Quittin' the Mac: How a Mac User Came to the PC Dark Side

Uh oh. Cue the militant Apple apologists in 3...2...1..

My household utilizes:

iPad
iPod(s)
Sansa(s)
MacBook
Dell Desktop
HP Netbook
Dell laptop
Gateway laptop

Do people really limit themselves to one type of company? I really don't have any major issues using a mix of devices.

Guess they will have to update the Geeks symbol when the switch is complete.

That is the best organized reasons as to why people switch.

So, really the problem is that she wants a desktop computer and has discovered that Mac Pros are more expensive than cheap laptops?

I always did like John Hodgeman more.

Well, she's entitled to her opinion. I migrated the other way around and recently had to use XP again, and it was frustrating.
There is one thing worth mentioning, however, is that part of the price of Apple is not just the logo but the engineering. Cheap computers like Dells are cheap in part because they use cheaper parts. It's like buying a Honda Accord vs. a Chevy Aveo. You're not just paying for a Honda logo, you're getting a better engineered machine that will last longer, and the same is true for Apple. Dell has had problems because its machines break down, and like Hondas, Apples have a higher resale value.
If you have carpal tunnel, get a better chair and desk, and design on a desktop, or consider a tablet.

@Splint

yeah the mac vs pc thing is really stale at this point, especially so because they're using standard intel architecture, and have been for years.

long ago it was well known that a 200mhz G3 would outperform almost any competitors processor at the same clock speed, making the hardware arguments somewhat valid.

i was raised on apples, and we had apples at my elementary school, and then in high school we had PCs, and somewhere in there apple made the jump to OSX. i missed the boat on that, and i never cared for the feel of it. then i got a job working on a windows machine and i've been with windows ever since. i used to be a whiz kid on macs but im so out of practice that i wouldn't claim to be able to fix any of them, while with windows im positive i can fix all of them regardless of the problem or if i've even encountered it before.

i hate the single button mouse. it bugs me the same way automatic transmissions bug me - do not dumb my stuff down, please. I hate itunes and ipod lockdown.

in response to the lady with carpal tunnel... does ANY manufacturer offer curved keyboards on laptops??

"And sure, Vista used to be a huge deterrent in the Windows world, but since we’re building our computer, that won’t be an issue."

How long was that article sitting on her hard drive.

Vista hasn't been an issue ANYWHERE for almost a year.

the only advantage macs had, their power pc architecture has been thrown overboard when they changed to use intels, now they are just normal computers for four times more money with half of the capabilities.

sometimes people claim everything has been fine tuned on macs and every part ia ultra high quality.

thats another way to say "I was so dumb I bought a overpriced white piece of crap that looks like fisherprice because i thought for that much money it had to be very high quality"

why are pcs the dark side? on a pc you can use what software you want to use and what hardware you want to use, you are free to choose your OS, you don´t have to buy new hardware every 9 months because it has gotten a few millimetres thinner.

"Cheap computers like Dells are cheap in part because they use cheaper parts. It's like buying a Honda Accord vs. a Chevy Aveo. You're not just paying for a Honda logo, you're getting a better engineered machine that will last longer, and the same is true for Apple."

This is another Apple myth that just needs to die already. The only thing that Apple makes other then the case for their computers any more is the motherboard, which is not as good as many of the others. Apple has the same list of suppliers for the rest of the parts everybody else does.

I've used, owned and IT-managed both platforms since 1984 from the original Mac128k and a 4Mhz DOS machine.

I always get a chuckle whenever this issue (repeatedly) comes up.... and it always seems to be the PC bigots that get their panties in a bunch over it....

If you need a tool to do a certain job then use what ever does the job the best - I use PCs when I need to and Macs when I choose to. Why would I choose something that a PC could do cheaper ? For the same reason that no-one lies on their death bed and says 'I could have bought a beautifully engineered classic sports car that would have given me years of driving pleasure'- but instead I bought a cheap tinny car and that way I saved money.

yeeuh! that's what i like to hear!

i'm an artist who does a lot of digital work, & ppl always act so shocked (& snooty) when i say that i can't stand macs & <3 my sony vaio...

sure, mac displays are pretty. they're NOT worth the price tag, the loss of ability to mess with the nuts-n-bolts parts of the os, or the pain-in-the-youknowwhat process of having to learn all of mac's dumb "this-is-a-mac-not-a-pc-andwewon'tletyouforgetit!" names for every little thing...

;)

Agree with comments about this being a rather stale issue at this point. People use what they are used to and only break their old habits when they are trying to change something else in their lives, not their computers.

I guess the other thing I might say is "Welcome to being a regular 'Merican! Price trumps ALL!"

I had to use Macs for a computer graphics class and it was really annoying how much I had to use the mouse instead of the keyboard. Why did I have to drag a picture of a cd onto a picture of a garbage can to eject a cd.

I build all my computers from components and you can't do that with a Mac. I've got nothing against Macs, really, they just don't work for the way I use computers.

I did have good results using a Powermac G4 running Debian Gnu/Linux as a router and server on my home network, though, except for it being as loud as a vacuum cleaner and using proprietary fans that I couldn't easily replace with quieter ones. Give me a Mac and I guarantee you I'll be running Linux on it within 24 hours of plugging it in.

I like that there isn't any irritating fanboy culture around my Athlon based machines. That's definitely a plus.

I was wondering around best buy the other day and i was just looking at every pc and mac they had availible. i was there originally looking for a new pci express fitting graphics card that had at least 520MB of ram. anywho, i was wondering around the mac section, awed at the clean tables with the shinny crap and covers. and i saw it.

i saw, in my local best buy, a mac that would set you back a cool $2,400. two freaking thousand four hundred dollars.

this thing was awesome, BUT. after looking at it's specs i turned around and went through the store looking at a bunch of pc parts to see how much of bang i could get with twenty four hundred in my pocket.

after finding a nVidea graphics card that was twice as good, a 1TB harddrive with twice as much memory, a four hundred dollar pci express motherboard, a windows 7 ultimate edition, a soundcard twice as good,hundred dollar speakers, and a 30" dell widescreen. as well as two hundred bucks for spec keyboard and WOW mouse, i still wouldve had 600 dollars in my pocket.

i could by a computer that is twice as good as that mac, and still save enough money to buy an entire PS3 with a few games.

that right there is why macs are driving customers away. i can litterally spend 20 mins in my local best buy and find parts to make a computer twice as fast for only 2/3rds the cost

Fast forwarding past all the reasons why I've stayed with MS (for the most part) and why I don't use Apple, ever- I'll just say- It was enormously gratifying the past couple days as my Mac obsessed friend (who's never missed a chance to extol the sheer awesomeness of all things Apple) used my lowly Dell with MS OS and Chrome to 'do things that I can't do with my Mac'. I managed to keep my mouth shut about the whole irony of it all but it did feel like poetic justification for all the badgering I've taken the past 2 years.
Ok- and I will say something about why I haven't switched to Mac. 1) the price. 2) the attitude- like that of my friend. Just get over yourselves already, ok? I've noticed that the Mac people like to go on at high volume about the superiority of their stuff- faster, easier, whatever... but if you keep your mouth shut and listen- they'll eventually get around to talking about the limitations of Apple stuff. I lived with an Apple fan for 2 years- his machine crashed- just like mine does occasionally; it locked up- no less often than mine does (not often)... The attitude seems to be what Apple is all about.

why do pc user always look down on mac users? Use what you like...Just dont complain someone else spend more money om something, there is a reason BMW/Mercedes still sell cars while lada wil get you there while driving the max speed limit.

"2) the attitude- like that of my friend. Just get over yourselves already, ok? I've noticed that the Mac people like to go on at high volume about the superiority of their stuff- faster, easier, whatever..."

I hear this a lot, ironically.

@Kip. I hate to bring you down to the world the rest of us plebs live in....but as has been thoughtfully detailed by others in these comments, you're not using a BMW/Mercedes/better product than anyone else. You're using exactly the same components a Windows user is.

Ignorance when it comes to technology is no crime. Invincible ignorance, in the face of the facts, is something altogether more abrasive.

"You're using exactly the same components a Windows user is."

In such that they both use similar hardware. The OS is why Mac users buy Macs. It's leaps and bounds better than Windows in that respect. Especially with graphic design. I am wondering in Natania has run into font corruption problems, or color correction issues yet.

As far as complaining about Apple keyboard/mice, uh, any USB keyboard/mouse will work. And no laptop I know of has a ergonomic keyboard built in.

Her main reason seems to be price. And you are right.

There is a saying Fast/Cheap/Reliable.

Pick two. You can't have all three.

"There is a saying Fast/Cheap/Reliable.

Pick two. You can't have all three."

I've never used a Mac for more than 5 minutes so I'm not going to comment on them.

What I will say is that my Windows 7 (recently upgraded from XP for $65 from www.ultimatesteal.com) machine is an exception to your rule. I built it for around $700 a couple of years ago and it is very responsive and has crashed maybe two times over its lifetime. I run it 24 hours a day processing workunits for World Community Grid. I also play an occasional game like Fallout 3 (while World Community Grid is still running).

Here's some specs for you:

Core 2 Quad Q9400 @ 3.20 GHz (recently upgraded from Core 2 Duo E5200 @ 3.20 GHz)
4 GB DDR2 1066 (recently upgraded from 2 GB)
Gigabyte P35-D3SL
Radeon HD 4850

My E5200 processor and 2 GB worked just fine and I honestly can't tell a difference with the upgrades beyond the increase in resources available to World Community Grid -- which was what I bought the parts for.

But you still get the adware/virus/font corruption/badcolor output (at least in the graphics world side) that comes with windows.

And don't say that's not true. I too owned a Windows 7 box about a 2 months ago. (Daughter/Wife wanted one) Even had it behind a hardware firewall, and STILL got gobs and gobs of adware/virii I had to clean out for the small amount of time we owned it. I keep getting told "Oh that's the norm with computers.. you just have to keep up with it" But no, that's the norm with WINDOWS. I'd rather pay a tad bit extra to NOT have to deal with those issues.

I've used Macs since 92. I've never had a virus protection program running, nor have I needed an anti-adware client (Doesn't even exist on the Mac because of no market for them)

AGAIN, people buy a Mac for the OS.

So while your HARDWARE is more than likely reliable. Windows 7 isn't so much. Most everyone I talk to with Windows claims to have this problem unless you are a "Pro user" that is educated in locking down all the things MS keeps open by default. And even then the chances of getting something is great.

Computers are consumer devices. One shouldn't need a degree in computer science to run them without worry.

I am going to say that I don't have a problem with adware and viruses with Windows 7 because it IS true.

At least for me. I must have the best luck in the world because the only virus I ever have gotten on this machine was when I was on a questionable website downloading music from Chrono Trigger for nostalgia's sake. But that trojan was caught immediately when I scanned the files I downloaded and did not become an issue. I don't do any graphic design work (at least not yet) so I haven't seen any of the problems you've described.

All I do is run Microsoft Security Essentials each night and in the vast majority of the time it never catches anything. Sometimes I can't believe it either and I use other scanners but they never pick anything up either.

I have no idea what I'm doing differently. I wouldn't consider myself a "pro user" and I honestly don't know much about Windows 7 (most of my experience is with XP). But it has worked like a dream for me and I have yet to see any sign that it will give me any trouble in the future.

*shrugs* I'm sorry it seems like everyone else is cursed when it comes to Windows and I know I sound like I'm being paid by Microsoft but I honestly do not have any significant problems with Windows.

"I am going to say that I don't have a problem with adware and viruses with Windows 7 because it IS true."

YOU may not. Others do. I was one of them.

"At least for me. I must have the best luck in the world because the only virus I ever have gotten on this machine was when I was on a questionable website downloading music from Chrono Trigger for nostalgia's sake. But that trojan was caught immediately when I scanned the files I downloaded and did not become an issue."

I'd rather not have a virus checker in the background running constantly. I rather keep those valuable resources to programs that need it more. I've never ran a virus checker on ANY of my Macs. It's been almost 20 years now that I have been doing this. Not one virus. And again, anti-adware programs don't even exist on the Mac because they don't have a market for it. Windows 7 itself isn't so bad as much as what MS leaves on by default. Services that the average person does not use. Services that usually cause the most problems. I spent a whole day trying to track down these culprits and shut them down. I guess I don't want to have to waste time maintaining my computer. It should just "work"

"I don't do any graphic design work (at least not yet) so I haven't seen any of the problems you've described."

To be honest I can't speak about Windows 7 when it comes to graphic design. I have however used XP, and Vista for it when I HAD to, and I had font corruption problems, and inconsistent color matching issues. Apple actually gave MS permission to use their Colorsync software long ago, and MS didn't take them up on it. Sad. You have to buy a expensive 3rd party program for XP/Vista (Not sure about 7) to get the color consistency the Mac comes with standard. MS also needs to get rid of their Shell within a program look. If I wanna grab a image off my desktop and throw it onto a Photoshop layer I cannot do that in Windows without shrinking the Photoshop "shell" It makes it very cumbersome.

"All I do is run Microsoft Security Essentials each night and in the vast majority of the time it never catches anything. Sometimes I can't believe it either and I use other scanners but they never pick anything up either."

Like I said, I'd rather pay a bit more to NOT have to deal with such things. I guess using Macs for years has gotten me spoiled about such matters.

In the graphics world, time is money. And you don't have time to mess with such shenanigans.

To each his own. I'm glad you're happy with a Mac and I hope it continues to deliver the experience you expect.

As for me, I will stay with Windows until I start to have the problems that plague everyone else.

That's not how it usually works though. People get into habits of having said problems, and think it's the norm. You'd be surprised at the amount of people that have been shocked when I tell them I've never ran a anti-virus program, and have never gotten a virus. While some of it DOES have to do with market share, most of it is MS leaving services the average person doesn't need, on by default. And caring more about market share than security.

@21, actually, you can have all 3. My Dell Inspiron cost me about $500 with the i5. Ubuntu Lucid was free and is solid as a rock.

@john3432

I am speaking in the graphics world.

For that matter, I can go on Ebay and get a 2g dual core mini for $400-500.