Gary Rosenzweig takes a look at some of the reasons why Macs are better than PCS. Some of the reasons are no crapware or viruses, better software that comes with the Mac, and a great developer community.
Comments: 15 Responses to “MacMost Now 176: Why Macs Are Better Than PCs”
drumthrasher109
15 years ago
Actually, you can install a 100% working copy of Mac OS X on any PC without any virtualization software.
Just partiion, install a custom bootloader that let's you boot a retail copy of Leopard, and go from there.
Although my next computer will probably be a Mac, my ONLY reason for not buying one now is the price. Look at the $2000 Macbook Pro. It doesn't really have anything (hardware wise) in it that I would want. I bought a $600 a few months ago and it has twice as much RAM and a bigger hard drive. I am one of the few people who actually loves Vista over XP and there was no crapware on it. I installed Leopard on it and everything worked flawlessly.
By the way, nice podcast! One thing I would do is to try and make the show more entertaining.
Ahhh... the age old debate. Obviously Gary, as host of Macmost, you'll be in favour of Macs and I certainly am too. I think the price is really the biggest barrier for people now, but most people don't equate price to quality, so they go for the cheapest, and then wonder why they have problems.
I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a great time over the holidays!
Shireen S
15 years ago
How about ease of use? We've had PC's for years and 2 Macs in the last 15 years, I still think learning Vista or any Windows OS is much harder to navigate than any Mac OS. To me most of it makes common sense, yes, there are some things which I know nothing about in Mac OS but Windows is way complicated, your average user has quite a long learning curve. I simply don't have the patience for it. We have 2 PC's in our house and a MacBook, well our PC's are always having something up with them, freezing, or spyware, etc causing problems dont seem to have that with the MacBook. I do have some compatibility issues with some programs but I'd rather have the peace of mind.
Happy holidays to you and your family.
Gail D
15 years ago
You didn't even mention no crashing, no freezing, no impenetrable error messages. You didn't mention that because the software and hardware are both from Apple, tech support people usually address the problem instead of automatically tossing you off to the other guy.
(Dell: You need to go to Microsoft. MS: "That's a Dell issue". Dell: "That's something to take up with your ISP." Comcast: "Try Linksys support." Linksys: "Maybe AOL can help you.")
The couple of hundred dollars more I MAY have dropped on a MacBook is insignificant next to the agony involved in making Windows work. I don't know or care about the innerworkings of an OS. I don't want to build my own computer. I want to get my work done. I want safety and reliability. I want simplicity. (And a little fun.) There is no argument that will get me back to a PC since I have actually used a Mac. Anyone else is free to use whatever they like. I understand gamers and people who like to fool with "the registry," command lines or whatever...
They will have to pry my Mac from my cold, dead hands.
1. You forgot XCode and it is free. Where do you think those third part apps come from?
2: Ditto what Gail D said but in addition I think OS X handles multi tasking much better than Windoze. I have had too many times were the appeared to be plenty of CPU time on Windoze and yet the programs would not respond.
3. I like the way I am asked to type in my password when installing new software but after that the security doesn't get in the way of normal operations. Vista's security is a pain.
4. Spotlight is miles a head of what Windoze has but they are about the same when just launching applications. I use Launchy on WinXP to give me something that approaches spot light.
5. People complain about price. At some price levels Mac are over priced. However, a Mac Pro and a equivalent Dell cost about the same. A Mac Pro is very well built and has processing power that is still untapped.
However, I have said on a previous post that Apple's raid is a rip off.
6. Configuration is much easier on a Mac than a PC. I have found only one exception and that is configuring monitors. OS X doesn't make clear you need to reboot the computer for new monitor configurations ( rotations ) to take affect.
7: I like having names for drives instead of letters. Whenever I plug a USB stick into a PC I must find a drive letter that isn't used. The PC doesn't forget but sometimes I have conflicts.
8. I am writing this on a 1st gen Mac Mini which is almost 4 years old. It is running leopard. I think I have got my moneys worth out of it. It works much better than PCs that are that old have have been 'upgraded' to Vista.
9. My Mac Mini has been the most trouble free computer I have owned. The fan rarely operates or if it does it is so quiet I can't hear it. I hear i only on days where the temperature is in the 90s. It uses little power so I leave it on almost all the time. I have had no problems with the disk drive but most of the time it is not running. There is a delay from time to time while the OS X is waiting for the hard disk to wind up.
10. My Mac Mini started with panther. I bought a Epson printer and installed the driver. The same driver has worked with Tiger and Leopard upgrades. Vista required new drivers for many products.
At work I use a MacPro but a lot of my work required Windoze. I use Fusion to run both Mac and WIndoze apps at the same time. Windoze actually works well on the virtual machine. I let the WinXP use to of the Xeon CPUs. If Windoze hangs up it doesn't affect the OS X. It keeps on ticking. Rarely do I push my Mac Pros CPU meter unless I am doing a continuous screen capture to make a screen cast.
11. Gary mentioned time machine. I have used time machine many times to revert or undo code changes that didn't work. It let my time machine back up often. I bought a 1 TB hard disk for the time machine. It uses about 500 MB of that. It is so easy.
I have the only Mac at the office. The IT manager doesn't support it but he doesn't need to.
Richard Fuhr
15 years ago
Another reason why Macs have the edge over PCs is that "under the hood" of Mac OS X is good old Unix!
If you like to occasionally work at the command line level, you can fire up the Terminal app and issue Unix commands to your heart's content.
But even if you never directly use Unix, it is good to know that it's there.
Oliver
15 years ago
Your right macs are so much better than pcs
Clem
15 years ago
There's a dimension that's poorly captured in the blogs. To really compare macs to pcs, IMHO, one really needs to run them, side-by-side, for several weeks, doing the same real tasks on both. That means email/RSS clients, browsing, office suite stuff, and whatever creative apps (photo mgmt/editing, etc).
With that kind of load, on roughly equivalent Intel Dual-Core chips, clock speeds and 2 GBs of DDR2 RAM, Macs versus PC experience can be strikingly different. The Mac maintains it's 'snappiness' with both light and heavy loads. On my corporate domain-based XP system, ... not so much.
I think this perspective is important, and completely lost on those kind souls who experience Mac zealots as just that.
jj
15 years ago
You can also use VirtualBox which is free, as opposed to Parallels and VMware.
LS
14 years ago
the reason that macs don't get viruses is that more people have pcs, and there are more viruses for them. there are still viruses designed for macs, but there's less of them, since for a hacker, you want to hack into as many computers as you can, and the majority of computers in the world are pcs. that still doesn't mean that someone couldn't hack into your computer, whether it's a mac/pc.
Fact check: "there are still viruses designed for macs" -- really? Who is designing them? What are they called? Where are these viruses?
Hacking into your computer and viruses are two different things, although a virus can be used as a tool to hack into a computer. But not on Macs at the present time.
JonSmith
13 years ago
Ugh. Another smug noob.
OSX/Leap-A, worm, proof of concept, 2006
OSX.RSPlug.A, trojan, 2007
You'd better brush up on Pwn2Own results. Macs fall first ea. year for the last 5 years (since it's inception in 2007). Techniques illustrated in such a conference can be packaged for payload delivery.
Try using critical thinking instead of blind zealotry.
You yourself point out that these are trojans, not viruses, and a "proof of concept." They are not viruses.
Mike
14 years ago
Just because you don't know how to take out pre-installed programs doesn't mean you cant get rid of them. Ever hear of going into the registry? Plus anyone that buys a prebuilt computer most likely doesn't know a thing about computers anyway . Build your own p.c. do your homework and get the best machine for your buck. With out getting ripped off with Macs outlandish prices. Price a fully loaded Mac pro on there site .. About 10,000$ plus! What r u kidding me ? What is there gold and diamonds inside of it ? Mac users like the laziness factor of not having to do thing .
Actually, you can install a 100% working copy of Mac OS X on any PC without any virtualization software.
Just partiion, install a custom bootloader that let's you boot a retail copy of Leopard, and go from there.
Although my next computer will probably be a Mac, my ONLY reason for not buying one now is the price. Look at the $2000 Macbook Pro. It doesn't really have anything (hardware wise) in it that I would want. I bought a $600 a few months ago and it has twice as much RAM and a bigger hard drive. I am one of the few people who actually loves Vista over XP and there was no crapware on it. I installed Leopard on it and everything worked flawlessly.
By the way, nice podcast! One thing I would do is to try and make the show more entertaining.
Ahhh... the age old debate. Obviously Gary, as host of Macmost, you'll be in favour of Macs and I certainly am too. I think the price is really the biggest barrier for people now, but most people don't equate price to quality, so they go for the cheapest, and then wonder why they have problems.
I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a great time over the holidays!
How about ease of use? We've had PC's for years and 2 Macs in the last 15 years, I still think learning Vista or any Windows OS is much harder to navigate than any Mac OS. To me most of it makes common sense, yes, there are some things which I know nothing about in Mac OS but Windows is way complicated, your average user has quite a long learning curve. I simply don't have the patience for it. We have 2 PC's in our house and a MacBook, well our PC's are always having something up with them, freezing, or spyware, etc causing problems dont seem to have that with the MacBook. I do have some compatibility issues with some programs but I'd rather have the peace of mind.
Happy holidays to you and your family.
You didn't even mention no crashing, no freezing, no impenetrable error messages. You didn't mention that because the software and hardware are both from Apple, tech support people usually address the problem instead of automatically tossing you off to the other guy.
(Dell: You need to go to Microsoft. MS: "That's a Dell issue". Dell: "That's something to take up with your ISP." Comcast: "Try Linksys support." Linksys: "Maybe AOL can help you.")
The couple of hundred dollars more I MAY have dropped on a MacBook is insignificant next to the agony involved in making Windows work. I don't know or care about the innerworkings of an OS. I don't want to build my own computer. I want to get my work done. I want safety and reliability. I want simplicity. (And a little fun.) There is no argument that will get me back to a PC since I have actually used a Mac. Anyone else is free to use whatever they like. I understand gamers and people who like to fool with "the registry," command lines or whatever...
They will have to pry my Mac from my cold, dead hands.
1. You forgot XCode and it is free. Where do you think those third part apps come from?
2: Ditto what Gail D said but in addition I think OS X handles multi tasking much better than Windoze. I have had too many times were the appeared to be plenty of CPU time on Windoze and yet the programs would not respond.
3. I like the way I am asked to type in my password when installing new software but after that the security doesn't get in the way of normal operations. Vista's security is a pain.
4. Spotlight is miles a head of what Windoze has but they are about the same when just launching applications. I use Launchy on WinXP to give me something that approaches spot light.
5. People complain about price. At some price levels Mac are over priced. However, a Mac Pro and a equivalent Dell cost about the same. A Mac Pro is very well built and has processing power that is still untapped.
However, I have said on a previous post that Apple's raid is a rip off.
6. Configuration is much easier on a Mac than a PC. I have found only one exception and that is configuring monitors. OS X doesn't make clear you need to reboot the computer for new monitor configurations ( rotations ) to take affect.
7: I like having names for drives instead of letters. Whenever I plug a USB stick into a PC I must find a drive letter that isn't used. The PC doesn't forget but sometimes I have conflicts.
8. I am writing this on a 1st gen Mac Mini which is almost 4 years old. It is running leopard. I think I have got my moneys worth out of it. It works much better than PCs that are that old have have been 'upgraded' to Vista.
9. My Mac Mini has been the most trouble free computer I have owned. The fan rarely operates or if it does it is so quiet I can't hear it. I hear i only on days where the temperature is in the 90s. It uses little power so I leave it on almost all the time. I have had no problems with the disk drive but most of the time it is not running. There is a delay from time to time while the OS X is waiting for the hard disk to wind up.
10. My Mac Mini started with panther. I bought a Epson printer and installed the driver. The same driver has worked with Tiger and Leopard upgrades. Vista required new drivers for many products.
At work I use a MacPro but a lot of my work required Windoze. I use Fusion to run both Mac and WIndoze apps at the same time. Windoze actually works well on the virtual machine. I let the WinXP use to of the Xeon CPUs. If Windoze hangs up it doesn't affect the OS X. It keeps on ticking. Rarely do I push my Mac Pros CPU meter unless I am doing a continuous screen capture to make a screen cast.
11. Gary mentioned time machine. I have used time machine many times to revert or undo code changes that didn't work. It let my time machine back up often. I bought a 1 TB hard disk for the time machine. It uses about 500 MB of that. It is so easy.
I have the only Mac at the office. The IT manager doesn't support it but he doesn't need to.
Another reason why Macs have the edge over PCs is that "under the hood" of Mac OS X is good old Unix!
If you like to occasionally work at the command line level, you can fire up the Terminal app and issue Unix commands to your heart's content.
But even if you never directly use Unix, it is good to know that it's there.
Your right macs are so much better than pcs
There's a dimension that's poorly captured in the blogs. To really compare macs to pcs, IMHO, one really needs to run them, side-by-side, for several weeks, doing the same real tasks on both. That means email/RSS clients, browsing, office suite stuff, and whatever creative apps (photo mgmt/editing, etc).
With that kind of load, on roughly equivalent Intel Dual-Core chips, clock speeds and 2 GBs of DDR2 RAM, Macs versus PC experience can be strikingly different. The Mac maintains it's 'snappiness' with both light and heavy loads. On my corporate domain-based XP system, ... not so much.
I think this perspective is important, and completely lost on those kind souls who experience Mac zealots as just that.
You can also use VirtualBox which is free, as opposed to Parallels and VMware.
the reason that macs don't get viruses is that more people have pcs, and there are more viruses for them. there are still viruses designed for macs, but there's less of them, since for a hacker, you want to hack into as many computers as you can, and the majority of computers in the world are pcs. that still doesn't mean that someone couldn't hack into your computer, whether it's a mac/pc.
Fact check: "there are still viruses designed for macs" -- really? Who is designing them? What are they called? Where are these viruses?
Hacking into your computer and viruses are two different things, although a virus can be used as a tool to hack into a computer. But not on Macs at the present time.
Ugh. Another smug noob.
OSX/Leap-A, worm, proof of concept, 2006
OSX.RSPlug.A, trojan, 2007
You'd better brush up on Pwn2Own results. Macs fall first ea. year for the last 5 years (since it's inception in 2007). Techniques illustrated in such a conference can be packaged for payload delivery.
Try using critical thinking instead of blind zealotry.
OSX/MusMinim-A, trojan, 2011
You yourself point out that these are trojans, not viruses, and a "proof of concept." They are not viruses.
Just because you don't know how to take out pre-installed programs doesn't mean you cant get rid of them. Ever hear of going into the registry? Plus anyone that buys a prebuilt computer most likely doesn't know a thing about computers anyway . Build your own p.c. do your homework and get the best machine for your buck. With out getting ripped off with Macs outlandish prices. Price a fully loaded Mac pro on there site .. About 10,000$ plus! What r u kidding me ? What is there gold and diamonds inside of it ? Mac users like the laziness factor of not having to do thing .