I switched last week lol anyways it is because that is the general way that most people have started thinking a long ways back, and it just continues. Even a year ago i thought like that...then i heard about the intel switch and got interested in apple, and especially the virus-free OS X. My old computers died from viruses. i do have to say though more and more people are learning about them.
I made the move to Apple on September 4, 2005 - I still have my Windows XP Pro desktop PC, but it is there as a backup and for the grandkids when they come to visit and want to play games. The positives in moving to Apple, Mac and OSX for me are numerous, the only 2 negatives are that it took so long before I made the move, and I spend SO much more time on my iBook than I ever did on the PC, which doesn't please the wife at all \! What attracted me to Apple? It was when I discovered OSX is built on Unix ! I was in the market for a laptop computer and wanted a different platform to experiment with, my options at the time were Linux and Apple - I'm so glad I went for the Apple. Since making the move, I've discovered they simply work and thinking differently is a 'gooder' thing . My iBook is fantabulous, but I'm already looking forward to my next Mac - the Intel MacBook Pro !
Whichever OS owns the corporate space makes a lot of money but is screwed. Look at MS. If they did what they really wanted to do with Vista, corporate America would have none of it.
I'm not real sure Apple is so gung ho to get into that market...even if they could. Much easier to innovate and experiment at the Consumer level where it is expected. The corporate world fears change.
I'm not a switcher (Mac user my whole life), but I wonder to what extent the anti-Mac attitude of some PC users comes from hearing the anti-PC attitudes of so many Mac users...
It has very little to do with Mac user's attitude towards Windows if at all. The anti-Mac attitude was created by a very successful propaganda spread by special interest groups, read media who gets $$$$ from MS and ITs who make a living from "promoting" Windows. That's where it came from make no mistake about it.
This is what Apple is up against in gaining market share. It's for this reason that I do not understand why Apple isn't re-educating the public via TV ads. Without Apple out there doing TV ads few people see the Mac as a viable alternative. I just don't understand why Steve Jobs isn't doing an all out ad campaign about Mac OS X, iLife and all of Apple's software solutions. We see some ads for the hardware here and there, but what about the software? What's holding him back? That's what I would like to know.
I'm going to blow my cover here in the hopes that it contributes to the discussion. I'm not a switcher, an adder or a mac user at all. I've rarely even considered owning a mac. Yet I've visited this board for 5 years and I've lurked in the Battlefront forum on Ars nearly every day for years before that. I'm here because I have a 'vehement hatred' for Apple. I only speak up in threads where I can discredit some uber Apple supporter or make Microsoft/Linux/anybody look better. I'm here to troll, but I try to keep it factual and reasonable.
It wasn't always this way. I initially learned about Macs during a tech support job in high school where I had to support windows primarily and Macs on occasion. I thought they had some pretty nifty features and that Apple made a concerted effort to make things simple and easy to use. Then I met an Apple zealot. He was the kind of guy who will preach about Macs to anybody who will listen. He seems to view Apple as less of a company and more of an organization of geniuses that are here to betstow wonderful innovations on the unenlightened people of the world. He would take the superlative laden Apple marketing material literally. So, feeling defensive and offended at his attitude, I basically began consuming lots of information. I'd read all the new product announcements, watch keynotes, listen to Mac users gossip about Apples next move, read about the internals of OS9 (I was taking an OS architecture course around this time). I played with the Macs at the school labs and this zealot would let me play with his powerbook sometimes. What I've come to learn is that I think Apples products are sometimes quite good. What I've become somewhat obsessed with is the smug elitism that Apple and a subset of its users exhibit. I can't stand arrogance in general, and it seems to me that that is one of the hallmarks of the Apple culture. Certainly not everybody is like me. Some people I go to LAN parties with trash the Mac OS for uninformed or non-existent reasons. However, I don't think I'm alone here. I could go on at great length, but I'll stop.
So you are the victim of an Apple enthusiast who shoved the Mac ideology upon you!? How sad for you. Can't you think of a beter excuse then to blame others for what you believe in? Please!
I'm going to blow my cover here in the hopes that it contributes to the discussion. I'm not a switcher, an adder or a mac user at all. I've rarely even considered owning a mac. Yet I've visited this board for 5 years and I've lurked in the Battlefront forum on Ars nearly every day for years before that. I'm here because I have a 'vehement hatred' for Apple. I only speak up in threads where I can discredit some uber Apple supporter or make Microsoft/Linux/anybody look better. I'm here to troll, but I try to keep it factual and reasonable.
It wasn't always this way. I initially learned about Macs during a tech support job in high school where I had to support windows primarily and Macs on occasion. I thought they had some pretty nifty features and that Apple made a concerted effort to make things simple and easy to use. Then I met an Apple zealot. He was the kind of guy who will preach about Macs to anybody who will listen. He seems to view Apple as less of a company and more of an organization of geniuses that are here to betstow wonderful innovations on the unenlightened people of the world. He would take the superlative laden Apple marketing material literally. So, feeling defensive and offended at his attitude, I basically began consuming lots of information. I'd read all the new product announcements, watch keynotes, listen to Mac users gossip about Apples next move, read about the internals of OS9 (I was taking an OS architecture course around this time). I played with the Macs at the school labs and this zealot would let me play with his powerbook sometimes. What I've come to learn is that I think Apples products are sometimes quite good. What I've become somewhat obsessed with is the smug elitism that Apple and a subset of its users exhibit. I can't stand arrogance in general, and it seems to me that that is one of the hallmarks of the Apple culture. Certainly not everybody is like me. Some people I go to LAN parties with trash the Mac OS for uninformed or non-existent reasons. However, I don't think I'm alone here. I could go on at great length, but I'll stop.
Well, friend, I hate to break it to you, but:
If you did all that work to steep yourself in Apple, its products and its culture, and now spend time hanging out on an Apple discussion forum the better to spot the "smug elitism" and "arrogance" that you have come to believe characterizes the company and some of its users, and which you cannot stand, (and all of which being the consequence of happening to know a single Apple user who struck you as overbearing), you are, in a word, nuts.
... I've rarely even considered owning a mac. Yet I've visited this board for 5 years and I've lurked in the Battlefront forum on Ars nearly every day for years before that. I'm here because I have a 'vehement hatred' for Apple...
Not nuts, but you do need a hobby.
Seriously, that sort of obsessive behaviour can't be healthy for anyone.
In reply to your point, I don't think people hate macs because of the zealots. They just make them hate macs more.
"Mac-hating" is basically a form of computer-racism. People are prejudiced and scared of things they don't know and recognice.
So you are the victim of an Apple enthusiast who shoved the Mac ideology upon you!? How sad for you. Can't you think of a beter excuse then to blame others for what you believe in? Please!
Taking a position that is opposed to someone else's exhuberance is a sad place to be. It's like you have the responsibility of balancing cosmic scales-- negating some guy's over-exhuberance. How about being FOR something positive, instead of taking a stand against something? Five years. Wow.
I had a friend years past who took the "anti" position on many things, too. He said he was happy, but when I would listen to him talk, he was always quick to point out how every silver lining has a cloud. Negative to the core. Not a healthy place to be. A person can spend a lifetime from that position without realizing how much they're missing out on.
Anti-Apple maybe, but anti-OSX remains to be seen. The reliability of the OS and multi-tasking abilities would be an asset to a corporattion. Unfortunately, it's not cool enough for Steve.
The total cost of ownership for macs is half that of pcs, according to a recent study. I used to think macs had no chance in corporate america but perhaps they do. Success can spoil one and perhaps MS will misstep with vista and Apple will have an opening to exploit.
I was discussing this on a separate thread and decided to start a new one specifically for it. I've heard from so many PC users who have never touched a mac how bad macs are and that they're useless as computer, many of those same PC users are now Mac users after having first used a Mac. I want to know, why? Why is there such a vehement hatred for the Macintosh by those that have never used it? What did you think of macs before trying them and why?
Remember a whole bunch of people formed opinions based upon University or other experience of Macs, when they were forced to use them, and that this was a while ago. And those opinions tend to be widely spread, from those who touched them to those who didn't.
I didn't get a Mac until '03 (I think, whenever Jaguar came out, anyway), and was then very careful. My experience in the nineties of Mac OS (System 6 and 7) didn't impress me much. It was unreliable. The one-mouse button thing was annoying. I had an Amiga at the same time, and the Amiga made for a much more enjoyable experience. When Windows 95 came out, I knew it was already better than Mac OS, even if I wasn't as comfortable in it as I was in AmigaOS, and it was obvious Mac OS simply was never going to step ahead, not unless it was completely redesigned.
What I did do, however, was keep an open mind and kept my eyes open. It was clear in 1999 that Mac OS X was going to be something else, something utterly unlike what I rejected in the nineties. By 2001, I was looking at the Cube, and going "If only they'd get OS X out". I was considering Mac OS X Server at the time (which was available first, but expensive), but the price of that plus the over-priced nature of the Cube as was made me cautious. Finally, once Jaguar came out, and Ars had a good review of it (good in both senses, good in the sense that it was a quality Ars review, and good in that they were giving Jaguar a cautious thumbs up), I grabbed a Beige G3 Tower from eBay and bought OS X.
What a weekend that was. The Tower arrived, sans keyboard or mouse, on Tuesday. On Saturday OS X arrived. I equipped the Beige G3 with a USB card and bigger HD, and thought - at that point - that I'd still have to wait for an ADB keyboard to arrive the following week at least for the install. To my surprise, it booted off the Jaguar CD and recognized my USB keyboard and mouse without any problems. By the evening, despite the slowness of the UI on that hardware, I was loving it and working out what my next Mac would be.
But I'm a computer enthusiast so I kept up with the news, and the notion of a good, Mac-inspired, GUI on *ix struck me as exciting, as it did pretty much all the other genuine computer enthusiasts in the office. Most people weren't keeping up, and were not aware of OS X. And, to be honest, many still aren't. The real problem is that Mac OS 9 survived so long. It damaged the reputation of the Mac.
The total cost of ownership for macs is half that of pcs, according to a recent study. I used to think macs had no chance in corporate america but perhaps they do. Success can spoil one and perhaps MS will misstep with vista and Apple will have an opening to exploit.
yo, do you happen to have a link to that study. that'd be very helpful because i have some people (i.e. parents and sister) i need to convince to switch. they are like test cases for why people should use apple instead of windows.
I think that from a shiney user interface/perception angle Windows really had a percieved something over Macs before OS X. My old college roomate had a computer with classic and told me it was so much easier etc etc and I was just like...whatever. your machine is old and looks like the Apple IIe I used to play KIngs Quest on when I was a kid. It didn't go much beyond that.
Also for years I had PC laptops with extended warranties which resulted in basically several free upgrades. I got a new laptop for law school and after the 3 years I was so pissed of with Windows totally losing major chunks of my life, and the computers CD drive breaking, AC adaptor plug breaking, etc. etc. that I'd had it.
It didn't help my rage that my girlfriends old laptop had died a slow painful death and she switched. So then I was still doing battle with Windows and she (who is very technology averse) was cruising along with no problems, things that worked, built in wireless, long battery life, etc. etc. etc. on her ibook.
It was really just a matter of the Tiger release date after that.
yo, do you happen to have a link to that study. that'd be very helpful because i have some people (i.e. parents and sister) i need to convince to switch. they are like test cases for why people should use apple instead of windows.
I think a lot of people (wrongly) think that a Mac is going to function so much differently from a PC that they'd never want to go through that hassle. Yes, there are differences, as my parents so painfully found when they switched a few years back (around the time of the 800Mhz G3 iBook). It was a little rough for them, but they stuck it through and now love their Macs. Every now and then they have network, printing, or file sharing issues, but those problems are much more easily resolved than they would be otherwise (on a PC).
I really think that Apple needs to really promote how easy it is to get really cool stuff done on a Mac. They should run ads about the iLife suite, and how you can make a REALLY cool movie and DVD in no time. An ad about iPhoto could tie into the photo features of the iPod. An ad about Garageband, iWeb, and .Mac could show how easy it is to do a regular podcast.
Consumers already know how well iTunes/iPods work. They need to be informed about how well Apple's other software works...on a Mac. Forget these ads about using the Intel chips in a Mac, because nobody cares except for the speed factor.
I think a lot of people (wrongly) think that a Mac is going to function so much differently from a PC that they'd never want to go through that hassle. Yes, there are differences, as my parents so painfully found when they switched a few years back (around the time of the 800Mhz G3 iBook). It was a little rough for them, but they stuck it through and now love their Macs. Every now and then they have network, printing, or file sharing issues, but those problems are much more easily resolved than they would be otherwise (on a PC).
I really think that Apple needs to really promote how easy it is to get really cool stuff done on a Mac. They should run ads about the iLife suite, and how you can make a REALLY cool movie and DVD in no time. An ad about iPhoto could tie into the photo features of the iPod. An ad about Garageband, iWeb, and .Mac could show how easy it is to do a regular podcast.
Consumers already know how well iTunes/iPods work. They need to be informed about how well Apple's other software works...on a Mac. Forget these ads about using the Intel chips in a Mac, because nobody cares except for the speed factor.
Agree completely.
After all, as we keep telling each other, Apple's real strength lies in making the "whole widget". That is, it's the integrated experience, more than any one thing.
So why doesn't Apple flaunt that in their ads? Look, I'm using iPhoto and iTunes to add stills and videos to my iMovie, which I burn using iDVD! I made a song in Garage Band, that is now in my iTunes library where I can use it as a background for the slide show of my vacation pics that I use as a desktop!
All things possible on a PC, but not with the seamless integration. That should be the marketing message, the thing that the PC cannot replicate:
What I've become somewhat obsessed with is the smug elitism that Apple and a subset of its users exhibit. I can't stand arrogance in general, and it seems to me that that is one of the hallmarks of the Apple culture.
OK, if you can't stand arrogance, then the very very LAST thing you should get close to is anything touched by Bill Gates.
The reason that Apple users are so enthusiastic and defensive is that
1. Apple started the desktop computer revolution.
2. Bill Gates used unethical and illegal tactics to take over the desktop by force, and forced Apple to hand over OS 8 by threatening to kill Excel and Word.
3. Bill Gates forced Dell, Gateway, etc to pay him for each CPU built, whether it had DOS and Windows on it or not.
4. Bill Gates pretended to collaborate with IBM on OS/2 and then pulled the rug out from under them.
5. Bill Gates killed Netscape by tying IE to Windows, and forbidding Dell, Gateway, etc. to put Netscape on the desktop.
Apple users suffered for TWENTY YEARS the scorn and ridicule of every IT department, every third-party app developer, every purchasing department, every real-estate listing software, you name it. And all because Gates illegally forced PC makers to install his archaic DOS and his extorted-from-Apple Windows. All of these people wanted to know why we couldn't just use an "industry standard" computer. Hell, when an app would be advertised it wouldn't even say what OS it was written for - Windows was just assumed. Elementary school boards started going with the cheap-as-hell Dell towers, even though the tech support for them cost a fortune. Guess who recommended the Dell towers? You guessed it - the tech support.
So when Apple users get defensive, there is a damn good reason for it. Apple started it all and still to this day is Microsoft's R&D division. Microsoft couldn't design anything unless it was a copy of something Apple already did. To hell with them and their illegal and unethical ways. We're damn mad and if it bothers you, try figuring out why that might be.
i believe it's a mix between microsoft's brain-washing and apple's marketing of it's OSX. I switched just a year ago and before that i had absolutely no idea about mac's besides using them at school and remember the OS 9 GUI (which, to the average user seems behind compared to the windows GUI). Where as windows is just everywhere. You'll always hear things about the windows system or it's 3rd party programs/games. Where as for the mac, you'll hardly hear anything. I think apple really should display the mac os to the public alot more often. When people don't know anything about the OS they go think about the hardware. And mac's hardware (for it's price) is not top notch compared with what people can put together for the same price these days.
Comments
I'm not real sure Apple is so gung ho to get into that market...even if they could. Much easier to innovate and experiment at the Consumer level where it is expected. The corporate world fears change.
Originally posted by BRussell
I'm not a switcher (Mac user my whole life), but I wonder to what extent the anti-Mac attitude of some PC users comes from hearing the anti-PC attitudes of so many Mac users...
It has very little to do with Mac user's attitude towards Windows if at all. The anti-Mac attitude was created by a very successful propaganda spread by special interest groups, read media who gets $$$$ from MS and ITs who make a living from "promoting" Windows. That's where it came from make no mistake about it.
This is what Apple is up against in gaining market share. It's for this reason that I do not understand why Apple isn't re-educating the public via TV ads. Without Apple out there doing TV ads few people see the Mac as a viable alternative. I just don't understand why Steve Jobs isn't doing an all out ad campaign about Mac OS X, iLife and all of Apple's software solutions. We see some ads for the hardware here and there, but what about the software? What's holding him back? That's what I would like to know.
It wasn't always this way. I initially learned about Macs during a tech support job in high school where I had to support windows primarily and Macs on occasion. I thought they had some pretty nifty features and that Apple made a concerted effort to make things simple and easy to use. Then I met an Apple zealot. He was the kind of guy who will preach about Macs to anybody who will listen. He seems to view Apple as less of a company and more of an organization of geniuses that are here to betstow wonderful innovations on the unenlightened people of the world. He would take the superlative laden Apple marketing material literally. So, feeling defensive and offended at his attitude, I basically began consuming lots of information. I'd read all the new product announcements, watch keynotes, listen to Mac users gossip about Apples next move, read about the internals of OS9 (I was taking an OS architecture course around this time). I played with the Macs at the school labs and this zealot would let me play with his powerbook sometimes. What I've come to learn is that I think Apples products are sometimes quite good. What I've become somewhat obsessed with is the smug elitism that Apple and a subset of its users exhibit. I can't stand arrogance in general, and it seems to me that that is one of the hallmarks of the Apple culture. Certainly not everybody is like me. Some people I go to LAN parties with trash the Mac OS for uninformed or non-existent reasons. However, I don't think I'm alone here. I could go on at great length, but I'll stop.
Originally posted by xmoger
I'm going to blow my cover here in the hopes that it contributes to the discussion. I'm not a switcher, an adder or a mac user at all. I've rarely even considered owning a mac. Yet I've visited this board for 5 years and I've lurked in the Battlefront forum on Ars nearly every day for years before that. I'm here because I have a 'vehement hatred' for Apple. I only speak up in threads where I can discredit some uber Apple supporter or make Microsoft/Linux/anybody look better. I'm here to troll, but I try to keep it factual and reasonable.
It wasn't always this way. I initially learned about Macs during a tech support job in high school where I had to support windows primarily and Macs on occasion. I thought they had some pretty nifty features and that Apple made a concerted effort to make things simple and easy to use. Then I met an Apple zealot. He was the kind of guy who will preach about Macs to anybody who will listen. He seems to view Apple as less of a company and more of an organization of geniuses that are here to betstow wonderful innovations on the unenlightened people of the world. He would take the superlative laden Apple marketing material literally. So, feeling defensive and offended at his attitude, I basically began consuming lots of information. I'd read all the new product announcements, watch keynotes, listen to Mac users gossip about Apples next move, read about the internals of OS9 (I was taking an OS architecture course around this time). I played with the Macs at the school labs and this zealot would let me play with his powerbook sometimes. What I've come to learn is that I think Apples products are sometimes quite good. What I've become somewhat obsessed with is the smug elitism that Apple and a subset of its users exhibit. I can't stand arrogance in general, and it seems to me that that is one of the hallmarks of the Apple culture. Certainly not everybody is like me. Some people I go to LAN parties with trash the Mac OS for uninformed or non-existent reasons. However, I don't think I'm alone here. I could go on at great length, but I'll stop.
Well, friend, I hate to break it to you, but:
If you did all that work to steep yourself in Apple, its products and its culture, and now spend time hanging out on an Apple discussion forum the better to spot the "smug elitism" and "arrogance" that you have come to believe characterizes the company and some of its users, and which you cannot stand, (and all of which being the consequence of happening to know a single Apple user who struck you as overbearing), you are, in a word, nuts.
Originally posted by xmoger
... I've rarely even considered owning a mac. Yet I've visited this board for 5 years and I've lurked in the Battlefront forum on Ars nearly every day for years before that. I'm here because I have a 'vehement hatred' for Apple...
Not nuts, but you do need a hobby.
Seriously, that sort of obsessive behaviour can't be healthy for anyone.
In reply to your point, I don't think people hate macs because of the zealots. They just make them hate macs more.
"Mac-hating" is basically a form of computer-racism. People are prejudiced and scared of things they don't know and recognice.
Originally posted by iPeon
So you are the victim of an Apple enthusiast who shoved the Mac ideology upon you!? How sad for you. Can't you think of a beter excuse then to blame others for what you believe in? Please!
Taking a position that is opposed to someone else's exhuberance is a sad place to be. It's like you have the responsibility of balancing cosmic scales-- negating some guy's over-exhuberance. How about being FOR something positive, instead of taking a stand against something? Five years. Wow.
I had a friend years past who took the "anti" position on many things, too. He said he was happy, but when I would listen to him talk, he was always quick to point out how every silver lining has a cloud. Negative to the core. Not a healthy place to be. A person can spend a lifetime from that position without realizing how much they're missing out on.
Originally posted by BenRoethig
Anti-Apple maybe, but anti-OSX remains to be seen. The reliability of the OS and multi-tasking abilities would be an asset to a corporattion. Unfortunately, it's not cool enough for Steve.
The total cost of ownership for macs is half that of pcs, according to a recent study. I used to think macs had no chance in corporate america but perhaps they do. Success can spoil one and perhaps MS will misstep with vista and Apple will have an opening to exploit.
Originally posted by akheron01
I was discussing this on a separate thread and decided to start a new one specifically for it. I've heard from so many PC users who have never touched a mac how bad macs are and that they're useless as computer, many of those same PC users are now Mac users after having first used a Mac. I want to know, why? Why is there such a vehement hatred for the Macintosh by those that have never used it? What did you think of macs before trying them and why?
Remember a whole bunch of people formed opinions based upon University or other experience of Macs, when they were forced to use them, and that this was a while ago. And those opinions tend to be widely spread, from those who touched them to those who didn't.
I didn't get a Mac until '03 (I think, whenever Jaguar came out, anyway), and was then very careful. My experience in the nineties of Mac OS (System 6 and 7) didn't impress me much. It was unreliable. The one-mouse button thing was annoying. I had an Amiga at the same time, and the Amiga made for a much more enjoyable experience. When Windows 95 came out, I knew it was already better than Mac OS, even if I wasn't as comfortable in it as I was in AmigaOS, and it was obvious Mac OS simply was never going to step ahead, not unless it was completely redesigned.
What I did do, however, was keep an open mind and kept my eyes open. It was clear in 1999 that Mac OS X was going to be something else, something utterly unlike what I rejected in the nineties. By 2001, I was looking at the Cube, and going "If only they'd get OS X out". I was considering Mac OS X Server at the time (which was available first, but expensive), but the price of that plus the over-priced nature of the Cube as was made me cautious. Finally, once Jaguar came out, and Ars had a good review of it (good in both senses, good in the sense that it was a quality Ars review, and good in that they were giving Jaguar a cautious thumbs up), I grabbed a Beige G3 Tower from eBay and bought OS X.
What a weekend that was. The Tower arrived, sans keyboard or mouse, on Tuesday. On Saturday OS X arrived. I equipped the Beige G3 with a USB card and bigger HD, and thought - at that point - that I'd still have to wait for an ADB keyboard to arrive the following week at least for the install. To my surprise, it booted off the Jaguar CD and recognized my USB keyboard and mouse without any problems. By the evening, despite the slowness of the UI on that hardware, I was loving it and working out what my next Mac would be.
But I'm a computer enthusiast so I kept up with the news, and the notion of a good, Mac-inspired, GUI on *ix struck me as exciting, as it did pretty much all the other genuine computer enthusiasts in the office. Most people weren't keeping up, and were not aware of OS X. And, to be honest, many still aren't. The real problem is that Mac OS 9 survived so long. It damaged the reputation of the Mac.
Originally posted by backtomac
The total cost of ownership for macs is half that of pcs, according to a recent study. I used to think macs had no chance in corporate america but perhaps they do. Success can spoil one and perhaps MS will misstep with vista and Apple will have an opening to exploit.
yo, do you happen to have a link to that study. that'd be very helpful because i have some people (i.e. parents and sister) i need to convince to switch. they are like test cases for why people should use apple instead of windows.
I think that from a shiney user interface/perception angle Windows really had a percieved something over Macs before OS X. My old college roomate had a computer with classic and told me it was so much easier etc etc and I was just like...whatever. your machine is old and looks like the Apple IIe I used to play KIngs Quest on when I was a kid. It didn't go much beyond that.
Also for years I had PC laptops with extended warranties which resulted in basically several free upgrades. I got a new laptop for law school and after the 3 years I was so pissed of with Windows totally losing major chunks of my life, and the computers CD drive breaking, AC adaptor plug breaking, etc. etc. that I'd had it.
It didn't help my rage that my girlfriends old laptop had died a slow painful death and she switched. So then I was still doing battle with Windows and she (who is very technology averse) was cruising along with no problems, things that worked, built in wireless, long battery life, etc. etc. etc. on her ibook.
It was really just a matter of the Tiger release date after that.
in short: perception versus reality.
Originally posted by icibaqu
yo, do you happen to have a link to that study. that'd be very helpful because i have some people (i.e. parents and sister) i need to convince to switch. they are like test cases for why people should use apple instead of windows.
Link to tco study below:
http://www.networkworld.com/best/200...schwartau.html
I really think that Apple needs to really promote how easy it is to get really cool stuff done on a Mac. They should run ads about the iLife suite, and how you can make a REALLY cool movie and DVD in no time. An ad about iPhoto could tie into the photo features of the iPod. An ad about Garageband, iWeb, and .Mac could show how easy it is to do a regular podcast.
Consumers already know how well iTunes/iPods work. They need to be informed about how well Apple's other software works...on a Mac. Forget these ads about using the Intel chips in a Mac, because nobody cares except for the speed factor.
Originally posted by CosmoNut
I think a lot of people (wrongly) think that a Mac is going to function so much differently from a PC that they'd never want to go through that hassle. Yes, there are differences, as my parents so painfully found when they switched a few years back (around the time of the 800Mhz G3 iBook). It was a little rough for them, but they stuck it through and now love their Macs. Every now and then they have network, printing, or file sharing issues, but those problems are much more easily resolved than they would be otherwise (on a PC).
I really think that Apple needs to really promote how easy it is to get really cool stuff done on a Mac. They should run ads about the iLife suite, and how you can make a REALLY cool movie and DVD in no time. An ad about iPhoto could tie into the photo features of the iPod. An ad about Garageband, iWeb, and .Mac could show how easy it is to do a regular podcast.
Consumers already know how well iTunes/iPods work. They need to be informed about how well Apple's other software works...on a Mac. Forget these ads about using the Intel chips in a Mac, because nobody cares except for the speed factor.
Agree completely.
After all, as we keep telling each other, Apple's real strength lies in making the "whole widget". That is, it's the integrated experience, more than any one thing.
So why doesn't Apple flaunt that in their ads? Look, I'm using iPhoto and iTunes to add stills and videos to my iMovie, which I burn using iDVD! I made a song in Garage Band, that is now in my iTunes library where I can use it as a background for the slide show of my vacation pics that I use as a desktop!
All things possible on a PC, but not with the seamless integration. That should be the marketing message, the thing that the PC cannot replicate:
seamless integration seamless integration seamless integration.
What I've become somewhat obsessed with is the smug elitism that Apple and a subset of its users exhibit. I can't stand arrogance in general, and it seems to me that that is one of the hallmarks of the Apple culture.
OK, if you can't stand arrogance, then the very very LAST thing you should get close to is anything touched by Bill Gates.
The reason that Apple users are so enthusiastic and defensive is that
1. Apple started the desktop computer revolution.
2. Bill Gates used unethical and illegal tactics to take over the desktop by force, and forced Apple to hand over OS 8 by threatening to kill Excel and Word.
3. Bill Gates forced Dell, Gateway, etc to pay him for each CPU built, whether it had DOS and Windows on it or not.
4. Bill Gates pretended to collaborate with IBM on OS/2 and then pulled the rug out from under them.
5. Bill Gates killed Netscape by tying IE to Windows, and forbidding Dell, Gateway, etc. to put Netscape on the desktop.
Apple users suffered for TWENTY YEARS the scorn and ridicule of every IT department, every third-party app developer, every purchasing department, every real-estate listing software, you name it. And all because Gates illegally forced PC makers to install his archaic DOS and his extorted-from-Apple Windows. All of these people wanted to know why we couldn't just use an "industry standard" computer. Hell, when an app would be advertised it wouldn't even say what OS it was written for - Windows was just assumed. Elementary school boards started going with the cheap-as-hell Dell towers, even though the tech support for them cost a fortune. Guess who recommended the Dell towers? You guessed it - the tech support.
So when Apple users get defensive, there is a damn good reason for it. Apple started it all and still to this day is Microsoft's R&D division. Microsoft couldn't design anything unless it was a copy of something Apple already did. To hell with them and their illegal and unethical ways. We're damn mad and if it bothers you, try figuring out why that might be.
1. OS9 sucked so badly that it's what many PC users have in their minds, and they haven't seen OS X.
2. Some Mac users are really kind of weird.