What do you get out of your Mac?

The Black Oil

Regular Mac user since 2007. Mostly use my machine (late 2015 5k iMac, refurb) for documents, web browsing, email, a small bit of video editing. I've never dug deep into the OS - some of the updates go over my head, even though they seem interesting. Bar the odd use of Disk Utility and one or two other bits, I don't know much else about the behind the scenes aspects. Where's a good place to start?

ZENER

The reason I use the Mac is so I don't have to worry too much about under the hood stuff. It just works.

For me it's Music, Audio Editing, Photography and some video editing along with the usual email/office/internet stuff. The Mac doesn't get in the way of what I'm doing so I don't need to delve into it's inner working like I have to do to get anything done in Windows. Drivers, compatibility modes, patches etc etc are all things that need constant twiddling with under Windows before you can concentrate on the job at hand.

That's my tuppence worth anyway . .

Ken

PropJoe10

I only have one as I enjoy projects. Picked up a Mac Pro 1,1 a while back for small money - got it running Yosemite, with 14GB RAM and a cheap GPU upgrade. SSD fitted as well. Smooth, nice to use and solid as a rock!

Riesen_Meal

It does my music stuff without crashing or having driver nonsense that troubles Windows...

It also does the Tesco online shopping...

Everything else is done on my phone...

Elessar

It does pretty much everything for me. Web browsing, email, college assignments, programming (multiple different languages from Java to R to python to PHP to Ruby on Rails, web development and a rake of others), running virtual machines, gaming, photo management, phone backups, calendar scheduling, password management, movie watching and downloading. It's practically my whole life at the moment :pac:

Hollister11

I'm thinking of upgrading from a lenovo to Mac book pro. But spending 2K is kind of killing me.

PropJoe10

Hollister11 wrote: »

I'm thinking of upgrading from a lenovo to Mac book pro. But spending 2K is kind of killing me.

I now have El Capitan running on my Mac Pro 2,1 with an SSD, functional graphics card and 14GB RAM, all for around 250 euro. In your face, Apple!

D'Agger

Elessar wrote: »

It does pretty much everything for me. Web browsing, email, college assignments, programming (multiple different languages from Java to R to python to PHP to Ruby on Rails, web development and a rake of others), running virtual machines, gaming, photo management, phone backups, calendar scheduling, password management, movie watching and downloading. It's practically my whole life at the moment :pac:

Are you using virtualbox for running VMs out of interest?

threein99

Elessar wrote: »

It does pretty much everything for me. Web browsing, email, college assignments, programming (multiple different languages from Java to R to python to PHP to Ruby on Rails, web development and a rake of others), running virtual machines, gaming, photo management, phone backups, calendar scheduling, password management, movie watching and downloading. It's practically my whole life at the moment :pac:

Nothing there a Windows machine couldn't handle or a non-Mac machine running Linux

Elessar

D'Agger wrote: »

Are you using virtualbox for running VMs out of interest?

I was, but it's dog slow. Using VMware fusion now which is much better, and has better integration with OS X.

Elessar

threein99 wrote: »

Nothing there a Windows machine couldn't handle or a non-Mac machine running Linux

And if my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle. Except windows is irritating and Linux is a lot less pleasant to use.

threein99

Elessar wrote: »

And if my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle. Except windows is irritating and Linux is a lot less pleasant to use.

Mac OS is Linux based just way more expensive. Not looking for an argument over whats better, each to their own. Macs do apparently age better than Windows machines. Can anyone confirm this ?

Creamy Goodness

threein99 wrote: »

Mac OS is Linux based just way more expensive. Not looking for an argument over whats better, each to their own. Macs do apparently age better than Windows machines. Can anyone confirm this ?

not looking for an argument, spouts linux rubbish.


:rolleyes:


What do I get out my mac? my career, I write iOS/macOS apps using a 6 year old MacBook Air. They're the only machines that allow me to earn a living. When I was in college I used a Windows laptop that dual booted linux. it lasted 2 years before I was reinstalling Windows/Linux every 2 months because of its slowness. I gave up, bought a MacBook and currently only on my second machine since then (2006).

morritty

[RANT]

That is the most incorrect statement I have ever read.

Mac os is not based on Linux, both are based on Unix. You could compare both OS's as cousins, deep down they are the family but there’s some distance in there. it’s like comparing an Audi to a Lamborghini, both owned by Volkswagen one being far more superior.

Also mac os is not "way more expensive". Google the price of it, when you could buy it physically it was 20-25 quid and Linux is free. And with regards to Windows. Windows 10 was the first free update but for a limited time. Apple have done free OS upgrades for year. So you could nearly say it’s cheaper in that sense.

Now if you want to talk hardware, ok there can be a big difference right there but that’s about it.

Age wise, any windows laptop I have owned would last about 18 months. My first MacBook pro lasted 6 years, before I even decided to upgrade (no need really) 2nd lasted 3 years (I destroyed it with liquid) on the third MBP now touch wood it lasts 5-6 years and my iMac is still going strong after 7 years.

[/RANT]

threein99

morritty wrote: »

[RANT]

That is the most incorrect statement I have ever read.

Mac os is not based on Linux, both are based on Unix. You could compare both OS's as cousins, deep down they are the family but there’s some distance in there. it’s like comparing an Audi to a Lamborghini, both owned by Volkswagen one being far more superior.

Also mac os is not "way more expensive". Google the price of it, when you could buy it physically it was 20-25 quid and Linux is free. And with regards to Windows. Windows 10 was the first free update but for a limited time. Apple have done free OS upgrades for year. So you could nearly say it’s cheaper in that sense.

Now if you want to talk hardware, ok there can be a big difference right there but that’s about it.

Age wise, any windows laptop I have owned would last about 18 months. My first MacBook pro lasted 6 years, before I even decided to upgrade (no need really) 2nd lasted 3 years (I destroyed it with liquid) on the third MBP now touch wood it lasts 5-6 years and my iMac is still going strong after 7 years.

[/RANT]

I was implying that Macs as a whole are way more expensive which they are. I was wrong about the Linux part but my point was their OS is built on a free OS.

morritty

threein99 wrote: »

I was implying that Macs are way more expensive which they are.

So are plenty of windows machines with the same spec.

Creamy Goodness

threein99 wrote: »

I was implying that Macs as a whole are way more expensive which they are. I was wrong about the Linux part but my point was their OS is built on a free OS.

free OS, still what's your point? macOS is "free", unix is an open/"free" platform that thrives on people using it as a base.

The hardware does come with a premium, spec two comparable spec'd machines mac and windows and you'll still find there may be 200-500 difference, some is apple's currency exchange differences but some is also the guarantee that the hardware - as a whole - and the OS has been thoroughly tested and guarranted to work, the same effort isn't put in my Windows/Linux providers.

threein99

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

free OS, still what's your point? macOS is "free", unix is an open/"free" platform that thrives on people using it as a base.

The hardware does come with a premium, spec two comparable spec'd machines mac and windows and you'll still find there may be 200-500 difference, some is apple's currency exchange differences but some is also the guarantee that the hardware - as a whole - and the OS has been thoroughly tested and guarranted to work, the same effort isn't put in my Windows/Linux providers.

That's what I've always found hard to accept. But if they have a greater life span then I can see the justification of the price.

morritty

A lot of it is down to software for professionals also. Just one example, there's alot of video editors out there who would prefere Final Cut Pro over the likes of Adobe Premiere.

Royale with Cheese

I picked up one of the new 13" pros when they were released at the end of 2016. I needed something for live music performance and mac tends to be the more popular platform for this. Aside from that I mainly use it for general browsing, films/tv etc. I work as a .Net programmer so I put a Windows 10 partition on it and do anything work related with that.

I had the music software I use previously installed on a Windows desktop, to be honest I don't notice any difference to running it on the mac. I didn't need a driver when plugging in the usb sound module I'm using on the mac, but that took all of about 30 seconds on windows and was done automatically when I plugged the device in. I've never run the software when playing live off a windows machine though so the mac could potentially be more stable there? Have had absolutely no issues with it thus far.

I do prefer the general browsing experience with safari and the touch pad gestures, and the build quality is far better than any windows laptop I've seen or owned. Given the fact you can just put a windows partition onto these machines in about 20 minutes then I think it'd be a no brainer to recommend one if it weren't for the price. If you have the money then go for it, but I don't the extra cash will do anything revolutionary for most people. I am hoping to keep this thing for a long time though, so if it doesn't slow down like most windows machines I've owned then the extra cash might have been worth it.