Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.
rgdot:
4/10, some scary quotes there :D
Stoic Joker:
Um... Speaking of Steve Wozniak ... If I recall my snApple history correctly Wozniak was the brains of the operation and Jobs was the show pony? I can't find the article now but I recall reading that Wozniak was rather dissapointed with what Macs had become.
Honestly in a choice between a Mac & a staph infection, I'd have to flip a coin.
SKesselman:
I completely agree with Superboy on this topic.
Lashiec, certainly you understand that not every user is a power user, and very few are as knowledgeable as you all are here on this forum.
A PC is such a pain in the ass to use and get it running smoothly. Very few people have the ability, patience, and willpower to do it. We're not the norm here.-superboyac (October 01, 2009, 02:13 AM)
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Not to mention time. Learning time.
Someone like me who knows so much about using Windows is very, very rare in my workplace and industry. The problem is that if you're not like me or us here, you WILL run into issues with the PC. Constantly...-superboyac (October 01, 2009, 02:13 AM)
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And that's because people don't listen and do whatever they want in the computer, and then shit happens. And when it happens they blame Windows, instead of putting the blame on themselves.
-Lashiec (October 01, 2009, 09:40 AM)
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Huh? I run into problems all the time. We blame Windows because we cannot fix something if we don't know what's broken. We only know the results. Most of us don't even understand some of the error messages Windows gives.
What is doing "whatever they want"? Installing software? Allowing a Windows update, but not having the driver needed to download the other driver needed to finish it? Starting or shutting down the PC & hoping the system can do it in less than 5 minutes? How it it that the average user is supposed to know how to get around issues like these?
Yesterday, Infran View crashed every time I started it and Paint has not worked in months.
If I had a child, let alone a full-time job, I would never be able to sit here, research and repair repair this.
I've spent hours on this Paint problem & have given up - my life is passing me by! Others simply do not have this kind of time.
My dad is afraid to do anything remotely adventurous on his laptop...
-superboyac (October 01, 2009, 02:13 AM)
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Same here. And he's really smart. Many intelligent people I talk to won't do a lot of things we consider basic, they don't want problems.
I'd also like to add the frustration of going to a software site for support, only to be directed to a forum.
Did you know that even if the search is performed properly by a user, that they don't always work?
Nobody should be obligated to spend large amounts of time scouring the internet for solutions to such problems.
So, please try and see this from an average user's point of view.
I'm looking for a place where I can rent a mac to see if I want to make The Switch as well.
These problems are getting old.
Lashiec:
Lashiec, certainly you understand that not every user is a power user, and very few are as knowledgeable as you all are here on this forum.
-SKesselman (October 11, 2009, 01:05 PM)
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Sure I do, but there are many knowledge levels regarding Windows. Most users ignore the existence of IrfanView, for example, and continue to use Windows built-in picture viewer.
Anyway, my criticism is mostly directed at the language used when comparing Windows and OS X. What I was trying to say it's that Mac OS X is not inherently better than Windows, just that certain circumstances make it seem so. And Apple exploit that in their ads, targeted at your average user (whatever is that). So, in that sense, the Mac really just works, and is theoretically better than Windows because of its "ability" to avoid the pitfalls that trouble the Windows ecosystem. All of this doesn't matter to most users, but we could avoid spreading the myth in the forum, Apple's marketing department is more than enough :)
In my view, no OS is really better than the other. Although using Windows may skew my opinion somewhat in its favour, I think that each OS has its strengths and its weaknesses, and, in the end, all of them are average.
Huh? I run into problems all the time. We blame Windows because we cannot fix something if we don't know what's broken. We only know the results. Most of us don't even understand some of the error messages Windows gives.
Yesterday, Infran View crashed every time I started it and Paint has not worked in months.
If I had a child, let alone a full-time job, I would never be able to sit here, research and repair repair this.
I've spent hours on this Paint problem & have given up - my life is passing me by! Others simply do not have this kind of time.
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So do I, as I said. I get into all sorts of problems because of dabbling too much with the innards of the system. For example, during many months PowerPoint Viewer wouldn't run. At all, not even start. I reinstalled it, I cleaned everything the installer writes on the system... nothing. The other day I reinstalled every Office viewer, and applied all the updates, and magically now it's working as always. Maybe it was caused by me monitoring the installation of the app, which, when uninstalled, broke something that the viewer needed? Who knows. Funny enough, that monitoring helped me catch another problem introduced by Word Viewer, which killed the association of HTML files with Opera.
What is doing "whatever they want"? Installing software? Allowing a Windows update, but not having the driver needed to download the other driver needed to finish it? Starting or shutting down the PC & hoping the system can do it in less than 5 minutes? How it it that the average user is supposed to know how to get around issues like these?
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Getting software from unknown sources. Installing them clicking "Next" ad nauseam, which in turns get all kind of crapware into the system. NOT allowing Windows updates. Getting drivers from Windows Update (ok, that's something most people do not know, but it's advisable to get them directly from the vendor when possible). Not installing security software, or disabling it because it makes the computer slow, which is caused by the crapware already installed by other apps. Disabling UAC because it's noisy. Not following the basic security rules, and clicking everything is thrown at them, despite you telling them not to do that again and again and again. Would they accept everything people would offer to them in a bad neighborhood? Probably not. I don't expect them to follow the rules all the time (heck, not even I do it), but they could follow them most times.
Some of the issues you mention are not supposed to get fixed by the average user, that's true, but using the computer with sense should avoid most of them. The rest are ones that users likely won't encounter ever, unless someone else caused it (the eventual Microsoft update, for example), which would prompt a call to the knowledgeable friend :)
If someday the Mac ecosystem is hit with the same problems, the advice of switching when hit with problems that could have been avoided in the first place won't have solved anything at all. Some education here will pay off in the long term. And remember, OS X also has its own set of issues, and most of the criticism you express regarding the frustration of finding a solution also applies here.
Innuendo:
In my view, no OS is really better than the other. Although using Windows may skew my opinion somewhat in its favour, I think that each OS has its strengths and its weaknesses, and, in the end, all of them are average.-Lashiec (October 11, 2009, 05:22 PM)
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Your view is correct. No OS is really better than the other when you look at the overall picture. Each OS has its advantages and disadvantages. However, Apple's commercials conveniently leave that part out. As a matter of fact, Apple's commercials leave out a LOT about OS X. Next time you see a Mac commercial pay close attention to what is said. Over 90% of the commercial is spent talking about Windows PCs and what Windows PCs do wrong. Very little is said about OS X's capabilities & after all these commercials we have yet to see a single screenshot of OS X or a list of what it can do. Why don't they show a person *using* a Mac and OS X to convince you to buy rather than just slam, insult, and sling mud at the competition?
Compare that to the commercial Microsoft has out right now for Windows 7. They show a little girl using Windows & making pretty cool multimedia presentations. I think the average person will see that and think, "Wow...so simple a child can do it" and probably just as importantly, what is conspicuously absent from their commercials? Insulting the competition. Microsoft? Taking the higher ground? Somebody's sized Satan for ice skates, for sure!
For those contemplating moving to a Mac don't let the Mac commercials influence your decision at all. The only information they impart is how Apple feels about Windows PCs and Microsoft. I think we all could guess what was on Apple's mind regarding that subject without the need for a multi-million dollar ad campaign.
OS X crashes just as much as Windows. There are just as many mysterious, "unfixable" problems on a Mac as there are on a Windows PC. If you want to switch because you like the way the OS works on a Mac better then great. Go forth and enjoy it. If you want to switch because you want a more reliable computer you may be disappointed.
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