Apple vs. PC

[tooblue]

Dude no offense but you're spewing the reasons why Macs were better for certain things circa fifteen years ago. At that time I was a multi-media developer and had the latest and greatest from both worlds sitting on my desk. Everything has changed. On the creative side PC's caught up years ago. All that Adobe stuff you're talking about (you forgot about Macromedia) has been available on PC for years and works exactly the same. There is literally no difference in the user experience. It's the same in the audio and video and audio production world. One of my buddies who is an Apple die-hard and edited some of the top-rated reality series on TV is now working as a colorist in NYC and has switched over. It took him about a day to figure out how to navigate in the PC world and he's fine. The architecture argument is also stupid. Since Apple went with Intel you can find identical hardware setups in Apple products and many PC's. You can also go on New Egg and build yourself a Hackintosh without much effort.

Lifespans on Macs aren't longer. I've had three fail just after the warranty period for GPU issues. There are numerous threads on all kinds of message boards detailing issues with Macbooks. The GPU issues are due to a poor cooling design schemes because sometimes Apple values style over quality. On the flip side my last five PC laptops from Dell, Lenovo, and HP are dated but all work fine. Every so often I'll farm one of them out to a niece or a nephew who needs a computer for school.

Virus? Macs are increasingly targeted. I haven't had a virus on a PC in years using free virus tools available to everyone.

I have the latest generation MBP. I haven't had the issues that JL has had but there are other annoying things about the computer. Updates occur all the time and screw up the drivers for the peripherals that I use. Sometimes the issues take months to fix. This is rarely the case on my PC. The truth is both OS's are buggy but both are pretty fantastic. Windows 10 is an excellent operating system and any idiot can easily learn how to use it.

Sorry, but seventeen years of experience dealing with a revolving door of hundreds of first year students, enrolled in programs similar to what Wuap's daughter is enrolled in tell me otherwise. They also tell my institution otherwise. If PC's really were just as good and not merely cheaper we would be using them. But we are not, and the reasons I cited are not guided by legacy concerns from 15 years ago. We are not driven by elitism and nostalgia, but rather practicality.

The issues I cite above are relevant today. I design and develop, and teach students how to design and develop for both platforms. Does that mean Macs are perfect? No. Does that mean the landscape won't change? No. Truth is, quality of Mac machines and the Mac OS has deteriorated somewhat. In short order, the skyrocketing costs may just decide the issue. But as of right now, nothing has changed—not until Microsoft and the machines their OS runs on improves in quality, while maintaining the low cost. Truth is, I just don't see that happening, based on track record.

Dude, I don't need FREE anti-virus tools. Therefore, you understand the fact you need them renders your argument the losing one by default, right?

Like I said, there is a growing void at the moment. Something will fill it. I'm not convinced Apple is even interested, and I have even less faith in Microsoft. Beyond being paid to and sharing in the responsibilities for making hardware and software recommendations (by committee) for hundreds of students with parents, who have concerns similar to Wuap, I also have young adult children of my own, who have recently face the same dilemma. Let me share two anecdotes:

My oldest, home from his mission nearly two years now is currently in Art School. He was required to purchase a Mac. We bought the recommended machine on the High-end. He has had no issues at all. In my experience, he will not have any issues whatsoever.

In contrast, my second oldest also is home from his mission. He did a year of University before leaving, studying engineering. He got through that first year just fine with a six-year-old Mac laptop. After coming home and reentering school, now focusing on biomedical engineering it was decided he purchase a new, PC laptop. He didn't need a Mac. We ordered a nicely configured ThinkPad. He has had to return it twice in one year. The first time they replaced the whole unit. The second time they replaced a component on the motherboard. Guess what machine he used, while the PC was in transit? The nearly 8 year Mac laptop.

[pelagius]

Not when they are working properly.

For my work, when the computational demands pop up they are typically embarrassingly parallel so we just use HTCondor with local resources or Amazon Cloud or Microsoft Azure. I have access to a few supercomputers, but have rarely had a good reason to use them.

Running Embarrassingly parallel code is such a satisfying experience.

No, that makes sense. I do have similar workflow (but less use of Amazon or other resources and more with just my desktop workstation ... currently a overclocked broadwell-E machine), but I just found occasionally it was nice to have more compute power on my laptop so I went back to having a laptop with 4core/8threads and 32gigs of ram (still love the thinkpad W530)

[Shaka]

Are the limited ram and mediocre gpu options not issues for you? I suppose they wouldn't be if you always do your mid-level and serious computational intensive work on real workstations.

This was directed at JL but I'll weigh in. My 2016 MBP does really well with only 16GB of RAM and an i7 quad core. I no longer stretch the GPU's abilities so I have no opinion on the graphics capability. Other than my gripes with Thunderbolt 3/USB-C and the issues with updates it's a pretty solid machine.

[Shaka]

Sorry, but seventeen years of experience dealing with a revolving door of hundreds of first year students, enrolled in programs similar to what Wuap's daughter is enrolled in tell me otherwise. They also tell my institution otherwise. If PC's really were just as good and not merely cheaper we would be using them. But we are not, and the reasons I cited are not guided by legacy concerns from 15 years ago. We are not driven by elitism and nostalgia, but rather practicality.

The issues I cite above are relevant today. I design and develop, and teach students how to design and develop for both platforms. Does that mean Macs are perfect? No. Does that mean the landscape won't change? No. Truth is, quality of Mac machines and the Mac OS has deteriorated somewhat. In short order, the skyrocketing costs may just decide the issue. But as of right now, nothing has changed—not until Microsoft and the machines their OS runs on improves in quality, while maintaining the low cost. Truth is, I just don't see that happening, based on track record.

Dude, I don't need FREE anti-virus tools. Therefore, you understand the fact you need them renders your argument the losing one by default, right?

Like I said, there is a growing void at the moment. Something will fill it. I'm not convinced Apple is even interested, and I have even less faith in Microsoft. Beyond being paid to and sharing in the responsibilities for making hardware and software recommendations (by committee) for hundreds of students with parents, who have concerns similar to Wuap, I also have young adult children of my own, who have recently face the same dilemma. Let me share two anecdotes:

My oldest, home from his mission nearly two years now is currently in Art School. He was required to purchase a Mac. We bought the recommended machine on the High-end. He has had no issues at all. In my experience, he will not have any issues whatsoever.

In contrast, my second oldest also is home from his mission. He did a year of University before leaving, studying engineering. He got through that first year just fine with a six-year-old Mac laptop. After coming home and reentering school, now focusing on biomedical engineering it was decided he purchase a new, PC laptop. He didn't need a Mac. We ordered a nicely configured ThinkPad. He has had to return it twice in one year. The first time they replaced the whole unit. The second time they replaced a component on the motherboard. Guess what machine he used, while the PC was in transit? The nearly 8 year Mac laptop.

What your people desire to become I already am with twenty years of experience to boot. I know the professionals in the field and have an idea about the feelings these professionals have regarding their tools. I still maintain systems with both OS's. Your academic environment doesn't mean squat in the real world. All you've stated just reflects an institutional bias going back years. Hardware on both platforms break and operating systems have to be patched. Apple has ignored their bread and butter multimedia fanboys and has instead concentrated on consumer products. That operator base has taken notice and many are pissed about it. Multimedia developers are finding that they have to buy a reconfigured years old Mac Pro or the trashcan at premium prices just to stay afloat. Many are sick of being ignored, switching over, and finding that the PC environment is just as good. The Mac is better for multimedia is a myth and has been for a long time.

I also have anti-virus on both of my Macs because there are threats out there that affect Macs.

[Commando]

I switched back to an iPhone (the 7) from Samsung recently and I like it just fine, despite our IT guy observing, "Hmm, this is the first instance I've seen where a dude has switched back to an iPhone. Until now it's only been women who do that."

lol what a dick! I switched to the iPhone from an Android phone b/c I don't want to dink around on my phone all day. All I want to do is: 1) access social media 2) text message 3) play games once in a while and 4) listen to music in my car. The Droid was a PITA that I'd have to sit down and configure just to do those simple tasks. At one point the native media player would butt in every time I would try to play music with another app. Eff that. The iPhone kind of puts everything on one screen and lets you access what you want with minimal fuss.

[old_gregg]

jl styling on pelag's cumbersome code itt

[Walter Sobchak]

These PC vs Mac debates are amusing.

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[pelagius]

These PC vs Mac debates are amusing.

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Yeah, everyone knows we should concentrate our energy on the vi/emacs debate

[Walter Sobchak]

Yeah, everyone knows we should concentrate our energy on the vi/emacs debate

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[pelagius]

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Emacs with viper mode is the correct answer.

[Jeff Lebowski]

What do you guys think about In-N-Out vs. Five Guys?

[Flystripper]

In N Out...

[tooblue]

What your people desire to become I already am with twenty years of experience to boot. I know the professionals in the field and have an idea about the feelings these professionals have regarding their tools. I still maintain systems with both OS's. Your academic environment doesn't mean squat in the real world. All you've stated just reflects an institutional bias going back years. Hardware on both platforms break and operating systems have to be patched. Apple has ignored their bread and butter multimedia fanboys and has instead concentrated on consumer products. That operator base has taken notice and many are pissed about it. Multimedia developers are finding that they have to buy a reconfigured years old Mac Pro or the trashcan at premium prices just to stay afloat. Many are sick of being ignored, switching over, and finding that the PC environment is just as good. The Mac is better for multimedia is a myth and has been for a long time.

I also have anti-virus on both of my Macs because there are threats out there that affect Macs.

The single biggest misconception is that a vocational academic environment is somehow not the real world, and at the very least is not informed by it. In fact we are guided exclusively by the real world, because we operate in it. Just last night, I attended an advisory meeting with those same industry professionals you assert you know well. There was quorum. Meaning the recommendations of the 7 industry professionals in the room, in critique of our curriculum, are binding. Per our decision-making with regards to preparing students with skills essential to their employability.

I don't teach because I couldn't do, I teach because I did (running the creative department for a multi-national insurance company), and currently do operate with maximum efficiency in 'real world' situations, possessed of 'real world' knowledge and skills. Our research mandate is community outreach based. We have no less than five projects slated for next fall with industry-based partners. This will allow our students to actually work with 'real world' clients, as guided by faculty, who have 'real world' knowledge, skills and experience.

Yes, Apple has ignored it's bread and butter, hence the void I have spoken of. But it's not as dire as you paint it. When asked, because it is an important issue to contend with: unanimously, the quorum recommended staying with the Mac. Can I see that changing. Yes, but Microsoft will have to improve its products dramatically.

[Commando]

Get a load of this, you guys!

[tooblue]

What do you guys think about In-N-Out vs. Five Guys?

In-N-Out is overrated. Five Guys all the way.