2006-05-14
Tech

Why you want a Mac

This post was my response to a question asked by Ronnie Swafford on Newsvine: Why was he, a Windows Programmer with no obvious need for a Mac so drawn to get an Apple computer?

I answered (and am yet to see if he responds), but noticed what a huge comment I’d written and thought it could be a blog entry in itself. So here is why you want a Mac.

You want a Mac because Apple seems to have a philosophy that says, “do what must be done to make this a positive, well rounded experience”.

It’s an interesting idea, and it got people (myself included) to realise that PC’s are holding advances in tech back. Consider this, Apple ditched numerous PC staples that people relied on, and are only now realising they don’t need:

  1. Out dated peripheral ports (parallel, serial, ps2) choosing USB and Firewire alone to connect peripherals - and how much simpler is that?
  2. Ditched floppies too. I would rather tech support a Mac than a PC for this reason alone…
  3. Said goodbye to System 9. They supported it for a reasonable time, but made it clear all along that their system would not be bogged down trying to make everyone happy
  4. Have sort of shown that they will use stable, or new and emerging technologies (with their own spin on it) instead of insisting that people keep using ‘updated’ (feature-tacked-on) versions of their old proprietary technology. Again - System 9 was ditched in favour of a nix backbone. They include apache and php with the OS. Compare Microsoft who keep loading pile after pile of re-worked re-hashed proprietary stuff on the public, locking more and more people into ‘their’ system.

Sure these things annoyed some people, but it’s clear that Mac’s are ‘moving forward’ while PC’s are stuck catering to people stuck in the past.

All in all, I feel like I’m taking charge when I buy a Mac - no one will tell me what to I have to use. Of course this isn’t always true and I prefer Firefox because Apple decided I couldn’t use the latest version of Safari without purchasing Tiger. But more often than not, if I see it coming to a PC in the future, Apple is already doing it.

If Apple pioneers something new (this is hypothetical) I can imagine that they will use existing standards to make it work securely and easily, and start to phase out whatever it replaces. If Microsoft or Dell were to make this hypothetical Doohicky(tm) it would use their own proprietary software/hardware combo, communicate in a completely new and patentable way, be full of bugs, and contain a bunch of bits and bobs that make it (theoretically) usable with technology I hated ten years ago when it was in it’s prime, and now isn’t used by anyone but my Gran.

You want a Mac because it speaks to you of future world that doesn’t need endless configuration, doesn’t rely on and adhere to old tech, and will move and change easily with the advances of our field.

Link Summary

  1. http://ronnieswafford...vince-me-to-buy-a-mac
  2. http://www.newsvine.com

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Viewing 2 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    PC is evergreen. It will always be. Things work so beautifully on a PC and a more than 100% compatibility gives us leverage of moving onto any software we wish to use...

    PC is like a Honda, it keeps running as long as there is fuel... Macs are like BMW, very expensive, good looking and needs the most expensive gas and the best of conditions to run...
    • ^
    • v
    Your comparison to cars might have been roughly true ten, five or even 2 years ago, but now is completely false. In my experience a Mac takes less configuration (none sometimes) to use a wider range of technology straight out of the box than a PC running Windows. Admittedly a Dell configured with their out-of-the-box software *might* happily connect to a wireless network, a bluetooth phone or a USB printer with few hiccups - but it takes software from third parties to do it.

    Apple, on the other hand, will do all this with their own software - and because it's all Apple brand you can pick up the photo from one program and drop it into another, spit it out to a printer (without installing drivers) or connect to the Mac in the other room effortlessly and drop the finished product there.

    There are just innumerable ways that a Mac makes daily computing easier. Take for instance the integration of PDF services. I didn't know my Mac could make a PDF without extra software, but I opened it up that first day, and there it was - with built in software to read a PDF file as well. To achieve the same with Windows, you must install two Adobe products or other third party products. People say there is less software for Apple, but in many cases - it's not necessary, cause (as in this case) it's built in already. There are many more examples like this that hint at what people mean when they say "Macs Just Work".

    Little surprises such as this make everyday Mac use more pleasant. People ask me to do significant computer tasks for them and in general, I'd much rather take them and do them on my Mac than on a PC.

    You say that "things work so beautifully on a PC", but you wouldn't say that if you'd used a Mac for anything significant.

    And finally - *nothing* can have "more than 100% compatibility".

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