A diehard Mac user switches to PC

Business Insider ^ | 07/11/2018 | Steve Kovach and Clancy Morgan

[SeekAndFind]

The Mac used to have numerous advantages over the PC, but with Windows 10 the PC has now closed the gap.

These days buying a PC gives you many more options compared to the Mac, which continues to stagnate. Business Insider's senior tech correspondent, Steve Kovach, switched his Mac for a PC to see what Windows 10 really has to offer.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Steve Kovach: I've been a Mac user for over 15 years. I hated PCs. They came loaded with a bunch of software that slowed down my machine, and they caught viruses way too easily.

Ad: Last year there were 114 thousand known viruses for PCs.

PCs, but not Macs.

Steve: Then I discovered the Mac. And it had everything the PC didn't. But lately, I've grown frustrated with the Mac lineup. And while Apple has let its Mac lineup stagnate, Windows 10 computers have gotten really good. So I decided to make the switch back for a few days and tested Huawei's new MateBook X Pro. Which runs Windows 10 and starts at about $1200. Some have called it the best laptop you can buy. And guess what, Windows is actually really great. And I may even like it better than my Mac.

Windows 8 tried to be two operating systems in one. One for desktop and one for mobile. And it failed at both. It even got rid of Windows' iconic Start menu. But Windows 10 reversed a lot of those mistakes. The Start menu's back and it works great on the desktop. Windows 10 comes with Cortana. The Microsoft Digital Assistant. It can dig through files on your computer and even search the web. It's almost as good as Google Search.

Windows 10 also has a lot more hardware options.

[Crusher138]

Wow...wrong on so many counts!

Macs are not more expensive to maintain.

Macs have computers starting at $599, so I would hardly call them expensive.

I have 10 year old Macs that are still chugging along.

The two times I have had to repair a Mac, it was no more expensive than repairing a PC. Keep in mind that covers a ten year period and 6 iMacs, 2 Mac Pros, 4 Mac Minis, 3 Time Capsules, and 6 various Mac Laptops. Two repairs in ten years. One was covered as a “known issue” and the other was a failed HD which was replaced for about $200 (it was a 5 year old machine).

I spend 19 years being the IT person for my previous employer. 32 Workstations, 4 Servers, a custom data base application, all running under Windows. Not a day went by that I didn’t have some IT issue. Workstations lasted, on average, 3 to 4 years. Hard drives failed regularly. Viruses were a constant problem. The email system ALWAYS needed tweaking. Having to worry about multiple versions of Window working together. Yuck.

On our Mac-centric system I can concentrate on running my business, not my network.

[dhs12345]

BTW, my apologies to you for calling you brainwashed. Close minded is more accurate. And no insult intended.

No doubt you believe in Apple. You probably work for Apple and more power to you and sometimes you have to sell ice to eskimos. Just that this eskimo has plenty of ice.

Lastly, early in my career I worked at a very large company that had similar attitudes to yours and believed that they could never fail. Their customers were locked in tight. I had similar discussions with engineers and management yet they couldn't see it. I was just a low level engineer so what did I know?

The irony is that the PC market and the commoditization of computer hardware and software destroyed their “monopoly” on computers and now they are history... long since gone. No more. Gone forever.

Without the Iphone business, Apple would be looking at a similar fate.

[dayglored]

"Lifelong Mac User" tries and likes Windows 10 ... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

Thanks to Swordmaker for the ping!

Dayglored note: Anybody who claims to be a 15-yr exclusively Mac user but has spent his time trashing Macs, who then tries Windows and immediately loves it, strikes me as somewhat curious. Maybe even suspicious... Rather like the "Lifelong Republican" who trashes Conservatives (and more recently, POTUS Trump) and then "discovers" all kinds of good things about a liberal Democrat.

That said, Win10 does have a lot of features that are a vast improvement over Win8, and it's speedier.

And given the incredible pressure to abandon Win7, from both Microsoft and its sidekick application vendors, Win10 is clearly the future of Windows, period, end of story. If you're a Windows user, there's something to be said for that.

[Bob434]

[[Win10 is clearly the future of Windows, period, end of story.]]

Win10 —AND it’s spying technology— are clearly the future of Windows, period, end of story.

[Squantos]

.....use what works for me.

[dhs12345]

Oh, so you can replace video cards, memory, etc. now? We do this fairly frequently. Some of the PCs are 12, 13, 14 years old. We paid $100 per with the OS 7 years ago. If one fails, we swap it out and toss out the old (if it cannot be repaired).

10 year old Mac? Is the OS still supported? Can you get programs and applications? Unlikely. My dad’s Mac is no longer supported. I thin that it is around 10 years old. Plus his silver tower beast is all but useless.

$599? And how much is the software?

Also, keep in mind that with PCs you have hundreds of sources for software and hardware and 10 major integrators; with Apple you only have Apple. So, a PC will be much better supported long term.

And then there is Linux.

Also, if you do buy Macs for business, is your business affiliated with Apple in some way? Be honest.

[dhs12345]

But isn't ITunes an Apple product?? ;)

Also, I bet not on third party players? Unless you convert the song to mp3, which of course, is a new feature that Apple added to their ITunes software recently. Versus having to burn the song to a cd and then rip the cd back to an MP3 get it in MP3 format.

I do give Apple credit for dealing with the DRM issue and the media companies. After napster, everyone ran from the media companies yet Apple faced and successfully convinced them that there was money to be had if their songs and movies were sold legally. A LOT OF MONEY.

[Chickensoup]

Is using win7 the reason why I cannot get any live streaming from UTube and other sites?

[Dalberg-Acton]

“Win10 is clearly the future of Windows”

MS is so screwed.

[Still Thinking]

The Mac used to have numerous advantages over the PC, but with Windows 10 the PC has now closed the gap.

Geez, if WinX was the catch-up product, what was Mac leading in, spyware?

[dayglored]

> Unless you convert the song to mp3, which of course, is a new feature that Apple added to their ITunes software recently. Versus having to burn the song to a cd and then rip the cd back to an MP3 get it in MP3 format.

That's not my experience. In iTunes, set your iTunes Preferences -> General -> Import Settings to the MP3 encoder, choose your bit-rate/VBR quality setting. Then with one or more songs selected in the library, pull the menu File -> Convert -> Create MP3 Version.

That functionality has been around for many years. I haven't needed to burn CDs and rip to get an MP3 in ages.

Maybe Swordmaker can enlighten me as to when it first appeared?

[dayglored]

> Is using win7 the reason why I cannot get any live streaming from UTube and other sites?

Probably not -- I use Win7 and stream from YouTube successfully. I'm fairly new to live-streaming, so I can't really speak to that with authority.

You might check which browser you're using -- I've found Chrome to be best at dealing with Google-related services (no surprise there!).

[Carriage Hill]

I’m still using Win7 Pro on 2 identical industrial/commercial strength boxes (2009), and would rather use my old Etch-A-Sketch than switch to Win10. Or Mac.

[dayglored]

>> “Win10 is clearly the future of Windows”

> MS is so screwed.

Nah, Windows is just another application platform now. It is no longer a sustainable standalone product. That's why Microsoft has deprecated Windows in favor of subscription-plan software (e.g. Office365) and cloud services (e.g. Azure).

And that's why MS eliminated the Windows Division a few months ago. Windows as a primary product has been declared dead and will fall over eventually, but it will take a long time. In the meantime, it provides a useful and immensely widespread platform for Microsoft's sustainable products that will keep the company going.

So Win10 is the last Windows release. Forever updating, forever changing incrementally, and forcing users to update to the latest-and-greatest as soon as possible. As the older releases (Win7, Win8, Win8.1) reach end-of-life, Win10 will absorb as many of those users as it can. Many of the others will have moved on to other OSes like MacOS, Linux, or tablet OSes like Chrome, iOS, Android. Some will remain hold-outs on Win7 and WinXP, but in ever-decreasing numbers.

Windows has run its course as a standalone operating system. There's no reason whatsoever for a Windows 11.

[dhs12345]

But not obvious. Probably for good reason.

Anyway, I stumbled across it a year or so ago. Mostly out of desperation. Now I immediately convert any song to mp3. Also, there are a few songs from several years back that won’t convert. Probably pre-black out DRM.

When, which year? 2016? which ever version came out that year.

google search... per google this link is dated 2016.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht204310

Apparently, the media companies have lightened up finally and the blackout is over. BTW, I don’t sell or put the songs on the internet. Stupid and unfair. I do want play the songs elsewhere and not be locked down to one player.

I have a media player for the home that only supports mp3. Uses shoutcast and MIXXX (under Linux). I do not broadcast on the internet. Just home smart phones and players.

Same with my car and mp3 USB port (flash drive plugged directly into the USB port on my car) — no extra ipod,iphone with cable needed. Yeah!

And we have android phones. Interesting that we don’t use them for music players. Only my son does that.

[bgill]

Nope, still despise 10.

[dayglored]

> When, which year? 2016? which ever version came out that year. google search... per google this link is dated 2016. https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht204310

Per the Wayback machine, that page was first found and archived at the beginning of 2015:

https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht204310

That page has a "last modified" date of Feb 19, 2015. In theory it could have been posted before that, and just it took a while for the Wayback to find it. These are indirect indicators, of course.

[dayglored]

> Nope, still despise 10.

And I still have multiple Win7 machines I use daily.

Rick Astley's song comes to mind.

But I guess it'll be "Right, now all of you -- off to the re-education camp!" for thee and me eventually.... with many others as well. :-)

[Crusher138]

My 10 year old Mac is running El Capitan just fine. We use it as an auxiliary art workstation. Runs Adobe Illustrator CS3 perfectly well, as well as email, web surfing, etc.

We don’t switch out video cards because we don’t need to switch out video cards.

I call BS on the functional 12, 13, 14 year old PC’s.

As for a $100 PC, your frugality is only exceeded by your tolerance for a crappy PC...

This is the software that currently comes with a Mac:

Safari
Mail
Contacts
Calendar
Reminders
Notes
(Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders and Notes work together to make a very Outlook-like experience)
Maps
Messages
FaceTime
Photo Booth
Photos
iTunes
iBooks
Calculator
iMovie (robust video editor)
GarageBand (excellent audio/music editor)
Keynote (similar to Powerpoint)
Numbers (similar to Excel)
Pages (similar to Word)

There are additionally thousands of free and inexpensive app available in the App Store. Guaranteed virus free.

In fact, other than Affinity Designer ($34.99) a great vector-based graphic design program, I don’t believe we have bought any software for nearly all of our Macs.

You sound like the guy who didn’t like Mac’s because he didn’t want a one button mouse. Mac users will know how hilariously stupid that is...

[Chickensoup]

Explorer!