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Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.
superboyac:
I'm beginning to see that there is something inherently wrong with the Windows OS. It's not just specific things about XP, or Vista, or even Win 7 (which I haven't tried yet). It's about issues with Windows that are not getting solved, and I don't think will get solved anytime soon. By the way, I am speaking from a application/user standpoint, not about specifics and technical stuff. I know there are several other threads talking about the under-the-hood improvements of Windows 7 and stuff. That's not what this is about. This is about something bigger, something more general.
Now, what started this for me is the following: I built my computer in January (you can see the thread here). For all practical purposes, this computer is a beast. There should be nothing that it can't do that I would want to do. I'm talking about music applications, office applications, and a bunch of little software here and there. Actually, it is way overkill for anything like that. Speed and performance should not be an issue. Ever. Don't even try to tell me otherwise. Yesterday, I started using Photoshop on my computer. I made a big file, like 4000x4000 pixels. Still, my computer should handle it easily. I started doing stuff, and there was a noticeable lag on it, like a ghosting effect when things were dragged around. Forget about that, that's not the point. The point is that I should not be experiencing any sort of performance issue doing that on my computer. It was somewhat solved with an update. Again, that's not the point. I can think of several other things that are related to performance and speed issues that leave me wondering because I know for sure that my computer technically has the power to handle it and 100x more.
I talked to a guy at work today about Photoshop. Photoshop runs much more flawlessly on the Mac and that's what everyone uses there. Now, i know some of you are thinking we can get it working fine on a PC. But that's not the point either. Over the years, I've had to spend a lot of time and energy becoming a Windows expert so that I can fix all these problems. Well, the truth is that the commercials are right. Macs just work. Believe me, I'm the most die-hard PC guy there can be. I love my little programs here. You guys know this if you've read anything I've put here. I'm hardcore. I can't live without my Windows programs. But I'm growing up, I'm changing, I'm doing different things with my life.
Now here is what I've noticed recently. And please, I want to emphasize again that this is not a technical discussion, but more of a sociological one:
When Windows came out with Vista, it was a disaster. Things started changing. The Mac started to surge. I don't mean things you read in articles, I mean I've seen this in my personal life. I've seen more than a handful of my friends and family switch from PC to MAC in the last year. And they are very happy about it. Guess what? All the young, student age workers that I know got Mac laptops in the past year. Why? They look good, they work without fussing around with it, and everything that it does is COOL. We make fun of those things because we here are very practical minded geeks, but even I have to admit that everything the Macs do are really, really cool. I was actually very impressed by their new touchpads, with their large size and awesome multi-finger features. Why didn't PC's come up with anything like that for years and years? In fact, Dell's touchpad has gotten progressively worse as the years have gone by. Anyway, all the kids have Macs and they're using them in their classes and lives. Guess what is going to happen? They are going to get jobs, and they are going to want to use Macs. Companies may resist for a while, but the demand will build. Then, the workplace (which is monopolized by Windows right now) will start shifting to Mac. Once that market gets big enough, Windows will be in real trouble. That's their bread and butter--the workplace.
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. 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. Our graphics department told me they could not use PC's for what they do (all that video, photo editing) unless they had an IT guy camped right in the middle of their offices. That's how much of a pain it is. One guy told me that he was even more die-hard PC user than I am and he switched over to Mac and never looked back. In fact, his wife will attest that his LIFE dramatically changed when he switched to Macs. This is no exaggeration. This guy does video, audio, photo editing day and night. He lives in it. At some point, you just have to throw the towel in.
Let's talk about those IT guys, if it weren't for all the Windows issues, I bet we would need them only half as much. I don't mean managing the servers and all that behind the scenes stuff. I mean helping all the people who run into a little issue here and there. More often that not, they place an undue amount of restrictions on our PC's because they just don't want to deal with everyone's problems anymore, and they say it's for security reasons. But that's not really the solution. The problem is that Windows runs into problems way too easily and way too often.
I'm not saying I'm switching to Macs right now. But I feel it coming. How much longer do I want to keep tweaking my PC and keeping up with all the options and little solutions to the dozens of programs that I like to use? I love it on one hand, but it's a lot of effort and time on the other. What if I don't quite love it so much anymore? What if I don't have as much time for it? I'm already sick of having to fix all my family and friends' problems. Actually, I've stopped offering my help for the most part the last few years. I just do it in real emergencies (or if I like a girl, ha!). My dad is afraid to do anything remotely adventurous on his laptop because he doesn't want to annoy me by calling me for computer help. So he has this real nice laptop and all he does is use Outlook, Word, Excel, and browse the internet. He will literally not do anything else. It's sad. And all because he's run into a few little issues here and there in the past, and I've had to fix it by spending a few minutes on it. There are a lot of people like that. Mac users are not like that. They are quite content in a very non-PC user kind of way.
So that's it. I think the Mac wave is coming. Vista sucked. The young people switched to Macs. These people will eventually influence the workplace. Slowly, the workplace will start using Macs. Windows may start dying slowly.
jgpaiva:
I can't talk for someone who has moved to mac. However, I have moved to Ubuntu last year, and at the time I thought it was great.
Actually, I thought it was great just until I installed 7 in my laptop.
When I tried it, I really regretted that I had moved to Ubuntu. Unfortunately, it's too late to go back right now.
7 may be coming just a bit too late, but I think it'll be a really good way of keeping people from going mac.
However, I may really soon switch to mac at my workplace, for 2 reasons: easy to inter-operate with linux, and WAY better than windows for my line of work (programming/constantly working on Unix servers, etc) - it's still worse than Ubuntu for working, but ubuntu really gets on my nerves too often than I'd like it to.
f0dder:
Ah yes, "macs just work" - until they don't, and then you're screwed. Like, something as simple as doing a backup to an external devices freezes the machine completely (so much for OS X being stable) - your only option is hardbooting, at which point the mac refuses to boot. After going into safe mode, it decides that wiping your entire filesystem is a good idea.
I think it would be fun if OS X got a lot more marketshare, though. With enough power users on the system, things would start breaking at least as much as it does on Windows, hopefully shutting some of the mac fagnbois up. Oh, and with enough marketshare, it would be a lot more interesting to write malware for the platform, and utilize some of those wonderful kernel and userland flaws that OS X has - that might finally shut up some of the "OS X is so much more safe than Windows" cluetards :)
mrainey:
Being COOL is not high on my list of priorities. :)
tomos:
re photoshop:
could it be a software issue? - what with Photoshop being sold to so many amatuer photographers (I suspect they're it's biggest market these days) you'd think Adobe would make it work properly on windows machines.
it certainly used to be true that graphics software was designed for the mac (and vice-versa maybe?*) with windows versions being more of an afterthought.
* graphics apps used work on macs with much lower specs than were necessary on windows machines - but I think that's all in the past now.. unfortunately though, I suspect they still often treat windows versions as second class apps
And then there's the CONTROL that macs have on the hardware aspect of things - there's pros & cons there.
I think a problem with custom built compared to macs (or any quality pre-made machine) is that the mix of parts arent tested on any scale in the custom computer...
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