iMacs suck

If macs are so horrible, then why are they still around?
There's some really powerful video editing macs out there and most importantly, they're user friendly.
If there weren't macs around, Microsoft would charge even more money for it's OS and rule the world. Do you want Bill Gates to rule the world? :dead:

One of my friends has a G4 cube and TFT Apple screen and it does work really well for video editing. Another of my friends used to have the Titanium widescreen mac laptop. He has just switched over to a Dell laptop as the cost of him re-newing the mac machine was about another £1000 over the cost of the Dell P4 machine. Plus as soon as the new version of him Mac comes out the resale value of the old one plumets in a pretty major way. He is pretty happy with the PC but had no complaints about the Mac. I've just passed on a heap of PC games to him as he has not played any for years after having 2 mac laptops. The fact that Apple are considering Athlons for Macs makes me think that the Motorola RISC processors are not as powerful as they once seemed, although a sub 1Ghz one is supposedly as powerful as much faster CISC units like P4 and Athlon.

MACs most definately have their place... although they are losing the edge they hand once before (user friendliness) to Windows and even Linux.

However they still have a valid place in the market. OSX is very nice, sleek and smooth, not to mention being a UNIX based OS makes development for it much easier then before.

Doesn't mean I want one sitting in my room or anything, but they have their place.

I personally don't use macs unless I have to for school reasons. They are just too stupid to use. Like how you have to goto some stupid screen to eject a disk, or there is only 1 mouse button. To me it seems they like to hide things on you, and make it hard to use, when all they boast on TV is the ease of use.

Although I am still looking for a nice mac laptop for my fiance, I wouldn't buy one personally. She needs it for schoolwork.

Well, the last one I owned was an Apple IIc and I've only worked with them since as needed for work. There aren't many places around here that run their operations on a Mac so I don't deal with them very often. Though the ones I've used were fairly simple to figure out though I still prefer the PC platform. I do occasionally see one come in the shop for repair from an individual but I don't actually have to do the repairs because we have someone who knows Macs, though I do help him and watch so I can learn more about it because they seem to be becoming increasingly popular.

Macs have their place, if you notice most 3D Graphics are done on a Mac, several 3D apps as well as image editing apps were created on a Mac. Much of the FX in movies would not be as good if not for the Mac.

The Imac is another story alltogether, it is an oversized paperweight. It was a piece of junk when it was first introduced and still is. The only thing that makes it desirable is that it is compact and it is pretty.

I would insert my $.02, but it's already been said and I would just be paraphrasing...

One thing I don't like is that most people blow it completely out of proportion. I mean, Macs are bad, but they really aren't that bad. I mean come on, you can't say a shiny new G4 cube is worthless...

Our library has only Macs. I was working on a project a little while ago on one, and I swear Netscape must have ungracefully bowed out 8 times...

Remember that the IMac was sort of the Macintosh sectors response to the ever-so-popular EMachines, as a way into the low-low-low end "Internet and email only" slice of the pie... Emachines were crap, Imacs were crap.

To be completely honest with you, I have to say that I know nothing about Macs because I try to avoid them as much as possible.

Furthermore, the vast majority of the network I administer is a Windows 2000 domain. There is limited support for Linux which I specialise in, but 95% of everything is PC with Microsoft.

In my opinion, on the whole Mac users tend to prize simplicity over complexity, ease of use over range of features, the pretty machine over the dark and terrible tower.

PCs have always had the advantage that you can go into a PC hardware store, buy yourself a handful of bits and bots and cobble them together into a machine. And 90% of the time, it will POST first power on, boot first try, etc...

I will not pretend that I like everything going on in the PC industry. I don't. I think that some of Microsoft's business practices are pretty dogdy.

But when it comes down to it, Macs are quite simply far too "cute". Its like someone out there working for Apple is spending more time worrying about how nice they look rather than how useful they are, or how powerful they are. But if a Mac really showed me it could do something really well that a PC could not, I would give it a chance. I am sure that they do have such merits and if someone wants to post here telling us all about it, I will listen.

In the end, I like all computer technology and I hate the way that certain "camps" are so closed minded. The Linux users who do not see the merit in any Microsoft products, even although there are some. And Mac users seem the worst in this. I've never dismissed a whole platform as a "piece of rubbish" because all platforms have their merits, but I have heard Mac users call the PC a "piece of rubbish" without even knowing anything about it. Mac users seem too set in their ways and too stubborn.....

....And another thing.... What's all this one mouse button and dragging the floppy to the waste-basket to eject it all about? If I want a floppy out from a drive, I damn well wanna press a button to do it, not ask the OS for permission.

Originally posted by Arris
The fact that Apple are considering Athlons for Macs makes me think that the Motorola RISC processors are not as powerful as they once seemed, although a sub 1Ghz one is supposedly as powerful as much faster CISC units like P4 and Athlon.

Click to expand...

I think they are switching to Athlons because of cost and availablity rather than speed. Since Apple are essentially the only company who make use of PowerPC chips then less are produced, as such they are usually produced in batches, and so it can be a problem with availablity (i.e. the problems apple had with getting higher speed models available when there was an increased demand for them).

Since PowerPCs are internally 64 Bit, then a 1Ghz PowerPC chip is functionally equivalent to a 2Ghz 32 Bit (i.e. Athlon) on optimised code.

Also, no one has mentioned the Mac's other killer Apps :- DTP using Quark Express. Most magazines are made using Quark Express on Mac's. Mac's were designed from the beginning for DTP and so still excel at it.

The only downsides I see to the Mac seems to be the fact the hardware is proprietry rather than being an open standard. It is only recently (<5 years) that they have got PCI Slots. That and the fact MacOS is not a proper multi-tasking environment (although this has probably changed in OS9/10 as it is built on a Linux/Unix Core, but I haven't tried them.)

Originally posted by Th3M1ghtyD8
Since PowerPCs are internally 64 Bit, then a 1Ghz PowerPC chip is functionally equivalent to a 2Ghz 32 Bit (i.e. Athlon) on optimised code.

Click to expand...

That formula will get you in trouble one day. Now, I've heard that Macs are double the speed of an equivelent x86 CPU.. So you are probably right. But don't go around saying 64-bit is twice as fast as 32-bit, because it is not true. Much of the graceful motorola G4 design attributes to the Mac's speed.

I don't know about you guys, but the dumbest thing ever is to pop in a CD and not being able to eject it without deleting a stupid little icon on your desktop. I guess you can turn that off or whatever in some secret settings somewhere, but that's a little TOO juvenile for me to appreciate. I admit to never using MacOS X though.. Only 9.2 (at the most)

Originally posted by Phantasm66
....And another thing.... What's all this one mouse button and dragging the floppy to the waste-basket to eject it all about? If I want a floppy out from a drive, I damn well wanna press a button to do it, not ask the OS for permission.

Click to expand...

Especially when that same floppy drive costs $60+ :dead:

The one mouse button deal is terrifying...

But those round iMac mice suck the most. I can never tell which way is the front by touch alone...

Interesting....

Mac has switched their OS to a BSD base. Now their going to switch their processors to AMD? Sounds to me like its only a matter of time before they become the "pretty" IBM clone running BSD.

Maybe thats the best thing they can do for themselves, I think it is.

Originally posted by Rick
That formula will get you in trouble one day. Now, I've heard that Macs are double the speed of an equivelent x86 CPU.. So you are probably right. But don't go around saying 64-bit is twice as fast as 32-bit, because it is not true. Much of the graceful motorola G4 design attributes to the Mac's speed.

Click to expand...

I Know that, I was just trying to get across the point that Mhz is not everything and that it depends on the efficiency of the processor and optimisations in the code. You only need to look at Intels 64 Bit efforts to see that they are not neccessarily as fast as 32 Bit chips.

This article also has some more information on 32 Bit VS 64 Bit
http://www.overclockers.com/tips00198/

Originally posted by Th3M1ghtyD8
I was just trying to get across the point that Mhz is not everything and that it depends on the efficiency of the processor and optimisations in the code.

Click to expand...

Would I be running an Athlon system if I was not aware of that

Macs have their place, if you notice most 3D Graphics are done on a Mac, several 3D apps as well as image editing apps were created on a Mac. Much of the FX in movies would not be as good if not for the Mac.

Click to expand...

Macs have nothing on 3D graphics compared to PCs/Unix. The only high-end 3D apps available for Macs are Lightwave and Maya. No Max, no SoftImage, no AutoCAD. The graphics hardware in macs are too wimpy to compute complex 3d scenes. In a typical 3D studio the only place Macs have in the 3D pipline is in texturing, matte painting, compositing, and editing - all 2D departments. The majority of the industry use SGI (Unix) machines or PC.

Have you guys not seen recent Macs? Many come with GeForce 4 Ti4600s now. Macs have their place - don't get me wrong, I doubt I will ever have a Mac as my #1 machine, but I do have some Macs - 4 of them in fact. They are fairly capable (although I admit I can get much more done on the PC), but still I feel there is a place for them. If only some of the tools on the PC were as easy to use as they are on the Mac. Anyone ever used iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, or iTunes? Those apps are great! Then there's also Final Cut Pro, Strata, Lightwave, and Maya. How about the ability to use a Unix based OS inherently in OS X? Granted, Macs aren't for everyone, or even most people for that matter, but they do have a place. Inadequate hardware sucks no matter the platform - PC, Mac, Sun, or whatever. Sounds like the Macs most of you have gotten your hands on are inadequate.

LNCPapa

Here's the homepage of the "Switch" campagne...

http://www.apple.com/switch/

Some of the ads are funny, the best one being Ellen Feiss. Now that's a keeper :grinthumb

Wow - some of those real life stories are scary - most of them are real *****s. Guess that will change the image of Mac users being more intelligent. Or maybe we have some PC users even dumber than they are?

LNCPapa

I think there's a fine line between "real life stories" and the rubbish Apple is posting over there.

Our designers and engineers agonize over every millimeter of every new Macintosh model, and every pixel of the user interface.

Click to expand...

I don't even think I have to say I think it's exaggerated :haha:

Those "real life stories" must be what they base their new TV ads on. Those people in those commercials are just stupid. Like the guy who couldn't get his printer to work so he started changing cards out and finally bought a Mac and now he can print.

We bash those commercials. Yet we at the same time talk smack about brands like Gateway and Compaq or even Intel with those "cute little blue" doods, well be careful not to be a hypocrite here. Apple is trying to appeal to the those same people, the ones that don't know much about computers, that many of the major PC manufacturers are.
Now the one hole in my argument is the "switch" part, and I can't really back that up other than maybe saying that this "switch" is trying to convince people that are in the market for thier first computer to not have to deal with a "switch" and just to buy a Mac the first time.