Comments

1. Uli Jul 03 @ 03:16

   What I love about my PC (it´s not around, I don´t even remember what it is, just some PC, bought 5 years ago): the desktop - it does NOT act like my real life desktop - everything is next to each other, and I find stuff easier, instead of having to move stuff around to find windows underneath others (just like in real life - but what´s the benefit of having to search trough everything?).

   What I love about my Mac (MacBookPro 17″): it looks good. But then again - isn´t it supposed to be a tool, not a piece of (in germany at least) rather expensive decoration? But in my line of business it´s still the most often used platform and therefor agencies etc require their work done mac-based…

   Both: they´ve gotten faster, and more reliable since I started working on computers; being faster I sometimes wish back old times… save a pic, and be free to have a coffee, a chat and a cigarette, because the computer will definitely be busy the next 15 min… being more reliable - well, that´s nice, I just don´t feel that ‘close’ to the machine nowadays, it´s just less human, without all the little bugs

   I agree - use common sense in valuating macs and pcs, don´t be a blind follower of brands.
2. Contra Jun 30 @ 01:11

   @Carlos: Apple copying MS? You should watch Pirates of the Silicon Valley..

   Bought a MacBook Pro almost a year ago for college, almost never saw one before then, to find out 50% of my classmates have one. They helped me out with some cool apps and tricks, and Windows has become a pain since then..
3. Yonghwee Jun 27 @ 02:46

   I’ve been using a Mac for over 3 years now and the switch was probably one of the best decision I’ve made since birth! There is still a need to use Windows and a PC for school but everything else is done on an aging iBook! (=
4. Chris Jun 27 @ 01:31

   My first computer was a Power Mac Performa 630 and I loved it. Cost damn near £4000 at the time with all the bells and whistles attached. All of my friends had PC’s but the Mac could do things the PC couldn’t dream of.

   In those days the hardware of the PC and the Mac were completely different and only recently has the Mac moved to X86 and X64 architecture. Today, there is little or no difference between the hardware so the good ol’ Power PC processors that singled out the Macs as graphical workhorses are no longer used.

   It used to be that if you worked with graphics you had a Mac but now there is no hardware advantage it comes down to the software and the price.

   Mac OSX is very pretty and the interface is intuitive and easy to use BUT its also very buggy, there is limited driver support for third party devices AND the most crucial factor for me…..mac products are hellishly expensive.

   And thats what it comes down to for me, if I costed a Mac and a PC of the same spec the Mac is always a huge ammount more expensive. The difference in price would allow me to go for a better processor, graphics card and more memory in the PC. So the PC in those terms wins for me.

   Vista is a decent OS and most of its initial problems came down to poor third party driver support. With drivers crashing left right and centre it was bound to tarnish its reputation.
   But its a good looking and usable OS. Maybe not as sleek and shiny as OS X but never the less, I can game on my PC, I can work on my PC and thats what I want my computer to do.

   When Mac release OS X as a stand alone product then I shall probably buy that and have it dual boot with Vista.
   That way I have the best of both worlds.
5. Brian Jun 26 @ 08:02

   I use a PC/XP in the office and I don’t mind it at all.

   I use an iMac and a Macbook at home. I much prefer the Macs for design as things appear visually sharper and softer in the interface. This aesthetic component proves to provide a considerate value for design.

   I do web development on both. There are +/- on each.

   Programs like iChat are nice. I think my productivity is higher on OS X due to the flexibility of the workspace.
6. daemonx Jun 26 @ 06:44

   I’m not into extremes of both. I respect both sides their strength and weaknesses. Right now, I work on an iMac during night and WinXP, Vista on PC during the day. When playing with I’d go for Linux (no specific distros).

   Average people say Vista sucks, I think they’re too narrow minded. Computing on a specific platform meant to change for better or worse. But anyway let Microsoft prove it self.
7. JC Jun 25 @ 20:56

   i like the windows taskbar and start menu, and the way i can cut/paste folder paths, but that’s it.

   I work on both mac and PC and definitely find the adobe suite far more stable in OS X. I have daily crashes in XP.

   But yeah, the taskbar is a great device and i miss it when i use OS X. Im not a huge fan of the dock really - it just isnt functional enough. Also i cant stand ’stacks’ in leopard.

   But then things like time machine, spaces, stability and the geeneral ease of use and reliability of OS X make it my favourite, especially for work.
8. Zachary Jun 25 @ 18:48

   I’m split. I personally end up preferring Mac. I can have so much more going on on my Mac and it keeps ticking. RIght now, I am doing a Blender fluid simulation at high quality (resource intensive) as well as having Mail, Safari, iTunes, and various other applications running. No problems. On my XP upstairs, it can have FireFox open and maybe one other application before it starts having problems. Yet my Mac is doing a lot more and still ticking away at a great pace. And I’ve had it for a couple years, so you can’t say it’s brand new. I’m not sure why, but I like XP for some reason. Although I HATE Vista. It makes everything slow, unless you get a really really good computer. I’ve used a bunch of Vista computers, many of them more technically powerful than my MacBook Pro, but they just don’t run as well. However, Macs aren’t perfect either. I have had to take my MagSafe power adapter in twice on warranty (the connector melted…) and my DVD burner just stopped working. On top of that, my screen has been buzzing since I got it but the people at the Authorized Reseller have no clue how to fix it. But the XP has had problems too. The motherboard melted for one. Then the hard drive had troubles. Mine are annoyances, but the XP had problems. Finally, the freezing problem. I don’t use my XP for anything intensive anymore because it just can’t do it without crashing. My Mac usually crashes when I am coding and send something into an infinite loop. Oops. Other than that, sometimes I overload it. But I can usually Force Quit the program before it completely freezes. So while XP is good, Vista sucks, and OS X just comes in over both of them. That’s my two cents. Well, maybe a bit more. But oh well.
9. James Jun 25 @ 18:09

   I’d have to disagree with you Krista.
   I use a PC at home with XP and another with Vista on it, while Vista SP1 is a lot better than XP, I still find my Mac Pro at work is a lot more stable.

   I’ve never had it crash at all with Leopard OSX.

   The applications are much simpler in ways of installing and using, and feel less clunky (coda, transmit etc).

   I use VMWare Fusion to load XP within to test websites in IE6 and 7 and build the websites on the Mac so all in all the Mac does all platforms well for multi-platform browser testing.

   I think the design industry is more a Mac based platform so saying not enough people use Mac is an understatement I know dozens of people and companies using Macs for design and programming.

   PC’s are cheaper as there is more market/competition for them, Macs are more expensive but since they moved to INTEL chips they are definitely a lot more reliable, stable and faster than the previous generations.

   That and you dont need to upgrade Macs as often as PC’s
10. krista Jun 17 @ 07:47

    PC for the win. Macs are just overcomplicated and overrated (at least in their commercials) They say they do not crash but they do, oh they do. And can anyone say pinwheel of death? That and no good games for it. You can buy a good PC for what you can get a mac for that will last fvr and you can play games on it. Mac also likes to claim “no viruses” thats because not enough people use Macs to make it worth writing viruses for.
11. Rogie Jun 16 @ 09:37

    @kat - I agree, I haven’t found any issues with moving over and most tasks I could do on a Win box I can do on a Mac box as well.

    As far as price, honestly, you get what you pay for. I’ve heard many people use the “I can buy a PC for $500″ argument many times, to see them trash it a year later…or struggle with buying ram and trying to upgrade piecewise.

    @Paul Henry - Well said. I have been trying to think of how to say what you have said for years. It seems that working on a Mac helps me to be creative in some way - and your argument makes perfect sense.
12. Paul Henry Jun 15 @ 16:15

    After receiving and using one of the first ever typewriters, Nietzsche wrote to a friend that, “Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” His style had become more terse and mechanical since using a typewriter.

    In the same way, use of either a Mac or a PC changes the way we work and feel about work. While the Mac seems built in one piece with one philosophy - getting things done easily - the PC has many different, sometimes competing layers. For instance, Vista has a gaudy outer layer which seems to contract the utilitarian but complex inner layer. It’s as if the outer layer of the interface is trying to draw attention away from the poorly built innards, though in practice it infuriates us. This all has an effect on our working methods, our work, and our relationship with the computer.
13. Alex Bilbie Jun 15 @ 15:57

    I agree with Barry, I love my Vista machine. I used an iMac at school but the large screen I found to be overly bright and annoying.

    And what is with the minimise/maximise/close being on the left hand side? Aesthetically to me that looks wrong. Perhaps I’m just used to Windows?
14. kat Jun 14 @ 13:50

    I’ve been on PC since windows 3.1.1 and a mac user since july 06.

    I did web development on my PC for many years and I hated how time consuming it was just to actively work on a project. I never could get a working localhost setup running php/mysql/apache to my liking. the different server setups and such make a pain to develop outside of the intended environment. So I always edited file > upload > refresh browser.

    Within a week of having my mac I found the coolest “remote editing” FTP programs. I’m infinitely more efficient now since I’ve found Coda. My mac programs also pretty much never .. ever.. crash.

    But anyway, to not be fangirlish about macs and to give opinion about both systems.

    Windows does video games great. I love that i can merge folders instead of replace them ( like macs ) but overall for productivity, I find i get things done faster with my imac, and thats why its become my favorite. All the genius application developers are mac users, apparently

    I bought an alienware machine and I really wish I had just upgraded my old cpu/motherboard for $300 instead of buying a whole new pc. I could’ve bought a mac pro with a 30″ ACD for what I paid for the alienware. Anymore i dont even want to look at my pc.

    Overall, PCs are more affordable ( well generally.. unless you go to falcon-nw.com =x ) than macs, and cheaper/easier to upgrade. there’s also a whole lot more software, making it easier to get content for your system. But so far as a web developer, I haven’t .. NOT found what i was looking for if I needed something for what I do.. if that makes sense.

    Personally I think its got a lot to do with a person’s personality and aesthetic preferences. As well as what field of work they are in. If what you’re doing doesn’t make a mac version for your software, you’re pretty much stuck using Windows unless VMWare or Parallels will work.
15. Chris Bolton Jun 12 @ 18:04

    I agree with you totally. I really don’t like all the Mac v PC rubbish on the web.

    I have used PC’s for over 15 years and was pretty happy most of the time. My latest PC was a Sony Vaio laptop which served my very well.

    I bought my first MacBook Pro 3 months ago and to be honest, I do wish I had done it a lot sooner.

    I still use my PC now and then, for example to use software I don’t wish to buy twice, or for applications not available for the Mac.

    In a nutshell I find the Mac much easier to use, and the design process seems so much smoother to me now. I also think that the web looks so much nicer on a Mac.

    I do still rate PC’s though, just not as much as the Mac. But, as the saying goes ‘each to their own’.
16. Gaurav_M Jun 11 @ 23:54

    …No comments..may be its need to be moderated
17. Gaurav_M Jun 11 @ 23:52

    interestingly i saw this yesterday
    http://www.pat-burt.com/general-web/5-reasons-to-buy-a-mac-im-still-not-convinced/

    and Today your post…What should i say ??
18. The Fluff Jun 11 @ 04:28

    I’m using a PC, but I want to get a mac. Why? Well, MacOS X just looks better than XP or Vista, it’s more user friendly, the design of the hardware is great, and the hardware itself is great too. Yes they are expensive, and you pay a lot for the brand, but I think it’s worth it.
    The idea of stacks is cool (just a cool skin for some sort of menu, but hey, it looks and reacts in a cool way).
    And it’s safer than Windows, (well, an out of the box Windows) because it’s based on BSD…

    That’s why I want a mac. I find the designs of Apple software always a notch better than Microsoft programs. Maybe some things might have more options in the preferences, but after all you still can use a terminal if you really really need it. Most of the times you don’t need that anyway.

    I’ve used Ubuntu too, it’s nice but it lacks some things. But overall its enjoyable too. And safe offcourse

    Oh well, Windows XP isn’t that bad. It’s just getting old. So is my laptop, so using Vsta istn’t an option. I have used it a few times and I think Microsoft just doesn’t know how to design GUI’s in a sense of useability. I had to click way too many times for a thing like changing my background I remember…

    It’s actually worse than XP I think. It looks good tho… But it’s less useable than Mac.

    But that’s my opinion
19. Carlos Jun 10 @ 15:26

    Didn’t Microsoft design Aero before OSX came out? I remember people talking about it, but since I really don’t care who did it first, I never checked. So, if true, then isn’t Apple copying Microsoft?

    Anywho, I use Windows XP. I just started using Ubuntu and it is not bad. In terms of ease of use, I think Windows is extremely easy to use. But to anybody who has no knowledge of a computer, they will adapt to which ever they find first. In elementary school, the lab had old Macintosh computers donated and we all used them without any problems. When I got to Windows again, I adapted. I think both are nice, but Apple is just too overrated. With this whole iPhone deal, people are zombies and worship Apple, which is clearly a bad sign.
20. barry Jun 10 @ 06:55

    I’m one of those unusual people that actually enjoys using Vista. It’s much less buggy than I remembered XP to be and the file structure is much more usable.

    I like PC’s mainly because they are easy to work with and upgrade.

    Having said that, there’s something about the experience of using an iMac which is far more satisfying and inspiring than a conventional PC.

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