Are Macs still better than PCs, or isn't there any real difference any more?

[liam_on_linux]

They're a bit better in some ways. It's somewhat marginal now.

OK. Position statement up front.

Anyone who works in computers and only knows one platform is clueless. You need cross-platform knowledge and experience to actually be able to assess strengths, weaknesses, etc.

Most people in IT this century only know Windows and have only known

Comments

[bohemiancoast]

Macs are not as good as they used to be at 'just working'; I've argued that this is because Tim Cook is not minded to publicly eviscerate people who don't deliver perfection. And of course we do have new, modern operating systems; they just run on mobile devices.

[liam_on_linux]

*Nothing* is as good as it used to be, setting aside speed & capacity. My phone's battery life has shrunk an order of magnitude. My PDA's lost its keyboard & most of its functionality, traded for Teh Internets. My MP3 player's lots its replaceable batteries & its capacity has halved. My PC has lots its explorability, simplicity & programmability -- and much of its enjoyability.

There's more to power than raw speed or terabytes of space.

The Mac's lost its gorgeous smart UI, replaced by a shinier but far inferior copy. OTOH, it's massively more reliable than it was, networks better, understands non-Mac hardware better -- but now, like every other computer, it's a mess of cryptic text config files and arcane shell commands.

[bohemiancoast]

The Mac UI is still pretty lovely, and OMG Windows 8! My brother bought my niece a Windows 8 laptop (because she needed a laptop but he didn't feel it was sensible to get a 9 year old a Mac -- silly boy should have got her a second-hand Air about the age of mine for about the same money) and I practically died trying to get it to do anything. And it's just as bad for her; the programs she uses are scattered around the UI randomly, the number of weird things that pop up are bizarre, and neither of her parents really know how to help.

[liam_on_linux]

I confess I am bemused at how much it's thrown people. I always figured anyone vaguely competent would know how to do Win+E for Explorer, or Win+R for Run then control/devmgmt.msc/diskmgmt.msc/compmgmt.msc etc to run specific tools, or just Windows+type, Vista-style, for launching arbitrary apps

[bohemiancoast]

But remember I haven't used a Windows computer by choice for about 12 years so I've forgotten all the key commands. And it's really amazingly difficult to navigate, or install software, or get rid of the shedloads of cruft that always come free with every Windows machine, or anything like that, without already knowing how. Brother & his wife are also Mac users. The other problem with the netbook is that -- as well as running Win8 -- it's a steaming pile of poo. Everything about it is ludicrously underspecced, so despite it being brand new, it won't even run some of the rather simple games that 9-year-olds like. That of course is not Microsoft's problem, but it's not a problem that Apple have because they don't sell junky computers.

[liam_on_linux]

I'm going to quibble, but only for the hell of it, really. You're right.

Yes, it's hard to get rid of W8's cruft, but only inasmuch as it always was. Well, since Windows 3, anyway -- there really wasn't a lot in there.

And yes, I understand, if you don't use it for a while, any knowledge fades. As a recent FB meme went, "every day I learn something new... but forget 5 things I used to know. That's the joy of being over 50."

Netbooks always were pants, really. The modern ultralights are marginally better, but built to a price, so they don't rival the MacBook Air. Chromebooks are not so bad, but underspecced for anything except ChromeOS.

[andrewducker]

Yup. Every time there's an update to iOS or OSX I see loads of updates/posts from my friends talking about things going wrong, having to unbrick devices, etc.

Which is a shame, because you'd hope that with the limited number of combinations they have to deal with, they could make it work.

(OTOH, I never, ever, upgrade Windows in place. I always reformat and reinstall.)

[bohemiancoast]

Well, to be fair, people clearly haven't internalised the "don't upgrade on day one on mission-critical machines" rule -- if you wait even a week it settles down. And people will persist in running ancient peripherals or software and then *NOT CHECKING* that their toys will work before upgrading. I don't think either of those things are in any way Apple's fault

[liam_on_linux]

My anti-wireless-keyboard prejudice is thus reinforced.

My Mac mini has an original 1991 Apple Extended II attached to it, via an ADB->USB convertor. :-)

[bohemiancoast]

Well you are basically quite right.

[liam_on_linux]

I used to regularly nuke & reinstall /the same version of Windows/. Only way to keep it clean, fast & stable.