Thread: apple macs

Macs are more user friendly than other computers
God no - only for the experienced, I've used them and provided tech support and they are an expert only machine.

Apple creates the most elegant computers
Do you want to stare at it or use it.

Macs are cheaper to buy and easier to maintain than they were in the past.
Still dearer than Win PC's, more expensive to operate and to upgrade.

Originally Posted by smidsy

Macs are more user friendly than other computers
God no - only for the experienced, I've used them and provided tech support and they are an expert only machine.

I would disagree wholeheartedly with this statement. Macs are most assuredly easier to use that Windows machines, with the added benefit of not having to reboot half a dozen times a day.

Apple creates the most elegant computers
Do you want to stare at it or use it.

Macs are cheaper to buy and easier to maintain than they were in the past.
Still dearer than Win PC's, more expensive to operate and to upgrade.

But when you take into account minimal downtime from not forever rebooting or sending it of for repairs, operator satisfaction and longer times between upgrading computers, cost of ownership is actually less than a PC

.

For a newspaper publisher, this is no surprise. Macs have always been the de facto standard for layout and graphic work, so likely half or more of their 'puters were Mac already.

Originally Posted by Honorary Bloke

For a newspaper publisher, this is no surprise. Macs have always been the de facto standard for layout and graphic work, so likely half or more of their 'puters were Mac already.

Not quite so, Honorary Bloke.

Most newspapers moved over to Windows based systems ages ago. All the major page layout, drawing and photo software programs are cross platform and have the same level of difficulty no matter which platform you use. Therefore, what smidsy said (‘only for the experienced’) is garbage.

The vast majority of advertising agencies, graphic design studios, and photo studios stayed with Apple. The number of ad agencies, design studios, and photo studios far out weighs the number of newspaper publishers out there at the rate of several thousands:1 (content creators verses media providers) which is why newspaper change over had little to no effect on Apple. 100’s of 1000’s of designers and photographers graduate each year around the world and are using Macs. There are next to no new newspaper publishers being set up each year.

I wouldn’t take much notice of smidsy. He is talking out his ????, he is simply spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) to justify his purchase and continued use of microsoft crap. I suspect he is suffering from what Mac users regard as a combination of "Stockholm Syndrome" and "cognitive dissonance" (use Google to find out what they are if you don’t know).

I agree with you completely Geoff Dean.

I would also like to thank microsoft for ALL the viruses, trojans, spywear, spam and all other mallwear out there. Thanks a lot microsoft. Fortunately almost none affect Apple Macs (except for spam) - one or two viruses, maybe, out of about 140,000 for microsoft PCs.

I read this just this morning -

Microsoft CEO Ballmer on why Apple is thriving: http://www.cnbc.com/id/25831319/site/14081545

Other content provider industries I have not mentioned that are Apple dominated are film/video and music.

Originally Posted by horse

I wouldn’t take much notice of Geoff Dean. He is talking out his ????

I'd strongly disagree and suggest defamatory. And given your claim to be a tech repair bloke for Macs, then you'd know the stability of them, to write otherwise raises questions.

Maybe Macs in Melb' aren't so widely used by Fairfax etc., but they are among FPC and other magazine publications.

But really, so what.

* I may have been quick to suggest the term defamatory, it just riles me with some things at times.

I remember a similar commitment from Jeff Smith, when he was CIO at Telstra about five years ago. The company's entire desktop was going to switch to Linux. Never happened.

A couple of points:

1. This is planned to happen over the next five years. Don't celebrate too soon.

2. A large percentage of users will run WINDOWS applications on WINDOWS OS installed on Macintosh hardware.

3. The "creative" departments were running Macintosh applications already. No "switch" here.

I was the person who asked for evidence of Mac usage, but my question was a little more direct ... it was to be shown any Top 100 company in any country in the world which is entirely Macintosh based. There isn't one.

Waldo, I originally credited Geoff Dean with the comment but it was actually smidsy. I have edited my post to credit the correct person. Sorry about that.

Ron said:
2. A large percentage of users will run WINDOWS applications on WINDOWS OS installed on Macintosh hardware

Only during transition. Once they get to see how OSX operates (except with proprietary software) they will dump microsoft.

Ron, show us any Top 100 company in any country in the world which is entirely microsoft based.

Originally Posted by horse

Waldo, I originally credited Geoff Dean with the comment but it was actually smidsy. I have edited my post to credit the correct person. Sorry about that.

Ah horse, don't stress to much about about it, you are probably closer to the truth with the original statement than you think.

Hei Guys,
Back when I started my first degree in 96, Macs were the gun machine and for anything graphic or multi-media related, the only thing to use - but these days Windows has more than caught up.

As for Windows instability, I use this pc for bit torrent and it runs literally for months at a time without a crash or a reboot - and I'm still running Win2k.

The fact is though that if Job and Wosniak had done things right we'd be sitting here asking who the heck is Bill Gates - it wasn't the brilliance of Gates that allowed Microsoft to get so big, but the incompetence of Job and Wosniak.
Cheers

smidsy, Apples downfall began instantly when Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple. For the next 10 years when Steve Jobs was not there Apple went down hill rapidly through lack of direction and inovation. Since Steve Jobs has returned Apple has sky rocketed and continues to gain market share from microsoft. Even when Apple had only about 2+% of market share it was still a much bigger company than BMW.

Another myth is that Apple needed Microsoft to invest around $150m to survive. Again, not so. At that time, microsoft was in deep s h i t with the America government and had to explain its anti competitive business practices. It was going to be hit with very big fines and possible break-up and restructuring. Apple actually came to microsofts rescue. Apple knew that it really, really, really needed Word for Mac to survive. Word was absolutely essential for Apple and it looked like microsoft was not going to continue with a Mac version. Apple sold $150m worth of shares to microsoft to circumvent the anti competitive charges it was up against. $150m was a in the wind and was way too small to, so called, ‘rescue’ Apple. If Apple needed financial rescuing, which it didn’t, $150m would have been utterly useless, $150m would have lasted Apple less than one day.

The agreement Apple had with microsoft was - give us microsoft Word for the next 5 years and we will sell you $150m worth of shares, and that will get you off the anti competitive charges. Microsoft then described the events to make it look like it was the big hero. Apple got Word for at least the next 5 years (actually much, much longer) and $150m to boot.

smidsy, what exactly did Jobs and Wos do (or not do)?

I know what you're saying about MS buying Apple to avoid the anti-trust problems.

What I'm talking about is the early days when Mac chose to make the OS proprietary and wouldn't allow 3rd party software development. Buy a Win machine and you can buy generic software to do what you want. Buy a Mac, and (back then) you had to buy mac brand software which was significantly dearer than the Win generic stuff. All that was very off putting to early users and contributed to MS getting the market share.

Cheers

mmm... sorry smidsy...

In the early days Apple was nearly the same as microsoft, it was basically an OS on Apple‘s own hardware (thanks to Wos). But there the similarity stops.

Apple had SOME of its own software (a painting program and a drawing program) but most was 3rd party - Illustrator, Quark XPress, Photoshop, Freehand, the list goes on and on. The only difference was microsoft was an OS on someone else's hardware with some of its own software (mostly for typists and accountants - a word processor and spreadsheet, and no Illustrator, Freehand etc). Apple had a mouse, icons, and a ‘desktop’ GUI which microsoft eventually copied, microsoft had a word prompt interface (Start > Run) and had no desktop.

Apple also had Postscript and laser printers. Microsoft only had dot matrix printers.