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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

Sadly, the OSX= "it just works" vs Windows = "buggy and crash ridden" dichotomy is ingrained in our thinking, regardless of the fact that it's patently nonsense. Thus, I think most people viewing the Windows 7 ads are more likely to think "who are they trying to kid. Pathetic". I believe that that is how extensive and effective the Apple marketing has been.

An example: I have friends that purchased a new notebook about 8 months ago. They bought a machine with a decent dual-core CPU, 4GB RAM, onboard graphics, and Vista 64 installed. I've played with it and it works fine - quite snappy opening Office programs and surfing the net (which is all it is used for) - but they're so convinced that Vista sucks that they complain about it endlessly. Once I realised that NOTHING would convince them otherwise, I stopped taking the bait and no longer allow myself to be drawn into a discussion about it with them. I doubt that Windows 7 will be able to overcome this kind of thinking, given MS' upgrade pricing and policies.

Just 2 cents to spice things up  :
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/28388/53/

Quote from: fenixproductions on October 12, 2009, 05:54 PM

Just 2 cents to spice things up  :
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/28388/53/

now that's scary . . losing all your data

(Now now) Think Different ... Losing all your files is just a golden opportunity to start with fresh ideas.

There are a few things I'm learning here:
--The OS is not to blame so much as the amount of users using it.  Sounds like Mac may have similar issues as Windows does if it was their OS that was in 90% of the computers.

--Jobs is still a brilliant marketer.

--I'm not close to giving up my favorite software to change OS.  Never was.

How many tech blogs featured that bug discovery? Especially if a similar bug was found on Windows how would the coverage and resulting commentary be? This mac just works thing is really silly.

Every major media outlet would be covering this if it was happening under Windows and Microsoft would be being excoriated EVERYWHERE... whereas when Jobs et al. are behind a glitch like this it's barely noted.

FWIW, it's time for my semi-annual disclaimer: I am a PC but I own a Mac as well... I like OSX (I'm still on Tiger due to hardware limitations) but I can't stand Apple's marketing.

Wow, one of my favorite computer subjects and I've missed most of the discussion!

There really is way too much for me to reply to here, but I have a few random (really, truly, random) thoughts:

In response to someone earlier in the thread: graphics apps are actually seldom made on or for Mac anymore. There are far, far, FAR more graphics apps of all kinds available either Windows-exclusive, or cross-platform (e.g. Irfanview, XnView, Paint.net, Faststone, etc, etc.). The only apps really made for Macs now are Adobe and Apple's own, of course. Apple has purchased a few major developers (e.g. Finalcut devs) to make them platform-exclusive, but before that they were cross-platform.

I don't think the "Photoshop is made for and works better on Mac" argument holds up anymore, not for several versions at least. If I recall 64 bit CS4 was massively delayed on Mac this generation, a big signal right there. Apple does a lot of things wrong behind the scenes in the coder's world. If you've ever talked to someone coding for the Mac platform and just trying to get things done, you'd hear all about it. I know because I work for a company that makes a cross-platform graphics app, and some of Apple's decisions really defy belief.

In regards to businesses converting just because a generation of people become Mac users (which they aren't - Macs still have very much a minority of even consumer-level systems), that won't happen because - with the exception of small or niche businesses (e.g. graphics shops) - what businesses use isn't largely dictated by what their employees know and like, it's dictated by an IT department who will always be savvy with Windows or whatever platform best enables them to do their job, and it's also dictated by business software availability and support, which is still largely MS or at least Windows focused. Apple seems to ignore this market fairly consciously, too. They probably aren't all that interested in the low margin business market, and who can really blame them. People always talk about Apple reaching these new markets with apparently the mistaken assumption that all markets are necessarily worth owning, but Apple proves that being a minority player can still be extremely profitable. Apple puts in probably about 10% of the effort that MS does, and reaps 90% of the reward that MS does with a far larger market share.

As for why Apple keeps marketing the way they do, well of course the answer is *because it works*. What other reason is there to use marketing of any kind? If truthful marketing campaigns that showed actual users would garner more users, naturally that's what they'd use. But I think that in itself shows you that OS X *can't* be that much better, otherwise they would use those tactics. Even WWDC and other Apple events, where they *do* show stuff in action, are actually paid attention to by a relative minority of Mac users (let alone computer users overall), and they're not a primary marketing piece. If those demos were so good at selling Mac's features and stability, they'd be the ads, but they aren't. Instead we have smarmy Justin Long basically just standing by letting the PC screw everything up, and then casually, almost even reluctantly pointing out that Mac is the obvious, superior option.

Here's what's interesting about all this, and it's been at least touched on, if not fully discussed already: the only reason any of this works, the only reason the Mac platform has any kind of edge (and that edge certainly isn't in market share - 10% overall), is precisely *because* of its "underdog" status and the relatively small size of its market. Give it a 90% market share and
A: more users, more problems
B: to get there they'd have to lower prices and lower margins, which means less budget to do great design, possibly the need to shop out system construction to 3rd parties again and thus broadening hardware support requirements and lowering the reliability of the OS
C: bigger target for viruses and other malware
D: (and this is the one few consider) given what happened to Microsoft re: antitrust, and looking at how Apple is doing *way* worse things in this regard (forget just bundling a browser or media player, they bundle everything, plus *force* installation of apps you don't even want on your system, even if it's *not* a Mac), it would be shocking if Apple wouldn't be subject to the same kind of sanctions

What you have to ask yourself when considering Macs and where they will go is, has BMW become the most owned car in America? Will it ever? No and probably not. The only way that would ever happen is if BMW weren't a luxury manufacturer. They are defined by their market. Change the market, and you change the product, change the company, change everything. The same is true of Apple.

So do I see Apple running away with the business market or becoming a huge success in the true mainstream? Nope. Would I consider it as a platform for my own computing needs? Sure, as soon as they let me customize the UI more. That's my biggest complaint with the OS, honestly. Not even general customizability as that's actually fairly good if you're willing to dig into the commandline. There's a whole community of OS X hackers just like there are Windows hackers, people like us here who like tweaking and tuning to get the most out of the OS. You don't hear as much about them because OS X as a platform is supposed to "just work", but there are plenty of people who aren't satisfied with how it "just works" out of the box and work to make it "just work" in a different way. The UI though is somewhat more rigid as I understand it, and that's a big part of what keeps me away. That and the lack of more system-level utils like better file managers, which someone else mentioned. But I still keep an eye on what they're doing and I hope that one day they do decide to offer a more "serious", "geek" line of systems and OS products, sort of an unlocked version of the Mac experience. But I doubt it - it'd be a big threat to their cash cow, and what sensible business would want to do that just to satisfy a minority of potential customers?

- Oshyan

Every major media outlet would be covering this if it was happening under Windows and Microsoft would be being excoriated EVERYWHERE... whereas when Jobs et al. are behind a glitch like this it's barely noted.

Well, to be fair...is it really newsworthy when it's a bug that affects less than 10% of computer users world-wide? 

Quote from: JavaJones on October 12, 2009, 09:15 PM

That and the lack of more system-level utils like better file managers, which someone else mentioned.

File manager junkie that I am if I were a Mac user I think I'd be using this:

http://www.binarynights.com/forklift

It looks like it whoops Finder's butt.

I've tried it and it's nice... Path Finder is also interesting. There are a few others that I've not tried (such as Disk Order), but nothing like the range of choice available for windows. FWIW (and tangentially), the new Windows Explorer in Windows 7 is very good - it features integrated search and a file previewer. If only they'd bring back dual-pane (a la Windows 3) as well...

Darwin, I'm surprised you like the changes in Win7's file manager. I wrote a blog post about why I hate it.
http://oshyan.blogspot.com/2009/09/fixing-windows-7-part-1.html

Of course my recommendation applies to almost any of the available Windows file manager replacements, it just happens that Free Commander is, well, free, and nicely capable. I've found a few things that don't work quite right on Win7 (drag and drop to apps for instance), but overall it's quite good.

- Oshyan

--Jobs is still a brilliant marketer.

Here's my take on that topic:

Jobs is still a brilliant successful marketer.