Legitimate Discussion? Why do people find OS X and Macs better than PCs?

[matt4542]

I would like a legitimate discussion here. None of that "Macs are better" without any support BS.

First off, let me say I am mainly a PC user. Although, I also am a frequent *nix user. I have also owned two Apple computers, and I currently own a custom built Hackintosh. I have had experience with a number of OSes and hardware to form a valid opinion.

I honestly feel that one OS is not better than the other. The constant argument is that Macs are overpriced. Sure they're priced higher than the lower end PCs with possibly better specs, but there is a reason. You're paying for the premium that things should automatically work out of the box without any hassle. Apple controls it's whole ecosystem, making a very good end-user experience. With Windows on the other hand, this is a different case. Microsoft just develops the software. After that, it is out of their hands. Microsoft sells the software, then 3rd party companies will build the actual computer. With this, they have to provide their own drivers for the hardware that Microsoft doesn't natively include(and which they can't natively include because of the vast hardware that Windows is installed on.)

People claim that PCs constantly have errors for no reason, and that OS X computers have never had errors once before. This is the most ignorant argument presented in any debate. Lets look at it from a car point of view. Lets say you buy a Ford F-150, it's going to last you for a long time. The only way it will last you a long time though, is if you maintain it. PCs need to be maintained and taken care of or things will start to go downhill. People think that they can install 90 applications that all start on boot and run in the background and are constantly updating without repercussions. No. On the Apple side, lets say you pay the premium and buy a nice Mercedes CLS class. It will last you longer than the F-150 without needed maintenance, but then eventually it will start having issues because you didn't maintain it.

This is just more of a little rant. Lets have a nice discussion though

 

[Comeagain?]

This is just more of a little rant. Lets have a nice discussion though

Yes it is, and no, we most likely won't be able to have a nice discussion. Sadly.

I prefer Mac because it works much better then any other computer I have. And, contrary to popular belief, my Mac is outliving similarly aged PCs, both in software support, and hardware. I also prefer the UI. Most things, Macs do very well. Even run windows. I use 2011 iMacs with Windows 7 at school, and those are impressive. I think Apple does a better job at designing their computers then other brands.

I actually don't understand the hate for either brand, by either side though.

Good luck with the thread. *subscribed*

 

[roadbloc]

OS X is obviously going it be the most stable OS (in most cases) as it runs on limited hardware and the software is fine tuned for the hardware. Windows runs on practically any hardware as long as it is powerful enough, relying on the hardware manufacturer to make some decent drivers. Instability is caused when drivers suck or users don't know what they are doing.

It's not necessarily better, it is just different. For consumers, Macs are a great thing as long as you don't mind learning a new (and rather complex and inconsistent since Lion) OS and you don't mind support being dropped after a three years or so when your hardware becomes incompatible with the latest Apple OS. Windows PC can also be just as great as long as you know what you're doing. I have found Windows 7 to be far more reliable than Lion or Mountain Lion.

 

[smoledman]

Right. That's why my Mac Mini keeps crashing all the time.

 

[KnightWRX]

Unix.

End discussion.

 

[Melrose]

The Mac OS has a few things going for it - as said, it's fine tuned to work on set pieces of hardware (it would be interesting to see if/when Microsoft gets that tablet thing going how it turns out for them; by principle it should work just as well). If you have problems, Apple has leading customer service. And thirdly it's built on a more stable architecture (Unix).

For general intents and purposes of most people, however, who use it for email and Facebook, it shouldn't really matter what you use. But I can say from experience that a Mac can handle multiple apps much better than Windows.

Unix.

End discussion.

Sudo make me a sandwich.


sry...

 

[Jessica Lares]

I wrote a post about this on The Verge's forums a few days ago after seeing post after post of people nagging about how Windows sucks for no reason. So I'll repeat what I said there.

- In OS X The apps are designed to be minimal and work very well in a windowed box versus fullscreen. How many of us are actually looking at this post right now using Safari in fullscreen on a Mac (NOT iOS)? It's nice to have Pages in the middle of the screen, with your formatting/color wheel on the side of the screen and have your desktop showing through in the background. In Windows, it's never about having a nice desktop (and most people litter it with junk), and you use your browser in fullscreen, Microsoft Word in fullscreen, etc, etc. Not to mention that Word is very bulky compared to Pages.

And considering I made that first point a little longer than I should, I'll just quote the second one:

When you have a problem with Windows, you usually use restore points or reinstall the system. These are not the greatest solutions and reinstallation’s are very time consuming if you have a lot of applications on your computer. The worst part of Windows in my opinion is how the filesystem is designed. You have shortcuts on the desktop and on the Start Menu/Start Page, but then everything sits in the Program Files folder and maybe some other places depending on how they’re installed. They also edit your registry.

In OS X, most apps are contained in a single zipped up file that contains everything and uses your Home Folder to save data. So there are very few apps that cause your machine to not boot up. When it does happen, a simple Repair Disk Permissions is all it usually takes to fix things.

Partitioning, erasing disks, RAID, and restoring is also built into the Disk Utility. You can burn CDs/DVDs and make disk images as needed.

The Terminal is very useful for those that like to work using the command line. You can turn off OS features, mount images to a USB flash drive, and if you need access to ADB for use with the Android SDK, you can do all that with it as well. Some troubleshooting can also be done within the Terminal too.

You have a lot of choice in OS X too. There are tons of RSS readers, tons of word processing editors, tons of tasking apps, you have the best audio recording apps, and there are a lot of people making software for Macs, and very good ones that aren't hugely expensive.

Most people who have Windows machines install their messaging app of choice, their browser of choice, and iTunes. That's as far as it goes. Windows 8 will change that of course, but it' going to take a long time to where they can boast about it.

 

[maflynn]

Macs have advantages and disadvantages.

PCs running windows have their set of advantages and disadvantages, as do PCs with Linux

You use the best tool that fits your needs. For me OSX is a very stable OS, with little to no malware. It does not get in my way of working and because the OS is designed to run on the hardware designed by the same company there's is a tight relationship.

With Windows 7, Microsoft produced a great and stable OS. It still has malware problems and because of the varied hardware that it has to support (both and advantage and disadvantage) it has some instability problems if you start running it on some obscure hardware.

Linux, is a great OS as well, but it lacks the tools and applications - at least for my needs. Plus I found I had to tinker with the settings a lot to get it just the way I want it.

The moral of the story, you pick the platform that has the apps you want/need and what fits your needs the best

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I don't find macs better than PC's, however, asking that question on this forum is going to lead to a lot of selection bias, and answers "because it is", stated as fact rather than opinion.

 

[KnightWRX]

Sudo make me a sandwich.


sry...

*** No rule to make target `me'. Stop.

Sorry sir, you lack the proper pre-requisites in boob size and downstairs socket compatibility.

 

[Comeagain?]

I don't find macs better than PC's, however, asking that question on this forum is going to lead to a lot of selection bias, and answers "because it is", stated as fact rather than opinion.

So far, everyone's been civil. I'm surprised. And there have been no "because it is" posts.

 

[Melrose]

*** No rule to make target `me'. Stop.

Sorry sir, you lack the proper pre-requisites in boob size and downstairs socket compatibility.

I was thinking in terms of this:

 

[malman89]

I don't find them better. Both suit my needs perfectly.

 

[calb]

There's very little separating the software now.

With Macs and OS X the little things add up, including the trackpad on Apple's notebooks which is unmatched by any Windows OEM. But I'm heartened to see Microsoft is waking up and I'm looking forward to their next 12 months.

 

[n8mac]

Because Mac OS does what I tell it to instead of me doing what it tells me to do like Windows. Microsoft lost me around Win98 when I found they weren't going to make an OS that works with me and not annoy me. The only things I am jealous of on the Wintel side is native gaming and mid-ranged towers (under $2000). Plus the lifespan of a Mac (except OS support) for me has always been very well. I am typing this on a 2003 Powermac.

I am perfectly fine with others who get Windows and don't get Macs, choice is great. Never understood all that arguing.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

So far, everyone's been civil. I'm surprised. And there have been no "because it is" posts.

I know, weird! Should we un-ban *LTD*?

 

[MrManilow]

smoothness and usability

As a long term Windows user and now Windows AD administrator, I feel that all Apple products just "work." I find it hard to explain to users who have no Apple product experience but once they use a product for a little while they are very pleased.

As mentioned I have been a long term PC guy for about 15 years now, starting back on the 386's and moving forward to the servers I manage today. About a year ago I made the plunge and got a 13" i7 MPB. From that day on I couldn't be happier with the switch. The responsiveness of the unit is just amazing compared to any laptop I have ever used. The multitouch trackpad and the backlit keyboard to me is worth every penny. The screen is also better than the E class dells I get for my employees at work. Build quality is also top notch instead of plastic cases that feel cheap and flimsy.

I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression, my mbp shell could be way stronger. I have a few dents in the palm rests from being somewhat careless with it. I also dropped it from about waist height onto the street on the top right corner with the laptop on, but lid closed. The top screen portion is dented up nice, as is the bottom half of the case near the cd drive, it was kind of sharp so I had to do some work trying to soften the edge back to being smooth. But to me its fine, the laptop has worked fine ever since. Thats the stuff that makes it mine though.

I upgraded it from 4gb of ram I got from the factory to 8gb, and recently bumped it to 16gb, still as solid as a rock, and now my VMs run great! To me, taking the bottom case off for repairs and upgrades couldn't be easier. However this as been changed with the new ones, which I do not like at all.

I picked up an iPad about a month ago through work after having a Xoom and borrowing a friends Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tab. Same arguments at above, they were slow, laggy, and just not as smooth as I thought it should be. Again, apple came out on top and just doesn't hang in the same class IMO.

Ok long winded now - the interaction between all Apple devices is what makes the product great. I have an Apple TV too, the airplay is an awesome feature which allowed me to clean up my home theater setup and can impress friends when they come over!!

I have been converted. I will always have something in my bag with the glowing Apple logo on it from now on!

 

[roadbloc]

I know, weird! Should we un-ban *LTD*?

For the sweet love of God... NO!

 

[G51989]

This video I think was made in the early 2000's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg7Xh0m_Oco

OSX was pretty much total garbage until 10.4


Oh I remember those days

 

[NAG]

At this point it is all intuition. I just get Apple products. I also agree with the direction Apple is going (hiding the file system, pushing downloads over optical disks, removal of hard drives when possible, thin, long battery life, etc...).

This video I think was made in the early 2000's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg7Xh0m_Oco

OSX was pretty much total garbage until 10.4


Oh I remember those days

I remember the days when we were saying OS X was garbage until 10.2. Few years time we'll be saying it was garbage until 10.6.

 

[G51989]

At this point it is all intuition. I just get Apple products. I also agree with the direction Apple is going (hiding the file system, pushing downloads over optical disks, removal of hard drives when possible, thin, long battery life, etc...).



I remember the days when we were saying OS X was garbage until 10.2. Few years time we'll be saying it was garbage until 10.6.

Well, I used most of those OS's when they were new ( College Laptop was a used Pismo, I was poor lol ). I remember OSX having a decent amount of issues until 10.4 came along.

Though I will admit. OS 8 and 9 were probably worse than windows ME. I'll never touch those piles of crap again. OSX was still a HUGE leap

 

[NAG]

Well, I used most of those OS's when they were new ( College Laptop was a used Pismo, I was poor lol ). I remember OSX having a decent amount of issues until 10.4 came along.

Though I will admit. OS 8 and 9 were probably worse than windows ME. I'll never touch those piles of crap again. OSX was still a HUGE leap

Oh man, don't say OS 8.6 was crap (OS 9 was marketing so they wouldn't have people get confused why they running 8 instead of 9 in classic mode). Go and try out System 7.5. Error -11 party (not as bad as ME BSOD if you sneezed but still bad)!

 

[G51989]

Oh man, don't say OS 8.6 was crap (OS 9 was marketing so they wouldn't have people get confused why they running 8 instead of 9 in classic mode). Go and try out System 7.5. Error -11 party (not as bad as ME BSOD if you sneezed but still bad)!

Yeah, I'll give you that, it was still total garbage, random lockups, won't shut down, won't restart. Can't handle Netscape and Office at the same time Though the school iMacs had pretty horrible specs, original ones I think.

Lockup....crash....crash....crash....crash....crash.....won't reboot.....nothing moves.....lockup more.....randomly shut down for no reason.

Windows ME wasn't much better, though I learned how to " sneak up " on Windows ME, and SOMETIMES get work done at home.

The day the school started bringing in P4 optiplexs with Windows 2000 was a god send for us.

Though until I went to college, I was stuck on a HP tower, with a 700mzh PIII, and it only came with 128mb of ram, which is a problem for ME.

I noticed with Windows ME, its perfectly stable until you start using VM, then it just goes to hell.

Once I found that out, I stuffed that thing with 512mb of ram, the Max it would take. Then I only had a couple BSOD's a week. lol

****, I'm only 27. These damn kids these days think stuff like Windows XP and OSX 10.5 are " garbage ".

We should sit em down in a G3 iMac with OS 9 or OSX 10.2 on it, or a PC with Windows ME and a Celeron on it.

That'll show em real garbage

 

[throAU]

Unix.

End discussion.

Not quite.

unix + the aluminium enclosure + the trackpad that works.


OS X is a lot more than the shiny UI too. there are some very powerful tools there in the form of automator, the services menu and applescript. tools that mere mortals can actually use to get bulk tasks done in a manner that is often faster than writing and debugging a shell script.

 

[Renzatic]

I'm mostly a PC user here, though I'm slowly and surely moving over to the more Macish side of things (I call it selling out). I gotta say, all this garbage about OSX vs. Windows, blah vs. blah...it's all moot. They're all good to me. You want to know why I think that?

See, my first modern IBM-compatible style PC was this shop built Cyrix 6x86 machine my I got for my birthday back around '95-'96. I don't count it as my first computer because, hey, it wasn't a computer at all! It was a big box of problems mom and dad spent 1200 bucks for.

Even though it was built around the time Windows 95 came out, it couldn't run it. At all. Hell, it could barely run Windows 3.11. If I tried to do anything remotely complicated with it, it'd spaz out completely and lock up for 3 hours straight.

But hey. That was the average life for a computer user back in proterozoic era, right? All you have to do is wait a minute then turn the computer back on. If only it were that easy. See, sometimes my computer, in it's ever petulant, always annoying mood, would decide that it just didn't feel like turning back on. I'd press the power button (located just below the turbo button), and....nothing. Even waiting an hour and trying it again wouldn't produce any results. I had to unplug the power cord from the power supply, then plug it back in before it'd fire up.

No idea why.

It had a 33.6k baud modem that, if left plugged in to the wall jack, would somehow open the line so calls couldn't get in or out. If you picked up the phone, all you'd hear was this airy void. Like it was tapped into oblivion that only seashells are normally connected to or something. Even now, with years of computer experience behind me, I'm not sure exactly how or why that modem did what it did.

Also, it'd kick me off the internet every 15 minutes just so it could do it's direct line to the void over the phone line thing. I think it was possessed by a demon or something, and it wanted to call home. That'd explain all those mysterious long distance telephone calls to the 666 area code mom and dad kept getting billed for.

But what about games? For a 16 year old, what else would you want to do with a PC? Spreadsheets? Homework? Hell no! The only other thing that would interest a 16 year old kid besides that would be porn. But this was back in the mid '90's. Porn in those stone age internet days was nothing more than a 64x64 8 color gif file that took three hours to download. Considering I couldn't stay online for more than 15 minutes...

...but that's beside the point. Anyway. Games. Yeah. My "computer" could barely run Sopwith. This was a shame because my stupid ass bought Tomb Raider, and really wanted to play it. Oh well. So sorry about your hopes and dreams there, 'lil Renzatic. Should've saved your money for a Playstation.

It wasn't until 2000 that I grabbed a nice Gateway PIII 700 that my experiences with computers become something approaching halfway decent. Even that had problems, what with my 20GB Quantum Fireball harddrives constantly locking up on me. I had to get 4 or 5 from Gateway before I finally got one that lasted more than a month.

Gotta say though, those drives did live up to their names. Always crashing and burning like they did.

If you've followed me to this point, you can pretty much say that I've been through Computer Hell. Even after all these years, the simple pleasures of a computer actually turning on when you press the power button seems a small miracle of modern technology to me. In comparison to those early days, everything is butter now.

Macs? PCs? Whatever. Appreciate what you've got, you little spoiled bastards. You don't know how good you've got it.