The Mac Myth: So Sick Of All This Mac Love. Macs Are A Pain.
So, I’ve been using computers since I was 7. Wrote my first computer program when I was 8 [1984]. (It didn’t do much but change the screen color in basic, but it was written by me.)
I used macs back when they were monocrome uni-boxes and only had one network game that we would sneak onto the computers in the highschool lab to play. We wrote our computer assignements in pascal. (I had been using Turbo Pascal @ home on PC side so I used command my teacher didn’t know (cuz they weren’t in his book) and he tried to fail me for it. — After I entered the source code in the mac’s pascal and showed him that it worked, he gave me a passing grade. But he never talked to me much after that.)
Fast forward to now. 15+ years as an application programmer, IT manager, database designer, web app creator, GIS app development, blah blah blah, and now internet marketer. I used windows mostly. (I had to pick something in the late 90’s and it was either Windows or Linux/Unix side (mostly Unix at the time)). So where was I… oh yes.
So about a year+ ago I buy a pair of macs. (No way I was going to get Vista) A Macbook pro for me and later a MacBook Air for my wife. (She still loves hers except when it doesn’t work then she throws a fit till I tell her to reboot it. Then she huffs, reboots it and it works again for a while.)
Ok, after several months of relearning everything on a mac (Hint: Going from Windows to Linux is WAY easier than Windows to Mac) I am kinda happy with it. Pretty slick UI. But how do I make it hibernate? Oh there is a known problem with MacBook Pro’s regarding sleep mode. But there are some cool command line utilities to kinda fix it by forcing it to hibernate no matter what. Grrr. Fine. (May as well be using linux w/ all the command line tweaking I ended up doing — I have no problem w/ command line tweaking and all that, it just seems weird to have to resort to it so much on a mac, aren’t these things supposed to be user friendly?)
You know my first warning should have been when they tried to sell me an extra warranty plan. That should have been a redflag.
For the price of this “premium” macbook pro I could have gotten a windows laptop, and a desktop with 6 monitors. I am kicking my self about it.
In about a year, the left internal fan has died (but first it made horrible, horrible sounds for about a month), the hibernate issue has NEVER been fixed, since a mac update broke it a few months after I bought the thing. I realized I spent 90% of my day inside VMWare inside Mac OSX anyways since there is hardly any of the software I need/ want on the mac. So now I boot in windows 99% of the time. The only reason I still keep the mac around is to code on the iphone. Oh yeah, but even that is an issue because no matter what, it will *not* update the Mac OS with the latest auto patch. I need to wipe the system and reinstall. Boy good thing I got a mac so I wouldnt have to deal with all these stupid little issues that I used to deal with in windows.
Oh yeah, on top of that it would crash randomly and grey screen of death on my just as much as windows 2000 used to do to me. (And don’t even get me started on the lack of a killer IDE….)
Ok, rant almost over. Long story short. Mac is fine ONLY if you stick with just the Mac software (the stuff Apple makes) 3rd party apps tends to cause problems. [WTF firefox why u so slow on a mac?!]
But. If you JUST install Microsoft software on a windows machine u can say the same thing about stability. Oh yeah, duh, games. I don’t really play games like I used to anymore, but srsly. Games.
So… Don’t get a mac just cuz everyone else is doing it. I bet if I had just bought my wife a nice fujitsu laptop (dont get a dell) she would be just as happy with it. (Except she *does* like iPhoto — so that iLife stuff is cool if your into that kinda stuff)
But the bottom line is: Macs freeze, crash randomly and have update issues (and even get worms) just like the Windows machines. Let this be a fair warning to you that you will have plenty of problems with a mac over the same time period as you would with a windows machine (or Linux), but you get to pay a lot more for the pain.
Hmm I suppose I could just get a Mac Mini for my iphone dev stuff. Anyone want to by a used 15inch (non-shiny screen) macbook pro w/ 4gigs ram. I think I can use the cash for something that would fit me better… (I’m booting into windows all day anyways)
Update: Somebody posted this to ycombinator (apparently there are plenty of people there who have had somewhat similar experiences http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=594576 — and there are some people who’s macs crap gold every morning, they are lucky )
hahahaha.
“Macs freeze, crash randomly and have update issues (and even get worms)”
Should say, “John’s mac freezes, crashes randomly and has update issues (and even gets worms)”.
… because you seem to be the only one.
lol, could be… but whenever I had a weird issue with the mac, I would google and find forum posts all over the placing talking about the problems and work arounds/fixes (if a fix existed) or it was jut ranting about the problem.
I bet lots of people just feel stupid for spending so much money on a “luxury” computer with more problems then it is worth, and keep their mouth shut out of embarrassment.
Well no longer! I am proud to say I was duped by Apple’s marketing, but eventually learned they are no better then any other computer out there. (Their iphones rock though)
He’s not the only one. I had an iMac just croak 15 months after I bought it: chime-black-restart-repeat. I was lucky to get it to boot to CD once to run tests, but the AHT failed in the middle with no explanation. So, now I have a $1300 doorstop.
I’ve owned Dells and never had problems with them, so I’m going back. I understand that Windows 7 is a pretty good OS, and I need to get work done.
Personally, Windows makes me cringe. The 1 or 2 programs I use that are Windows only, are handled by VMWare Fusion. Boo Ya!
In all honesty, I dislike Windows because they have a super ugly interface, and they definitely don’t qualify as “innovative”. (<—–Like, at all!). Have you seen their commercials and the overall “image” they portray themselves as? Laughable, at best.
I’d happily pay a premium for a mac, because they cater to ME, and “just work” for what I use it for. No viruses, no extra crap to install, no ugly experiences to deal with, and blah blah blah, the list goes on.
—-But then again, I don’t do IT stuff, just basic websites, and Mac has been AWESOME for me. Numbers (luv), Coda (yeah baby), and Final Cut Freakin Studio…. makes me think “Screw Windows, they suck.”
When I run Microsoft Office, crash, Crash, CRASH. Geez, I hate Windows. Can you tell?
I can see that you are basing your opinion on your (bad) experience. I have 3 macs, one ibook g4, macbook black c2d and a macbook pro (given by my company to work with) , and I’ve never noticed any kind of problem with them. Although I know that some people buy macs with lots of problems, I’ve been lucky enough to only say wonders about macs.
I believe that the first new models always come out with allot of problems, the next revisions usually are much more reliable.
Anyway, I think that you should give a second chance to mac computers. But then again, if you need windows 99% of the time… maybe you should just stick with a PC.
Cheers
Ya know i agree macs sometimes do weird stuff and i do hate how firefox is so slow on mac. One thing i have learned is that if you like macs (for video editing etc..) that you MUST get apple care. Macs have hardware failures and you will be SOL without apple care. With it though life is pretty good (atleast until recently).
I’d like to acknowledge Garrett for his sincerity – he’s aware that he’s paying the Apple tax for the image of coolness he thinks he’s getting by owning a Mac.
Also, I’d like to acknowledge the owner of this blog for an honest post about the dark side of the Macs – this is something rarely to be seen on the webs, and I hope a lot of people will comprehend that Macs are nothing but PCs with a different OS, shipping with all of its flaws and virtues.
if you only run windows software on it, why did you buy a mac in the first place?
Somebody’s going to get a lemon, I guess. I bought my first mac one and a half years ago and have experienced none of your issues. I upgraded to a fully loaded, new macbook pro last winter and have been more productive than I have ever been on a computer in a long time.
If I had your experience, I would probably think of switching back too. As it is, I can’t even think about it, especially as I compare my personal laptop to my work desktop (XP).
I also had a lemon macbook pro. Paid the 2 g’s a year ago and i got into some pretty big problems.
At first, the 10.5.4 or 10.5.3 update? completely destroyed mbp’s wireless nic. It would kick you off your wifi about 2-3 minutes for no apparent reason. I found trillion of posts on what to do to rememdy it but none of them worked till the next os update which was 4 months later.
Okay fine, windows has just as many problems with their machines and updates. However a month after my 1 year warranty….my HD crashes and dies. No problem, it happens! So i buy another HD pop it in AND IT TOO DIES within 3 months of usage. So i finally get the 3rd hd installed up and running…..
Point being…..
macs have problems and windows has problems, to say otherwise is to be ignorant.
Macs are great for home usage but are utter garbage in a work environment (not involving lamp or programing open source). Vista has its fair share of problems but i would still use that over a mac any day at work.
@Toon : if you only run windows software on it, why did you buy a mac in the first place?
I was mad at Microsoft for the polished turd that is Vista. So I was like, screw it, I’m going to be a Mac fanboy. I really wanted to love the mac, but I just went from the devil I knew to the devil I didn’t.
When I made the switch to Mac a co-worker switched as well. We both got macbook pro’s. His was bought in NYC, I bought mine in FL.
A few months in we both had to replace our batteries due to a defect. They both died within a month of one another.
A year later my power supply died. The current battery is once again dying, shutting down the system without a warning when it reaches 10% battery life. And to top it all off the fans have started making noises when they need to speed up.
Oh and the Superdrive won’t read CD’s or burned DVD’s but my local Apple Store requires I leave my macbook pro from 1 week to 8 weeks while they identify, analyze and fix the issue with the drive. IBM’s Thinkpad support fixed issues in 2 – 4 days when I had issues with my previous laptop.
Not to mention the just as frequent crashes from both OSX and 3rd party applications. Oh and let’s not forget the computer freezing/crashing if you play 3D games for prolonged periods of time due to the inadequate cooling.
The one thing I absolutely love about my Mac is Time Machine. It’s the easiest, least intrusive backup solution I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with.
However, I don’t think I’ll be buying one of the new MBP when I replace this laptop.
@Esteban – I’ll give you time machine, it does indeed rock.
Next computer(s) = netbook upgraded to 4 gigs of ram and desktop with 6-10 monitors (still deciding) + iphone
Prolly get it this fall. (It won’t be running Mac)
I think the primary problem is this: if you’re a techie, macs will be a pain for you.
I use a 24″ iMac at work, and while I like the aesthetics of it and the overall UI design, I find that its beauty is indeed only skin deep. Any customization of the OS will inevitably cause problems, be it with third party software or with stupid posix tricks (OSX really doesn’t like .bashrc customizations).
And God help you if you need to do any software development other than Cocoa. You can only build C/C++ with the mac developer tools that are not installed by default, and you better hope you dont lose that install DVD. Perl, PHP, Python or Ruby? Yeah, they come pre-installed, but as ancient and/or highly Apple-modified versions that will likely break after an update. And let me tell you about a little Java framework called WebObjects…:shudder:
If all you ever do is checking email or photo/video editing, and only with Apple-provided software, then your Mac will run like clockwork. Me, I use a built-from-scratch Windows/Linux dualboot desktop at home and it is a well-oiled machine.
Oh, and games, I play a lot of games.
All depends on what you expect out of your computer, I guess. The first Powerbook I had lasted 6 years, so as you can imagine, I was really impressed. Mac fanboy fo’ life.
Plus the aesthetics and power are perfect for what I do (PPC, lp design, graphics, & video). 24in. iMac foreva!
I’ve worked with plenty of Mac users. It’s the same thing over and over again.
If you use it as shipped, with only Mac software (with a few exceptions of 3rd party software) then it’s great. The moment you need to do something outside of what Apple wants you to do, good luck.
Not to mention the amount of catastrophic hardware failures. Every Macbook pro user I know is flocking to the new unibody version because their existing one is literally falling apart.
I like OSX for a lot of reasons, but I will never run it.
Lastly, I’m not going to say Windows 7 is great. It’s what Vista should have been. It is good though. And surprising fast. I like what it looks like and it works well. I’m also a fan of Tablet PCs. Windows 7 + Thinkpad X200t is an awesome match up.
It all comes down to choice. I like choice. If that means occasional configuration issues, I’m willing to deal with it to get the combination of software and hardware I want/need.
You have to be kidding!? I’m on my 5th OS X Mac and the only one that’s given any trouble is the Mac Mini…and nothing serious. Of course you’re going to find the same problems using Google. Try Googling for PC problems. I use Windows, Mac, Sun, Alphas and Linux. Linux is by far the best platform, overall, I’ve ever used. Sorry you had trouble, but you are, by far, in the minority.
I don’t what your doing to those Mac’s, but I RARELY have any issues with my 17″ Macbook Pro. In fact, I can’t remember the last time it crash. I’ve been running this thing for almost 2 years now and before that I had an iBook that just recently kicked the bucket after 8 years of constant use.
The only issue I’ve ever had is testing sites in IE. For that, I have to boot in VMWare and XP. Oh and my bank won’t let me use their site on a Mac. But other then that, it’s gold… solid gold baby.
These are all anecdotes, so here’s mine:
Like John, I’ve been programming since I was a wee lad. I learned mostly on a PC, and used DOS/Windows until windows 95. Then I switched to linux. I built my own machines, switched between *nix and windows freely. My work machine was a Sun machine (forget the model) running Solaris.
About 4 years ago, I decided to get a new laptop and chose a powerbook (still motorola days), because I wanted to use OS X. So, I got that and enjoyed it immensely. I had a screen problem that was resolved by apple in 2 days with a full screen replacement for free. Other than that, no problems. No crashes, nothing.
I bought a new MacBook for the intel chip. I use Xcode, eclipse, , Python 2.5.4, 2.6.1, and 3.0, and a shit-ton of third party apps on the same box. I took it with me to Iraq. Brought it back. No problems other than I keep finding sand in it. No hardware crashes, no OS crashes, nothing.
I bought a Mac Pro and a MacBook for my wife. I dual boot the MacPro to play games and use VMWare if I need to use windows for some army program. I have parallel installations of fink and MacPorts on it. Same deal. No problems. I use debian linux on my work desktop, Ubuntu on my work laptop, linux on an Asus EEE PC, and android on an Android Developer Phone. I write programs on all platforms.
Point of the story? I haven’t experienced the same hair pulling adventures some people here have. My experience with Macs has been largely positive, and of all the platforms I’ve worked on, it has been the least stressful and crashprone. I’m not saying my experience is representative, it may not be. I’m not saying that your experiences ARE representative either.
And if I start having the hardware problems that people are complaining about, I’ll be perfectly content to go grab a cheap laptop, slap ubuntu on it, and continue to rock ‘n roll.
ugh… another article filed with anecdotal evidence about how sucks compared to .
The internet is a trash heap and its article like this that have made it that way.
[corrected for blog removing text]
ugh… another article filed with anecdotal evidence about how X sucks compared Y .
The internet is a trash heap and its article like this that have made it that way.
I thought about deleting the snarky comment above, but I figure.. no leave it there for the world to see.
Apparently this topic seems to have struck a nerve with a bunch of people. It all started with me just finally being done with my mac and posting for the first time in like a month or so.
For those of u who have “golden” macs, awesome. But for me, I still have to be careful not to let the CPU usage stay high for too long so my mac doesn’t power down due to heat. Which is a shame since I *just* got Warhammer online… But that is another story.
@John Hasson
I have to apologize for my earlier comment, it just got me frustrated that it was posted on Hacker news. More to the point you are entitled to your opinion and the right to post it wherever you please.
@John Bender (love the Futurama last name — though u probably didnt plan it like that)
Anyways, its cool.. hey, thats they way it goes. Frankly I was kinda surprised when somebody used the chat box to tell me they were from germany and found my site on news.ycomb.com. I knew I had heard of it, but couldn’t remember where. Seems like it is for people who left digg for reddit then left reddit and ended up at ycombinator. I don’t know the guy who posted it, but I feel a little honored that it sparked so much interest. (Sooo glad this isnt on digg though… omfg. can you imaging the crapstorm that would be?)
Too bad about your experiences with Macs. It’s a hell of a sweet platform – full blown certified UNIX with an Apple GUI.
I’ve used a lot of systems – Linux, BSDs, SGIs and every DOS and Apple incarnation on hardware ranging from PDAs to 128 node clusters. Every system will have its own design goals and its own warts. Every system will need serious tweaks – via CLI or registry or whatever – to run optimally.
I use a Mac Pro as my everyday PC. I just wanna get shit done – mail, invoicing, research, web-dev, archiving, sales docs, faxes, photos, etc., etc., etc. OSX just does it without drama or hassle. Of course I’ve got Linux and Windows servers here for OS specific development, db/web hosting, etc. but that’s probably more to keep my feet wet on non-virtualized hardware than anything else. I could easily just everything entirely on the Mac Pro (but I’d lose a lot of blinking lights and machines that go ‘ping’)
I’ve probably owned at least 12 Macs IIRC. I’ve hacked them, clocked them, changed procs, wired shit in, you name it. Not one of them ever broke – not one. Incredible! I can’t even count just the number of Asus and Dell mobo’s I’ve tossed from catastrophic failure, bad caps, dead ports, whatever in just regular usage.
For me, it’s a no-brainer.
Shame to see you go, bro.
I’ve rarely had hardware problems with any machines, but one way to always get good Macs is to check macrumors.com (no affiliation) buyer’s guide to find out when they’re in the middle of a product cycle and the manufacturing process is fairly mature. I don’t know of any sites that do the same for PCs because there are so many manufacturers. Bleeding edge stuff always has manufacturing problems and it’s just not worth it.
OS’s have their ups and downs pretty predictably. DOS was, and is, rock solid. Windows 1 and 2 were garbage, 3.11 was fairly stable. 95 was garbage until 98SE, then ME was garbage again. WinNT3.5 wasn’t too great, 4.0 was fairly stable, 2K was pretty solid, and XP is back at 2K stability after a few service packs. Vista is garbage, but 7 will probably be stable.
Similarly, Mac OS was very stable until 6 introduced multitasking without protected memory, 7 was garbage until 7.5 and then 8 and 9 cleaned things up. Mac OS X has been more predictable: you’d literally avoid 90% of the fuss if you only owned 10.2, 10.4 and 10.6.
The pattern is pretty simple: new technology breaks and then a later release cleans it up. Also, maturity clearly helps: OS X seems like it’s shiny and new, but people don’t remember that the original NeXT (and the remnants of the NeXTStep APIs are still very prevalent in OS X’s libraries) is 6 years older than NT.
THe problem wasn’t your mac, it’s Windows! It screws up all computers.
Im a long time Windows users since 95 and even a Linux ( Debian ) user. I switched to a MacBook Pro 17″ just 2 months ago and I am having issues and think all the hype about Mac is pure bullshit.
Mine freezes at random, is slow at random times when browsing the Internet( multi color pinwheel icon for a cursor ), and doesnt feel as “fast” as my old Toshiba laptop running XP with only 2 gigs of ram on a Celeron processor. For over 3k dual core processors and 4 gigs of ram, I would have expected more from Mac considering all the hype.
Its brand new, but I am not sending it in to the “shop” to be fixed or looked at. I feel like for over 3k, I could have had the SAME problems on a Vista/XP Win 7 box, but with more bells and whistles ( like a SD card slot or video output )
-Jason Brown
Long time Windows and Linux user. Looking at MBP for easy Audio (still poor support in Windows / Linux) and easy Linux integration. Reading the forusm Apple HW (Macbooks) are just not as solid compared to similarly priced Thinkpads. Sure Apple customer care is good, but I shouldnt have to baby my laptop, and still have it die randomly followed by waiting for some ‘Genius’ to fix it.
The amount of ‘my machine doesn’t hibernate’ problems I’ve read on the Mac forums makes me think that even Linux distros are working better with laptops nowadays…
Its too bad that people fell for the marketing of Macs. I have been a video/film editor and have always used large powerful pc’s. Mac had to switch to intel processors to get to this level.
I always laugh when people say you have to have a Mac to do animation and editing with. I know right then that they do not have a clue about what they are talking about.
(or real world experience)
But i do have a Mac in the house and its not bad…but when i want to get serious rendering done for under 5000 dollars I have my work horse. Oh and our mac had to brought back to the “geniuses” because it crashed after a week.
They should put that in there commercials. lol
Use the right tool for the job. Buy with American Express for the extended warranty (but read the fine print). Everyone tries to sell an extended warranty.
I’ve had both great and bad hardware from a variety of PC vendors. I’ve had great and bad Apple hardware. If you don’t feel like you’re getting your money’s worth… well, it’s you that’s gotta live with that decision; choose differently next time.
Get a life!
Computers are just there to speed up tedious tasks or to have fun with. Whatever OS you use, be happy with it and leave everyone who has a different OS alone.
I don’t see Windows users making free advertising for their OS like Apple/Mac users do. So who are the stupid ones? And what MAC? You mean Unix with a simple graphical interface on top of it.
If anyone like to make love to their Macs every morning and place a cloth on the floor and pray in every direction that Steve Jobs is that morning, whatever. But don not bother me or try to lay you evangelism on me. I’ve worked with Mac/Apple users for fifteen years and NEVER encountered one that wasn’t preaching the use of the almighty Apple.
If they did their jobs as good as their preaching I would be out of a job. What is my job? Fixing the incompetent work that comes from Mac users. Yes really, there are a lot of companies out there that make a living of this. Not something you see on the “Made with a Mac” sites.
I don’t have to much problems with Apple as a company, except for the fact that they are as close to legalized criminals as any company can get. But I do have a lot of problems with Mac/Apple user who are trying to spread there evangelism around the globe in the only way they can; ” Everything else is bad so that’s why Apple is good”.
http://www.johnhasson.com/index.php/the-mac-myth-so-sick-of-all-this-mac-love-macs-are-a-pain/comment-page-1/#comment-615
As a life-long hardcore Mac power user, I have to say I’m pretty shocked by this thread. Before the Windows users get into high dudgeon here, let me stipulate that I am NOT an evangelist. I just want a computer that WORKS. I don’t really care and never have cared who made it.
Of course, we all have our preferences and our gripes, but what’s being said here just doesn’t jive with my Mac experience AT ALL.
I mean… AT ALL.
Now, there’s several possible reasons for this…
I know that I haven’t always been impressed with the QC on the more “mainstream” Macs. I had a MacBook Pro that died prematurely too.
I have worked most of my career in high-end advertising/marketing in the mainstream ad business and in the film business. And it’s funny…because in all the shops I’ve worked in, big and small, there’s one thing I’ve observed time and time again.
The suits all use PCs.
The creatives all use Macs.
And the suits are very, very envious.
Always. And have been for years. They constantly say: “I wish I was on Mac.”
Why? Because they’re always having problems with their PCs. Yes, Macs are arguably “sexier,” but it goes far beyond that. They see the creatives humming along, cranking out work, with far fewer problems. They hear about it in the staff and IT meetings. They see the proof before their eyes.
Why do they use PCs? Because they’re cheaper. That’s the theory, anyway. In the corporate world, if they can get a computer for less, they will. IMHO, they no longer understand the old aphorism about “penny wise and pound foolish.” They’d rather pay harried IT guys overtime to keep their PCs working (because that’s a future cost that comes out of a different budget) than buy a machine that’s simply more cost effective over it’s useful lifespan.
Numerous studies back in the day showed that when you factor in down-time, hair-pulling and various headaches, PCs are actually A LOT MORE EXPENSIVE to own than Macs. I remember those studies because I was involved in computer purchases (and the long rounds of debates that went with) on more than one occasion.
I dunno if this as as true as it was then. It may be better, it may be worse for all I know.
But I DO know that in every edit bay, retouching station and designer’s cube in every agency and studio in town, you will find Macs. Period. Bar none.
Believe me when I say this — all these business big and small are NOT using Macs just because they’re “cool” or “in” or “hip.” Do you think multi-million dollar businesses and billion dollar industries make decisions based on such frou-frou? Of course not!
I even know a number of shop owners who tried — I mean, really gave it the ol’ college try — to switch over to PCs on the grounds that it’s “cheaper.” Every single one of them that I know of, without exception, went back to Mac.
Now in my case, I’m always on the bleeding edge. I’ve always got a tower loaded with lotsa RAM. That helps. But on the flipside, I’m always pushing the envelope too.
On a daily basis I’ll have 20 or even 30 or more programs, big and small, open at one time. I’ll be doing a render in one program while working in another. I put a load on my machines every day with 2 gig photoshop files (yes, I said 2 gig) and 12 hour Maya renders and what not!
And I hardly ever get a crash!
I mean, as in almost never. Sure, individual apps crash sometimes. For instance, new versions of Firefox are notorious for this. But often as not, it’s the software, not the Mac.
I literally go weeks without a reboot. More often than not I’ll reboot manually because the machine is getting a bit buggy or slow. But I can go for long periods of time, using the machine heavily, and never have ANY serious problems.
Talking to my PC friends, I’d say that’s a rarity. But it’s common with Macs.
This is the reason the entire advertising/marketing/film industry is based on Macs. They just flat-out WORK. No problems. No headaches. No hassles.
Wanna install new software? Cool. Bing-bang-boom. Done. Up and running. Ready for action. Move on.
So, I’m really sorry to hear about your problems with Macs. I really am.
I suspect part of it is that you are so familiar with PCs now, using the Mac can seem difficult. A good buddy of mine, who has been an IT pro for many years now in the PC world, was the guy who introduced me to Mac. But after having been away from them for so long, his wife wanted a new laptop and she insisted on a Mac. He later admitted that he hated the machine for quite a while. Not because it was bad (in his case, anyway), but because it was just DIFFERENT from what he was used to.
I think the person that touched on the Windows issue may be dead on. Many of my friends who are trying to run Windows software on their Macs have gone from perfectly stable and reliable machines to the usual Windows nightmares. Many of them LEFT the Windows world for the Mac world precisely BECAUSE they were tired of all the viruses, software incompatibility issues and other headaches… only to regain them when they tried to run PC software on their Macs!
As to the person who says that Macs are not “all that” in film making/editing, I refer you to my remarks above.
It’s true independents often use PCs. One of my good buddies uses a Windows render farm for 3D animation work (though his front end is Mac). But by and large, it’s all Macs in Hollywood and the entertainment and advertising businesses, at least on the creative side. And that, after all, is where the bread is buttered.
It’s not with the bean counters and suits.
At least on this score, I’m glad I’m a creative.
I have a mac g5 and a macbook pro 17 inch; they behave exactly like Windows in terms of odd performance problems, freezing, need to reboot, etc. I think that most mac users never actually install software, or put a machine through its paces as I do.
Many “light” users (email, web browsing, chat) will never have the kinds of problems a power user has because they are the lowest common denominator in use. Start installing Final cut pro, Entourage, light room, photoshop, plugins, archive tools, sync tools, etc. and you will see the same crap you see on a Windows machine if you were to be as “promiscuous” at software installing as power users.
I use both quite a bit; and truthfully both Mac and Windows SUCK. But I have no alternative since Linux will suck in the same scenario even if they did have useful software which from my perspective they don’t.