Is Mac now officially better than Windows?
linkinpark875
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Given it's high price tag and people willing to pay it especially for Mac book laptops if Mac was cheaper would it easily over take Windows?
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linkinpark875
Posts: 29,699
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Mac's can't even claim the remaining 10% share as Linux has a chunk of that 10% too.
Let's not forget, Mac share of installed base in the PC market is similar to Windows Phone's share in the mobile market.
Macs benefit from the halo effect of iOS. They've also been coming down in price over time, especially the Air models and are already price-competitive with Windows.
Your thinking has some fallacies:
1) Assuming Macs would maintain the same quality if they lowered in price
2) Thinking Apple would bother doing that
3) Macs are still tremendously niche in enterprise and will remain that way for years to come
Threshold may help to cause a Windows resurgence.
I wonder how many browse the web with Windows now rather than a phone/tablet. I'm sure I read somewhere Windows is well down and a larger majority browse with phones/tablets now?
Mac hardware is generally more aesthetically pleasing than other hardware (if you care).
Mac software apps now number in the hundreds of thousands - if not millions - but there's less choice. For example, the only optical disc software worth having is "Roxio Toast" and compares favourably with "Nero" for Windows. But, for Mac users, there's hardly any decent alternative. "Burn" is OK (and still free AFAIK) but doesn't do half of what "Toast" does.
Macs are far less customisable so you might end up paying a LOT to get exactly the hardware you need.
I disagree, there's some lovely Windows machines , it's just most people will buy cheap Windows laptops and those in the market to spend more are a small percentage like a few % that buy Macbooks or high end Windows Laptops like the one above the Sony Vaio and others. That end of the market is small on both sides and Apple only have something like 5% of the laptop and desktop market, like the 5% that buy high end Windows machines.
The other 90% of the market wants more budget systems and won't justify the extra cost for the metal finish etc.
However, the laptop that you've linked to is simply a copy of Apple's MacBook.
Mac OS X has many plus points, but it has a file manager/explorer (Finder) that is embarrassing. If that thing crashes and it does often with a variety of bugs, it can take your whole system with it. Not to mention the garbage it leaves behind when you browse folders (eg. hidden .DS_Store files everywhere). Needs an urgent rethink, but hasn't changed much in over 10 years.
I got a Mac originally for video editing with Final Cut, but I much prefer to use Adobe Premiere Pro on the PC nowadays instead. It's less buggy and the hardware was cheaper. The output video quality is also better on similar settings.
I hate finder too, one issue I have is you can't search for an applications in your list from finder, it seems to bring up all search items and takes you off applications automatically when you search. It won't let you click in a list and then type a letter and take you to that place in the list. You can't select files and press the delete button, you've got to mess about going 'right click' 'move to trash'.
On the desktop the Mac won't space out desktop icons for you they just get freely dropped anywhere. When you use multi monitors and I unplug applications literally disappear and are almost impossible to get back. You quit and open again, but they open again tiny and hidden on the screen you unplugged until you mess about changing resolution or re-plugging in the screen you removed. Windows remembers the size and location of each program independently and re-launches it in the same place, the Mac doesn't.
Copy and paste between some applications in the mac is frustrating between command and the mouse clipboards as with some applications it is intermittent and seems to have an odd clipboard depending on if you use the context menu or the command key. All the simple picture viewers and editors are horrible that come with the mac, give me simple paint and the image viewer on Windows any day for very simple operations. I prefer the snipping tool in Windows to CMD Shift 4 and then having to take the image it saved, re-open and copy etc, the snipping tool is much better.
There are other minor things too, but I would say they both have their upsides and downsides. Both are generally stable and reliable for me, although both have had their crashes or issues just as much, Apple certainly isn't completely immune from issues. I'm happy on both platforms, Apple at work and Windows at home for me, so I get hours of use out of each platform most days and I'm happy with both and wouldn't change to Apple at home or back to a Windows machine at work out of choice.
I think it'll be mostly Windows snobs who'll always buy MacBooks and iMacs. It'll probably be a case of some forking out loads for a MacBook and then thinking, yeah, I'm part of the club now. Something like that anyway.
And then there's the posers who buy Macs just because they want to look cool in Starbucks. A lot of those posers would probably end up running Windows on their Macs because they don't know how the Mac OS works but owning a Mac is a status symbol. I know a couple of people like that.
It just brings out the worst in people that usually have something helpful and intelligent to say. For some reason it renders both sides incapable of either.
Officially; no.
There you go. Next thread...
It's funny how old arguments like these still live on despite the fact the Mac vs. PC debate is quickly becoming about as relevant as VHS vs. Betamax.
Anyway I was a Windows user from Windows 3.1 right through to Windows Vista owning countless desktops and laptops. I got my first Mac in 2009. I hated the thing for three or four months because everything was so alien to me and my workflows in Windows were almost useless. But as I gradually learned to do things the Mac way, I learned to appreciate the OS, its unix underpinnings, and now I find using Windows painful (even though I still have a Dell around for testing purposes).
That said, if I didn't put in the time to learn to use a Mac properly - I can easily imagine myself being one of those people running Windows solely on an expensive Mac - at least until I bought my next computer.
Apple does want the more domestic market as its got a higher churn as people will accept that the phone they brought last week is already out of date and will gladly pony up another 500 quid to stay current especially with apple as you can't be seen in starbucks on a 2012 macbook as you'll be seen as ancient
Thats hardly supprising as none of the current range of Mac's have optical drives
I honestly don't remember ever having finder crash by itself, a few photoshop crashes when implementing complex effects on large files and that's about it with any regularity. But then again I can say pretty much the same for my win7 setup. I think it's down to keeping up to date with the housekeeping rather than which OS.
Also I find nothing wrong with finder except on rare occations maybe the search isn't as configarable as I would like. People are always saying this and saying it's because they want to do XYZ and I just think 'why would I want to do that'. (Easyfind gets me all the search power I need if I cant be bothered to use terminal and type "find -iname 'query' ")
However, back on topic, couldn't care less which other people consider better. I prefer Mac OS, maybe cause I've used it as my main OS for over 25 years and am used to the Mac UI philosophy. I expect that's similarly true for those who prefer windows.
It's got the power of BSD under the hood. Much better than windows. I switched to a mac 6 years ago, never had any bugs which cause a system crash like the one you mention. I'm not battling with it everyday, and it's a much more pleasant experience. I would like to switch over to linux full time, but I can't find a suitable laptop. Thinkpads seem to have gone down the drain. Shame because I quite like the design, they're very sturdy.
It was usually quite easy to kill Finder and thus anything that relied upon it. Connect to a network share, start accessing files & copying files etc, then disconnect or reboot the network computer (whilst Finder is idle). Sometimes Finder would notice and inform you it's disconnected, other times it would just hang forever.
It would often do the same with dirty/damaged optical media, even blocking the Eject command as Finder is still "using" it.