Apple Mac vs PC

[Antony]

This is a photo of me and David Koch 'Kochie'.


On today's Sunrise, they talked about the difference between Mac and PC.


(click the QuickTime player screenshot above to watch the capture, , 3 min 13 sec, 6.8MB)

The Gadget guy is more of a PC guy, and is not as technical as most of our SillyDog701 members.

And Kochie is a Mac guy

Enjoy.

Video clip encoded in H.264. QuickTime Player 7 recommended.

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[Don_HH2K]

"What does Mac do that PC doesn't?"

"Nothing, really."

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[Antony]

TUAW has an interesting article between Apple and Microsoft.

So what's the real difference between Apple and Microsoft? Microsoft tries to bribe bloggers. Apple sues them. It would be hard to come up with a joke as odd as this real-life situation. Someone posted a link to a site that used iPhone screen shots to skin Windows Mobile phones. Let me repeat. It was a link to an external site. He received a cease and desist order from Apple's lawyers.
"It has come to our attention that you have posted a screenshot of Apple's new iPhone and links that facilitate the installation of that screenshot on a PocketPC device...While we appreciate your interest in the iPhone, the icons and screenshot displayed on your website are copyrighted by Apple, and copyright law explicitly prohibits unauthorized display and distribution of copyrighted works. Apple therefore demands that you remove this screenshot from your website and refrain from facilitating the further dissemination of Apple's copyrighted material by removing the link to http://forum.xda-developers.com, where said icons and screenshot are being distributed."

Between an Acer Ferrari and a cease-and-desist letter? I'd prefer the Acer, thank you very much.

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[allen-uk]

I recently upgraded from an old, old G3 (1997, beige) all the way to an Intel iMac, in one easy move.

Apart from the fact that I should have done it years ago, one point strikes me as relevant to this (four-year-long!) debate.

I couldn't connect my brand new iMac to my broadband internet cable modem. The cable company swore blind that their kit was okay, so it had to be the Mac. Apple sent me a SECOND BRAND NEW IMAC within a few days.

Now, if I'd bought a PC instead, say a similarly expensive model from Dell or the like, do you REALLY think that I'd have been given a second machine a few days after taking delivery of the first? No, nor do I.

As it happens, it WASN'T the iMac at fault, it was the CABLE company all along, but that's by the way.

The treatment I got from Apple, in itself, is enough to keep me a Mac user for many years yet.

Allen, London.

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[Sonadow]

Not only does Apple make better systems, they make them stronger too.

just so you know:

i made to switch to Apple only 2 months ago, all my life i have been a Windows user.

Lets talk about desktops first shall we?..wait, Windows desktops? do they even exist? I thought they only had 'towers'. -.-

My new tower which i asembled 1 year ago couldnt squeeze onto my tiny desk i have been using for years. Had to put the tower under the desk.

Intel 2.4GHz Celeron D, Intel integrated graphics, 512mb RAM. That's all you need to know.

Then my flat screen monitor was so big and bulky there was no space for the keyboard and mouse. So i put them on top of my printer instead.Everyday while working on it i would 'accidently' kick the tower, and sometimes initiate a reset if i hit the power button. that, or the keyboard will slide off the printer and break itself. (lets have alphabet soup shall we?) how nice. hours of work, lost. And 'recovered' files by Windows? forget it, they appear or garbled and useless. Mostly they just dont even open. Whee.

did i mention that my proggies love to quit by themselves or freeze at the most unexpected times? I had the entire Adobe CS 2 suite open (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator etc etc) for working on a major project. 1 by 1 each program froze and quit. How nice.

So i had enough. Trashed the entire PC away and decided to look at a Mac. NOT the Mini, the all-in-one Mac. It sat on my tiny desk like a sleek toy. And the Apple keyboard fitted in snugly into the remaining space i had on my desk. Design at its best. It was as if they planned for such situations.

the iMac was configured at 1.83GHz, 512 mb RAM and Integrated Intel GMA 9500.

Now about the functionality: i was connected online in just seconds. No need to setup any wireless access, OS X did just that for me and happily scrolled in my SSID once it was ready to go. (although Safari sux :p )

And the GUI was just 'oh-so-neato'. Want to close an app? Open a file? Anything? Just look up. Toolbar sits there awaiting your instructions. And the ability to set changing wallpapers for the desktop: BRILLIANT. Each desktop wallpaper of your choice fades in and out like a charm. Windows XP? you had to find a wallpaper changing program to do so. XP's Powertoys did a lousy job of just changing them: no transitions, no fades, nothing. Yuck.

And the executions. Is fantastic i tell you. CS2 was meant for PPC Macs, NOT Intel ones. Right from the start i knew Rosetta would hog most of the limitted 512mb RAM i had in my iMac. But, no choice, i went ahead with it and as per my old Windows, opened up every single app in CS2 in 1 shot. And guess what?

CS2 DID NOT FREEZE.

You heard it right. It ran slowly (rather slow in fact). But the point was that it DID NOT FREEZE. Thanks to that, i was able to successfully complete my project without the hassle of opening and shutting down individual applications to do something, something i was never able to pull off on my XP., even with the same amount of base ram.

so the iMac cost more than twice my tower. So what? The time saved in getting everything done seemlessly + the overall positive experience = priceless.

Anyone else wants to debate functionality? Im up.

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[Sonadow]

let's talk about laptops now.

always like before, comparing price and specs is pointless, the Macs are going to and will lose out.

but that's just 1 aspect.

let's look at some entry level notebooks: Dell, Macbook, Sony Vaio, LG, Toshiba.

Every last one of them kicks the crap out of Macbook when it comes down to price and specs (maybe except for Vaio, with their price for quality selling point)

I have used every single one of those laptops throughout my career, and being a VERY heavy user, i say the Macbook IS the better choice.

why?

for one, im a little of a clumsy fellow. dropping notebooks is like a common occurance, especially when i get absent minded and forget to zip up my notebook back.

Dell shattered its screen when i dropped it from my table. Toshiba broke into 3 pieces when ut fell from my bag. LG lost its disc tray when someone tripped over the power cable.

Only Sony and Macbook survived the harsh conditions i put them through. But dont forget that Vaio is made of metal, and the Macbook is plastic. And i dont intend to pay more for a metal laptop when i can get a plastic one from Apple at a slightly better price.

and the magnetic power adaptor of the Macbook is a genius. some nutcase tripping over your cable will no longer fling your entire notebook off the table: the adaptor head snaps cleanly off the notebook socket, leaving both adaptor and notebook safe from harm.

to sum it up: in Apple, you pay for design, functionality, style and safety.

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[Don_HH2K]

Just for some comparison to Sonadow's posts...

Windows desktops do exist; I've got one right next to me. It's a 1990 Compaq Deskpro, which are now made by Hewlett-Packard. Why do I still have it? When it all comes down to it, PCs haven't changed that much over the past two decades. They're still based around Intel i386 processors, and more or less have the same hardware layout minus some newer system extensions like graphics cards or physics processors. In other words, some decent software like Firefox and TerraIM and so on will still run on it.

On the other hand, if I take a Mac from 1990, it's using a 68k processor. Macs, on the other hand, have changed quite a bit. After the 68k era, Apple moved to PowerPC processors, and essentially ditched the 68k architecture quicker than other manufacturers dropped 16-bit x86 OSes over 32-bit ones. So if I pull out a 68k Mac, the best I can do is Netscape 4.08 to get online.

The nice thing about size with a PC is that you generally have a higher degree of control over it. Seeing that you built the machine yourself, you could have easily built a smaller form-factor PC. In my case the tower-under-the-desk idea actually works better, since the desk is already cluttered with my notebook and two other CRTs.

Getting online seems pretty easy to me. On XP or Server 2003, just install Windows if it isn't preloaded, plug in your LAN card, and begin surfing. Personally I take the extra time to go in, disable DHCP and set static IP addresses, fine-tune the firewall, and go download a decent Web browser before surfing, but all of that is completely optional. Same thing with wireless - plug in the card, select you wireless network, enter its encryption key (if necessary), and get going.

I seem to be the only one that rarely witnesses crashes. When they do occur, they're almost always my badly-written flash reader driver. In other cases it's stuff that's going to crash no matter what I do - debugging my own code, for example, where it'd be my fault anyway. Most decent apps include an autosave feature anyway, and since an application crash hardly ever brings down the entire operating system, it might take ten seconds to get back to where you were.

As for notebooks, it's true, there are some terrible ones out there. I used to have an HP Pavilion that fell apart with very little transportation. The thing is, you can find quite sturdy ones. I've dropped a 1997 Gateway countless times, yet it's still alive 24/7 and hosting a website. This new one (a HP/Compaq nx6325 Business Notebook) is quite rugged: it's gone through a year of being thrown/crammed uselessly into a locker/backpack/binder/etc and doesn't have a scratch on it other than the AMD processor logo falling off.

The power adapter on this might not be magnetic, but it does come out pretty cleanly if some clumsy fellow decides to trip over the cord. Usually it'll either stay in or come out, but it's never taken the notebook more than half an inch from where it was. I have a feeling it's due to the rubber grips underneath the notebook, which prevent it from sliding around.

Of course, if you're really into mainstream rigidity, go look at Lenovo's notebooks. I've seen one take a tennis ball to the screen, and later a fall off a table, and still work fine.

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[Sonadow]

im not gonna diss the PC, since i grew up with it.

and in fact i do have quite a few memorable times working on a PC.

its just that...well...PCs...they just become...

dead.

as in, you can recognize a PC 15 years ago and those of today: the ever so distinctive tower design. Everybody is obsessed with building the ultimate tower with loads of extra stuff slotted into it.

Even the smallest tower which i see while looking around hardware stores are still way too big for my tiny desk.

Ill admit im an upgrade freak: i just love assembling towers. But when you actually turn on the system, you will start to wish that you dont have to take apart your system every 2 years to change the CPU,motherboard, the hard disk, etc etc. Perhaps this is 1 reason why i love the iMac: it stops me from wasting $ buying more upgrade parts. ^^;;;;

And i had to open my tower up every week just to clean up the muck that gets stuck on the CPU fan and mainboards. As long as you're using a tower, it is bound to happen. Any tower. Even the oct-core Mac Pro is not immune. I love building and assembling my own towers, but i hate the mantainance. That's why im still with the iMac. :p

of course you'll get more control with your system if you build it yourself. But with more control comes more responsibility (and problems as well). If you ask me, the core difference between Windows and Mac is:

Windows tries to be informative. Mac goes for functionality.

When you want to do something in Windows, it prompts you every step of the way (usually). Sometimes, even after all that promting, things still dont turn out as planned.

Mac does everything quietly. For example: installing new hardware. You connect the hardware to the Mac, nothing happens on screen for awhile, then suddenly your new icon appears in the desktop, and everything's done: you can start using it. Windows will display a very informative bubble (but annoying) about a new hardware, then announce its driver search progress, then a bubble about its installation progress etc etc before you finally see the bubble you want to see: "The new hardware has been sucessfully installed." Im sure we could do without all these information.

such tiny details really speak volumes about the intention of each OS. Mac OSes are built for functionality and user-empowerment: you give the system something and it does everything for you without telling/asking you for anything. It gives you the impression of a really 'smart' machine.

Windows on the other hard feels more dumbed down. During the years with Windows, i often feel as if the OS is telling ME what to do instead of the other way round its supposed to be. There are times Windows stubbornly refuses to do what i tell it, insisting on its own way. Somehow Mac OS doesnt seem to have this problem.

Lets not forget about the learning curve too. Having made the switch to Mac only 2 months ago, i was a complete noob. And within 2 days i had everything in my Mac set up the way i wanted it, right down to the boot sequence and system prefs. In comparison, when upgrading from ME to XP, it took half a week to re-personalize my PC.

and there's just something about the Mac which makes it special. Even on my first day, somehow it felt as if...it was as if i knew how to use it right from day 1. i really cannot explain why but i did feel that way the moment i connected my Mac to the power source. Windows never gave me such a 'deja vu' feeling.

i'd agree that Windows boasts more 'userbility' than Mac: this is due to their integration of various system processes together to get the whole system working seamlessly. but as long as a tiny part of this chain is broken, the entire system crashes completly, most times a restart is required. Can you run Windows and shut off the explorer.exe process? or turn off the desktop? no. So if there's a problem with explorer.exe, the entire OS goes down. Mac on the otherhand, isolates every single part of the OS. Dont like Finder? Disable it completely and use Terminal. Desktop file data getting corrupted or bloated? Isolate the desktop file and you can still use Terminal to get your daily work done. Apple's desktop not to your liking? Delete the entire desktop file and install KDE or GNOME. Safari sucks? Trash it away. In fact, almost anything in Mac can be deleted safely.

This is not to say i condemn Windows though.I do have lots of good times with my PC back then.

Seriously, i hope 1 day the historical OS war between Windows and Apple will end.

EDIT: That, plus somehow, legacy Mac OSes just never truely 'die out'. in my college film studio, there's a whole row of extremely old Apple computers (still using the rainbow Apple logo) which we often use to do video editing. I have no idea what version of Mac these systems run, but my lecturer told me that those machines have been used since the late 1980s. Imagine: such an old system still used for video editing. Can legacy Windows systems perform current day's tasks like the old Apples?

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[Don_HH2K]

I'd agree that Windows boasts more 'userbility' than Mac: this is due to their integration of various system processes together to get the whole system working seamlessly. but as long as a tiny part of this chain is broken, the entire system crashes completly, most times a restart is required. Can you run Windows and shut off the explorer.exe process? or turn off the desktop? no. So if there's a problem with explorer.exe, the entire OS goes down. Mac on the otherhand, isolates every single part of the OS. Dont like Finder? Disable it completely and use Terminal. Desktop file data getting corrupted or bloated? Isolate the desktop file and you can still use Terminal to get your daily work done. Apple's desktop not to your liking? Delete the entire desktop file and install KDE or GNOME. Safari sucks? Trash it away. In fact, almost anything in Mac can be deleted safely.

Actually, you can run without Explorer perfectly fine. Here's a system running via a DOS prompt, or for those that consider DOS to be too outdated, here's a bash shell instead. There are also ports of KDE and GNOME (plus a suitable X server) to Windows, though at this point I have no idea if they're considered usable yet.

Just of note, the last time I had Explorer crash on me was while I was still running Windows XP Service Pack 1. AFAIK when Explorer crashes, Windows is programmed to automatically restart it, which I recall it used to do.

Ill admit im an upgrade freak: i just love assembling towers. But when you actually turn on the system, you will start to wish that you dont have to take apart your system every 2 years to change the CPU,motherboard, the hard disk, etc etc. Perhaps this is 1 reason why i love the iMac: it stops me from wasting $ buying more upgrade parts. ^^;;;;

Doesn't that mean you'd end up spending more on a whole new iMac after two years, instead?

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[Sonadow]

Ill admit im an upgrade freak: i just love assembling towers. But when you actually turn on the system, you will start to wish that you dont have to take apart your system every 2 years to change the CPU,motherboard, the hard disk, etc etc. Perhaps this is 1 reason why i love the iMac: it stops me from wasting $ buying more upgrade parts. ^^;;;;

Doesn't that mean you'd end up spending more on a whole new iMac after two years, instead?

no, it means that i will just need to buy new iMacs after about 5-6 years, a whole lot cheaper compared to mantaining and upgrading my existing tower every year,cause i expect Apple prices to slowly start falling. (they have started to fall already)

oh wait, i forgot i dont have that tower anymore. :p

By the way: you can upgrade the iMac. and when i mean iMac, i meant the new intel ones.
That is if you dont mind:
1)voiding the warranty
2)dismantling it knowing full well that you have an 80% chance of permernantly damaging the computer
3)getting cut/shocked/burnt
4)accidently destroying said product.
5)upgrading just the ram and hard disk.

because my lecturer opened his iMac, ripped out the hd and ram, bought a 160gb hd, some new Apple ram, ressembled it and it works like a charm.

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[Antony]

Actually, you can run without Explorer perfectly fine. Here's a system running via a DOS prompt, or for those that consider DOS to be too outdated, here's a bash shell instead.

Running Windows without Explorer is generally considered as a heavily tweak! Not everybody is capable of doing such a tweaking job.

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[Don_HH2K]

Running Windows without Explorer is generally considered as a heavily tweak! Not everybody is capable of doing such a tweaking job.

You call ending explorer.exe (via Ctrl-Alt-Del/Task Manager) a heavy tweak?

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[Sonadow]

Running Windows without Explorer is generally considered as a heavily tweak! Not everybody is capable of doing such a tweaking job.

You call ending explorer.exe (via Ctrl-Alt-Del/Task Manager) a heavy tweak?

Yes.

Because Windows ALWAYS relaunches the explorer.exe file after you terminate it.

Just like how Mac OS X always relaunches the Finder if you force quit it.

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[Don_HH2K]

If it crashes, it'll restart, but if you terminate it via Task Manager, it'll stay closed.

To note, I've had Explorer stay closed overnight to let 7-zip sessions run on low-memory (<96MB) machines.

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[Antony]

Ill admit im an upgrade freak: i just love assembling towers. But when you actually turn on the system, you will start to wish that you dont have to take apart your system every 2 years to change the CPU,motherboard, the hard disk, etc etc. Perhaps this is 1 reason why i love the iMac: it stops me from wasting $ buying more upgrade parts. ^^;;;;

Doesn't that mean you'd end up spending more on a whole new iMac after two years, instead?

It is well agreed that the lifetime (or 'used by date') of Macs is generally a lot longer than PCs, to your dismay.

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