Steve Jobs and company are showing that they want to enter the realm of trial ware and adware pre-installed with their adoption of iAd for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad product line. As for viruses, I don't know how to explain this more so, but openness to viruses is a function of compatibility. As their devices become more and more compatible they become more susceptible to malicious/inefficient code. Steve Jobs is being a giant douche about flash on the mobile platforms because it is inefficient poorly written code (for the most part), and thats just for mobile devices. It's only a matter of time until all platforms have their issues, unless apple decides to go back to that cave they lived in. All in all, if you don't know what you're doing with a computer AND you don't have virus and spyware protection (regardless of what platform you're on) you're an idiot asking for trouble. Furthermore, if you don't keep your data in duplicate/triplicate, you are an idiot asking for trouble.

In the end, ignorance is a person's downfall in any platform. My analogy has always been the mac/pc debate is like buying a car and not knowing how to maintain it. If you don't put gas, don't change the oil, don't get new tires, etc, you could have a Lexus and it would still break down on you. Is it true that you can be more ignorant and be on a mac? A but true, but this is becoming less and less true everyday. Hell, try and guess which platform has more network vulnerabilities: Win7 or Snow Leopard? I'll give you a hint, it isn't win7. Furthermore, which browser is easier for hackers to break into and hijack a person's computer (on their respective platform): ie8 or Safari?... but I digress. All I'm trying to get across is that as technology grows the need for people to be savvier and savvier does to.

The old mantra of macs, that "they just work" is becoming less and less true...

 

Edit: Never mind, thread is off topic enough.

 

iAds are nothing like preinstalled trialware or adware. If anything, Jobs/Apple's attempt to streamline the (up to this point) rather haphazard mix of in app ads that different developers have been using would minimize that occurrence rather than increase it. Thinking that Jobs wants to increase the presence of trialware and adware on the Mac platform goes against pretty much every decision and direction they've adopted over Jobs' tenure over the last couple of decades.

And the 'be smart' about every day computer use simply applies to any computer user, Mac or PC. But, currently, those that aren't 'smart' about their computer use are of greater risk on a PC. Pretty straightforward.

 

I see it as a slippery slope. It's only a matter of time until you get that trialware and bloatware. The notion of iAd's welcomes in the idea that the developers are more important to apple than the user. That mindset is what echoed in bloatware in the pc realm. The fact that I can play a game on my iPhone and have banner ads running through it should go against apple's mindset, but somehow it doesn't.

 

Eh, I think it probably does...but you gotta give the developers something. Beyond that, I think Jobs is just too controlling to let it actually infiltrate the platform as a whole (one of those times Jobs' nature helps rather than hurts). I just don't see that as something that will be a problem for the OS as a whole, particularly in those instances where iOS and OS meet - Apple will probably keep that self contained within the walls of a specific app.

And really, most of the quality apps keep that stuff pretty minimal. I think the very culture of the App Store will force a separation in that regard; free or not, mass market or not, anything that values advertising over content isn't going to rise to the top or last very long.

 

That's the main thing I loved and hated about the iPhone model. The quality control with Jobs at the healm is amazing. He blocks out a lot of bad content, but at the same token I think he blocks out things I wish he wouldn't. Surprise, surprise, Microsoft saw this and is taking the exact same approach with WP7. Heck, Nintendo did this and damn near saved the home console market by doing it. But I do hope you're right and they don't adopt a bloatware model. If companies like HP follow suit, maybe just maybe this awful trend will end...

 

There is no defense available against an ignorant user. lol. Given a browser, pretty much all OS's will fall. Safari + OS X is a hacker's dream. Nothing is safe, and this is proven every year. :grin:

 

I know it sounds like I'm stating the obvious, but there is a large constituency of people out there who don't believe me. Heck, there's a guy in my lab who used to be a "Genius" and he constantly tells me its impossible for macs to get any malware or spyware. Heck, its part of their sales pitch!

 

I agree that no OS is safe, but again, I think it's fair to say that a casual, 'ignorant' user + OS X is going to have less problems than a casual, 'ignorant' user + Windows.

I clean dozens of machines in homes and businesses a week with this combination causing problems on a Windows system; I have yet to encounter it with any of our Mac clients.


EDIT: Err, I just realized this really doesn't have anything to do with the thread topic. lol. Sorry about that Fisher.

 

For the avg users, Mac is just a way better gift than PC. Go with Air.

 

It's no longer hipster to use an Mac. They have become way too mainstream. We are now back to using sweet x386 rigs made by Compaq along with a 13 inch CRT. My buddy Miles is trying to cop this Tandy from his dad's basement and he said he is going to pwn us all with that beast of a machine. Still waiting though. He's mostly talk.

 

Mac users have been hearing and reading the incompatibility argument for nearly 20 years.

Let's take a big "compatibility" issue: I've personally owned some version of MS Office Mac Edition since ~1998 or so, and nearly every version of everything else you can think of since then. What hasn't run for me? Games. Fine. So as a Mac user, I don't have the glorious gaming history that PCs have. Big whoop. I've played games on consoles for the last 20+ years anyway, and I don't see that changing. As it stands, I've never been lacking for programs to run on a Mac. Everything I've wanted to run has run (for the most part) seamlessly with virtually zero maintenance, going back to the mid-90's.

In other words: stop already. The "any day now" approach re: viruses for the Mac. It's tired. It doesn't mean it can't or won't happen, but compatibility is hardly relevant anymore.

Maybe you're not interested in the price premium. I laid out my personal pros and cons in my first post, and I'll stand by them.

Btw: you drove my vehicular analogy point home, so thanks for that.

 

gift giving is about buying something that the recipient wouldn't ordinarily buy for themselves... therefore, mac

 

The compatibility argument stems from platform independent languages. Platform independent languages are more a thing of the modern internet era, so how you say it's been an argument for 20 years is beyond me. This has been more of a thing in the past 5-10 years. Languages like java and flash have big vulnerabilities and are relatively easy to code in for both languages. Flash especially, it is just drastically inefficient with respect to memory management. It isn't necessarily a software thing. You know that MS Office mac is written in different code and is almost a completely different product than MS Office?

I also have a hard time believing that macs have less maintenance than PCs. Like many people have said before, even if you're on a mac you still need virus and spyware protection. Aside from those pieces of software automatically (as well as updates which occur on both Windows and Mac) what more maintenance do I do than you? Because that's pretty much it for me. Heck, I don't think I've defragged a computer in years. I think you might be the one with the tired argument. I might agree with you if we were talking about Win 98 or maybe XP, but have you seen vista or 7? Back before the day of automatic updates drivers corrupted rather easily, and OS vulnerabilities were hard to patch. Now, Microsoft pushes an update almost daily. Both platforms really don't ask much of you.

 

I'm typing from the Macbook Air right now - I think you will not regret it. Although the CPU is weaker than on my Macbook Pro, it actually seems faster to me, especially on startup. Maybe because of the SSD instead of a traditional hard drive.

Let us know how he likes it.

 

I have no experience with Windows 7, but I've read many times that it's great. Good for them.

As I said before, I really have no problems with Windows, but I enjoyed the necessary maintenance because I was learning something. I regularly (as in once every 1-2 weeks) ran CCleaner, Spybot, AdAware, and Avast antivirus for that regular maintenance. (To be fair, I didn't have to interact with Avast as often as the others as it usually ran in the background and did its own thing, but the other three I ran every couple weeks.)

With the Mac, sure, I get regular updates from Apple. But as to maintenance, I run nothing save for Disk First Aid for permissions repairs, and I've done that maybe twice in the year I've had my MacBook.

 

Every 1-2 weeks? Seriously?? WTF are you doing on your PC, installing every random bit of software that pops up on your screen?

 

My friend lost his Macbook Air because it was too small.

Granted, he's an idiot.

 

Pretty much. I was always playing around with stuff. Never did get any viruses. But AdAware always picked something up, as did CCleaner.