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THE UNOFFICIAL APPLE THREAD

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by rob_serve

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there must be loads of apple nuts out there, i had an apple and i fell in love with it, but i took it back as the battery didnt fit right (it was an ibook), and i've had a pc laptop ever since. i do have a pod mini though (great).
Has anybody got any apple experiences, or any thoughts on what they should release?

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by rexworld

I've got a three-year old iBook, and a two-year old iPod. Would love to add a Mac Mini as my home theater computer, but the budget won't allow for it right now. Maybe after I do my taxes and see what the refund is going to be :-)

by jardinier

I have collected a number of Macs, running everything from OS 7 through to OS X.

My experience with them, well that is from about OS 8 to 9.2, [which parallels Windows from about 95 to 2K] is that they crash far more often than Windows; have no ctrl + alt + del to restart them and no power button to switch off -- so it is back to the wall socket and start from scratch; they throw up far more error messages than Windows, a favourite being: "Such and such could not be done because of an unexpected error."

They are also very fussy about software compatibility between different models.

It is my considered opinion, after fighting with various Macs for two years, that they are decidedly NOT user friendly. I think this myth started because they released a GUI years before IBM, and the myth has survived.

HOWEVER, it is not all bad news. I have an iMac running system 9.2, and if I had to part with all my computers except one, I would probably keep the iMac.

Why? Because of its very compact design -- monitor and computer all in a single structure that can be easily carried in one hand.

It's also kinda cute, and OS 9.2 seems a big improvement on the various 8 systems.

If I was starting out on computers now, I would quite likely choose a Mac because they have surpassed Windows in technology, and all Mac units are rigidly constructed. Most models have provided very easy access to the innards for the convenience of technical work.

I am very impressed with the G5 flat model, in which the computer is affixed behind the flat screen, and is only about two inches in depth.

I was awed recently by a demonstration of a particular set of speakers. Each consisted of a small stand with about five cones, no more than 2 inches in diameter each, and yet they pumped out quite impressive bass.

by jamesrl

I first started using a Mac the first year they were available. I had also used an IBM PC, a PC clone and an Apple II.

There used to be a switch that would do essentially the same thing as control alt delete. It was on the side of the Mac.

I did find it much more user friendly than the PC up until Win 95. I did still at that time find OS 6 and 7 more stable than Win 95. It wasn't in my mind until Win 98 SE that it became comparable. But by that point I was doing project work, not supporting hundreds of PCs and Macs.

As for user friendly, I think it depends on where you are coming from. I did find non-techies could learn the GUI quicker than Windows GUIs, but if you already know windows, you have to unlearn some things.

James

by jardinier

My first was a Macintosh Plus. However I destroyed the floppy drive when I tried to extract a disc with a pair of narrow-nosed pliers.

When I was taught the trick, I was incredulous. Official Mac instructions for manually removing a floppy disc -- straighten out a paper clip and insert it in the small hole. God give me strength -- why was there no knob/button to perform this simple operation (often necessary because the computer would freeze so that I could not eject the disk through the software).

I still have a Colour Classic which is a nice computer.

As for user friendliness, I firmly believe that this is simply a matter of which system you first learned.

HOWEVER, committed Mac users are absolute fanatics. To them, Windows have NO saving graces.

I have NEVER encountered a PC user who felt the need to justify their preference.

Macs were definitely superior to Windows for graphics, at least up till recently. On OS 8.6 for example, 256 colours on a Mac looked almost as good as 60 K on a PC.

However over the past couple of years I have been frequently encountering people in the graphics industries who have had to change to Windows, because that was what their company was now using.

I don't know whether that indicates that Windows graphics are now superior to Mac, but obviously at the very least the gap must have been considerably narrowed.

by gentlerf

I suppose the "fussiness" you were talking about can be a relative issue as I personally have had to "debug" Windows and DOS on a couple of hundred platforms in an industrial environment so am very glad of an OS even in the OS 7.x versions that was a ton easier to use. I do realize the Mac and is OS's aren't everyone's cup of tea, but that is what makes life and not just computers interesting. I certainly am not wedded to the Microsoft Mystique as many are nor do I have a Macintosh Uber Alles mindset. I am one who believes the best OS for someone is the one that lets them do their work efficiently and easily without having to armwrestle the OS. As a techie, I like the Mac OS for its elegance and run both OS 9.x and OS X on several Macs I have. The one I am typing this on is an older PowerTower clone that according to Apple should not be running anything past Mac OS 8.0 and here I am with the help of others running both 9.2.2 and 10.3.7 (Panther). Sure, the machine is not trouble free but then neither is a 28 year old small pickup truck.

Yes, I do get frustrated at things that happen, but then I sit down and have either a beer or glass of wine and think things through as I was recently taught in College. I write down the things that happen and the things I tried in sequencial order. 90% of the time, I figure it out in under an hour. 'Nuff said.

by rknrlkid

I never used a Mac (or Apple of any kind, for that matter) until I got a half dozen of them of different types in an auction lot about 4 years ago. I suddenly had everything from a 512 to a PowerPC, plus software. Some were broke and tossed, some were given away.

I did keep a few just out of curiosity. I found the Mac Classic with 4MB of memory and OS 7.0.1 to be an excellent dedicated word processor (using Word 4.0). One of the PowerPCs became a dedicated graphics station, having a full page color scanner attached, along with Photoshop LE. (Just as an aside, Doom looks better on the Mac! ::laffs::)

I found the Mac OS to have a moderately steep learning curve after being so used to Windows. Hardware wise, however, they were much easier to work with because there were less working parts to noodle with. SCSI was a good idea!

Overall, they are different. I don't play the "one is better than the other" game, because I see shortcomings in both. I can be more productive on some things on the Mac, and more productive on Windows for some others. But I still use Windows based computers for the majority of tasks.

by gentlerf

Many folks throw up the argument of "its all in what you're used to using," and I reply, "Then I should be still fighting for punch cards and paper tape." Realistically that is techno-myopia. Surely there are places in any business where Macs can do a more productive job than the PC's in the same place.

I do admit it may cause some angst by those who want a unified/uniform support environment but for the most part such angst is caused by misperceptions on the part of techs and CIO's who know nothing about the platform in particular and support needs in general. I have a couple of older PC's which were gifts that I use as mainly diagnostic aids for stuff the Macs cannot do. I could cite many places where data collection in real time has shown a lower incidence of service calls for Macs than for PC's but I know you aren't interested in that.

by rknrlkid

I should have put my reply in more context. The 75/25% thing is what I do at HOME, not at work. At work we have Windows machines almost exclusively except for the graphic arts shop.

I use the Macintosh/Windows mix at home because of economics. My computer budget is usually pretty low; buying stuff new is out of the question. So I went the auction route, and got lots of stuff cheap. Using the PowerPC for graphics came about because I got a SCSI full page scanner, and since I had all this hardware laying around I was able to have a dedicated scanner machine with the Macintosh. Connecting the scanner to the Mac was simply a matter of moving two files from one folder to another and it worked. I did find the Windows drivers, but I didn't want to go through the nightmare of installing 4 floppy disks worth of stuff, in addition to installing a SCSI card and associated drivers.

In a work environment, I would be inclined to want a uniform environment. But at home, I'm not that picky. Heck, I still use Windows 3.1 at home because I have software that won't run as well under anything else. (Yes, I have 3 computers hooked up and running together. My computer room looks like the setup in the Matrix.) My motto has become "use what works." Since I cannot afford to do the endless and mindless upgrades the companies force us to do, I decided to be content with what I have.

Did I mention Tomb Raider is cooler on the Mac too? ::laffs:: ;)

by awolfe_ii

...and what is this about the battery not fitting right???

Last March, I gave my employer back the Dell Dimension laptop they gave me and started using my own PowerBook G4.

The only change I had seen in Windows for years was the decoration; Apple products truly innovate.

I really enjoy my PowerBook; it's just a joy to use. Period.

by gsteve

You made mention of the graphics industries. Another industry I have noticed to be saturated with apple juice is the movie industry. How frequently do you look at a close up shot of a desktop in a movie...and you see the unmistakeable apple font (is it Geneva?)? I don't know if this is 100% accurate, but once you start looking, I bet you will be amazed how true it is!

by rknrlkid

Watch movies closely (especially 80s/90s ones) and you will see lots of Macs. Specifics?

- Star Trek IV - Transparent aluminum formula developed on a Mac Plus

- Independence Day - virus is uploaded to the alien mothership from a PowerBook

My guess is that since much of the special effects and graphic type stuff was developed on a Mac, the producers/directors included as computers what they knew as a computer. I'm having a really hard time trying to think of a movie that uses Windows! (True Lies is the only one that comes to mind, with Win 3.1 in Arabic.)

by jamesrl

When I was working in the 80s, I partnered up with a consultant who did a big business selling Movie Budgeting and Movie Scripting software, it was the industry standard and it was only available on the Mac. We had a lot of businesses which used Macs for that purpose - including Broadway Video(Kids in the Hall, Saturday Night Live), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and a lot of small production houses. None of them did their own graphics. But they all had them around.

The special effects are often done not by the producers, but by a third party. Alias, which makes the most popular tools for special effects, uses Macs in their office, but Unix workstations for their rendering tools.

Disney was once all Mac, but I think they have switched.

While Pixar used Macs in the early days, they didn't have enough power for "big" animation, and Pixar used Unix Boxes(Sun I think) for the big rendering farms required for full length movie style animation.

Interestingly in the first season of 24, the good guys used Macs, and the bad guys used PCs - when one of the internal staff used a PC, it was a sign they were double agents. This season they all use PCs.

James

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