Apple.....slave drivers?

[sterlinggirl]

Originally Posted by rubber_factory

The folks who who claim that Apple is objectively "better" or superior are those who annoy me. Partly because so many of them don't seem capable of properly using Windows, therefore they aren't qualified to have an opinion. Some of them even give investment advice based on quasi-technical beliefs akin to some sort of philosophy or religion. We've had several of these in this thread, I just try and tune them out, and hope that intelligent posters can make their own decisions.

"Better" means different things to different people. A Ferrari is a "better" car than a Honda, but you wouldn't want to use one for a daily driver in a town full of potholes, and you certainly wouldn't expect the engine to last for 300K. If you tow a lot, a turbo diesel pickup is "better" than gas, but you wouldn't want one for a three mile commute during the Minnesota winters.

PC fanatics love to talk about benchmarking and hardcore gaming when they're proving that Linux or XP are "better", and in some cases they are. They'll provide better performance on certain tasks, but in the case of Microsoft OSs that performance comes at the price of poor customer service, spyware, adware, malware, registry errors, the blue screen of death, crashes, viruses, PITA networking, driver maintenance, lack of backwards compatibility, and seemingly constant "upgrades" which always seem to leave your computer working worse instead of better. Linux is a headache to install, so it just isn't a choice for grandma's email machine.

The average person surfing the internet wants a low maintenance trouble free OS, and they don't want to worry about viruses when they open an email. People don't want to search for drivers every time they plug in a new mouse. They just want to turn on the computer and have the most hassle free experience possible. This is where OSX is "better".

[user_id]

Originally Posted by sterlinggirl

They just want to turn on the computer and have the most hassle free experience possible. This is where OSX is "better".

And yet it is not better in this sense.

Out of all the things you mentioned the only one that has any truth to it is the issue with viruses. But that has nothing to do with the underlying operating systems and more to do with the fact that Windows is used far more and therefore targeted more by virus writers.

The things you say are just hyperbole, e.g., if you purchase a PC compatible mouse you don't need to install any drivers. This is not to mention that people purchase PCs from OEMs and they are preloaded with all the drivers. Crashing, blue-screens, etc are all very uncommon with Windows XP and greater. If XP starts to blue-screen its 99% of the time due to a hardware failure.

The way you are speaking, I can't help but think you are basing your views on Windows 95/98. The problems you are talking about were all issues with these version, but not XP and later.

The irony is that you fail to mention the area where OS X actually is actually measurably superior! OS X has rather good UI, where as Windows XP is lacking in this area. Although, Windows 7 seems to have improved matters greatly.

So, if indeed Apple's are better for the normal person that just wants a computer that "just works" why is it that the vast majority don't use Apple's? Are the vast majority of people too stupid to realize what you are saying? Or perhaps what you are saying is just hyperbole and the vast majority of people have no reason to switch because Windows is working just fine for them? I'd bet you 1 troy oz of silver that its the latter!


By they way its absolutely trivial to install Linux on a standard desktop (in particular the noob distros like Ubantu). Its just a matter of clicking a few things. Linux is perfectly suitable for grandma. Now, laptops are a different matter entirely.

[sterlinggirl]

Originally Posted by user_id

Out of all the things you mentioned the only one that has any truth to it is the issue with viruses. But that has nothing to do with the underlying operating systems and more to do with the fact that Windows is used far more and therefore targeted more by virus writers.

That's a poor excuse. In 20+ years of running unprotected Macs, I still haven't had a virus. Are you trying to tell me that in all that time, not one hacker has bothered to come up with a Mac virus that would spread to my machine for the sole reason that it has a smaller user base?

Yeah, right...

IMHO, you don't know enough about Macs to have an opinion.

The things you say are just hyperbole, e.g., if you purchase a PC compatible mouse you don't need to install any drivers. This is not to mention that people purchase PCs from OEMs and they are preloaded with all the drivers. Crashing, blue-screens, etc are all very uncommon with Windows XP and greater. If XP starts to blue-screen its 99% of the time due to a hardware failure.

Microsoft does a very poor job of updating existing machines with new drivers. Blame it on hyperbole if you must, but there's an awful lot of truth in their ads.

The way you are speaking, I can't help but think you are basing your views on Windows 95/98. The problems you are talking about were all issues with these version, but not XP and later.

I've had all of those issues with XP

The irony is that you fail to mention the area where OS X actually is actually measurably superior! OS X has rather good UI, where as Windows XP is lacking in this area. Although, Windows 7 seems to have improved matters greatly.

User interface is subjective. I wouldn't mind some of MS's products if they weren't so buggy.

So, if indeed Apple's are better for the normal person that just wants a computer that "just works" why is it that the vast majority don't use Apple's?

For the same reason that you haven't mastered the art of the apostrophe as an indicator of possession. They just haven't realized what they don't know.

Are the vast majority of people too stupid to realize what you are saying? Or perhaps what you are saying is just hyperbole and the vast majority of people have no reason to switch because Windows is working just fine for them? I'd bet you 1 troy oz of silver that its the latter!

I'll raise you 20oz. Let's look at % of market share growth among non institutional buyers over the last five years to see where the people are headed.

By they way its absolutely trivial to install Linux on a standard desktop (in particular the noob distros like Ubantu). Its just a matter of clicking a few things. Linux is perfectly suitable for grandma. Now, laptops are a different matter entirely.

You're contradicting yourself again...

Originally Posted by user_id

Its a pain to get Linux to run on a new laptop, so I run windows instead.

[user_id]

Originally Posted by sterlinggirl

That's a poor excuse. In 20+ years of running unprotected Macs, I still haven't had a virus. Are you trying to tell me that in all that time, not one hacker has bothered to come up with a Mac virus that would spread to my machine for the sole reason that it has a smaller user base?

Firstly, I've never had a virus on any of my windows machines. Virus scanners really don't protect you from getting viruses, rather they tell you once you've gotten one. So that leads me to the second issue, how exactly do you know whether you've never had a virus on your mac? Most viruses don't jump out and say hi, they run without you knowing it.

Lastly, there have been a number of mac viruses. In fact the last couple of years have seen more critical exploits in Mac than Windows.

But let's see what a well know hacker has to say:

"Miller noted that "Mac bugs aren’t really valuable," pointing out that while the CanSecWest award of a new Mac notebook and the $5,000 "is a lot of money, it’s really not that much when you consider what a bad guy could make with an exploit for an unknown vulnerability in, say, IE 8 running on Vista.""

"I'd say that Macs are less secure for the reasons we've discussed here (lack of anti-exploitation technologies) but are more safe because there simply isn't much malware out there. For now, I'd still recommend Macs for typical users as the odds of something targeting them are so low that they might go years without seeing any malware, even though if an attacker cared to target them it would be easier for them."

AppleInsider | Pwn2Own contest winner: Macs are safer than Windows

Originally Posted by sterlinggirl

Microsoft does a very poor job of updating existing machines with new drivers.

Here you again confuse Microsoft's role. It is the OEM's responsibility to update things like drivers. You consistently want to compare Apple to Microsoft, but it makes little sense. Apple is playing two roles, Microsoft one. Compare Apple to Microsoft + Dell, or some other major OEM.

Originally Posted by sterlinggirl

I've had all of those issues with XP

Then there is likely something wrong with the underlying hardware.

Originally Posted by sterlinggirl

They just haven't realized what they don't know.

Yes of course that is it, Apple has only been around how long now?

Originally Posted by sterlinggirl

Let's look at % of market share growth among non institutional buyers over the last five years to see where the people are headed.

Apple has gained market share, but most of it is in a particular demographic. At their current price point they have little hope of getting people to switch outside of that demographic. I'm not really sure they care that much either.

Originally Posted by sterlinggirl

You're contradicting yourself again...

There is no contradiction, read more carefully. "By they way its absolutely trivial to install Linux on a standard desktop" and "Its a pain to get Linux to run on a new laptop, so I run windows instead."
I even said "Laptops are a different matter entirely".

Driver support from the Linux community is usually lacking for new laptops. But the vast majority of the time you can install Linux from the CD on a desktop with standard hardware without installing any additional drivers etc. But really, this is irrelevant. Grandma would not be able to install any OS on blank machine.

Anyhow, you can dislike Microsoft all you wish. Does not matter me. But nothing you are saying is true in any demonstrable matter.

[Philosophizer]

this one and the "music is my boyfriend commercials really annoyed the heck out of me. Needless to say, I don't own an ipod. Sorry Apple.


YouTube - iPod nano commercial

[zoomzoom3]

I like both.

I have a MacBook Pro running MacOSX and Windows Vista Ultimate 64 with Boot Camp.