<p>Gosh, this may seem strange, but I actually run a Mac at home normally, but also right next to it is a Dell workstation running Vista. Of course, I simply must have a Linux box too running the distro du jour. It’s amazing what decent hardware one can find at garage sales. I bought a Dell Dimension P4 running 2GHz for $35. Office Depot had a sale on 17" ViewSonic LCD monitors for $150 each one day.</p>
<p>I like them all…but my family uses Mac…having migrated from Windows somewhat fearfully. I can say that Windoze is much better than it was, but all the operating systems are as well. </p>
<p>Makshim, in my opinion, represents the irrational “hate Macs” attitude that somehow takes hold of some people-- Mostly 15-21 year-old males in my experience.</p>
<p>Mac desktops ARE customizable. Open up a Mac Pro, and you’ll find a level of customizability on par with any Wintel/Linux box. It is, for all intents and purposes, a standard computer.</p>
<p>Laptops are almost never customizable, so I don’t see why this is even an issue.</p>
<p>As for the Mac minis and iMacs, the lack of customizability is an issue for some, but not for others. If you don’t plan on needing to swap out the video card for the newest model every 6 months, or running some uber SLI setup, then it’s pretty much a non-issue.</p>
<p>I’m a pretty hardcore gamer, and I’m pretty satisfied with the performance of games on my MBP. It’s not going to win any awards any time soon, but it runs Oblivion at a fairly decent clip, and WoW runs as well as it has on any machine (e.g. not all that well). </p>
<p>Macs aren’t perfect. Mac OS X isn’t perfect. But it’s an enjoyable OS that lets me get things done pretty quickly, the computer itself has a solid design, and the performance has been good so far.</p>
<p>Oh, and Photoshop has run just as quickly on Macs as Wintels for years. Wait for the universal binary version and we’ll see what performance is like.</p>
<p>FWIW, I usually see exactly the opposite phenomenon. There’s a parallel between Mac/Windows and San Francisco/Los Angeles:</p>
<p>Mac owner: I hate Windows. I hate Microsoft. I hate Bill Gates. I define my existence in part by hating everything Windows, Microsoft, and Gates.</p>
<p>PC/Windows owner: Macs are OK, I guess.</p>
<p>San Franciscan: I hate Los Angeles. I talk about hating Los Angeles all the time. I define myself in part by hating Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Angeleno: Frisco’s OK. Kind of cold, though.</p>
<p>I think you’re too kind to the PC owners. On this board at least, I see more irrationally exuberant hatred for Macs from PC fanboys than the other way around.</p>
<p>I, for one, run a Wintel box as well. I build 'em, too. But there’s something about XP that never has sat well with me. I’m hoping Vista will improve that feeling.</p>
<p>Oh, and you’re too nice to us Angelenos. We’re way more vitriolic usually. :D</p>
<p>I don’t hate Macs, they have their place. I just attack Macs with the same vigor with which they attack PCs. It’s the cool thing to do nowadays, get a Mac and bash PCs, just look at Apple’s smear campaign. A lot of people are sucked in by this marketing. I do dislike Apple as a company due to their business practices which hurt the consumer much more than MS’s ever could.</p>
<p>I dont hate Bill gates-
I think that he has accomplished a lot with the Gates foundation- I agree with his focus ( re the foundation) and I think that he and Melinda are doing a great job with their kids.
( dont ask me how I feel about Howard Schultz)
I feel sorry for people who take one person saying what a great school, or computer or car they have & why they love it- as a reason to question the others opinion and attack their decision.</p>
<p>I personally am very happy I didn’t get sucked into the "only Windoz are * real* computers & use an OS that doesn’t have * thats not a bug its a feature* poorly designed software with a mulitiude of security holes that sucks MBs like they were water- reasoning that more * games* are designed for it- therefore its better ;)</p>
<p>I have been using personal computers and computers at work for decades.
I would only buy a computer that ran the Mac OS and now that the parallels can run whatever program I would ever possibly need- I have even less reason to see that damm paperclip. :D</p>
<p>( BTW I use NeoOffice- it is free and opens and saves all Word files- formatted- I did buy Word * once* It was on 9 floppy disks I think and practically took all afternoon to install.)</p>
<p>NeoOffice, MarinerWrite,Keynote & Pages do everything I need them to do- take up less memory and are faster ( and easier to use) than Microsoft products
If other people find that Microsoft products are easier to use or that they have to use them becasue their school/workplace provides them- than great.</p>
<p>But I like to be able to just use the power of the computer to do what I want- rather than using programs that are expensive- have a steep learning curve and don’t necessarily do what I want them to anyway.
But maybe that is just me.</p>
<p>In this debate one can’t ignore one asset of the mac - styling. I’ve noticed from previous threads on the subject that when it comes to college students, style is important to many of them and I think there’s little question that a significant factor in Apple’s resurgence from near oblivion is it’s focus on styling which has won over many people.</p>
<p>LOLOL
this is from the 02 season- ( which I zoomed through in a couple days)
and we all know what happened with Nina
( from my above link- just click on Jack)</p>
<p>*“I made an off-the-cuff remark to my wife,” Browell said. “It was obvious from the first episode that the assassins use PCs, but Kiefer Sutherland and his gang all use Macs.”</p>
<p>Bauer uses an Apple Cube and a Titanium PowerBook. Most of his fellow agents use PowerBooks, iBooks or PowerMacs with flat screens, Browell said.</p>
<p>However, after a few episodes Browell noticed that one of the CIA agents, the trustworthy Jamey Farrell (Karina Arroyave), uses a Dell PC.</p>
<p>“I thought my theory had been blown,” he said. “My wife was quite entertained when my theory was shot down.”</p>
<p>But in a recent episode, Farrell was exposed as a traitor and committed suicide, bolstering Browell’s theory. “She was supposed to be the one everyone trusted,” he said.</p>
<p>A character widely suspected of being a traitor -
Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) – uses a Mac, which convinces Browell that his characterization must be a red herring.</p>
<p>Could Browell’s theory be used to unravel the plot? Perhaps. One of Bauer’s most trusted colleagues, Nina Myers (Sarah Clarke), has just started using a Dell laptop. Browell suspects she will soon turn bad.*</p>
<p>Alright, how 'bout that they are the only ones that can make a computer which uses OSX? This eliminates competition, making Apple the REAL monopoly in the computer world.</p>
<p>Actually, Apple has licensed out Mac OS in the past, and a company by the name of Axiotron is now selling a tablet form of the Macbook online.</p>
<p>However, not all monopolies hurt consumers, and it’s arguable whether or not Apple is a monopoly. It’d be better to categorize it as a monopolistic competitor along with Microsoft, if you really want to be economically technical. It’s arguable that since they are both making OSes that do largely the same thing, they’re both just sellers in the same market (OSes).</p>
<p>And there are actually cases where monopolies provide more utility for the end consumer anyway…</p>
<p>But that’s not the way it works in the real world. For Windows based systems you have HP, Dell, etc. all competing to provide a better product.</p>
<p>Apple is competing with itself so if you decide to get a Mac, Apple owns you and can do with you as it pleases. The $5 patch as mentioned earlier I think is a prime example of this. Apple’s appeal (no pun intended) is that everything is first party, but that is also, IMO, the key drawback.</p>
<p>Apple is also monopolstic in other services such as iTunes.</p>
<p>Imagine the outcry if Gates decided all PCs would now be manufactured by MS and ONLY MS.</p>
Sure - I agree with you. If I had a choice between two identical items, one with style and one without, I’d choose the one that appealed to my eye. It’s always a factor for me in choosing a vehicle. I think it’s remarkable how Apple’s stylists have really benefited the company in their PC/Laptop line as well as their consumer line (iPods, etc.).</p>
<p>The $5 patch issue actually has legitimate legal accounting logic behind it. And for a company that’s under scrutiny right now for accounting issues, you can’t blame them for being overcautious. </p>
<p>Take an accounting course and you’ll find that what they’re doing isn’t outlandishly weird, but just a side effect of how the law determines profits.</p>
<p>Furthermore, yes, that’s how it works in the real world. Patents are monopolies, trademarks are monopolies.</p>
<p>If I go to Burger King and order a Big Mac, I can’t get one. Why? Because McDonald’s has an effective monopoly over Big Macs. Now, I can order a Whopper, which is pretty much a burger like the Big Mac, but I don’t get the McDonald’s special sauce.</p>
<p>Apple produces an operating system. Microsoft produces an operating system. There are some differences in how they get that OS out there, but they are effective monopolistic competitors in every sense of the concept. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And Microsoft is the same way with the Zune service, as well as PlaysForSure. Monopolistic competition at its finest.</p>
<p>I used to have a Umax computer that had Apple * inside*
I don’t remember the reason why that was discontinued, but it was a good computer-
I wont argue that Apple hasnt made a lot of bonehead business decisions over the years
mostly around making a good product that people want, and then pulling support and discontinuing the line.</p>
<p>But after years of listening to people making cracks about how expensive they are, and how silly the HappyMac looks when you boot up and how they are for “lightweights” who don’t want to learn how to program-( even though Seymour Cray used a Macintosh to design the next Cray* and Apple used a Cray to design the next Macintosh )</p>
<p>I have earned my right to smile when I see * everyone* enter an APPLE store intending just to get an ipod & walk out with a Macbook ( and an ipod) instead.</p>
<p>( It doesn’t quite make up for Microsoft dumping “free” software to schools and school districts who then have to pay out fees for upgrades and for tech support- and Windows products need hella more tech support than Mac)</p>
<p>This is misleading. Without going into the detail of the bits of intellectual property law I’ve picked up in the software biz, patents protect a novel device or process. Frequently, these are different ways of doing things that are also available in alternate delivery methods. In other words, I could patent an engine that ran on anteater sweat, which would allow me to have the exclusive right to manufacture or license this technology, but this would not necessarily create a monopoly in the legal sense. As trademarks do not represent an invention or process (or even unique written work, which would be protected by copyright), I can’t even come up with a theoretical construct to create a monopoly based on a trademark. You can, for example, produce a cola drink essentially identical to Coca-Cola, but you just can’t call it “Coca-Cola.” Coke is the market leader, but there is no way they control a monopoly based on their marks.</p>
<p>But that’s not what a monopoly is. A monopoly implies that the consumer has only one really reasonable option to choose from - but that is far from what is going on here. If you don’t want to use iTunes, you can use Napster, Rhapsody, or any of the other big music download services. Or you can just buy regular old CDs - there are any number of different ways to buy.</p>
<p>The operating system thing is the furthest from the idea of a monopoly. Mac OS X has what, 5% market share? Obviously the other 95% were free to choose whatever operating system they wanted.</p>
<p>As for the $5 patch, it’s not like it’s a necessary fix that you need in order for your computer to run properly - it’s software that gives your mac features that no one who bought a mac realized were avaliable. People who bought these macs paid thinking that they would only get 802.11g wireless. Now for $5, they can upgrade to faster 802.11n. It’s not like something was taken away from them. Most people who bought PC laptops with 802.11g would probably have to pay $50-$100 right now for a hardware upgrade to 802.11n.</p>
<p>And besides, Apple is a company and this is a free economy. If you don’t like what Apple does then you can vote with your money and go elsewhere.</p>
<p>While you are right in a way that it is misleading, there is a lot of literature on patents as a form of monopoly. Many, particularly those in the developing world, decry the patent as a deliberate stifling of competition. And in some ways it really is. </p>
<p>All a monopoly is, in the truest sense of the word, is a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a product or service. You have a monopoly when nobody else can produce that product, for whatever reason.</p>
<p>Why is a trademark a form of monopoly? Simple. Nike doesn’t really sell “shoes,” per se (though they do.) They sell a brand. Protection of that brand from fakes and copiers is tantamount to their success. By enforcing trademarks, Nike can ensure that the Nike market is theirs and theirs alone.</p>
<p>Disney is a key example of this. They fiercely litigate anyone who would impinge upon that famous mouse, protecting their monopoly on his usage. Only Disney, and Disney alone, has the right to engage in the sale of Mickey Mouse. </p>
<p>People, when they think of the term “monopoly” often assume (not stupidly) that a monopoly must control an industry to be a monopoly. That is not the case. Any time you have a drug company controlling a specific drug (that does something no other drug does) it is a monopoly in that market.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They control a monopoly on the intellectual property rights in regards to Coca-Cola, however. Imagine how fast I’d be taken to court if I started selling UCLAri’s Coca-Cola. However, this gets into theoretically sticker territory, and it’s safer to say that Coke is a monopolistic competitor, having characteristics of both.</p>
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