The official "Stuff You Can't Do On The Mac" thread

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
In case you're wondering, this is a rant. I have no agenda accept to vent my frustration. Venting is therapeutic at times.



I am not a gamer by the modern definition of the word. I do not play FPS or RPG type games. Still, I absolutely love certain types of games. I am a huge board and card game fan. Sierra puts out an outstanding Hoyle series. There seems to be no equivalent on the Mac platform. Where are the great chess games for the Mac?



On another note, why is speech recognition so far behind on the Mac compared to PCs? I could go on and probably will if this thread lasts for a while. I love the Mac but hate the limitations.



RANT! RANT! RANT!
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mac Voyer

    Where are the great chess games for the Mac?



    I sometimes play Sigma chess and I think that it is pretty good. I read somewhere that there were better chess games for Mac OS X, so looking around might turn up something. By the way, having a look at VersionTracker wouldn't hurt. Just do a search for the word "chess" and you'll be surprised.
  • Reply 2 of 56
    iposteriposter Posts: 1,560member
    Two words:



    Big Bang!



    I haven't beaten the chess game yet, though I am certainly no chess master...
  • Reply 3 of 56
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Get a virus.
  • Reply 4 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mac Voyer

    In case you're wondering, this is a rant. I have no agenda accept to vent my frustration. Venting is therapeutic at times.



    I am not a gamer by the modern definition of the word. I do not play FPS or RPG type games. Still, I absolutely love certain types of games. I am a huge board and card game fan. Sierra puts out an outstanding Hoyle series. There seems to be no equivalent on the Mac platform. Where are the great chess games for the Mac?



    On another note, why is speech recognition so far behind on the Mac compared to PCs? I could go on and probably will if this thread lasts for a while. I love the Mac but hate the limitations.



    RANT! RANT! RANT!




    speech recognition is supposed to be overhauled with Tiger. and if you dont like mac's then get a freakin pc.
  • Reply 5 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ipodandimac

    speech recognition is supposed to be overhauled with Tiger. and if you dont like mac's then get a freakin pc.



    wow...he is just saying there are limitations to mac, and its true. He also explains he does love his mac. So why do people always have to get offensive and try to start something with stupid comments.



    I would never buy a PC. At times I wish I had a couple things PC's have, yet I know if I had a PC I would always want a lot of things Macs have.
  • Reply 6 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Chikara

    wow...he is just saying there are limitations to mac, and its true. He also explains he does love his mac. So why do people always have to get offensive and try to start something with stupid comments.



    I would never buy a PC. At times I wish I had a couple things PC's have, yet I know if I had a PC I would always want a lot of things Macs have.




    Seconded. I love my Mac as well, but there are some things that I wish I could just get, I hate going to sites that have new software out that looks promising, and would suit my needs, but then find out it is only for the PC. I run into this daily, and it is a shame, it is nothing against the Mac or Apple, just a frustrating situation at times.



    Let him rant, we all do.
  • Reply 7 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Chikara

    wow...he is just saying there are limitations to mac, and its true. He also explains he does love his mac. So why do people always have to get offensive and try to start something with stupid comments.



    I would never buy a PC. At times I wish I had a couple things PC's have, yet I know if I had a PC I would always want a lot of things Macs have.




    i wasnt trying to be stupid. i totally agree that there are limitations with macs, but most of my limitations are things that wont be fixed for another 5 years when software designers start thinking outside the box.



    but anyways, my point was that there's really no need to rant about mac troubles. he could have just said "hey, wouldnt it be nice if mac's has this or this..." instead of "RANT RANT RANT." furthermore, he should be ranting about software developers, not apple. apple cant help it that companies wont port games.
  • Reply 8 of 56
    he was not being that SERIOUS anti mac, or anything of the sort...at least thats what it seemed like to me.



    I took his "RANT RANT RANT" as more of a joke. He was trynna start a thread to give people a place to rant, I guess it backfired.
  • Reply 9 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ipodandimac

    ...but anyways, my point was that there's really no need to rant about mac troubles. he could have just said "hey, wouldnt it be nice if mac's has this or this..." instead of "RANT RANT RANT." furthermore, he should be ranting about software developers, not apple. apple cant help it that companies wont port games.



    Hey buddy, you're reading way too much into this thread. A good rant is like a good pity party. You should try it every once in a while. Also, I did not indicate that it was Apple's fault. Certainly, some of Apple's woes are self inflicted, but not this one. It is just the natural result of maintaining an insignificant market share. Even so, when I was a PC only person, I loved to walk into the software stores and buy the latest board game or card game program. There is nothing on the Mac like Virtual Pool. I have owned almost every incarnation of Dragon NaturallySpeaking and a few versions of IBM ViaVoice, not to mention Voice Express. I love a lot of the little programs for Windows. That is largely why I own VPC. I have a cheap PC that is on its last leg. It is seven years old by now and my wife mostly uses it because that is what she is familiar with. Still, I wouldn't give up the Mac platform because of these shortcomings. It is just frustrating when I occasionally cruise the software sections of stores and find just what I am looking for.. accept it is PC only. So lighten up.



    By the way, how's CAD on the Mac these days? Street mapping software? GPS systems that work with Mac laptops? I'm sure that if I looked real hard, I could find these things for the Mac. Sometimes, I just want to walk into the store and pick something up off the shelf that catches my eye and not feel like a second class citizen because it does not work with my platform of choice.
  • Reply 10 of 56
    costiquecostique Posts: 1,084member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Chikara

    I took his "RANT RANT RANT" as more of a joke.



    Damn jokes. Damn rants. Damn Windows. If you don't like Macs/Jobs/Aqua/marketshare/price/inequality/capitalism/communism, then SHUT DA FSCK UP! This forum is a place to praise Macs and Jobs, and if you don't freaking like your job (I don't, either), then GO WHINE SOMEWHERE ELSE!







    Of course, Macs suck. Windows suck too. The point is, which you can live with. On the contrary, life also sucks, but we have no real choice - either sucky life or miserable death - that does not mean you have options. So, it's great we have several sucky operating systems because you have options. Just imagine that in two or three years there won't be anything except Windows (did I mention that Macs are doomed?) and that's when you'll have no freakin' options. Just live or die. Just use Windows or nothing. Outlook or snail mail. Click the Start button to shut down or shut up.
  • Reply 11 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mac Voyer

    Hey buddy, you're reading way too much into this thread. A good rant is like a good pity party. You should try it every once in a while. Also, I did not indicate that it was Apple's fault. Certainly, some of Apple's woes are self inflicted, but not this one. It is just the natural result of maintaining an insignificant market share. Even so, when I was a PC only person, I loved to walk into the software stores and buy the latest board game or card game program. There is nothing on the Mac like Virtual Pool. I have owned almost every incarnation of Dragon NaturallySpeaking and a few versions of IBM ViaVoice, not to mention Voice Express. I love a lot of the little programs for Windows. That is largely why I own VPC. I have a cheap PC that is on its last leg. It is seven years old by now and my wife mostly uses it because that is what she is familiar with. Still, I wouldn't give up the Mac platform because of these shortcomings. It is just frustrating when I occasionally cruise the software sections of stores and find just what I am looking for.. accept it is PC only. So lighten up.



    ok, point taken. party/rant on.
  • Reply 12 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mac Voyer

    Sometimes, I just want to walk into the store and pick something up off the shelf that catches my eye and not feel like a second class citizen because it does not work with my platform of choice.





    Maybe you're walking into the wrong store?



    If you are looking for simple card and board games, you should look at the shareware market. I know Freeverse makes a lot of those types of games and they can play online. You can also go to http://www.games.com or something like that to play board and card games online.



    WRT to CAD, Street Maps, and GPS stuff. *shrug* I do not know, but I would imagine there is quality software available in each of those genres.





    However, there are things you can't do with a Mac if you want to get really specific. You can not run AutoCAD if you must run that exact CAD software. A lot of Mac games will not network with the Windows versions because the Windows versions stupidly used the DirectPlay API. A lot of Windows games simply don't exist on the Mac.



    I'm sure we could make a decent list of things you can't do on Windows too if we wanted.
  • Reply 13 of 56
    I would like to run everything on my PowerBook without ever having to turn on my PC or go into a VirtualPC type program. Let me explain further... My wife and I got married in Lake Tahoe last year and I have this disk of pictures from the photographer that only shows the scrapbook of images on a damn PC. I was hoping to use my powerbook to extract the images clean them up in photoshop and then print some of them off but it doesnt work on my Mac. I want everything that would work on a PC to run on my Mac without having to flip-flop back and fourth between OS environments. Its just a dream, but I'd like to see it a reality.
  • Reply 14 of 56
    Things I do on a PC that I can't on a mac:

    Visual Studio .Net -kind of obvious why

    Visio -They need a mac version of this

    Ultima Online -Even though I quit, seriously I did...
  • Reply 15 of 56
    Cheap graphics cards. Many games.
  • Reply 16 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by mynameis

    Visio -They need a mac version of this





    Many say OmniGraffle is superior (and the Pro version can read/write Visio files).



    My gripe: Examsoft, which they use at a lot of schools for taking exams. The only thing school related I can't do with my Powerbook. Have to keep a crappy 533MHz laptop just for this purpose.
  • Reply 17 of 56
    I got this cool file in the mail call mail2.doc.pif that I can't open
  • Reply 18 of 56
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    The only real one that I experience is inability to close minimized dock windows and no file organization in the Save dialogue, eg, renaming, etc.
  • Reply 19 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by nguyenhm16

    Many say OmniGraffle is superior (and the Pro version can read/write Visio files).



    I hadn't heard about that but I found their website and it says it can export and import Visio XML files, I usually use VSD files, I'll have to check and see the difference. Looks like a pretty nice program.
  • Reply 20 of 56
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    It's phenomenal. I frequently get people asking how I made the diagrams in my presentations. When I tell them it's Mac only, they're quite disappointed. I've also shocked people by how fast I can whip up new diagrams that look like I spent hours tweaking them. I did a research fair poster in about 30 minutes one night, including taking the pictures and finding a copy of a Michelangelo painting online.



    And I'm not a graphics artist by any means.
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