There is not a single point in that paragraph that is correct.
iTunes uses the Gracenote database to identify the disc so it can fill in the album and track information; you can rip discs without an Internet connection, but you'll have to type in that information yourself. The "apple store" (by which I assume you mean the iTunes store) has nothing to do with ripping from disc.
iTunes can rip to AAC or MP3. The resulting files can be copied, burned, swapped, shared on Limewire, anything you can do with tracks on a PC. Songs purchased from the iTunes store have been free of DRM for a year and a half. You can download music from Amazon, Walmart, or Limewire, import them into iTunes and load them onto an iPod.
Games? Guess what, I have kids. Kids love games. They can’t get those games on apple. On the apple, they can get games that other kids make fun of, not the games they want. Oh, eventually they can, after several years, their Warcraft game became available on the Mac, but... it ran like crap.
I conceded that Windows has the edge in game titles. Steam for Mac has been a big step forward, but if your primary purpose is playing games, you'd be happier with a PC. Of course, you'd probably be happier still with an XBox.
They refused to play it on there, so they play it on their souped up, home made (by a 12 year old) smoke your socks off PC. Which was built for around 800 bucks, plus the monitor. That same system on an Apple? maybe 5 grand.
The $5000 Mac Pro comes with two six-core Westmere processors and an ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of video memory. Your kid did not build an equivalent computer for $800 unless he stole the parts.
Now, as for me, I do city bids, they MUST be in excel format. I could run them from the apple, and convert them, and lose data and/or formatting each time I do that (which I have done), but I find that to suck. I don’t like things that suck.
Or you could use Excel on the Mac. You did know Microsoft released Excel for the Mac before it did for Windows, right? Same file format. No conversion required. Microsoft dropped Visual Basic scripting from one version of Office for Mac for reasons that are unclear to me, but it's back in the current version.
You list several niche needs that you have. I don't know enough about embedded systems to know if there are Mac clients for that, and don't have enough information to look, even if I were inclined to spend the time. So I'll assume you have to use Windows for work. I don't envy that.
So, bought into fear uncertainty and doubt? I think not. I think you’ve bought something, and are very protective about your buying decision. Like I said, if it works for you, great. For the rest of us, its a PC based world, unless your world is listening to music, and working with screen savers, and even then, most kids would rather have a PC where they can grab their music off of a torrent, instead of having to be shoved into the itunes store.
You've bought into FUD, and you're repeating it here again. BitTorrent is not a Windows-only technology. MP3 is not a Windows-only technology. I have about 40GB of music on my Mac, and fewer than a dozen of those albums were purchased from the iTunes store.
My Mac is useful far beyond "listening to music and working with screen savers." As are the millions being used by bankers, brain surgeons, rocket scientists, engineers, and other folk doing real work. Your dismissive attitude is typical of Windows users who mistake things they don't know for things the Mac can't do.
There is a reason Baskin Robins has 31 flavors... And I’m always amazed that some folks think everyone MUST love the Apple flavor. I like pralines and cream thank you, keep your Apple.
I do not believe that everyone must love the Mac. I like it a lot better, and believe it's a better solution for what the vast majority of people use computers for. You finally, in this post, hit on some niche uses that the Mac might not meet -- after spinning off a litany of misinformed "limitations" that simply don't exist.
Also, apples licensing and usage rights to their OS made it impractical for others use the the OS as the foundation for all sorts of things such as robotics, building controls, electrical controls, etc.
Apple is not an embedded systems vendor. Windows isn't a great solution for that, either. That said, the core of Mac OS and iOS, called Darwin, is an open-source BSD implementation.
For these reasons, Apple will never get big in the computer market. Big in terms of % of users. They may dominate the PDA market, and someday they may dominate the market of the casual user, but as long as they control their OS with an iron fist, and as long as their OS does not take well to add-ons from other vendors, they will never end up in the mainstream of engineering and controls.
"The mainstream of engineering and controls" is an oxymoron. Apple builds desktop and portable workstations; they won't be big in embedded controls for the same reasons Ford isn't a big player in aviation.
The notion that MacOS "does not take well to add-ons from other vendors" is more FUD. Any code developed for other flavors of Unix is a quick port to Darwin, and Linux code isn't much more difficult.
I had no intent on offending you, or any other apple user, and I’m not sure why so many apple users are offended that not everyone thinks Apple is the greatest thing in the world since sliced bread.
I have no problem with people who don't, for whatever reason, like Macs. Well, no bigger problem than the one I have with people who don't like Miles Davis. De gustibus non est disputandum. The only reason I waded into this is that your stated reasons for disliking Macs were misinformed. A lot of passionate Windows advocates have a similar view of the Mac, and it's the faulty premises that lead to erroneous conclusions; I wouldn't want a Mac that's like the one you've been describing.
I’m not sure why, but folks who spend an enormous amount of time trying to convince me their lifestyle is the best, disturb me.
I can think of a few groups that do this: PETA types, enviro types, gay activists and Apple users.
Well, you almost convinced me to convert all of our computers to Apples. If only you tossed in how they can color coordinate my shoes and purse with my new Apple, you would have had me, and how many trees I would have saved and whales by becoming a die hard Apple fan.
We are just going to have to agree to disagree, my points stand, I am not going to argue with you further on them. You win. Apple is the greatest thing in the world. Steve Jobs is almost as cool as Al Gore. If we all had Apples, there would be peace on earth, the oceans would heal themselves and global warming would end. There would be no more computer virus, and we could all live in harmony.
Thank you for saving my soul.