A reason I could understand someone choosing a Windows PC over a Mac!
Not games mind you, sure the lack of Mac compatibility does bother hardcore gamers, but I think a regular PC gamer would be quite happy booting into Bootcamp to play games on their Mac, even if it did require them to purchase or borrow XP or Vista.
No, a genuine reason I could understand someone preferring a Windows PC to a Mac are printers, or more accurately printer drivers. Finding a half decent Mac compatible color laserjet printer is not as easy as you might think. I have nearly gone off my tits with trouble with this issue over the past week. Finally I found the HP Color Laserjet 2600n, which is €80 more expensive than HP's other printer, the 1600. The only difference between the two besides the price, being the 2600n is network ready, yet the 1600 is not Mac compatible, HP has Vista drivers for it (64bit & 32bit), but no OS X drivers. No Dell printers of any shape or form are Mac compatible. Sure there are understandable reasons for this, but they are useless to someone who just wants to print.
And please, let's not even talk of coherence mode in Parallels, that's not a solution to someone who just wants to plug in their printer and print (which is everybody IMO), and besides Parallels would cost extra time, effort and money to install. Most non-techie Mac users (my sister) don't even know what Parallels is.
Long story short, I didn't need a network ready printer, but I had to get one cause it was the only decent quality budget color laser printer that was compatible with my computer. The same situation would have cost a PC user a lot less time, frustration and €80 less money too.
(There's other reasons too why someone would choose a PC, I'm sure some of you will speak of them.)
Having Mac OS X drivers available for all printers is not a simple matter, and it's not directly Apple's fault either, but all that's irrelevant when an ex-PC users knows if it was a PC, it would "Just work®" Apple really needs to get the boot under HP and all these other printer manufacture's arses, and tell them any printer you make from here on out must be Mac compatible. In the end it just reflects bad on Apple and provides another reason for someone not to switch, it's a very serious matter which needs some aggressive action.
No, a genuine reason I could understand someone preferring a Windows PC to a Mac are printers, or more accurately printer drivers. Finding a half decent Mac compatible color laserjet printer is not as easy as you might think. I have nearly gone off my tits with trouble with this issue over the past week. Finally I found the HP Color Laserjet 2600n, which is €80 more expensive than HP's other printer, the 1600. The only difference between the two besides the price, being the 2600n is network ready, yet the 1600 is not Mac compatible, HP has Vista drivers for it (64bit & 32bit), but no OS X drivers. No Dell printers of any shape or form are Mac compatible. Sure there are understandable reasons for this, but they are useless to someone who just wants to print.
And please, let's not even talk of coherence mode in Parallels, that's not a solution to someone who just wants to plug in their printer and print (which is everybody IMO), and besides Parallels would cost extra time, effort and money to install. Most non-techie Mac users (my sister) don't even know what Parallels is.
Long story short, I didn't need a network ready printer, but I had to get one cause it was the only decent quality budget color laser printer that was compatible with my computer. The same situation would have cost a PC user a lot less time, frustration and €80 less money too.
(There's other reasons too why someone would choose a PC, I'm sure some of you will speak of them.)
Having Mac OS X drivers available for all printers is not a simple matter, and it's not directly Apple's fault either, but all that's irrelevant when an ex-PC users knows if it was a PC, it would "Just work®" Apple really needs to get the boot under HP and all these other printer manufacture's arses, and tell them any printer you make from here on out must be Mac compatible. In the end it just reflects bad on Apple and provides another reason for someone not to switch, it's a very serious matter which needs some aggressive action.
Comments
Yes, the LaserJet 1600, 1018 and 1020 are Windows only. But there are 180 other HP printers that work with the Mac...
There's not 180 HP Color laserjet printers that work with Mac though. This is the usual response to such a concern here. You can deny this if you want, but the issue still remains.
Parallels is not a good enough solution so it's going to have to go back. I feel the same about this, people often ask me why do I use Macs and these days I can't give them an answer that really satisfies them.
I can say, well it's a unix based system but to them that means nothing.
If I say it's more stable, they say XP hasn't crashed once for them and my experience with XP has been the same, though I don't use it nearly as much as OS X. I've actually had more kernel panics than blue screens.
If I say it has no viruses, they say they've never had a virus in Windows.
I don't even bother saying it just works because with less driver support for peripherals like printers, GPUs and webcams, it clearly doesn't.
If I say they're not too expensive any more, they can still come back with a deal for a cheaper PC with more upgrade options.
Then there's the fact PCs can be repaired much more easily, again more cheaply and quickly due to the huge amount of repair centers and cheap parts.
Now, I know why I like Macs and one reason out of a dwindling amount is that OS X is the only unix based system that I find I can use as a proper desktop system. But as I say for the majority of people, they don't really care about that. They want cheap hardware that works and can be cheaply upgraded and they want good software options. A Windows PC still offers the best solution. Of course Macs being able to boot Windows eases the problem as you have it as a backup but when you run Windows, it's not any different from having a PC and running Windows.
I think as time goes on, although Macs seem to be getting more support and recognition, people are seeing that it's really the software and hardware support that's important. The OS is largely transparent.
With windows having 95% (or whatever) of the market share you can expect better hardware support for windows and not a few pieces tailored specifically for it. I'm not sure what your point would be other than the dominant OS has nearly total hardware support while everyone else does not. Want hardware support suckage? I have Solaris X86 on one of my boxes.
The reasons for me to use a MBP rather than a Dell are Keynote and iLife, I can run OSX and not linux and I can still be a .NET developer.
As far as viruses goes...heh, I was bringing my laptop to a meeting and they asked that we all turn on our laptops and show that we had up to date virus files before they'd let us on their network. I belatedly realized that mine were like 6 months out of date (I've been bootcamped a lot and never sync'd) but the IT guy just said "Oh, its a mac, just go ahead".
Vinea
1. Lower end user who doesn't want to spend the extra cash.
2. Higher end desktop (not laptop on a stick) user who is below the workstation price and capability range.
2A. DTR/ mobile workstation user who needs more even power than the thin and light MBP can offer.
3. You really don't want to continuously listen to the fanboys preach at you.
http://www.flicklife.com/98ac1240cb2...l_Support.html
Would you want this person to be a Mac user?
http://www.flicklife.com/98ac1240cb2...l_Support.html
Priceless! Worthy of a Cleo maybe even an Emmy.
Would you want this person to be a Mac user?
http://www.flicklife.com/98ac1240cb2...l_Support.html
Why didn't he tell him? He could have easily said at the very start; "it's very easy to shut it down, if you calm down I will tell you". The guys is an asshole, but that customer service still sucks.
He said, "Probably, but I have to fill out this form for a reported robbery before I can do anything." I just walked away and he just sat there.
Too damned much paperwork in this world.
One night I drove past a parking lot and saw three men breaking into a car. One block later, I saw a parked police car, stopped and told the cop what I just saw. He asked my name, I told him, and he asked my address, phone number, etc. I said, "Don't you think you ought to go stop them? By the time you get all my info, those guys will have robbed the car or stolen it."
He said, "Probably, but I have to fill out this form for a reported robbery before I can do anything." I just walked away and he just sat there.
Too damned much paperwork in this world.
Wow! In their defence, police have a very tough job, but damn that sucks. That type of a situation could cause good people like you not to report any such matter again.
Why didn't he tell him? He could have easily said at the very start; "it's very easy to shut it down, if you calm down I will tell you". The guys is an asshole, but that customer service still sucks.
I am not a CS rep; I'm a salesman. My wife is CS. The Dell rep actually did a very good job on that call. Unless you have done this type of work, you have no idea of the damage this type of constant abuse can do to you. It is a wonder the rep was able to complete the call.
I also do not blame the caller. I have been on the receiving end of trying to deal with companies who send you through multiple voice prompts hoping that you just go away. No matter what anyone tells you, ALL companies despise CS. It loses money for the company everytime a CS rep picks up the phone. Most companies will do almost anything to keep a caller from actually talking to a rep. It is possible to be on the phone for over an hour before you can get to a person. You have fed all of your info to a computer several times, gotten booted out of the cue, and by the time you get a person on the line, the process starts all over. It is difficult not to rip into someone by that time.
The culprit, in this case, is Dell, the corporate entity. And Dell is not alone. Companies are much more interested in protecting their bottom line than serving people. They need to make sure they are not giving support to someone who didn't actually pay for that level of service. Service is expensive. If the terms of service had run out, Dell would have been justified in ending the call with a curt "Tough luck!" A more people centric approach would be to just solve the problem as it would have only required ten seconds, apologize to the person for the inconvenience, then get the relevant info. The rep, however, does not have the freedom to just do the right thing. He has to follow procedure or lose his $10 an hour job. He actually managed to do it, and solve the problem. I hope he took a nice long break after that call.