I don't understand the Mac vs PC debates

conor.hogan.2

Choose what you want. But one causes less hassle and eventually pays for itself.

desaparecidos

Everything you can do on a Mac, you can do on a PC.

You cannot say the same for the reverse.

Sad Professor

Really? What can you not do on a Mac?

BlastedGlute

I was all set to make the change a few weeks ago. I had 3k saved up for general tomfoolery and was looking to invest in a mac for photography and video editing purposes.

It all started to go downhill when I went to the site to build the machine using the process they have going on there (in many ways identical to the build process dell use on their on their site)

I was horrified to see the available components for the iMac.

Why in the manger of sweet baby jesus would I pay €2300 for a computer that can literally be constructed for around €500-€600(including a 3D screen if you so pleased)

they absolutely nuke their own system with rubbish below par video cards in a machine that should be worthy of heavy video editing capabilities or dare I say it....games??? 3d applications????? I could care less about the CPU in cases like this. I'm honestly shocked at how low end these parts are and how exorbitant the price point is. I love my iPhone, they really hit the nail with that device.

I currently have windows 7 64bit and I have to say how impressed I am with system stability and performance. I also invested in a Gainward Phantom 570GTX card which completely trashes anything apple have chosen for their desktops. Gaming and 3D power IS important these days. Photoshop might run smooth on a Mac, but thats not enough anymore.

BlastedGlute

Sad Professor wrote: »

Really? What can you not do on a Mac?

Play Crysis on max settings.

deceit

BlastedGlute wrote: »

I was all set to make the change a few weeks ago. I had 3k saved up for general tomfoolery and was looking to invest in a mac for photography and video editing purposes.

It all started to go downhill when I went to the site to build the machine using the process they have going on there (in many ways identical to the build process dell use on their on their site)

I was horrified to see the available components for the iMac.

Why in the manger of sweet baby jesus would I pay €2300 for a computer that can literally be constructed for around €500-€600(including a 3D screen if you so pleased)

they absolutely nuke their own system with rubbish below par video cards in a machine that should be worthy of heavy video editing capabilities or dare I say it....games??? 3d applications????? I could care less about the CPU in cases like this. I'm honestly shocked at how low end these parts are and how exorbitant the price point is. I love my iPhone, they really hit the nail with that device.

I currently have windows 7 64bit and I have to say how impressed I am with system stability and performance. I also invested in a Gainward Phantom 570GTX card which completely trashes anything apple have chosen for their desktops. Gaming and 3D power IS important these days. Photoshop might run smooth on a Mac, but thats not enough anymore.

This is the reason why i've never owned a mac desktop but i've bought two macbooks just for messing about with. Just looking on there site going from 3gb ram too 6gb ram in there pro version adds 225 or add 250 for another 5770 graphics card that costs 100 for pc?? Thats nuts. I do like osx but its not worth that premium. Can just imagine the price a gtx580 will be if they release it. I will buy another macbook though in the near future and there screens are brilliant. Now only if you could build your own pc and have osx/win 7/ubuntu on it now that would be the best of both worlds dont you think? A pc for 600 that is more powerful than a 2500 mac pro and your sorted

PeakOutput

desaparecidos wrote: »

Everything you can do on a Mac, you can do on a PC.

You cannot say the same for the reverse.

The only way that is true is if you take individual games and use the ones that are not mac compatible as examples but if you do that then you have to look at every programme individually and that means that there are things you can do on a mac that you cannot do on a pc as well as vice versa so either way you are 100% wrong

I use both

If anyone could be bothered (because I am not) I would be interested in finding out what the equivalent of my imac would cost if it was a windows machine including the os and everything else i would need

27inch 2560 * 1440 display
2.93ghz intel core i7
12gb of ram
1tb western digital 7200 (ghz????) harddrive


I got friends and family discount from an apple staff member but without it it would have cost under $2,500 plus the after market ram which was around 200 I think

deceit

I'm just curious do mac's now accept standard pc gear like pc ram, hd's, cpu's and graphics cards? If that was the case would make them a little more useful

fasty

Yeah, the components are mostly interchangeable, although the graphics card situation is a bit messy, I think for Macs you need a Mac specific card with a certain BIOS although I read on Ars Technica that new builds of Snow Leopard and Lion have support for generic Radeon HD cards.

The problem is it's hard to upgrade iMacs and Mac Pros are very expensive.

deceit

PeakOutput wrote: »

The only way that is true is if you take individual games and use the ones that are not mac compatible as examples but if you do that then you have to look at every programme individually and that means that there are things you can do on a mac that you cannot do on a pc as well as vice versa so either way you are 100% wrong

I use both

If anyone could be bothered (because I am not) I would be interested in finding out what the equivalent of my imac would cost if it was a windows machine including the os and everything else i would need

27inch 2560 * 1440 display
2.93ghz intel core i7
12gb of ram
1tb western digital 7200 (ghz????) harddrive


I got friends and family discount from an apple staff member but without it it would have cost under $2,500 plus the after market ram which was around 200 I think

If you bought the screen for 1k off apple then adding a pc would cost about 1500 total for the equivalent spec so a saving of 1k but for some its worth that for osx but that would be if you build it yourself or pay for it too be built, as most companies like dell and such also have silly prices for woeful hardware.

BlastedGlute

Changing video cards on a Mac just isnt worth it. The over heating issues you'll suffer in an iMac at least wont do you any favors. There's no space in there for big heatsinks on cards either, im pretty sure you'd have to remove it (such as on my phantom,, barely fits in my monster ATX case as it is. As above, buy the screen from apple if you really think it's worth it and yo'd easily pile the rest together for around the 500bucks mark. personalyl i prefer to run 2 monitors rather than on large one, I have 2 24" LG W2361v and I'm waiting on my Acer 3D screen to get here, solely for gaming. Both work for their intended purposes but there really is more limitation in iOS than there is in Windows, there will always be an equivalent program in windows to anything for a Mac but most certainly not the other way around. Most Mac owners I know have a PC and a Mac. If the Mac really was such an all round machine why have 2 at all???

PeakOutput

BlastedGlute wrote: »

there will always be an equivalent program in windows to anything for a Mac but most certainly not the other way around.

can you think of an example?

conor.hogan.2

I have never had a program where there wasn't an alternative. Also there is vm's or dual booting.

BlastedGlute

Well Apple have this amazing way of relaunching old technology as if they just invented it (facetime...ahem....) Spotlight was something they were very proud of and apparently completely unique to Mac....

Windows Desktop Search anyone?? It's been a component of several microsoft applications for a looong time. The MSN toolbar for instance.

Spotlight was apparently something totally unique to iOS and Apple but really it was just a relaunched program that windows never made too much of a fuss about.

The list for actual programs is extensive, such as, nearly every game ever made.

Again Facetime. It's just....Skype?? But I can only contact other people with....Facetime...! I get it, marketing genius, social netowkring and communications entrapment. But innovation? Not exactly.

I love the way Mac users need examples. How about we get one from you guys. Whats a program for Mac that doesnt have any sort of Windows equivalent?

BlastedGlute

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

I have never had a program where there was an alternative. Also there is vm's or dual booting.

What does that even mean? You've never used GIMP instead of photoshop? Or VLC instead of AllPlayer?????

Every program has an equivalent, to my immediate understanding. I'm sure we could go to the depths of programming or 3D utilities where there are standouts. But generally speaking. There is simply nothing you cant do on a PC that you can do on a Mac. Nothing.

conor.hogan.2

That was a typo. Use windows if you want.

You seem very passionate over something you dont like, just dont use it?

conor.hogan.2

Windows search before win7 was nowhere near as good as spotlight.

PeakOutput

BlastedGlute wrote: »

Well Apple have this amazing way of relaunching old technology as if they just invented it (facetime...ahem....) Spotlight was something they were very proud of and apparently completely unique to Mac....

Well I agree with that but you can criticize any company for their marketing and talking **** we are talking about actual real life usage forget the marketing

Windows Desktop Search anyone?? It's been a component of several microsoft applications for a looong time. The MSN toolbar for instance.

Spotlight was apparently something totally unique to iOS and Apple but really it was just a relaunched program that windows never made too much of a fuss about.

I dont know anything about thatspotlight thing maybe it was before my mac time but its OSX not iOS

The list for actual programs is extensive, such as, nearly every game ever made.

Gamers get pcs, this is changing blizzard is commited to simaltaneous mac pc releases, steam is now on a mac the idea that you cannot game on a mac is outdated, if your a hardcore gamer a mac wont suit you, for everyone else its fine

Again Facetime. It's just....Skype?? But I can only contact other people with....Facetime...! I get it, marketing genius, social netowkring and communications entrapment. But innovation? Not exactly.

So? I have two macs both have skype on them, whats the problem? also I beleive facetime was brought in for the iphone first, and it was the first mobile video calling solution, but I am open to correction on that, and then they started rolling it out as something you could do with other mac hardware. I think skype is only now starting to allow video calling through their mobile apps so in that respect it was innovative

I love the way Mac users need examples. How about we get one from you guys. Whats a program for Mac that doesnt have any sort of Windows equivalent?

I don't know I am not saying either are limited in anyway unless your a hardcore gamer but you are saying macs are so its on you to prove it as far as I am concerned. I prefer the way apple does things and using an imac dosn't limit me in anyway that I have found yet

edit; oh and their build quality is immaculate I have had top end alienware machines before they were bought by dell and top end dell machines and my macs have outlasted them all. my friends who have various machines from other manufacturers always seem to be replacing theirs at least twice in the time it takes for me to replace once (iv had my macbook for 4 years for example and could have easily gotten by with it on its own but had the money to buy an imac in september so i did, macbook is still trucking away)

Creamy Goodness

desaparecidos wrote: »

Everything you can do on a Mac, you can do on a PC.

You cannot say the same for the reverse.

write an app for iOS on a windows pc and come back to us when finished.

fasty

BlastedGlute wrote: »

Well Apple have this amazing way of relaunching old technology as if they just invented it (facetime...ahem....) Spotlight was something they were very proud of and apparently completely unique to Mac....

Windows Desktop Search anyone?? It's been a component of several microsoft applications for a looong time. The MSN toolbar for instance.

Spotlight was apparently something totally unique to iOS and Apple but really it was just a relaunched program that windows never made too much of a fuss about.

Now now, OSX is far from perfect, but Spotlight's technology is streets ahead of Windows Desktop Search in the sense that it's integrated into the core of the operating system. Hell, that tech is what made Time Machine work too, meaning incremental backups can be done WITHOUT scanning the filesystem totally each time.

Likewise Apple's use of mDNSResponder to discover services and things like Grand Central Dispatch are all ahead of the pack here.

Furthermore, Cocoa, the toolkit for making Mac and iOS apps is almost magical.

I also like Apple's use of gestural support in their OS. I find myself missing gestures on my Windows machine.

desaparecidos

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

write an app for iOS on a windows pc and come back to us when finished.

That's the stupidest, and only, example you could come up with.

Sad Professor

desaparecidos wrote: »

That's the stupidest, and only, example you could come up with.

And you've come up with no examples to back up your claim.

deceit

In fairness I think the only thing osx is lacking in is games support and some business apps other than that you would struggle too find any programs that you cant get a replacement for it on. In my opinion osx is brilliant, only problems I have with apples stuff is they love too tie you into software such as itunes, the lack of upgrading parts (hampered by price) or the insane price of some parts.

whiterebel

BlastedGlute wrote: »

Whats a program for Mac that doesnt have any sort of Windows equivalent?

SportsCode?

banquo

Sad Professor wrote: »

Really? What can you not do on a Mac?

Perform an illeagal operation.

Teferi

This thread has descended into something horrible. Basically anti-Mac fanboys shouting "STOP LIKING THINGS I DON'T LIKE".

Liameter

BlastedGlute wrote: »

What's a program for Mac that doesnt have any sort of Windows equivalent?

I'm guessing, here, because my knowledge of Windows is limited to occasionally helping users who were clueless (the blind leading the blind).

However, I suspect that Windows doesn't have the cross-application integration enjoyed by OSX so how about something like "TypeIt4Me"? This works in almost any application that accepts keyboard input. http://www.ettoresoftware.com/products/typeit4me/

I use this continually to correct typos and to insert whole phrases or paragraphs by typing only a few letters.

There's also the OSX spell checker (built in) that works in most applications, and there's Nisus Thesaurus.
http://www.nisus.com/Thesaurus/

There's also the built-in ability to create a PDF file from any application.


.

melekalikimaka

final cut pro

i had to buy a mac for it

adobe premiere is alright but when your used to fcp and move onto premiere, its all over the place, fcp has its own system, premiere piggy backs off photoshop

PeakOutput

melekalikimaka wrote: »

final cut pro

i had to buy a mac for it

adobe premiere is alright but when your used to fcp and move onto premiere, its all over the place, fcp has its own system, premiere piggy backs off photoshop

I love fcp I just wish they had better (any?) automation of tasks

using vegas' automation is the only reason I am going to have to build a pc in the next year and I will have to, such a pain

banquo

For me it's OSX, simple as. Win7 is by far MS's best implementation to date though and they deserve great credit for it. Could be tweaked a lot to be more user friendly I feel, but it's still excellent.

I just love OSX. And then there's things like Time Machine, Spotlight (I just search for everything, so fast and nice) and longevity - on a 2006 machine, running CS5 like a dream