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PC v. Mac
Tuesday, August 1, 2006 - 6:00 am | By Justin Chappell

Posted on 08/01/2006 9:24:34 PM PDT by Swordmaker

Ten years ago, 26-year-old Barry Jones wasn't such a fanatic. Back then, programmers wouldn't be caught dead using a Mac. It was a "PC or bust" mentality.

Jones, a Web architect, has worked and played PC for life, but he bought his first Mac in May.

It's a love story not easily chronicled, but let's put it this way: Jones went from being a PC powerhouse to a Mac advocate in three months flat, and he'll do his best to make you one, too.

"I understand why people call people Mac zealots now," he says.

Apple's ad campaigns today (you know, the hip, easy-going Mac guy vs. the older, rigid nerd) bring this culture war to its most ubiquitous degree.

But it's not a standoff that's strictly 0s and 1s. It's shifted to a point where the computers have more commonalities than ever.

"The view of Mac users as creative, artsy, people- people and PC users as geeky guys who spend their time figuring out how many pencils they can shove in their pocket protector - I don't think that's valid anymore at all," says Chris Peters, a Clemson University professor who uses both machines. "I think PCs are much friendlier, much easier to use than they used to be, and Macs aren't really as non-geeky as they used to be."

In a sense, the great divide - that PC equals programmer and Mac equals artist - has not only toppled, but soldiers from each camp have jumped sides and, oddly enough, become passionate about their new loves.

Jennie Raff, 25, had a PC laptop but converted to Mac a year ago.

Sure, she's got artist friends who live by Macs, but she's got cheap artist friends who thrive on PCs.

"I have a lot of friends who have a Compaq or Dell," she says, "and that doesn't mean they're less creative."

Peters attributes much of the friendlier climate to two things: an increase in the PC's ability to be simple and visual, and the cross-platform iPod propelling Macs to mainstream comfort.

That has transformed the debate into one that hinges on perceptions and preferences rather than concrete differences, of which, there are virtually none, says Tom Allen, Furman University computer science professor who owns and uses both PCs and Macs.

"The only strength or reality that Mac has right now," Allen says, "is that kind of unified look that they have, but that's not a distinction or difference that's incredibly significant."

Call it unified. Or call it sexy.

"Macs," as Michael Gardin, 30, of Greenville, puts it, "just look hot."

He's got a PC laptop, and he's never owned a Mac, but the visual stimulation of checking one out isn't easily ignored.

Raff, too, agrees with their general awesomeness.

"Macs are cooler," she says. "They're more visually appealing."

While each setup has its share of strengths, PCs do remain more popular and cheaper, but the extent of their definite differences nearly end there.

Just for good-old times, let's throw out one of the classic PC vs. Mac jabs.

"PC users," Peters remembers, "loved to make fun of the Mac as a toy: 'Who needs a mouse to open a file when you can type in a command on the command line and say, 'Open file?' "

Ha. They'll never get old.

The PC/Mac comparison

Sources: Chris Peters, Clemson University education professor with a specialization in instructional technology; Tom Allen, Furman University computer science professor.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: pcvmac
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To: Swordmaker
Viruses: PCs are more vulnerable. That's not a PC flaw. It's a reality of hackers targeting the biggest market. Logic says more-popular Macs will attract more viruses. Optimism says they'll stand strong.

The first sentance is correct. The second is only partially correct. It's not a PC flaw. It's an MS-Windows flaw. OS/X and Linux are inherrantly more resistant to viruses because they do a better job of separating and enforcing the difference between root and a user.

21 posted on 08/02/2006 6:39:00 AM PDT by zeugma (I reject your reality and substitute my own in its place. (http://www.zprc.org/))
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To: kmiller1k

I feel your fear. Once upon a time I had a Mac -- a Performa. Then I switched to a PC for lots of reasons, but my daughter's new MacBook has me thinking about Mac again. There was something so friendly, streamlined and easy about my old Mac. New software availability has removed all my old objections about returning to Apple.


22 posted on 08/02/2006 6:46:41 AM PDT by McLynnan
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To: RFC_Gal
If Apple would make an inexpensive x86 tower that had upgradable graphics I would buy one.

And I doubt they will. It looks like their home machines will remain specialized small form factor, and the only upgradeable one (aside from memory and HDD) will be the Pro desktop tower.

23 posted on 08/02/2006 6:57:57 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: Crazieman
I hope you don't expect to get a truthful answer. ;)
24 posted on 08/02/2006 7:02:40 AM PDT by pepperhead (Kennedy's float, Mary Jo's don't!)
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To: All
Some people would have you believe it's merely a coincidence that Mac users and homosexuals constitute the same percentage of the population.

(j/k... sorta)

25 posted on 08/02/2006 7:03:23 AM PDT by Sloth ('It Takes A Village' is problematic when you're raising your child in Sodom.)
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To: Swordmaker
While your artsy types are still largely enamored of the Mac, the Uber-Geek now calls the Mac home too, because of it's Unix foundations. When people say that PC people were the geeks, well, that's been changing for years. There were some harcore DOS geeks, but the real computer science types started using Linux and BSD years ago. When OSX came along, they had the best of both worlds. OSX is not really a Mac OS, not really an Apple, if you know the history behind it. It's an evolved version of Steve Jobs' old NeXTstep OS (which he convinced Apple to buy in 1996)...the "true" Mac OS (last seen in version 9.2.2) is an evolutionary dead end; like Microsoft's Windows 9X line, the more features they added, the less stable it got. So while Apple bought NeXT, the reality is, NeXT swallowed Apple whole. And NeXT was the coolest of hardcore geek companies...the smartest minds in computer science (and in science generally) used NeXT machines in the universities. Tim Berners Lee created the world wide web on a NeXT machine. NeXT made the first computers that had both rock-solid Unix operating systems, and attractive graphical interfaces. Apple's OSX is a direct descendant. Go to any Linux user group meeting, and you'll find a lot of the guys with Apple laptops now....they run their servers on Linux, but use OSX for day to day computing.

Ironically, with the vast improvements in Windows with XP, Windows is now the "easy to use" computer. There are power users on Windows, but power users tend to drift to Macs or other Unix boxes now.
26 posted on 08/02/2006 7:37:52 AM PDT by DesScorp
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To: Delta 21

"If a Mac will at least do what it is advertised to do,"

Make you feel superior? That's all I ever got froma Mac ad.


27 posted on 08/02/2006 8:25:23 AM PDT by L98Fiero (I'm worth a million in prizes.)
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To: zeugma

"OS/X and Linux are inherrantly more resistant to viruses because they do a better job of separating and enforcing the difference between root and a user."

And the fact that practically nobody uses them helps as well.


28 posted on 08/02/2006 8:27:11 AM PDT by L98Fiero (I'm worth a million in prizes.)
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To: Sloth
Some people would have you believe it's merely a coincidence that Mac users and homosexuals constitute the same percentage of the population.


29 posted on 08/02/2006 8:30:36 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: Swordmaker

Last week Dell was selling a perfectly capable computer for $379 (free shipping) that comes with a 19" LCD. Why on earth would I spend 2 or 3 times as much for the Apple equivalent.


Today this Dell will cost $50 more but with the same beautiful 19" LCD monitor
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=2d11h13&s=bsd


30 posted on 08/02/2006 8:31:41 AM PDT by dennisw (Confucius say man who go through turnstile sideways going to Bangkok)
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To: Crazieman

3 kids and all their surfing and chatting and inceasant MSN tag-a-long virus popups and hotlinks to auto-hijackers, etc....

I have learned much more than I need to.


31 posted on 08/02/2006 11:44:10 AM PDT by Delta 21 ( MKC USCG - ret)
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To: Swordmaker

32 posted on 08/02/2006 11:49:30 AM PDT by monkapotamus
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To: dennisw
Last week Dell was selling a perfectly capable computer for $379

Things that upset the price comparison:

IOW, practically every feature except for the monitor size (a current Dell sale) is inferior to the Mac. Of course it costs a lot less. Apple just doesn't sell in that ultra low-end el-cheapo marketspace.
33 posted on 08/02/2006 11:51:23 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat

Typo, 533 MHz bus.


34 posted on 08/02/2006 11:53:07 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
"...PCs are a smattering of companies who build for one platform - inevitably, things jar....

Smattering...LOL. How about global and vast no. of companies.

In any case I recently powered up my late dads' Mini-Mac out of curiosity. I admit to being impressed with the tiny footprint and OS-X 10.4x. Love Safari for web browsing. Only difficulty is the right hand-left hand switch of window buttons.

Just might get a core duo and bootcamp to run my WIN cad and video programs. Only downside seems that your stuck with the graphics chipset, until they release the core-duo towers.

35 posted on 08/02/2006 12:08:22 PM PDT by Covenantor
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To: Covenantor
Only downside seems that your stuck with the graphics chipset, until they release the core-duo towers.

The mini has integrated Intel graphics, but they are a generation ahead of what you find in cheap Dells (it'll actually run the hardware-accelerated bells and whistles of OS X). Still, not impressive, but it is a home machine.

Going to the iMac gets you a Radeon X1600 with 128 MB RAM. Pretty good, but still not ultra-impressive.

You are right that you'll have to wait for the tower for a truly impressive machine capable of the fastest video on the market. But the tower won't be Core Duo, at least Core 2 Duo (64-bit, lot faster than Core Duo) for the low-end tower, most likely the new Xeons (based on the Core 2 architecture) for the mid- and high-end towers.

36 posted on 08/02/2006 1:03:23 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: L98Fiero; monkapotamus; antiRepublicrat; HAL9000; Richard Kimball
And the fact that practically nobody uses them helps as well.

Ah, the "Security by obscurity" canard that is always trotted out by people who really don't know why Macs are REALLY safer than Windows machines. Let's see... Windows - 114,000 known malware. Macs - three proofs of concepts built on already closed vulnerabilities. 5 years and counting with ZERO self replcating malware in the wild.

Is the Mac "Obscure"?

How many Mac users does it take before "practically nobody" becomes a sufficient number to attract crackers?

Let's see...

Well it seems that just from these few examples that Crackers are satisfied with far smaller targets than the Mac installed base.

Why would they ignore 16 to 20 million Mac users?

Numerous and unprotected Mac users????

Numerous, and unprotected Mac users who, on average, have more disposable income than the average computer user??????

Why indeed?

Why not read this article for the answers to why Windows is far more susceptible to malware than OS X and Linux.

37 posted on 08/02/2006 8:22:43 PM PDT by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!")
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To: zeugma

Check out the previous post in answer to the "Security by Obscurity" canard.


38 posted on 08/02/2006 8:27:34 PM PDT by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!")
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To: Swordmaker

Well done Swordmaker! I normally repost my old post about the 'witty worm'. I like your post better :-)


39 posted on 08/03/2006 6:18:36 AM PDT by zeugma (I reject your reality and substitute my own in its place. (http://www.zprc.org/))
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