Mac OS X Beats Out Windows XP, Reason #164
Security. One of the biggest concerns for someone with a PC, using the Internet. You gotta have good anti-virus software. A friend of mine recently lost a big chunk of her data and had to re-install, then later re-format her hard drive, likely due to a virus attack. The IT dep’t. at the college I work for was recent besieged by the Blaster worm, and is constantly under assault by various viruses, Trojans and worms.
Me? I have no anti-virus software. Haven’t for as long as I can remember. And I’ve never been hit by a virus. Why? I own a Mac.
This article does a nice job of explaining, simply, why Windows is practically a magnet for such attacks. It points out that it’s not just because Windows is the most-used OS out there, but rather because Windows is full of security holes, a massive sieve, in fact. Witness the endless stream of “critical” security fixes that clamor to be installed by your version of XP. I know, I’ve been running XP on a Windows box next to my Mac for a year now. A major hassle in comparison.
And yet IT departments continue to claim they need PC’s running Microsoft’s OS and software. Why? Simple. They like their jobs. They know that if they install Macs, they will need fewer staff to maintain the system. IT staff have traditionally been hostile to Macs, claiming that they are more expensive (untrue, when you include IT maintenance), incompatible (also untrue, with Mac OS X providing network compatibility, most software being cross-platform with document interchangeability, and Virtual PC closing the remaining holes), and too bothersome for them to deal with. But the stories continue to filter through, when people get Macs and they not only work with the system, but they usually work better.
Sorry, Luis, the Mac user is a dying breed. Need I list the reasons?
(1) Applications. I left the Mac because it didn’t have the programs I need to get my work done, and it still doesn’t many years later. And some major companies that used to make Mac applications are even cutting back or leaving the Mac market altogether.
(2) Proprietary hardware. How many Mac users make their own machines? To get that great OS, you also have to be content with the hardware Steve Jobs and Motorola give you.
(3) Too mouse-dependent. Tell me, have they finally given you keyboard strokes for performing the basic desktop operations, or do you still have to keep your hand on the mouse?
You may be enjoying your virus-free life (as am I, since I take the basic precautions), but it’s sort of like fleeing to Iceland so you can avoid West Nile Virus. I’ll take Tokyo, thanks.
BTW, I like your blog. Just spare us the self-righteous Mac user sermons; I gave up religion long ago, even before giving up on the Mac.
When was the last time you used a Mac?
Can you be a little more specific about what applications you need that you can’t find for OS X? The only area I can think of where OS X lags behind Windows in application availability is games, but you’re talking about getting work done, so that can’t be what you mean.
Not enough people build their own machines to warrant consideration in any discussion of the relative merits of different platforms. (And the new G5’s–and most likely all subsequent processors–are made by IBM, not Motorola.)
Again, can you give an example of what you mean by mouse-dependent? I find it much easier to do things with the keyboard in OS X than in Windows. First, the key combinations are consistent across every application, unlike Windows, where copy may be Ctrl-C, Alt-C, or (in Microsoft’s own “terminal” program) Enter. And second, OS X comes with a terminal that runs a legitimate Unix shell and the full complement of GNU commands, which are far more powerful than the Windows command line.
It’s his Weblog–he can sermonize all he wishes.
I’ve been a Mac user for how many years? At least 15. Number of virus infections: 0 (even tho I must have RECEIVED Blaster at least 50 times.) Sorry Ex Mac User, just call me an evangelist.
I pretty much knew what kinds of responses I’d get. Mac users are so good at denial. “We’ve got all the applications we need. What else could there possibly be?”
OK, I’ve been involved in discussions like this for so long, I really don’t want to get into it again. But you will have to admit that MS Access is a *work* application, and I was forced (by a client offering a huge job) to use a PC because the Mac doesn’t have it. That was just the first time. I can also name all kinds of applications for email, news reading, Web site monitoring, and media playing/management, but since you don’t use them, you can’t say whether they are really better than what you use. I just happen to prefer the choices available on a platform that is used by vastly more users than the Mac, and that therefore gets much more application support all across the board — not just games. I hear Open Office won’t be ready for OS X until 2006!
The same applies to hardware — we have a much larger choice of vendors and hardware options, and therefore a much more competitive environment, one that forces prices downward.
But another thing years of arguing with Macolytes has taught me is, nothing I say will convince you. Not that it matters. If you are happy, and you love Luis’s blog, I’m cool with that!
For people who are sophisticated enough to build their own machines, Linux is a good bet. It works on the same hardware as Windows (i.e., virtually everything), but is less demanding. It’s nice not to need the latest generation, super-fast CPU to get work done. I get a great deal of mileage out of a 1997 Dell with Red Hat Linux. Granted, it’s not blazingly fast (it runs at 233MHz), but it does everything I need it to–for none of the hardware upgrades I would need to run Windows.
That’s it? That’s your marshaling of a superior argument? “You don’t agree with me, so I’ll never convince you, and Macs don’t run Access.” First, I’m not a Macolyte. I’m a professional developer who uses a combination of Windows/AIX/Solaris/OS X every day. For home use, I had long used a combination of Windows and Linux, and wouldn’t have used Mac OS 9 or earlier if you put a gun to my head. When OS X came out, I switched to a Mac because I saw that I could get the multimedia support that I used Windows for and the actual power and general usefulness that I used Linux for all in one platform.
Yes, only Windows runs Access, and thank God for that. Proprietary hardware is bad, but it’s okay to commit your data to a proprietary database? That’s strange logic. OS X gives you a huge choice of databases, from MySQL up to Oracle. But if a company has chosen a Windows-only solution, then they’re only going to be able to run Windows. That’s hardly an argument for the superiority of Windows.
And the idea that the price of Macs is free from competitive pressure because they aren’t built from commodity hardware is a Red Herring. If Macs are more expensive than Windows boxes (or Linux boxes or whatever) relative the value that they provide, then people won’t buy them. And the fact that Windows attempts to support so much hardware (which actually isn’t commodity hardware because each piece often requires its own driver) has created a stability nightmare. And except for a few central pieces of hardware (motherboard, video card, etc.), Macs will work with pretty much any USB or FireWire peripheral you’d care to plug into them.
Preemptively removing logic from a debate (“…nothing I say will convince you. Not that it matters.”) so that you don’t have to use logic to support your arguments is clever, but ultimately unconvincing.
Sorry, Luis, the Mac user is a dying breed.
Are you aware how many times this has been said over the past 10-15 years, along with the parallel “Apple is doomed” prediction? Never happens to come true.
(1) Applications. I left the Mac because it didn’t have the programs I need to get my work done, and it still doesn’t many years later. And some major companies that used to make Mac applications are even cutting back or leaving the Mac market altogether.
Not so many companies are cutting back for most users to even notice, and with Mac OS X having a UNIX base, coupled with improvements in the hardware and OS, many companies are taking a second look. But the software argument only speaks to how many people use the system–more an artifact of past cost and present market share–and is not a measure of the worth of the OS and hardware; Mac is still superior there.
As for not having MS Access, I agree with Morgan that it’s no great loss. And if you must have PCs to handle some clients’ jobs, then simply add a PC to your Mac network, and use it for that stuff.
(2) Proprietary hardware. How many Mac users make their own machines? To get that great OS, you also have to be content with the hardware Steve Jobs and Motorola give you.
As has been noted, IBM is taking over. And I’d much rather have (a) a G5 than any Intel chip, and (b) a machine and OS that were made for each other. I teach an introductory computer course and I cannot tell you how many times my students have had major hassles getting disks and peripherals from home to work with other PCs. In the end, I just use my Mac to read the PC devices and media–and they work perfectly. I then simply log on to the network and send the files to the local PCs, or read them directly on my Mac, either with compatible apps or Virtual PC. How can you be content with PC hardware when even Macs can work better with PCs than other PCs can?
(3) Too mouse-dependent. Tell me, have they finally given you keyboard strokes for performing the basic desktop operations, or do you still have to keep your hand on the mouse?
Boy, it has been a while since you used a Mac, hasn’t it? I can’t think of a single desktop function I can’t do without a mouse, save for menus–and most of those commands have hotkeys, in any case. But at least Macs are consistent–it confuses the heck out of my students why “control-f” won’t open a find dialog unless a window is open. And even with the latest XP, doing a find takes a mind-numbing length of time. It’s much faster under Jaguar (10.2), not to mention easier with the quick search built into every Finder window–and Panther (10.3) will make it blindingly fast.
“Preemptively removing logic from a debate (“…nothing I say will convince you. Not that it matters.”) so that you don’t have to use logic to support your arguments is clever, but ultimately unconvincing.”
Honestly, I don’t take pleasure in bashing an oppressed minority. And I don’t believe I have been telling you people to give up your Macs for PCs. Obviously you are productive and happy. But then, so am I. That’s why it annoys me when a Mac user tells me I should switch to the Mac for this or that reason.
I’m also sure the Mac has come a long way, and that OS X is a powerful, elegant, stable system. The same, however, can be said of XP. Plus we’ve got apps, DIY shops all over Tokyo, lots of made-to-order Web sites, better email and news reader software. And now you are touting the G5, Luis? Is that out already?
By the way, I didn’t use Access because I wanted to. It was absolutely necessary in order to accept a job that was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like you suggested, I kept a PC and Mac side-by-side for quite a while — until I discovered the Mac was no longer necessary and gave it to my kids. But now even they use Windows XP.
When I say Mac users are a dying breed, Luis, I am referring to the shrinking market share of the Mac. It’s down as a percentage of all users, it’s down in Japan, and it’s way down in schools. Not a bright future, I’d say.
Well, if nothing else, I’ve learned how to generate a storm of comments–just troll in the old Mac vc. PC river!
Well…I initially thought that OS X did not have any apps. But then i found this site.
http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/
Go..check it out, and you will be amazed.
May the cult of the Mac grow!!
LOL,
I was looking for something on Google and accidentally clicked on this page… 😀
This page is the classic, 100% biased, well-known retarded Mac debate… I use both system – top Mac for audio and some DVD Studio Pro and top PC for everything else – but this “we have everything for Mac” just makes me smile… the good ol’ blindfolded Maccie-arguments…
Let me give you the broader picture how utterly home and freelance-centered this small, loud but funny MacWorld…
Current latest Avid line is COMPLETELY broken on Mac (Avid Xpress DV, Pro, MC Adrenaline are all a bugfest on Mac. I use them on daily basis, I very well know – when Adrenaline came out, it was technically impossible to use on Mac.) No wonder that Avid postponed Xpress Pro HD for Mac for about 6-8 months whereas for PC is available for long time now. OS X is simply very lavish operating system, consuming CPU power on animating even the stupid Dock – and therefore possibly causing even capture dropouts etc. Ridiculous, typical ‘design first, usage second’ thinking which perfectly describes Jobs distorted view.
Premiere is discontinued on Mac, FCP is still a nice freelance tool but extremely inconvenient and still half-baked when it comes to the whole workflow, all down the line.
There’s only two meaningful compositing sws on Mac, Shake and Combustion. (Motion is a big joke, come crippled toy for newbies who don’t know any industry-standard sw.)
Combustion is buggy, Shake is utterly counterintuitive compared to Digital Fusion, for example, which most likely never will be available for Mac.
No 3dsmax and NEVER BE for Mac. Let’s face it: Mac is still a joke when it comes to 3D. OS X’s interface may will impress all these self-claimed “professional developers”
—-OFF *cough, cough*, simply enough to quote his lines about his own claimed profession: Morgan writes “OS X gives you a huge choice of databases, from MySQL up to Oracle. But if a company has chosen a Windows-only solution, then they’re only going to be able to run Windows. That’s hardly an argument for the superiority of Windows.” – isn’t he utterly ridiculous and cute at the same time? :)) A so-called “professional developer” who can’t even make a distinction between OS and its applications… ROFL! :)) Ice on the cake this poor lying fella didn’t even even know the field he was writing about – there is MySQL, Oracle, everything for Windows and they were always there, long before OS X was even considered as a choice to run databases…. whatever, ignorance is blessed, right? 😀
ON—-
but actually the interface is which really slows down anybody who came from Linux or Windows. Its Dock is simply far away from the usual menu system which can be found in EVERY other X, both in Posix and Windows world and has been very well invented 30 years ago.
That is, this overwhelmingly overdesigned, overanimated, fany-as-shit-and-dumb-as-hell-because-of-its-core-userbase approach makes it completely useless right out of the box for serious workflow.
Freelancers may like it, self-entitled clueless “developers”, first grade comp-tech teachers may will be impressed because it makes them feel very ‘cool’, very ‘professional’ because ‘it’s Unix’ and so on and so forth – but for a place when networking not only means a bunch of machines behind a firewall but domains and trees, several organizational and distributional groups exist simultaneously and all over the world and every single user and group and domain and child domain should be configured precisley to meet with very specialized needs, including a whole workflow, well, these places simply don’t use Macs for serving out these needs. It’s simply impossible: Mac has Samba and as it arrives, it’s very great and simply but utterly useless for any serious environment. It’s a great simplification for clueless end users and that’s it.
—-OFF Not to mention the fact this is NOT a usual Unix – if you, for example, wants to define your host list, you won’t it ANYWHERE. Because there’s a way as EVERY SINGLE Unix OS AND Windows does and there’s a retarded way as Mac does it: first is the usual host file, last is the world’s most retarded way, the OS X Netinfo Manager, the most unintelligent crap I’ve ever seen…
ON
There no such thing as OS X Server – forget it, that’s a big scam, They put in few extra graphical layout and named it Server Edition – ROFL, preposterous.
No wonder nobody even consider it to use in mission critical places – not to mention Apple’s licensing policy which is THE MOST DISGUSTING ON THE WORLD: if a new version of the OS came out, NO MORE UPDATES FOR THE OLD ONE!!! THIS IS RIDICULOUS – this shows how Apple really doesn’t give a sh*t about its customers and how really it’s still a toy, nothing else.
DVD Studio Pro came a long way – now it’s great but there’s NOTHING ELSE. NOTHING but Apple’s own software. And if it doesn’t support something, you are simply f*cked.
Half of my Java applications runs painfully slow on OS X – why? If I run them on XP, they are way faster.
OS X is great but needs a dual G5 to get it working and based on the G5’s given specs, it’s probably one of the most ineffective, lavishing operating system ever, wasting your – and mine – investment royally.
My WinXP Pro is absolutely stable, and doesn’t have any theme enabled so about ~2x times more responsive than my dual G5 – why? I actually use my PC more, so even if my Mac wouldn’t have an extra CPU, still should be ahead of my PC – and the reality is…
What I REALLY don’t like in Apple the fact that it created a horde of totally uneducated, unaware, painfully ignorant, stupid computer user, called the “I’m a Mac guy/girl” person – instead of playfully educating them, it developed a way to coonvince them they are the users of the Higher Truth, the true believers, the member of the Elite… it just makes me smiling every time when I meet somebody like this, a snobbish “I’m a Mac guy” type and within 5 minutes it turns out this is the only answer he can give to ANY question, no matter it’s about video editing, compositing or music scoring or tv production or animation or even just how does he checks his emails from his Mac outside of his home…
Simplification – that’s a great thing in OS X.
And a very bad one as well at the same time, the cancer of this computer.
As per Windows security: if somebody has a firewal – which everybody HAS to have, even for Mac – and use Firefox/Thunderbird as I do, I see no chance to get it screwed up except deliberately.
Stupid users are exist on every platform.
I love macs! I switched about a year ago and love them more!! I think that mac os9 is better than windows xp lol! Besides the fact that windows has way more apps mac way beats it!!!!!! Mac is more user friendly without being at all newbish!!!!! Evry body should have macs!!! They also have computers that look much nicer.