PC or Mac?, The great debate Options

[Girvo]

*Sigh*.... I'm not much good at being a troll,

I got bored with it half way through :).

Well played. Well played...

:P

[TinBane]

Macs aren't different from PCs, just OS is different.

So you find that a computer with windows is identical to a computer with linux?

little add---got lied to by the salesman (i shoulda known better), got lied to by the local apple service guy, got lied to by the guy on apple's phone support. 3 wrongs dont make a right!!!!!!

About what?

At the same time he took a nearly bankrupt tech company and made it worth $600 a share.

So maybe there's something to this ego strategy! ;)

I think his strengths lay in choosing talented employees and getting the most out of them, focusing business strategy, and brokering deals. I'd argue Ive has greater responsibility for the success of Apple than Jobs, but only in a company Jobs was running would such power be given to someone like Ive - so it's a bit of a catch 22.

Keeping a team together, delivering on hype, promoting people with skill, and keeping product coherent are pretty damn core business skills that most awesome projects and companies don't have.
I don't think that anyone is saying Steve Jobs literally did all the things Apple did while he was CEO, but it's fair to say he was involved in a lot of it, he was further along the micro than macro management gradient on projects by all accounts.

Drop $1500 on a mac, and what do you get. A shinny UI, very basic hardware and restrictive software. Try running BF3 on a $1500 mac, and see how that works out. I know, I know, we are comparing apples to oranges here, but they are VERY over priced. And truth be told there is NOTHING that you can do on a mac that you can not do on a PC (for substantially less money)

I don't think anyone is going to suggest that a low end macintosh is a good computer to game on.
In fact, I think if games are all you are interested in, then in general you should keep a windows PC.

At the same time, mac os x gives you a combination of extreme ease of use, a *nix back-end, and good software. You can use things like Adobe's Creative Suite, on the same system which you can use a bunch of FOSS using something like homebrew.

Some things you can do, are advanced GUI based automation. Using Applescript you can manipulate files with the command line, and add in functions and programs from Creative Suite as well. I haven't seen that done well on windows or linux, but TBH, it's kind of well beyond the scope of a "how does BF3 run" comparison?

If you break this discussion down into hardware, then you end up characterising Apple vs "PCs" as thus:

PCs tend to give you a lot of choice on configuration, but for the vast majority of the population (not the atomic population mind you) it's simply too confusing. They don't help you either, with companies that should know better (HP, Asus) releasing different models under the same (or vastly similar) nomenclature.

In contrast, Apple appeals to consumers because there is a small range of choices, with very clear graduations. You buy a more expensive model, and generally it's a step up in nearly every department. There aren't any "expensive GPU in a lower-powered machine" options for the gamers on a budget out there, because that would confuse the choice, and most consumers would not find value in that model based on their usage.

Now, to a tech-minded person, that's crazy. Not being able to make choices, is a bad thing. For the general public, not having to make confusing seemingly endless choices is a good thing. Most of the "numbers" in the stats, they don't understand. They don't care. They just want to buy a machine in their budget, that will do what they want well. In general atomicans forget that not only does the general public not give a shit about clock to clock comparisons between the major CPU producers. The general public doesn't know what a clock comparison has to do with a computer, who makes the CPUs that go in them (it's apple, isn't it? Or microsoft?), but the average consumer thinks a computer with 2GB of RAM is twice as good as one with 1GB of RAM.

[nobody813]

I used Mac's all through Primary School, and then PC's from then on, until I got to uni. My laptop is a piece of shit. and my desktop is flaky at the moment. I now use the Mac's at uni a lot, even with Mac OS X (which up until recently I hated)

So yeah, I'm both, but am finding the fruitier camp a lot more inviting at the moment. Would love to buy a Macbook Pro, and also an old iMac G3 or G4 just for the lolz

[well, yeah...]

I really dont get the whole "camp on one side or the other" mentality anymore. I personally use an iMac at home and I have a PC (my own build) for gaming. I play each system to it's strengths. Windows is obviously the winner for gaming (not including consoles) and im my opinion, Mac's do a better job at work flow. I use a pc at work, and if I had the choice I would ask for a mac. But im not really bias either way. If windows does something better, then use Windows. If Mac does something better, then use Mac. Peace on earth and all that jazz...

[p0is0n]

Was this ever actually a great debate (since the 90s)?
I thought everyone knew PCs were the best. (from the poll results, it appears that way). :)

If OS X was an available OS, and not just bundled with apple hardware only, I would be more open minded. As it stands, people might as well use *buntu, its as user friendly as os x is now IMO and free, and will run on regular hardware.

I'm currently running win7 ulti x64 and I have a few virtual machines that are usually running, win server and mint. I am not anti apple, I just don't have any need for their products therefore their OS may as well not exist. Have played with a hackintosh box but it was nothing special.

Cheers

[jdee71]

little add---got lied to by the salesman (i shoulda known better), got lied to by the local apple service guy, got lied to by the guy on apple's phone support. 3 wrongs dont make a right!!!!!!

About what?


by salesman- we dont get viruses, whatever you can do on a PC you can do on a mac but better. That was after I told him that I do game, and that I do edit HD footage from my handycam which I burn onto bluray.

local apple service guy- No there is no problem with your MBP, even though it reboots and hangs when connected to the internet. Even after he seen it reboot in the store he was was still adamant that there is nothing wrong. but he was willing to charge me $160 to run the RCD's. Actually I should've let him because the mac kernel panicked when i tried to run them.

phone support guy- when I called and reported that my MBP was reaching temps of up to 103c while surfing the net, instantly was told it was a user issue and we need to create another user, problem still persisted, narrowed it down to flash based pages, when asked if osx had issues with flash i was told no, it works flawless, was given a refernce number and to call back if it persisted, when i told him it's still present he hung up.

good enough reasons for you

[Jeruselem]

It's funny in Darwin. We used have shop that sold Macs and other Apple thing but it closed. Every shop that used sell Macs has now shut down. But the places fixing i-Things and Macs are increasing, but these places sell and fix PCs anyway.

[p0is0n]

It's funny in Darwin. We used have shop that sold Macs and other Apple thing but it closed. Every shop that used sell Macs has now shut down. But the places fixing i-Things and Macs are increasing, but these places sell and fix PCs anyway.

was it called NextByte? We used to have those in Perth too, "official" apple resellers.
then obviously apple decided it wanted to open an apple store, so that chain of stores pretty much disappeared.

[lunchbox1988]

Just want to point out, I am seeing more PC fanbois than Mac ones...

That said, the poll does point to moe people only using PC, but the numbers for both are pretty high.

If I took this to a graphics forum, the Mac numbers would probably be higher, just like if I took it to a gaming only forum, the PC one would be the only one used...

This post has been edited by lunchbox1988: Mar 30 2012, 07:27 AM

[Dasa]

If I took this to a graphics forum, the Mac numbers would probably be higher, just like if I took it to a gaming only forum, the PC one would be the only one used...

id say thats partially due to the art types being more susceptible to the mac marketing targeted at them and threw the education system
and since they have that base of art users there is some software for mac that pc lacks in that market so then they also get some people that know what there doing and chose mac for the right reasons
although assuming you can buy the mac os and install it on a pc if they really knew what they were doing they might build a pc themselves and install the mac os on it unless they just have to much money and cant be bothered

This post has been edited by Dasa: Mar 30 2012, 08:11 AM

[TinBane]

id say thats partially due to the art types being more susceptible to the mac marketing targeted at them and threw the education system
and since they have that base of art users there is some software for mac that pc lacks in that market so then they also get some people that know what there doing and chose mac for the right reasons
although assuming you can buy the mac os and install it on a pc if they really knew what they were doing they might build a pc themselves and install the mac os on it unless they just have to much money and cant be bothered

Or it's because those applications tend to perform better, and many design companies don't have an "IT department" and don't need one with macs.

You would never use a hackintosh in a production environment, ever.
That's a really bad idea. Hackintoshes are nice toys, but you shouldn't rely on them.

That kind of thinking comes from the perspective of someone who wants to save money, to the detriment of other factors.
In a business, a single outage would cost you more than the price difference.
Designers are expensive enough that top end macs are kind of trivial in price per seat, compared to lost revenue fucking around with EFI emulation.

The same logic applies to any area.
Getting something to work, is very different to getting it to work well enough to function in a mission critical manner where each hour of outage might cost you big time.


EDIT: To give an example that might not needlessly shit off "proPC" type people. If you have a pool of cloud application servers running apache, and you could replace apache with an alternative that has all the features would save you 20% in server costs, but would cause might higher mission critical website failures that you couldn't easily pre-mitigate, what would the business pick? It depends on the relationship between revenue and uptime. For an online retailer, downtime is lost sales. If the new software kicked the bucket mid-load, you could lose $100,000s of dollars. From a business perspective that's not "efficient", but for a hobbyist 20% more load efficiency is "efficient". It all depends on what you measure efficiency against.


EDIT2: FWIW I'm quite experienced with hackintosh systems, having owned one myself. I'm not talking out of my arse when I say I wouldn't rely on it.

This post has been edited by TinBane: Mar 30 2012, 09:54 AM

[Dasa]

since its the same base hardware im guessing the os may have some mb software type preferences and changing to non mac mb can introduce problems due to the possibility of incompatibility with something that hasnt been tested in rare cases
is this what your getting at?
but like you say there is always the business environment where a oem like dell\mac is worth the extra cost

This post has been edited by Dasa: Mar 30 2012, 10:01 AM

[Akamatsu]

by salesman- we dont get viruses, whatever you can do on a PC you can do on a mac but better. That was after I told him that I do game, and that I do edit HD footage from my handycam which I burn onto bluray.

local apple service guy- No there is no problem with your MBP, even though it reboots and hangs when connected to the internet. Even after he seen it reboot in the store he was was still adamant that there is nothing wrong. but he was willing to charge me $160 to run the RCD's. Actually I should've let him because the mac kernel panicked when i tried to run them.

phone support guy- when I called and reported that my MBP was reaching temps of up to 103c while surfing the net, instantly was told it was a user issue and we need to create another user, problem still persisted, narrowed it down to flash based pages, when asked if osx had issues with flash i was told no, it works flawless, was given a refernce number and to call back if it persisted, when i told him it's still present he hung up.

good enough reasons for you

I honestly can't quite tell how much of this is serious, and how much is hyperbole?

I'm genuinely curious whether you had issues with viruses. I've been using Macs for 7 years now, and haven't encountered any issues. I'm not so naive as to believe viruses can't infect OSX, but in real world use, the platform has yet to experience a significant threat.

If you bought a Mac for gaming based on the advice of the salesmen, I have to question how much research you had done beforehand? Same goes for burning Blue Rays. Salesmen are going to bend the truth regardless of which platform they're selling, this is simply the nature of modern retail. Given the retail industrie's typical level of experience and compensation, I don't put much faith in salesmen's opinions.

Flash has always been shoddy on Macs, but being third party software, I believe the responsibility rests with Adobe. 103°C is still way too hot, and unfortunately it seems you got a lemon in more ways than one. I haven't had much to do with Apple support, but they should have handled the situation better, so I can understand why you're bitter about it.

[TinBane]

since its the same base hardware im guessing the os may have some mb software type preferences and changing to non mac mb can introduce problems due to the possibility of incompatibility with something that hasnt been tested in rare cases
is this what your getting at?
but like you say there is always the business environment where a oem like dell\mac is worth the extra cost

Mac uses EFI.
"PCs" (by and large) uses BIOS.
There are a myriad of hurdles to emulate an environment you can run Mac OS X on, with BIOS underneath.
You are then stacking an entire OS on top of what amounts to an emulated (spoofed) hardware environment.

All the hardware on your mobo, talks to your BIOS, and windows asks the BIOS what hardware there is.
Obviously an OS that is built not to talk to BIOS won't, therefore your hardware won't work.

Saying "it's all the same, it runs the same" is I would imagine, an argument that only comes from someone that hasn't tried it.

Let's not ever go near running OS X on top of AMD hardware where no official OSX drivers exist.

jdee: If you still have unresolved issues (ie you still own the hardware) then PM me.

This post has been edited by TinBane: Mar 30 2012, 11:21 AM

[Dasa]

most new intel mb run efi but i understand that isnt enough
so i will take that as a yes that the mac os is not made to be compatible\suported on pc mb and can see why it might be a bad idea

[p0is0n]

most new intel mb run efi but i understand that isnt enough
so i will take that as a yes that the mac os is not made to be compatible\suported on pc mb and can see why it might be a bad idea

Disclaimer: All of the below is speculation based on my observations.

I think it would be fairly easy to convert OS X from a mac only platform to an open OS - capable of running on any compatible hardware.
I am sure I would have a copy running somewhere if this were the case, so would a lot more people.

The problem then is that apple would lose too much money from its hardware division, so they most certainly will not consider that unless they have no other choice.
Another issue may be that becuase the hardware is not strictly controlled, there may be more bugs/issues with compatibility etc. which currently isn't much of a problem.
So unfortunately the bottom line is if you want OS X you need to buy apple hardware, for now.

[jdee71]

by salesman- we dont get viruses, whatever you can do on a PC you can do on a mac but better. That was after I told him that I do game, and that I do edit HD footage from my handycam which I burn onto bluray.

local apple service guy- No there is no problem with your MBP, even though it reboots and hangs when connected to the internet. Even after he seen it reboot in the store he was was still adamant that there is nothing wrong. but he was willing to charge me $160 to run the RCD's. Actually I should've let him because the mac kernel panicked when i tried to run them.

phone support guy- when I called and reported that my MBP was reaching temps of up to 103c while surfing the net, instantly was told it was a user issue and we need to create another user, problem still persisted, narrowed it down to flash based pages, when asked if osx had issues with flash i was told no, it works flawless, was given a refernce number and to call back if it persisted, when i told him it's still present he hung up.

good enough reasons for you

I honestly can't quite tell how much of this is serious, and how much is hyperbole?

I'm genuinely curious whether you had issues with viruses. I've been using Macs for 7 years now, and haven't encountered any issues. I'm not so naive as to believe viruses can't infect OSX, but in real world use, the platform has yet to experience a significant threat.

If you bought a Mac for gaming based on the advice of the salesmen, I have to question how much research you had done beforehand? Same goes for burning Blue Rays. Salesmen are going to bend the truth regardless of which platform they're selling, this is simply the nature of modern retail. Given the retail industrie's typical level of experience and compensation, I don't put much faith in salesmen's opinions.

Flash has always been shoddy on Macs, but being third party software, I believe the responsibility rests with Adobe. 103°C is still way too hot, and unfortunately it seems you got a lemon in more ways than one. I haven't had much to do with Apple support, but they should have handled the situation better, so I can understand why you're bitter about it.

All of it deadset serious.

virus's why yes sir it was infected, trojan downloaders...hence why evrytime i connected to the net it would shat itself.

never eva intended to buy a mac for gaming, thats what i told him i do with my PC . Same goes for HD editing, was already doing it on my PC... hang on what were his exact words....."Yeah man, you wanna do video.....Mac's the way to go, ask anybody"

I've used one since i disposed of mine, never will i own one again

[TheSingularity]

I have a question. That is why do we call computers running Windows "PCs" when PC stands for personal computer...?

Edit: I'm not sure but I think I answered that myself and just remembered that Windows might have coined the term personal computer for there Windows computers.

Yeah I love that claim/belief Macs can't be hacked by so many Macintosh followers(not that I'm claiming anyone here is so silly to think that). Might go and start a thread in a hacking forum I frequent and see how easy it would be to infect one.

Also makes me wonder are they running anti-virus software these days or?

The easy part would be Macintosh users quite often think they can't be infected and thus assume they are safe no matter what they are doing.

This post has been edited by TheSingularity: Mar 30 2012, 03:35 PM

[p0is0n]

I have a question. That is why do we call computers running Windows "PCs" when PC stands for personal computer...?

Edit: I'm not sure but I think I answered that myself and just remembered that Windows might have coined the term personal computer for there Windows computers.

Yeah I love that claim/belief Macs can't be hacked by so many Macintosh followers(not that I'm claiming anyone here is so silly to think that). Might go and start a thread in a hacking forum I frequent and see how easy it would be to infect one.

Also makes me wonder are they running anti-virus software these days or?

The easy part would be Macintosh users quite often think they can't be infected and thus assume they are safe no matter what they are doing.

Here you go.

Alongside "microcomputer" and "home computer", the term "personal computer" was already in use before 1981. It was used as early as 1972 to characterize Xerox PARC's Alto. However, because of the success of the IBM Personal Computer, the term PC came to mean more specifically a microcomputer compatible with IBM's PC products.

Originally, Macintosh computers did not comply with the IBM PC standard, and so could not be called PCs. These days, pretty much everything except servers are "PCs" but people still make the distinction between PC and Mac. The main distinction is that a personal computer is designed to be used by a single individual for their daily tasks, where a server or 'big iron' machine is designed to be used by many at the same time.

If you have to join a "hacking forum" and post a thread asking about how easy it would be to infect a mac, I find it very hard to believe that you're really much of a "hacker" though...

This post has been edited by p0is0n: Mar 30 2012, 04:17 PM

[TinBane]

All of it deadset serious.

virus's why yes sir it was infected, trojan downloaders...hence why evrytime i connected to the net it would shat itself.

never eva intended to buy a mac for gaming, thats what i told him i do with my PC . Same goes for HD editing, was already doing it on my PC... hang on what were his exact words....."Yeah man, you wanna do video.....Mac's the way to go, ask anybody"

I've used one since i disposed of mine, never will i own one again

To be fair to the "sales people", a trojan isn't a virus though.
Any computer anywhere if you have admin rights, will let you fuck it up as much as you want, if you put in the admin password.
It's after all, your computer. That's why so many workplaces and so many schools don't let the kids/adults who own the laptops etc have admin access.

As for HD editing, i'm not sure what your problem was with that, as you didn't really explain. A lot of people edit video on macbook pros, they are fairly popular for that.
Sorry you had a bad experience, but it can happen with any brand. TBH, I would have expected Apple to fix your overheating issue, perhaps you took it to some shitty technicians. :(

Yeah I love that claim/belief Macs can't be hacked by so many Macintosh followers(not that I'm claiming anyone here is so silly to think that). Might go and start a thread in a hacking forum I frequent and see how easy it would be to infect one.

Also makes me wonder are they running anti-virus software these days or?

Many mac users have antivirus, to prevent passing infected files onto PCs. I don't think anyone has claimed macs can't be hacked. TBH, with unfettered physical access alone you can compromise any computer in existence* if you have the tech to sniff the buses/memory. Computers simply aren't designed (can't be designed?) to keep secrets from their own internal components, thus compromising the physical integrity of the computer can allow you to sniff data. Windows, Mac, Linux it can be hacked without physical access. That's why "hardened" distros exist, and enterprise levels systems running patched older executable. It's all a matter of time, ingenuity, and intent/having a reason.

As for "infect", I'm not aware of any mac viruses that can pass on code to another computer. AFAIK the only widespread issues are effectively user-sanctioned installs of Trojans, usually installed by not wanting to pay for software.

*that I'm aware of