Yes Steve, whatever you say Steve...
What the heck is the matter with most of people. This entire site should be renamed AppleApologist.com 
My comments are directed mainly at those whom do not use Photoshop for a living. Which probably means most of you.
Why are so many of you willingly living under Steve's reality distortion field. I have been a Mac guy most of my short "computing" life. I am also a pragmatic and self-employed guy that is always looking to get the most bang for the buck.
Up front, Apple's pros:
1- The best looking OS, bar none, GUI on the planet.
2- The easiest to use(OS 9.x) Operating System.
3- The (arguably...)sleekest looking hardware.
4- iTunes!!!
I don't use Photoshop. I run a small(so far...
:cool: ) business from home. I DO want my apps, no matter what they are, to open RIGHT NOW. I want my apps to run "faster" than I am capable of using them. Eventually, I will catch up. I love playing the LATEST games and demos, when they are good of course. Based on the previous criteria, I'm running on my home built rig. I built this PC mainly to play games. However, I have completely migrated over to it. I just sold my duel Gig G4 on EBay. Got a good return on it.
Basic specs: Windows XP Home, Athlon 1800-XP processor, 1 Gig PC-2100 DDR RAM, 266 front side bus, 60 Gig 10,000 rpm HD, GeForce 3Ti video card, 52X CD ROM, 32X CD/RW, Turtle Beach-Santa Cruz sound card, all in a black Fonk Kai 320 case.
I ran the PC and the Mac side by side using the same 21" Optiquest Q115 monitor and the same T-1 connection for a couple of weeks when some things became very obvious. First, surfing the net was becoming unsatisfying on the Mac(OS 10.1.3) compared to the PC. The speed difference was tremendous... Secondly, the total "overall" feel of the OS in day to day operations, OS 10 is a "slug" compared to Windows XP on the PC. I had a couple of fellow Macsters come over and immediately I got the ,"well Windows compiles the data differently from the Mac...", You know what, I don't want to hear that crap and most importantly, I don't care! Steve Jobs is not paying my bills. SDRAM? Come on! What about a Mobo upgrade? Apple's stuff is no longer "compelling" enough for me to lay my hard earned cash on. I will look forward to coming back to the platform when Jobs and Co. start giving me the reason too.
No, Window's "look", doesn't compare to OS X! No iTunes! Window's type is finally easy on the eyes. Best of all, I put it together for a whopping $1400.00
I know, for that kind of money you can buy a new iMac...Lastly, do I think Gates, Ballmer and crew are a terrific organization... NOT!
[ 03-22-2002: Message edited by: breakskull ]</p>
My comments are directed mainly at those whom do not use Photoshop for a living. Which probably means most of you.Why are so many of you willingly living under Steve's reality distortion field. I have been a Mac guy most of my short "computing" life. I am also a pragmatic and self-employed guy that is always looking to get the most bang for the buck.
Up front, Apple's pros:
1- The best looking OS, bar none, GUI on the planet.
2- The easiest to use(OS 9.x) Operating System.
3- The (arguably...)sleekest looking hardware.
4- iTunes!!!
I don't use Photoshop. I run a small(so far...
:cool: ) business from home. I DO want my apps, no matter what they are, to open RIGHT NOW. I want my apps to run "faster" than I am capable of using them. Eventually, I will catch up. I love playing the LATEST games and demos, when they are good of course. Based on the previous criteria, I'm running on my home built rig. I built this PC mainly to play games. However, I have completely migrated over to it. I just sold my duel Gig G4 on EBay. Got a good return on it.
Basic specs: Windows XP Home, Athlon 1800-XP processor, 1 Gig PC-2100 DDR RAM, 266 front side bus, 60 Gig 10,000 rpm HD, GeForce 3Ti video card, 52X CD ROM, 32X CD/RW, Turtle Beach-Santa Cruz sound card, all in a black Fonk Kai 320 case.
I ran the PC and the Mac side by side using the same 21" Optiquest Q115 monitor and the same T-1 connection for a couple of weeks when some things became very obvious. First, surfing the net was becoming unsatisfying on the Mac(OS 10.1.3) compared to the PC. The speed difference was tremendous... Secondly, the total "overall" feel of the OS in day to day operations, OS 10 is a "slug" compared to Windows XP on the PC. I had a couple of fellow Macsters come over and immediately I got the ,"well Windows compiles the data differently from the Mac...", You know what, I don't want to hear that crap and most importantly, I don't care! Steve Jobs is not paying my bills. SDRAM? Come on! What about a Mobo upgrade? Apple's stuff is no longer "compelling" enough for me to lay my hard earned cash on. I will look forward to coming back to the platform when Jobs and Co. start giving me the reason too.
No, Window's "look", doesn't compare to OS X! No iTunes! Window's type is finally easy on the eyes. Best of all, I put it together for a whopping $1400.00
I know, for that kind of money you can buy a new iMac...Lastly, do I think Gates, Ballmer and crew are a terrific organization... NOT!
[ 03-22-2002: Message edited by: breakskull ]</p>
Comments
It's ultimately just going to come down to preference. If you work better in Windows, use that machine. If you work better on a Mac, use that machine. For 3D modeling, I use an SGI Octane... for rendering I send it out on my 'Render Garden' of a handful of P3's. For 2D and Video work, I'm back on the Mac.
I don't think most of the people here live under any sort of reality distortion field. By reading all the posts about Macworld Tokyo, I'd say most of the people here have rather normal Teen Angst; gotta be mad at something, might as well be Jobs' Keynote
At any rate, my work requires me to work on multiple platforms. My accountant works on one platform (windows), and the people I send most of my print work out to work on one platform (Macs). If you feel better working in Windows, great
I should have mentioned that I come from a Lithographic background. Having worked as a "stripper" in high-end printing most of my life. I "stripped" some of the very first iMac print ads with two off-duty policemen in the room with me. True story!. It was done on the "table" because the Macs were having dongle problems or something...
Most frequent responses when saying anything besides Steve Jobs is God:
"Stop whining."
*yawn*
"STFU and go buy a PC."
That's the point, we dont want to buy a PC
"Apple's products are great"
Design-wise. Spec-wise? Give me a break
<strong>Exactly.
Most frequent responses when saying anything besides Steve Jobs is God:
"Stop whining."
*yawn*
"STFU and go buy a PC."
That's the point, we dont want to buy a PC
"Apple's products are great"
Design-wise. Spec-wise? Give me a break</strong><hr></blockquote>
EXACTLY!!!! BAM!!! you hit the nail on the head. Any criticism of "The Company" results in you getting bashed for "loving PC's"
I really don't bitch much about Apple, but lately they've just been pissing me off alot. Their offerings absolutely suck! 100MHz system bus on the iMac? Horrible. SDRAM? Horrible. Macs are just behind PCs. Apple really needs to catch up before it's too late. I always thought Macs were better (hardware, and OS) but lately after using PCs often at various different places I've learned that it just isn't true. Windows isn't as bad as some of you make it seem. Web browsing sure is a hell of a lot faster on PCs.
I'm getting really fed up with all of the Apple Apologists here lately. Apple isn't perfect. They're far from it.
I'm well aware of Apple's situation before the 2nd coming of SJ. The company really was in the gutter. But where are we now???? We are heading..... well, nowhere. Apple is focusing more and more on the Consumer end of the marked (Because the speed issue is slowly but steadily destroying the High End marked.)
A few facts:
1) Pc's are WAY faster at most tasks than Apple's nowadays.
2) Macs are overpriced.
3) Marked share is STILL going down
4) Most people adapt to the XP very quickly and don't see it hindering their every day work
5) Even the 'hard core' Mac user base is getting disillusioned about Apple
6) The browser situation is a bad joke. My son's P3, running less than half the number of Mhz than my 450 Sawtooth is way faster when browsing, especially on complicated pages
7) OsX is sluggish and nowhere near finished
9) Lack of drivers for OsX is a bad joke. So is slow carbonization of 3rd party apps, not to mention Cocoa. Where is RealPlayer??? Hell, when do we get an fully carbonized version of AppleWorks???
10) Many long time Mac Users don't even care any more.
I know I'll get slated be some Mac Zealots for writing this. But I just don't care. I've had it with Apple. Maybe I come back when the company has found out where it actually wanna go. It will be post Steve Jobs I?m sure
<strong>Are we finally seeing some anti Steve Jobs agenda among Mac users? On the old Apple Insider boards I once started a thread on 'Biggest Mistakes Apple Ever Has Made'. I suggested that one of 'em might be getting Steve back to apple. Man, was I slated. I was labled 'insane', 'moron' and 'truly an idiot' (which I wont refuse btw lol)
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well I think that Apple wouldn't have been able to survive if Jobs didn't come back, but now he seems to be hurting Apple more than helping.
<strong>
Well I think that Apple wouldn't have been able to survive if Jobs didn't come back, but now he seems to be hurting Apple more than helping.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Indeed. He saved the company but it is becoming clear now that he doesn't know what he's doing. Maybe the other CEO dude, Gil, was right. The iMac was because of him. Maybe Steve just got lucky?????? Whatever, go to <a href="http://www.colorcase.com"; target="_blank">www.colorcase.com</a>. They have some good looking PC stuff, some of it's pretty mac-like. I am a hardcore Mac user but now, I'm just really confused.
[ 03-22-2002: Message edited by: G4Dude ]</p>
nevermind.
[ 03-22-2002: Message edited by: murbot ]</p>
<strong>Are we finally seeing some anti Steve Jobs agenda among Mac users?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Finally? There's been some more or less non-stop since he came back.
[quote]<strong>I'm well aware of Apple's situation before the 2nd coming of SJ. The company really was in the gutter. But where are we now???? We are heading..... well, nowhere. Apple is focusing more and more on the Consumer end of the marked (Because the speed issue is slowly but steadily destroying the High End marked.)</strong><hr></blockquote>
Are they going nowhere or focusing more and more on the consumer market? I don't think anyone disputes that Steve has brought a focus to Apple that it hasn't had in years. The issue has been whether the focus was in the right place.
I remember the first reign of Steve Jobs. When I heard he'd seized the helm of Apple again, the first thing I thought was: "Oh, no." As it is, I'm grateful that he's demonstrated much more competence than I anticipated, but I'm still convinced that it's because there are a lot of people checking him. It's not just Steve, it's Steve and the crackerjack executive team he works with. And the fact that he knows he has to listen closely to user feedback - no matter how much it might rub him the wrong way - in order to turn the platform around.
Frankly, I think it's much more poisonous for Apple to forget or mishandle the consumer market than the professional market. Professionals get used to all kinds of workarounds and quirks and obscure applications as a matter of routine (I offer the fact that I work comfortably in vi as evidence); the real test of user friendliness is the casual user. But then, Apple has released FCP, DVD Studio Pro, and it just purchased Nothing Real. It built a vastly improved scripting engine and audio engine into OS X. So I'd question the contention that they're forgetting professionals.
A few facts:
1) Pc's are WAY faster at most tasks than Apple's nowadays.
Most of those tasks are consumer tasks (gaming), with a handful of exceptions. The Mac is faster at a number of others, especially if you count in the efficiency gained by the scripting architecture, the interface, and the apps.
2) Macs are overpriced.
They have always been, and they will always be, more expensive than commodity PCs. Not without cause. Even in Apple's blackest days, when they were really overpriced, they still beat PCs for TCO.
The iBook and iMac are pretty much universally hailed as appealing from a price/performance standpoint, and the TiBook is still inspiring lust and sales.
3) Marked share is STILL going down
Really? I thought it was at least stable now. After going from 40% to 3% market share in a matter of a few years, I'll take stability. Apple just recently launched an initiative to expand market share, and we'll know how well that goes in a few quarters. There are a few glitches already - John Manzione's unusually good article about how Apple Store salesmen aren't any good at actually closing a sale points out a fairly big one.
4) Most people adapt to the XP very quickly and don't see it hindering their every day work
Most people had already adapted to Windows ME. By that wretched standard, XP isn't hindering their work at all. It's not Apple's fault that most people have sorely defeated expectations about how well a PC should perform.
5) Even the 'hard core' Mac user base is getting disillusioned about Apple
Who are these people? The pro Macs haven't been all that and all that since, say, the 840av. The 9600 might have been a big tower with lots of slots and bays, but the onboard bandwidth sucked (PCI bandwidth especially) and the "super fast" 604ev was starved on a hopelessly narrow bus. They ran operating systems that crashed once every couple of hours if you looked at them the wrong way. Apple's architecture is a lot more sensible now. Moving functionality away from PCI is a great way to cut overall cost of ownership, and to get away from nasty hardware compatibility problems.
6) The browser situation is a bad joke. My son's P3, running less than half the number of Mhz than my 450 Sawtooth is way faster when browsing, especially on complicated pages
I haven't noticed this on an 800MHz Pentium III vs. a 450MHz G4, but then I don't use IE on either platform.
7) OsX is sluggish and nowhere near finished
But it's still a goodly bit more useable than OS 9 was in many important respects, because even finished, that system was sorely lacking. For my particular purposes it's already much slicker and more full-featured than OS 9 was, and I expect it to improve significantly over the course of this year.
9) Lack of drivers for OsX is a bad joke. So is slow carbonization of 3rd party apps, not to mention Cocoa. Where is RealPlayer???
What does Steve have to do with this? Do you think another person could suddenly convince Real to release an OS X client? Do you think the presence of a 2GHz G5 would suddenly convince Real to release an OS X client?
Hell, when do we get an fully carbonized version of AppleWorks???
Now that's a good question.
10) Many long time Mac Users don't even care any more.
And a lot of long time Windows and Unix users are interested for the first time. Defectors like Tim Bajarin are thinking of coming back. Those are the people Apple has to win over to increase market share. Apple is getting more and better press than I've seen them get since the '80s.
[quote]<strong>I know I'll get slated be some Mac Zealots for writing this. But I just don't care. I've had it with Apple. Maybe I come back when the company has found out where it actually wanna go. It will be post Steve Jobs I?m sure</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you mean, when the company has decided to go in the direction you think it should go. Or, more strictly, when the company has the components and the architecture in place to go where you think they should go. Steve hasn't been perfect, but I'm struggling to imagine what could be done better, given what Apple has to work with.
[ 03-22-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
But you're also at the other extreme. I consider myself pretty level. While it may appear that I am constantly bashing Apple here I'm pretty sure you all know I'm probably one of the if not biggest mac fans here. Never in my life would I switch to Windows. If Apple went out of business tomorrow I would use a mac until it was unable to do what I required.
why do I buy macs even though they are underpowered and expensive? Many reasons. it's hard to really explain but I think pretty much anyone who has recently bought a new mac would know why. Buying a mac, getting it home, opening it up, setting it up.. it's beautiful. It makes feel like you really got something damn good for your money. The Mac OS is still ahead of the competition in so many ways its not funny. Sure XP is extremely usable but even OS X in its early state right now has a significant lead IMO.
The hardware may not be the fastest, and it most definitely is expensive. But you also can't be upset with it. dual 1Ghz with a superdrive for 2999 is amazing. using that machine is like being in paradise. it does EVERYTHING you want fast. may be a bit slower than a cheaper PC in some things by a few seconds here and there, maybe minutes in rendering but its definitey not slow. same for all macs.
The all around package is what really draws me though. Starting up a mac for the first time and having such great hardware, beautiful design and then being instantly usable with industry leading apps like iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and iTunes is awesome. Right there covers almost all my needs. And everything is just so damn logical and simple. It just works.
And there's also the fact that Microsoft doesn't sell Mac Office at a bundle price, so a Mac buyer has to pay over $400 while PC buyers pay less than $100 for Office XP (which has more features).
So you really get a double-whammy on the pocketbook. First on the system purchase, and then on outfitting it with everything you need. Sad but true. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
I'm not a tech-geek as I stated previously. I am a fairly intelligent man running my own business and doing OK for myself. I'm a great believer in "how much bang for the buck" because money is hard to come by and very easy to spend. If it wasn't for Apple, I never would have considered "computing" fun.
OK then, so this is what I based my choices on. I lived with the duel Gig G4(1Gig RAM) and my home built PC(specs already given)for over a couple of weeks. Side by side. Here's the non-technical breakdown:
Windows OfficeXP against MacOffice X and Appleworks 6 Results- Windows ver. much more responsive than either MacOffice or Appleworks.
Windows IE6 against Mac IE5.1, Mozilla, Opera, OmniWeb, iCab Results- Forget it. IE 6 makes all the Mac browsers/web surfing feel like your in mollasses.
Winamp/WindowsMediaPlayer against iTunes
Results- iTunes makes makes 'em look like sh*t! Big however, you can open IE6 and cruise around the web and open up Word and type a letter and never hear a stutter on Windows. The same cannot be said of the Mac. Just the way it is.
As I stated earlier, in day to day operations there is no such thing as waiting for the sand to drop(spinning wheel...). Everything happens right NOW. That's what I like. I have read many, many times on this board and others, that Macs are already fast enough. How much faster do they have to be and on and on and so forth. I want it to happen now. I want applications to race!
Lastly, I love the games. I admit it. 'Nuff said.
[ 03-23-2002: Message edited by: breakskull ]</p>
<strong>Winamp/WindowsMediaPlayer against iTunes
Results- iTunes makes makes 'em look like sh*t! Big however, you can open IE6 and cruise around the web and open up Word and type a letter and never hear a stutter on Windows. The same cannot be said of the Mac. Just the way it is.</strong><hr></blockquote>Just the way it is? No.
This is the only part about your last post that I really disagree with. You see, iTunes on my dual 500 NEVER skips, even during some extremely intense CPU load. I just tried this to prove my point: I can be rendering a 3d video (utilizing both procs in C4D), watching a QuickTime movie play, and type a letter in Word in Virtual PC... and iTunes still never skips a beat.
Something really must be wrong with your setup, man.
[edit] Oh, I forgot to add that in the background I also had running OmniWeb, Mozilla, Mail, Adium, TextEdit, GraphicConverter, Photoshop 7.0 beta, Terminal, Snapz Pro X, and Escape Velocity: Nova. These processes were using next to zero percent of the CPU, but it's still nice to note that on OSX none of these apps disrupt the work flow while not in use.
[ 03-23-2002: Message edited by: starfleetX ]</p>
Not anymore...
The Duel Gig G4 replaced a 700MHz iMac. Which I thought was pretty sweet. There was a big jump in performance going from the iMac to the G4. Just as, for me, there was another jump when I started using my home built. Keep in mind I didn't say the G4 ran like crap...
[ 03-23-2002: Message edited by: breakskull ]</p>
<strong>Not anymore...
<strong>Huh?
I think he said that because he got rid of the G4.