Holy Wars: Mac vs PC

I recently got drawn into another ‘Mac vs PC’ argument [1], which is a bit silly, as I don’t really like Windows, and don’t really mind Macs (to be clear: I’m always on the Windows-side of the argument).

The only real problem I have with Macs, are the users. For some reason, pretty much all Mac users excibit a brand-loyalty that borders on the aggresive, while I’ve yet to meet a PC user that won’t admit his PC crashes, and generally isn’t all that great. (I’m currently in an ongoing struggle to get my system to remember its screen resolutions when restarting. AARG!)

So why aren’t we all using Macs? Several reasons:

Price

However you put it, Macs cost a lot of money. The question whether they are expensive is debatable. You generally get some pretty good components, and the systems are invariably stable and easy to use for beginners. But even if they’re good, they still might be out of reach for many people. (A good example of the ‘Boots’ theory of economic injustice at work). 

Side note: While to somebody who builds his own systems, all pre-build computers look fairly expensive, the markup on the ‘options’ when you buy a Mac really are ridiculous. My advice: buy the basic model, and let a tech-savvy nephew upgrade the memory and disks if required. That’ll save you several hundred bucks right off the bat.

Choice

Compared to Windows PCs, Apple doesn’t offer a whole lot of choice. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Most ‘options’ in the PC world are mostly marketing differences, and hardly noticable in daily use situations.
It’s also worth to note that these limited choices are part of the reason why Macs are so stable: By limiting the number of devices that can be used on the system, Apple can develop all drivers in-house, or at least keep close control over them. Most Windows instability issues are not caused by Windows, but by third-party applications and drivers, and Microsoft generally works very hard to keep up with all the problems arising from this.

A big pet peeve of mine however is the non-existence of a ‘normal’ Mac. There are laptops, SFF machines, all-in-ones and overpowered super computers, but there simply is no normal desktop machine. This pretty much forces people to buy either the all-in-one, which is a shame, as they’ll have to throw out some pretty good components when they want to upgrade (environmental aspects anyone?), or the small-form-factor, which is generally a bit underspecced. I think the first is the worst of the two evils. Displays have historically always been long-time investments, and especially if, like me, you work with images, a good display can easily cost more than your computer. Being forced to buy a new one each time you upgrade is just ridiculous. There is a reason all-in-ones never took off in the Windows world: They combine the bad traits of laptops (bad upgradability/expandability) with the bad traits of desktops (bad portability), without any redeeming features.

Compatibility

Sad as it is, most of the world is still stuck using Windows+MS Office. Most Mac users I know still use MS Office on their Macs [2]. Nearly all of them also have Parallels or VMWare installed so they can run Windows when needed (which in turn forces Macs to have much more memory than a similar Windows-only PC, as virtualization is a real memory-hog). Aside from the graphical sector, very few companies will consider Macs as their primary system. If you have a PC at work, having a Mac at home throws up an extra hurdle many people don’t want.

But for Grungni’s sake, Apple: Two button mice are useful, look into them!

What about Windows?

What about Windows? Windows PCs are cheap, there are more options than you can wave a stick at, and since they’re still the most common system, inherently compatible. Their problems? The most cited issue is instability, but I think part of this problem, and part of the reason people like Macs, is the amount of options, and the necessity of a certain level of technical understanding in order to use those options. And of course, the two issues are related.

Unsigned driver installationIf you’ve ever had the message dialog shown on the right, and you clicked ‘Continue Anyway’, you are no longer allowed to complain about windows being unstable. What that message means, is that the hardware you are about to install was made by a company that was too cheap to pay Microsoft to check whether their drivers would actually work with the OS. The difference between Mac and Windows? Mac doesn’t give you the ‘Continue Anyway’ button. Windows tried that approach with Vista, but was forced to change the policy after too many complaints. Apparently Windows users like the ability to destroy their PCs. 

In a similar vein, the Windows configuration gives you so many options, that most users hardly know how to set them. A good example of this is the way how people jumped on TFT screens when they first came around, ‘because they didn’t flicker’. If they’d just adjusted the refresh ratio on their CRT, the flicker would’ve gone. But that setting is hidden four levels deep, so most of them didn’t even know it was there.

Of course, the Mac kernel is more stable than the Windows kernel (which is hardly surprising, considering Apple ripped most of it from FreeBSD and NetBSD). But this is in part because Microsoft has been working very hard to keep up with all those ‘bad drivers’ I mentioned earlier. And even then, if you look closer, you’ll notice that nowadays it usually isn’t Windows that crashes, but the software you’ve installed on it. Ever since they switched to the NT kernel (Windows 2000/Windows XP), Windows itself has been a very reliable system, provided you took care of what you installed on it.

Me?

So, why am I not a Mac user? A bit of all, but mostly choice. To illustrate: Penelope, my main workstation, runs a triple-screen setup, currently has 6 harddisks and 4 CD players. The only machine Apple sells that would be able to do that, is the Mac Pro, and even the cheapest model costs more than I have spend on the base system, all of the updates and all of the replacements [3] on Penelope since I first built her in 2000. That’s over 10 years of keeping a system current, and I’m still out ahead. I like the ability to pick and choose my components, but if I’m brutally honest to myself, I wouldn’t notice the difference between most components in my daily use.

Of course, my choice of software is heavily Windows-based, but I’m sure that if I really were to switch, I’d be able to find alternatives. The only Microsoft software I use is Windows itself, most of the rest is open source, or at least free, and usually available for the Mac. I’d really miss Winamp, and I’d be a bit sad about having to exchange ACDSee for the more expensive Lightroom, but I’d get over that eventually.

There is the fact that I don’t really like the Mac-OS interface, but that’s completely personal, and I’d probably get used to it over time.

So, what to do?

Depends on what you want. If you’re looking for a good laptop, and like the Mac interface, seriously consider a Macbook or a Macbook Pro. They’re not that much more expensive than a similarily specced Windows laptop, are very well built (especially the Pros) and you get Unix-grade stability. (Do see my earlier remark about the nephew-upgrade-path).

If you’re looking for a normal PC to do email, office-related tasks and browsing on, and really would like the whole Mac experience, go for a Mac Mini.

But if you want a powerful system, want to be able to upgrade in the future without having to fork over the price of a new system, and want more than the basics (extra disks, lots of RAM, etc). Seriously consider getting a Windows PC.

Horses for courses, people. Horses for courses.

  1. [1]Aside from the one I have weekly with my father, which is just our way of saying ‘hello’.
  2. [2]Which I think is a bit strange, I use Windows, and I haven’t used MS Office since Windows 3.1. If you really want to be free from Microsoft, there’s your chance.
  3. [3]If you run that many disks, replacing them when they wear out becomes a serious budget issue.

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