Survey - How many plan on switching to a Mac in the next 18 months

dalk · 10-11-2005 10:31AM

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

ummm... dalk, OSX is being ported to x86 and it's very nearly finished.

ummm... I know.

What i should have said of course was that "I wouldn't mind seeing OSX being released for x86 precessor PC's that arent built by Apple"

And by 'released' i mean, you can buy it in a shop. Not hack it to work on non-apple hardware...

jor el · 10-11-2005 11:03AM

I'd consider getting a Mac if something came up that I absolutely needed and it was only available on Mac. That's never happened though, and I don't see it happening any time soon, so no I won't be changing. If I did get a Mac, I'd keep my PC aswell, I wouldn't change one for the other.

tba · 10-11-2005 11:17AM

dalk wrote:

ummm... I know.

What i should have said of course was that "I wouldn't mind seeing OSX being released for x86 precessor PC's that arent built by Apple"

And by 'released' i mean, you can buy it in a shop. Not hack it to work on non-apple hardware...

its crazy, apple could grab a huge share of the market, in paticular the educational, office, basic home user market, if they released a x86 64 bit OS (I would call it OSX86). Am I right in saying Apple and microsoft have a deal in this regard, remember reading that somewhere.

Prior Of Taize · 10-11-2005 11:26AM

dalk wrote:

On the other hand I wouldn't mind seeing OSX being released for x86 precessors

As unlikely as that is

i cant tell if your being sarcastic or not...just so you know the mac os for x86 has been in development for the last 10 years.

tba · 10-11-2005 11:29AM

Is it gonna be called OSX86?

wakka wakka :v:...

halenger · 10-11-2005 11:33AM

tba wrote:

its crazy, apple could grab a huge share of the market, in paticular the educational, office, basic home user market, if they released a x86 64 bit OS (I would call it OSX86). Am I right in saying Apple and microsoft have a deal in this regard, remember reading that somewhere.

There is no deal that I'm aware of. I was reading about this recently as people have started to speculate that Mac Clones may be set to return. Yes, I did say return. For a few years there were Mac Clones. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple it was one of the first things he shut down.

Selling OS-X for the PC market has a bad affect on Mac system sales. That is why they are not eager to bring it back. It was losing them significant amounts of money.

Here's the story for any who are interested:

http://www.silicon.com/silicon/software/os/0,39024651,39153944,00.htm

Prior Of Taize · 10-11-2005 11:35AM

Snowball wrote:

people buy Mac for their reliability, Preformance and suppose their looks 2. but mainly their preformance and reliability

first off every apple product advertised in the last 10 years has never shown it working...it has always been about the looks...i mean look at the nano ad...or the imac ad (Jeff Goldblum)....nothing on the screen...but lots of close up shots of the white+silver or whatever. This shows that apple dont really give a **** about any of that performance and reliability. they just want people to buy white+silver boxes with cables.

also having had many a conversation with a friend in apple tech support i can honestly say that the majority of calls are from people who havent got a clue why they have a mac....for example a guy spending €5,000 on a powermac and telling him (honestly) that he only uses it for basic microsoft office type use. fair enough thats one isolated incident but the fact of it is apple created this "image" image and never really tried to plug software which results in the only knowledge of their software being word-of-mouth (which generally comes from apple zealots who hate windows simply because they use macs). this resulted in people buying them for legit reasons (eg powermac for video editing etc) and people buying them because they are shiny and white...macs have their uses i will totally agree. but there is soooo much they cant do. and the simple thing is windows can do more than a mac can. and therefore people will use windows instead for the sheer variety if nothing else.

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also i have to agree that the reason macs are so secure and reliable IS because you cant actually do much with them which seriously reduces "malware" as someone stated earlier.

Its simple economics that the more people that use something the more things can go wrong with it...hence why windows has the whole (perhaps deserved, perhaps not) image of being f*cking **** and macs have this whole image of being infallible.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If i wanted a truly solid, expensive, and designer machine that probably wont crash i would buy a mac. But the simple truth is i like to be able to do more than check my email, rip dvd's and edit media. so no i wont be buying a mac.

:v: :v: :v:

art · 10-11-2005 12:04PM

_CreeD_ wrote:

[ It's been proved the OS itself is no more secure than Windows when placed in correct context (user/potential threat base vs. core vulnerabilities). The lack of software and userbase protects it from malware and bloating configs more than the inherent architecture.-

That's completely and utterly untrue. The Mac is more secure because it is built on a secure UNIX platform, it has nothing to do with user base etc. Where was this "proved"? Can you link?

I hate this speculative nonsense from people,. what's the point in peddling complete untruths about a platform. Who benefits in the end? The user? NO.

art · 10-11-2005 12:06PM

Prior Of Taize wrote:

... also i have to agree that the reason macs are so secure and reliable IS because you cant actually do much with them which seriously reduces "malware" as someone stated earlier.

Its simple economics that the more people that use something the more things can go wrong with it...hence why windows has the whole (perhaps deserved, perhaps not) image of being f*cking **** and macs have this whole image of being infallible...

As above, more nonsense

"you can't actually do much with them" :rolleyes: What exactly are you thinking of there that you cannot do? Do you even know?

timeout · 10-11-2005 12:06PM

I've voted against.Happy with my pc and dual boot windows XP and Linux. When the os gets ported, i'd propably get it and run it but i'm pretty set in my ways at present.

tba · 10-11-2005 12:07PM

It appears that MAC users sing praises of the machines and PC users say they cant do what their PC can do.

It looks a bit fanboy here folks, soon the disscussion will decend into

"OSX? More like GAYSX!" and "Bill gates is the devil Steve Jobs invented electricity!"

And nobody wants that.

I only ever used Macintosh computers in work so my tinkering was limited, I did find it a very different system from IBM's. Although the basic principals are the same, the names and actions required are very much different. I remember for example spending about an hour establishing how exactly you eject a CD.

I agree Apple is easier on the eyes, more user friendly, but windows allows for more flexibility and hence more problems, Unix takes this another level further yet again.

Its obvious that if an Apple solves your needs go for it, if you want a machine to fiddle the wires out of, and play the latest games grab an x86 with windows xp.

Then if you feel up to it at a later stage you can always get a unix distro for your hardware.

ps: do mac sell their cases seperately?

Heinrich · 10-11-2005 05:21PM

tba wrote:

I remember for example spending about an hour establishing how exactly you eject a CD.

Top right hand key on keyboard! :v:

tba · 10-11-2005 05:24PM

where were you three months ago!?!

SouperComputer · 10-11-2005 08:06PM

I remember for example spending about an hour establishing how exactly you eject a CD.

There are many ways to skin a cat, also RTFM thats what I did when I first used X:

F12 if using a windows keyboard
Highlight the drive: Apple & E or windows + E on a 'doze keyboard.
Drag cdrom icon to trash
Highlight the drive and select Eject from the file menu

Thats all i can think of now, but there may be other ways.

It's been proved the OS itself is no more secure than Windows when placed in correct context (user/potential threat base vs. core vulnerabilities)

id be interested to hear more about this, do you have any links?

art · 10-11-2005 10:57PM

tba wrote:

It appears that MAC users sing praises of the machines and PC users say they cant do what their PC can do.? It looks a bit fanboy here folks ...

But the pro Mac stuff here has been a bit more substantiated than "you can't do stuff on a Mac" , or "Macs are proven insecure", where upon the poster legs it off over the horizon never to back up the lame claim.

I can't think of anything a PC does that a Mac can't do, though I can think of stuff a Mac does better than the average PC. I'd be curious to know what exactly a Mac can't do before I do go buy one but so far no-one has explained that in any detail. If the anti-Mac posters would back up their claims a little instead of making just dismissive sneering gestures, and the odd occasional downright lie, the argument would avoid fan-boy nonsense.

Prior Of Taize · 10-11-2005 11:03PM

tba wrote:

ps: do mac sell their cases seperately?

no f*cking way. which is unfortunate because the powermac cases have awesome cooling.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ok i will try to back up what i was saying about mac's not being able to do stuff my windows system can. I will say firstly though that I am really talking about doing things i want them to do or things my pc can currently do. So forgive me for saying that macs cant do much.

First off theres obviously games which can only run on a mac using a VM if they are not available on that platform. obviously the very popular games will run (MOH:AA, Doom3, WoW etc) but tbh i dont play many of these games.

Secondly there is dual booting. I like to run linux because i find that coding and compiling works better in it. And i like windows because it plays the games i like (sorry for repeat point but its a fact). im not saying a mac is bad for coding (frankly i have no idea) but i do like being able to run a totally different environment and then be able to switch over no problem to another environment (without using virtual machines which dont give 100% performance).

Thirdly you cant mod, build or in fact do much physically to a mac (afaik, though im sure there are lots of people who do it anyway).
I love the idea that i put my pc together myself andknowing that everything in it was chosen by me.

Fourthly there is Windows Vista which despite its crap name is in fact awesome as i recently discovered.

SouperComputer · 11-11-2005 12:05AM

Interesting points POT.

VM wont run games though, even on the beefiest of machines. Maybe Doom or quake 1, but its designed for office-type use, bit like bochs.

Some people do mod alright, but no you dont have the same ability to mess with the hardware. That is part of Apples closed conecpt I guess. Which for me makes modding and generally arsing around more interesting. You really have to spend a lot more time than you would on a PC as the parts are more scarce. Ive seen G4 motherboards in PC cases, and other oddities.

Overclocking can be done, most of the desktops I have had over the years have overclocked okay. The g3 I have is a 350@400 with a standard heatsink and no fan! Its good for more but I couldnt be arsed messing with it.

Bear in mind you can get Linux (including an ubuntu live cd, Knoppix styley) and BeOS for Mac if you wish to go that way.

art · 11-11-2005 12:08AM

Prior Of Taize wrote:

Ok i will try to back up what i was saying about mac's not being able to do stuff my windows system can. I will say firstly though that I am really talking about doing things i want them to do or things my pc can currently do. So forgive me for saying that macs cant do much.

First off theres obviously games which can only run on a mac using a VM if they are not available on that platform. obviously the very popular games will run (MOH:AA, Doom3, WoW etc) but tbh i dont play many of these games.

Secondly there is dual booting. I like to run linux because i find that coding and compiling works better in it. And i like windows because it plays the games i like (sorry for repeat point but its a fact). im not saying a mac is bad for coding (frankly i have no idea) but i do like being able to run a totally different environment and then be able to switch over no problem to another environment (without using virtual machines which dont give 100% performance).

Thirdly you cant mod, build or in fact do much physically to a mac (afaik, though im sure there are lots of people who do it anyway).
I love the idea that i put my pc together myself andknowing that everything in it was chosen by me.

Fourthly there is Windows Vista which despite its crap name is in fact awesome as i recently discovered.

Okay, so what you are saying is that there is some games you can't play... but that's hardly the same as saying Macs "can't do games..." or whatever. Its a bit like saying I won't buy a PS2 because it can't play Halo. Fair enough, but the PS2 is still a good game's machine just offers different choices and so on. (Halo was actually originally a Mac only game, funnily enough, before MS bought Bungie)

The thing about Dual booting is that it just isn't necessary - the whole reason for booting into Linux is gone because the Apple is a Unix based platform. And the reason why I got impressed with the Apple's was as a Development Machine - I mostly use Windows and Unix for Development but a contractor working with me used a PowerBook and I clearly saw its advantages then - good tool set, stable OS, never seems to need a re-boot - always on (my Dell laptop and Desktop have to be re-booted about every two weeks) and so on... It offered better compatibility with the target deployment platforms which were all either LInux or Unix, whereas Windows development throws up far more issues when moving across platforms.

Thirdly, you can't mod a Mac... That's a double edged thing. One the one hand, you can change the specs and add stuff etc, a G5 has three empty PCI-e slots for example, on the other hand, the Apples generally offer far less in the way of hardware conflicts because they are quality assured. And to get that, only comes from being the way they are. So its a swings and roundabouts thing. But I'm mostly into their laptops and I'd never mod a Windows laptop anyways... so the Apple laptop is a clear winner on that score, for me.

Fourthly, Vista ... can't see the excitement there. What will it offer in two years time that the Apple OS is not offering right now? Vista is one of the very reasons I'm thinking of switching to Apple actually. Microsoft are so far behind in OS development at the moment (Longhorn had to be re-started afterall) that I expect by the time Vista appears, the Apple OS will have moved further on altogether. And why wait for features that are available now anyhow? Plus, nine versions of Vista? What are MS at with that?

What strikes me is that the best solution at the moment is to get an Apple for computing needs/development/multi-media/browsing etc and then get an XBox 360 for playing games?

DemonOfTheFall · 11-11-2005 12:17AM

art, I'd hardly say that Macs offer a set of different choices when it comes to what games you can run on them. They run a tiny, limited subset of PC games, only the ones that were uber popular enough to be ported. Has there been any remotely decent Mac only game lately ? If there has been I havent heard of it.

As for halo being mac only before microsoft bought bungie, are you sure ? Not saying you're wrong, just coulda sworn that halo was originally PC/Xbox. Can you even get it for the mac ?

art · 11-11-2005 12:35AM

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

art, I'd hardly say that Macs offer a set of different choices when it comes to what games you can run on them. They run a tiny, limited subset of PC games, only the ones that were uber popular enough to be ported. Has there been any remotely decent Mac only game lately ? If there has been I havent heard of it.

As for halo being mac only before microsoft bought bungie, are you sure ? Not saying you're wrong, just coulda sworn that halo was originally PC/Xbox. Can you even get it for the mac ?

Yes, Halo is available for the Mac

... Bungie used to do development for Macs only, their main big game before Halo was a game called "Marathon" if I remember correctly, first person shooter set on a space station, very atmospheric with aliens etc... They then began this big new game that was to become Halo. They were working on it for a fair while before MS took over and the game then switched its target platform to become the XBox release title.

There probably isn't any Mac only games really in development now but that wasn't my point - the Sims2, SimCity4, FM2005, Age of Empires series, StarWars BattleFront, X2, WOW, Blank 'n White, Call of Duty, Knights of the Old Republic... Halo(!) and so on are all games available on the platform - it isn't as bad as it's sometimes guessed. But ultimately, I'd certainly agree there's less. Hence why I'm thinking of getting the XBox360 for gameplaying but the PowerBook for serious computing?

MrPinK · 11-11-2005 12:41AM

art wrote:

The thing about Dual booting is that it just isn't necessary - the whole reason for booting into Linux is gone because the Apple is a Unix based platform.

I have to disagree with that. Just because they're both unix based, doesn't make them interchangable. They're both very different operating systems with their own pros and cons. A lot of the mac people I know dual boot boot their powerbooks with OSX and linux or bsd.

gizzymo · 11-11-2005 10:08AM

what have i started......

tba · 11-11-2005 10:21AM

a thread

wakka wakka :v:....

On a serious note, you shouldn't have to have several computers to do several tasks. This may change with mac using intel chips but who knows really?

DonkeyStyle \o/ · 11-11-2005 12:04PM

Don't macs still have a crappy 1-button mouse?
My mouse has 8 buttons and that's the way I likes it.

art · 11-11-2005 12:27PM

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Don't macs still have a crappy 1-button mouse?

No. It doesn't!

art · 11-11-2005 12:28PM

tba wrote:

On a serious note, you shouldn't have to have several computers to do several tasks. This may change with mac using intel chips but who knows really?

Dual-booting essentially means the same thing though - you need two OSes to do things properly?

art · 11-11-2005 12:31PM

MrPinK wrote:

I have to disagree with that. Just because they're both unix based, doesn't make them interchangable. They're both very different operating systems with their own pros and cons. A lot of the mac people I know dual boot boot their powerbooks with OSX and linux or bsd.

Yeah, but I meant mainly from the perspective of a Windows user dual-booting, a lot of the reasons why a Windows user needs to dual boot are gone if using OSX. However, I agree, I didn't mean to infer UNIX/LINUX/OSX were simply interchangeable, that would be wrong.

tba · 11-11-2005 12:40PM

The reasons why windows users dual boot seems to be simply for a stable system (unix based). I know the only reason I use windows is for up to the minute compatibility with games, absolutly nothing else, If Apple could deliever that compatibility I would switch in a nanopod second. Its one of the main reasons I have a PC!

Serbian · 11-11-2005 02:07PM

I would never switch to Mac but I have considered buying a Mac mini for testing websites that I develop on. Note that I haven't gone past the considering part as €540 is a lot to spend on a machine to just use it's browser.

SouperComputer · 11-11-2005 02:19PM

My mouse has 8 buttons and that's the way I likes it.

Not quite 8 buttons here, but I run a Wireless PS2 4 button mouse & keyboard through a 4 port KVM including a mac without problems. Most pcs come with less than 8 button mice. So what do you do, simple, plug in different one! Same with a Mac.

Security is another whole can of worms, but even the most vicious POC exploits on OS X (and other *nix & BSD's) have shown to have limited effectivness. Why, because the code generally requires user intervention, then administrator intervention and do do any real damage needs root access which even the administrator\owner does not have (this is OS X specific). Thats without talking about the way *nix is structured to prevent damage propagating. Windows has nothing like the structure, why? Because it was designed with user-friendlyness in mind, not multi user-ness or security. Thats why it is STILL being fleeced. The fact this its popular is not helping, but by no means the reason that the extent is so bad. look at Apache as an example, by no means inpenatrable [sp?] but a lot more secure than IIS if both are setup correctly. Apache by far has the vast majority in that market.

The *nix/doze arguement has been done til death, but the "security through obscurity" theory is just not vaild.

Bottom line, if find an exploit for windows and the pickings are relativly easy on a given machine(even using images FFS!). Whereas with a *nix or BSD environment you still have a long way to go to do a lot of damage, or be extremely lucky.

Survey - How many plan on switching to a Mac in the next 18 months

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