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Do you get hassled for using a mac?
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Just say "Why is it so bad?" and you'll get some comebacks that would've been valid several years ago. 
I've never had any comments and I've spent the last 18 months using my iBook in a class of very computer literate yet massively Windows-oriented Chemistry students. Oddly though, in a class of 28 (very large for the subject, Quantum Chemistry) I wasn't the only Mac user, another student used a 14" iBook whilst my Professor (we don't call them "Professor so-and-so" we just call them by their first name so writing "Professor" is weird) used a G4 PowerBook plugged into a 20" ACD.
One of the other lecturers (also a Prof.) used an old PowerMac G4 running OS9. Most of the science staff use Macs despite all the equipment being either UNIX or Windows based software. The Post-Grad guys use Dell because the Uni gives them to them but the Arts Faculty and most of the Education Faculty were on Macs, Law was naturally Windows, as was Engineering. We were the most technical faculty that was running on Mac - probably about 40% to 50% of the top staff were on Macs.
If someone had even uttered "ergh, a Mac" in the Science department they probably would've been widely lambasted in short time.
As I'm on dial-up I often have to visit the local net cafés to do my heavy-duty downloading and that means I need to be in close contact with your stereotypical spotty 15 year old (and up, never knew so many "adults" were avid gamers) g4m3rz. Never had one disparaging remark when I crack open the iBook amongst all the cold-cathode and LED lit behemoths running WoW or whatever it is - don't know, not a gamer. They're more curious about it than sceptical, it's refreshing and good to know we're no longer seen as the kid everyone just wants to go away.
One of the other lecturers (also a Prof.) used an old PowerMac G4 running OS9. Most of the science staff use Macs despite all the equipment being either UNIX or Windows based software. The Post-Grad guys use Dell because the Uni gives them to them but the Arts Faculty and most of the Education Faculty were on Macs, Law was naturally Windows, as was Engineering. We were the most technical faculty that was running on Mac - probably about 40% to 50% of the top staff were on Macs.
If someone had even uttered "ergh, a Mac" in the Science department they probably would've been widely lambasted in short time.
As I'm on dial-up I often have to visit the local net cafés to do my heavy-duty downloading and that means I need to be in close contact with your stereotypical spotty 15 year old (and up, never knew so many "adults" were avid gamers) g4m3rz. Never had one disparaging remark when I crack open the iBook amongst all the cold-cathode and LED lit behemoths running WoW or whatever it is - don't know, not a gamer. They're more curious about it than sceptical, it's refreshing and good to know we're no longer seen as the kid everyone just wants to go away.
No, I have never really been hassled in the way that you have farqueue. I have been teased/kidded about using a Mac, but the people who do so often have good things to say about Apple, they just still use PeeCees.
I have been teased/kidded about using a Mac, but the people who do so often have good things to say about Apple, they just still use PeeCees.
iGary said:
It's funny how so many people still think AUD$5000+ systems are just "toys" eh? I wonder if they would ever consider running a business on a AUD$5000+ toy? Yeah, I like to go out and spend a crazy amount of money on something that's not going to work... If that's the way I thought I'd go buy a PC, at least then I know it's not going to work.
The entire 1st year Physics lab is full of Macs.
My professor uses a Mac. My old supervisor uses a MacBook. I use one. My PC using friends all want to switch next time they buy a computer. My best friend is switching, and I have nothing to do with it (he lives 23 hours away in Canadia....).
I have never been mocked for using a Mac. I guess I don't know a lot of idiots. We all mock Windows together, although we still use it sometimes because it has software that's decent.
The ones who aren't as computer literate as me are always "Oooooh"ing and "Awwww"'ing over my Mac. They still use PCs though, but it's not like they know enough about Macs vs PCs to carry a prejudice or something.
My professor uses a Mac. My old supervisor uses a MacBook. I use one. My PC using friends all want to switch next time they buy a computer. My best friend is switching, and I have nothing to do with it (he lives 23 hours away in Canadia....).
I have never been mocked for using a Mac. I guess I don't know a lot of idiots.
We all mock Windows together, although we still use it sometimes because it has software that's decent. The ones who aren't as computer literate as me are always "Oooooh"ing and "Awwww"'ing over my Mac. They still use PCs though, but it's not like they know enough about Macs vs PCs to carry a prejudice or something.
Abstract said:The entire 1st year Physics lab is full of Macs.
My professor uses a Mac. My old supervisor uses a MacBook. I use one. My PC using friends all want to switch next time they buy a computer. My best friend is switching, and I have nothing to do with it (he lives 23 hours away in Canadia....).
I have never been mocked for using a Mac. I guess I don't know a lot of idiots.
Is it? Certainly wasn't when I was doing first year Physics here, mind you, that was 2001 - the Uni had a computer store that was selling TiBooks and Cubes. Now those were the days...
They had eMacs, and now they have Mac Minis and separate screens.
EDIT: I keep forgetting that you go to the same uni as I. I know you live in Wollongong, but I always got the impression that you were done and are working or something. Crazy....you study Chemistry. Now I know.
EDIT: I keep forgetting that you go to the same uni as I. I know you live in Wollongong, but I always got the impression that you were done and are working or something. Crazy....you study Chemistry. Now I know.
I have been hassled by my Comp science friends, but they all admit it's in good fun when I ask them what's specifically wrong with macs. After I bought an iBook, my uncle bought the same iBook, my Mom bought an iMac G5, my cousin and one of my friends is severely thinking about switching as well. Ah, life is good
I usually get the "Eww you have a mac? Why would you do that?"
I ask them why not, and they usually reply with, "You cant play games on it."
I would usually just say, I bought a computer to use as a tool not to fail out of college, and that usually shuts them up.
I ask them why not, and they usually reply with, "You cant play games on it."
I would usually just say, I bought a computer to use as a tool not to fail out of college, and that usually shuts them up.
Abstract said:
Graduating on Friday. The Uni computer labs used to have iMac G3's - the tray loading ones with the puck mouse. They moved over to eMacs sometime in late 2004 because the iMacs were still there before I took my year off.
I found the Quad G5 lab when my iBook HDD failed - now that is an awesome place to do assignments, nothing beats using a Quad G5 for Safari and Word and watching the people around you who are doing massive stuff with Photoshop looking at you like you've just soiled yourself (I had incidently, but in a good way, when I found the Quad lab
)I miss the days when we actually had a computer store on campus, it was crap but the Titanium PowerBook and the Cube connected to that gorgeous acrylic display was the first thing that piqued my interest in Macs - too expensive at the time but the spark came from there. Then my graphic designer mate, then my iPod and the deal was sealed.
There are so many more Macs on campus nowadays you would not believe the increase in sightings all over the place, staff and students. I think their current popularity and the fact that we now have a half-decent reseller in town (not where it used to be in the back of beyond) means that people are more tolerant and less likely to throw some Mac-hate our way.
I used to get hassled by my friends, but the last year or so it's more and more the other way around, and many are actually either buying macs, or saying that their next computer shall be a mac.
Really, how can anyone possibly hassle one for using an obviously superior computer, that even runs their stupid windows faster than their own machines.
Really, how can anyone possibly hassle one for using an obviously superior computer, that even runs their stupid windows faster than their own machines.
Never. I've switched about 5 people now too. They see mine, use them for about 5 minutes and they're sold.
I get it once in a while and yes, it can be annoying. You just have to learn to deal with it. You're the Mac user, therefore you are the better person.
I used to get that, but these days the Windows users I know are interested rather than dismissive. They still ask stupid questions, for example "What program do you use for Word files?", but nobody I know makes stupid statements anymore, and that's a big difference.
Yeah, I've had quite a few people -- more often than not my wife's work colleagues -- come over to the house and say something along the lines of, 'Wow, it's really cool looking, but how can you use a mouse with only one button?" (This was before I shelled out for a Mighty Mouse.) They have one "sunflower" iMac at work -- yes, one for the entire company -- that's not properly maintained and it's the butt of many office jokes. One girl said snottily, "It's crazy... you have to drag a disk to the trash to eject it." And quite a few of them get angry that they have to open so many files on the Mac because the PCs can't read them. To me, that's proof of the Mac's superiority; but to them, it's an inconvenience.
The copy team recently switched to Macs at the agency where I'm freelancing. A lot of folks grumble about the speed of the computers in general and apps like Powerpoint in particular. But these are six- or seven-year-old 400Mhz PowerMac G4s, and they replaced one-year-old Dells. So I can put it in perspective, whereas they just see Macs as being slow.
But then there's the other extreme. My wife's sister came to visit us and spent practically the whole weekend playing on my iMac G5 (PhotoBooth, iPhoto, and so on). My wife's brother and his girlfriend thought that our iBook G3 was new until she told them it was bought five years ago. The boyfriend of one of my wife's friends spent about ten minutes circling around my iMac and marveling at its form factor: "Can you believe it?" he kept saying. "That's the whole computer right there." My own sister, who I helped switch to an Intel iMac, has turned into a huge fan, and continually raves about it to my mother.
As for me, I'm continually amazed by how well our older iBook stands up in day-to-day use. I couldn't help but compare it to a Tiny (a UK computer company) laptop, which we ditched about a year ago when I got the iMac and passed the iBook over to my wife. Both laptops were purchased at the same time and the iBook was slightly more expensive, I think, but that damn Tiny was absolutely flipping useless by its second year. No wireless, no ethernet port, flaky CD-ROM drive (no burner), struggling to run Windows 98 at an acceptable speed, and always littered with spyware after a short Internet session on dial-up. Her Dad, who'd bought it for her, thought I was being a pompous Mac zealot when we handed it back to him, saying it was no longer much use to us. Despite having never used a Mac for longer than ten minutes, he's one of these classic types who cites all the Mac myths -- no software, too expensive, good only for graphics work, Windows' popularity is a sign of its superiority, Apple's going to go out of business, and so on -- when you try to have an informed, level-headed discussion about it.
The copy team recently switched to Macs at the agency where I'm freelancing. A lot of folks grumble about the speed of the computers in general and apps like Powerpoint in particular. But these are six- or seven-year-old 400Mhz PowerMac G4s, and they replaced one-year-old Dells. So I can put it in perspective, whereas they just see Macs as being slow.
But then there's the other extreme. My wife's sister came to visit us and spent practically the whole weekend playing on my iMac G5 (PhotoBooth, iPhoto, and so on). My wife's brother and his girlfriend thought that our iBook G3 was new until she told them it was bought five years ago. The boyfriend of one of my wife's friends spent about ten minutes circling around my iMac and marveling at its form factor: "Can you believe it?" he kept saying. "That's the whole computer right there." My own sister, who I helped switch to an Intel iMac, has turned into a huge fan, and continually raves about it to my mother.
As for me, I'm continually amazed by how well our older iBook stands up in day-to-day use. I couldn't help but compare it to a Tiny (a UK computer company) laptop, which we ditched about a year ago when I got the iMac and passed the iBook over to my wife. Both laptops were purchased at the same time and the iBook was slightly more expensive, I think, but that damn Tiny was absolutely flipping useless by its second year. No wireless, no ethernet port, flaky CD-ROM drive (no burner), struggling to run Windows 98 at an acceptable speed, and always littered with spyware after a short Internet session on dial-up. Her Dad, who'd bought it for her, thought I was being a pompous Mac zealot when we handed it back to him, saying it was no longer much use to us. Despite having never used a Mac for longer than ten minutes, he's one of these classic types who cites all the Mac myths -- no software, too expensive, good only for graphics work, Windows' popularity is a sign of its superiority, Apple's going to go out of business, and so on -- when you try to have an informed, level-headed discussion about it.
I find it funny that 2 of my neighbors claimed my iMac was "overpriced", yet one has bought a mac mini, and the other is going for a macbook/macbook pro now. One of them argued you could build PC for way better, and I argued that the OS and design of the computers is worth the extra money.
I have to say that I am very lucky to be surrounded by mostly Mac users. Most of my friends and family have come to realization that Macs are the way to go. I do have the one friend who is a web designer, and can't seem to switch for whatever reason, but he knows better than to try put down Macs.
I am probably the person who sees the poor soul that is still using windows and makes the slight backhanded comments about how unfortunate they are working on a Windows PC. I will typically point out how "you wouldn't have that problem if you had a Mac." or "doing this or that is really quite easy with a mac, it is almost so intuitive that you don't even need to read the manual."
Let those people who make negative comments about Macs live in their world of ignorance, where they just follow the pack like lemmings. Next time they get a virus, just mention that probably wouldn't have happened if they had a Mac.
I am probably the person who sees the poor soul that is still using windows and makes the slight backhanded comments about how unfortunate they are working on a Windows PC. I will typically point out how "you wouldn't have that problem if you had a Mac." or "doing this or that is really quite easy with a mac, it is almost so intuitive that you don't even need to read the manual."
Let those people who make negative comments about Macs live in their world of ignorance, where they just follow the pack like lemmings. Next time they get a virus, just mention that probably wouldn't have happened if they had a Mac.
Chundles said:
Heh, similar experiences in my department, and it is the department of computer sciences, can't get more CS than CS!
Unfortunately the top professor in our CS department is a Thinkpad user though, serious stuff, but he does seem quite ok with all the mac users scurrying around under him.