Are Mac's worth the price premium?

[mjhoward]

When I worked at the Apple store, I was constantly irritated by a lot of the Mac users. It seemed there was some common invisible thread that linked all of these people together. I don't know if it's because of the particular market segment that Mac targets, or just that Mac users feel the need to justify their platform choice. But I've noticed on many occasions they seem to come off a bit snobbish and superior, looking down their noses at those who choose other platforms.

It's weird. At some point their choice in operating system/computer became eerily religious. Like a cult almost.

Sure Apple has their own culture, and that's fine. But it gets taken a little too far, most of the time by Mac users. My guess, since they are the minority they constantly feel the need to be defensive. But some Mac-heads in this thread just come off desperate, extreme, and irrational. It's a bit silly.

They let you work there without making you drink the KoolAid?

If you choose farm raised grass-fed ground sirloin over pink slime, are you still 'drinking the koolaid'? Or are you just a sensible person that prefers quality over crap?

 

[splproductions]

I really held off on posting to this thread for a long time. But I'll throw my two cents in.

I'm new to photography, but I've been in the audio recording business for 14 or so years. To make a long story short, I started off with a PC based system. Windows just wasn't stable enough for me. It was nerve wracking as a young kid charging adults $25 an hour in my studio to have the blue screen of death come up, or have the program quit and lose the guitar solo they just did. I felt impeded creatively by the PC.

I bought my first Mac at age 15, and it was a complete night and day difference. There wasn't all the drama with getting drivers to work, having my software crash, etc. Once I even completely ran out of hard drive space in the middle of a session, in the middle of a take. Completely out of space. And a screen just popped up saying I needed to delete something before proceeding. I loved it. The way the audio hardware, software, and Mac meshed together was wonderful. I felt like instead of my computer being a hinderance to my creativity, it was now a boost.

Now, to be fair, back then Mac was light years ahead in the audio department. All the top-tier software seemed to come out on MacOS first, and Windows was sort of an after-thought. Windows is definitely caught up now in the audio department, and with technology becoming so accessible and home studios popping up everywhere, people want to do things on a budget. PC's definitely have their share of the audio market now.

But just from my past experience, I will never be doing pro audio without a Mac. It's what the pros use. Apple's complete control over the hardware and OS makes for a more innovative and pleasant user experience.

And as far as "drinking the KoolAid", I was using a Mac back before it was the "trendy" thing to do. This was before the Apple stores existed, before the iPhone, iPod, etc.

I went Mac and I'll never, ever, ever, ever go back. Ever. End of story.

 

[molested_cow]

I'm just going to say it: Coke is better than Pepsi.

Cus you live in Atlanta?

When I lived in Atlanta, no one asked for Pepsi in restaurants. NO ONE! I had to move to Florida to see Pepsi again!

 

[Dao]

In the end. A company don't become successful by selling something that is not worth it.

It don't matter how much marketing you throw at it

Marketing it's just to put your brand out there. You may sell here and there a small amount. But ultimately if the product is crap. Family, friends, neighbors and co-worker will not recommend it.

If you sell crap there would not be positive reviews.

As a photographer I'm sure you know that.

It doesn't matter how much marketing you do. If you don't deliver you are not getting booked again

Marketing is quite important in my opinion. Who drink bottle water? Who believe bottle water is better than tap water? Who make you believe bottle water is better than tap water? (or at least trying to) Pepsi Aquafina bottle water has a facility in St. Louis area. Guess where they get their water from. But at lot of people still believe it is cleaner, healthier ..... (whatever Pepsi market want us to believe)

So new topic:

Tap water vs bottle water

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Mac's are only for those who refuse to purchase "second best products"

Mac's are only for those who refuse to purchase "second best products"

^^^^^ that for page 5 too

^^^page 6 bump

 

[manaheim]

I really held off on posting to this thread for a long time. But I'll throw my two cents in.

I'm new to photography, but I've been in the audio recording business for 14 or so years. To make a long story short, I started off with a PC based system. Windows just wasn't stable enough for me. It was nerve wracking as a young kid charging adults $25 an hour in my studio to have the blue screen of death come up, or have the program quit and lose the guitar solo they just did. I felt impeded creatively by the PC.

I bought my first Mac at age 15, and it was a complete night and day difference. There wasn't all the drama with getting drivers to work, having my software crash, etc. Once I even completely ran out of hard drive space in the middle of a session, in the middle of a take. Completely out of space. And a screen just popped up saying I needed to delete something before proceeding. I loved it. The way the audio hardware, software, and Mac meshed together was wonderful. I felt like instead of my computer being a hinderance to my creativity, it was now a boost.

Now, to be fair, back then Mac was light years ahead in the audio department. All the top-tier software seemed to come out on MacOS first, and Windows was sort of an after-thought. Windows is definitely caught up now in the audio department, and with technology becoming so accessible and home studios popping up everywhere, people want to do things on a budget. PC's definitely have their share of the audio market now.

But just from my past experience, I will never be doing pro audio without a Mac. It's what the pros use. Apple's complete control over the hardware and OS makes for a more innovative and pleasant user experience.

And as far as "drinking the KoolAid", I was using a Mac back before it was the "trendy" thing to do. This was before the Apple stores existed, before the iPhone, iPod, etc.

I went Mac and I'll never, ever, ever, ever go back. Ever. End of story.

UGH...

This kind of thing is really what annoys me.

"15 years ago my PC sucked. I got a Mac. It was so much better. I'll never go back because PCs suck."

Useful.

I've been in the industry supporting infrastructure for about 18 years now, and have been up to my eyeballs in all things computing for about 30. I have supported, in total, many tens of thousands of servers and desktop systems across dozens of different infrastructures in as many companies. I have run organizations supporting DOS, Windows, Novell, Macintosh, Linux, Solars, IRIX, AIX... you name it. Let's just say I have a very broad view on these technologies and I'm more qualified than some dude who used a PC 15 years ago.

These operating systems... ALL operating systems... are only as secure and robust as the people using them. Now... were Macintoshes more robust than DOS/Win3.1 however many years ago? Sure. Oh, until your users loaded up 32,562 fonts into them, causing them to pretty much implode. And that happened... a lot. Even so, generally... yeah, the MacOS was a more mature platform.

These days? They're all reasonably robust... until a user/system owner does something stupid. And that happens... a lot.

The real problem is when users do not respect the power in their hands, and that is actually the ONE very serious issue with most Windows operating systems (exception to Windows Server 2008 Core)... it looks FAR too much like "my desktop" and is FAAAAR too easy to make configuration changes to, browse the web on *shudder* and hey... even install games on in some cases. This leads users into thinking "Oh I can just do X and Y and boom!" with zero training or qualification. I can't tell you the number of systems I've had to deal with that had a shared drive on C:\WINDOWS or something similar with Everyone: Full Control. I mean seriously. How stupid. "Oh no my server was compromised!" Shocker!

Then I put my hands on the thing and clamp it down hard and what's the first complaint...? "I can't access the internet from my server! I want to download some software!" Durrr...

Dump many of these users onto a Linux system and they're essentially lost and helpless and afraid to do anything to the box... so they get in, do what they need to, and get out.

Mac... well, Apple is restrictive as hell. They won't LET you do a heck of a lot of the things that you can do in PC land, or they'll let you do it, but only let you do it "their way". That cuts down a lot of the possibilities for compromising your own system. People say "Macs are easy... they just work!" Of course they do, because they've been designed to keep you in tight narrow corridors that are safe and keep you out of trouble. If you're the kind of person who needs to be confined to keep from hurting yourself, then fine. Mac for you.

I know all the whining and crying about viruses and such, but this is simply a matter of numbers. Look at the software market. Can you get EVERY title available for Macintosh? Hell no. Is it available for PC? Almost without exception. Why? Because the target audience is MUCH larger. If you're going to invest dollars and time to develop something, you're going to make it for the PC first and everything else second. The same is true with viruses and trojans. If you're going to make one, you're going to target PCs because they are waaaaaaaaaay more prevalent and you have waaaaaaaaaaay more open targets.

There is no question that Windows could be more secure by being far more restricted, and you see some of those changes present in Server 2008 and Windows 7. You'll see more of it over time. But you also see Microsoft doing things like making "Administrator" on Windows 7 not REALLY be a full and unrestricted administrator. Why? Because they know damned well that people think it's the god account and login with it and do very very stupid stuff. They know, as many do, that their #1 problem with security is dumb users. Not the OS itself.

Buy whatever machine works best for you. Go with whatever OS fits your needs. They ALL have pros and cons, and one of those pros or cons may really ring true with you personally... but this whole business about either one of them being better than the other is an absolute load of horse pucky spread by religious zealots and misinformed and untrained consumers who have too much ego tied up in their financial purchases. Ignore them.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Mac's are only for those who refuse to purchase "second best products"

Mac's are only for those who refuse to purchase "second best products"

^^^^^ that for page 5 too

^^^page 6 bump

Interesting, it wasn't really that funny or clever on page 4 or 5 either.

Let's both go get a computer on a $1,500 budget. You get a Mac, I'll get a PC. I'm happy, you're happy.

You're happy because, according to you, a Mac is automatically better than everything out there. I'm happy to know that I bought twice the computer you did on the same budget.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Mac... well, Apple is restrictive as hell. They won't LET you do a heck of a lot of the things that you can do in PC land, or they'll let you do it, but only let you do it "their way". That cuts down a lot of the possibilities for compromising your own system. People say "Macs are easy... they just work!" Of course they do, because they've been designed to keep you in tight narrow corridors that are safe and keep you out of trouble. If you're the kind of person who needs to be confined to keep from hurting yourself, then fine. Mac for you.

:lmao:

Apple built their entire Mac empire on the fact that people are too incompetent to do simple things. Is everyone that uses a Mac incompetent? No. But there is no argument that the incompetent user is a segment Apple has ALWAYS targeted.

 

[chuasam]

I used to work as a System Engineer in the early 2000s. I still used a Mac at home. I spent my entire working day fixing computers and dealing with virus issues. When I got home, I wanted something that worked.

 

[TheBiles]

I'm just going to say it: Coke is better than Pepsi.

Cus you live in Atlanta?

When I lived in Atlanta, no one asked for Pepsi in restaurants. NO ONE! I had to move to Florida to see Pepsi again!

Fun fact: Georgia Tech's on-campus Taco Bell is the only one that serves Coke. Every Pepsi logo on the menu has a sticker over it.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Dao]

I'm just going to say it: Coke is better than Pepsi.

Cus you live in Atlanta?

When I lived in Atlanta, no one asked for Pepsi in restaurants. NO ONE! I had to move to Florida to see Pepsi again!

Fun fact: Georgia Tech's on-campus Taco Bell is the only one that serves Coke. Every Pepsi logo on the menu has a sticker over it.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

This is very interesting! Because PepsiCo own Taco Bell

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Mac's are only for those who refuse to purchase "second best products"

Mac's are only for those who refuse to purchase "second best products"

^^^^^ that for page 5 too

^^^page 6 bump

Interesting, it wasn't really that funny or clever on page 4 or 5 either.

Let's both go get a computer on a $1,500 budget. You get a Mac, I'll get a PC. I'm happy, you're happy.

You're happy because, according to you, a Mac is automatically better than everything out there. I'm happy to know that I bought twice the computer you did on the same budget.

I'm not a budget person, I'll pay a premium to not have second best. Honestly I own both high end Mac and Windows machines. The Mac is a pleasure and Windows is just....Windows.

 

[manaheim]

Mac... well, Apple is restrictive as hell. They won't LET you do a heck of a lot of the things that you can do in PC land, or they'll let you do it, but only let you do it "their way". That cuts down a lot of the possibilities for compromising your own system. People say "Macs are easy... they just work!" Of course they do, because they've been designed to keep you in tight narrow corridors that are safe and keep you out of trouble. If you're the kind of person who needs to be confined to keep from hurting yourself, then fine. Mac for you.

:lmao:

Apple built their entire Mac empire on the fact that people are too incompetent to do simple things. Is everyone that uses a Mac incompetent? No. But there is no argument that the incompetent user is a segment Apple has ALWAYS targeted.

They don't put guard rails on roads because people are incomepetent.

I never called Mac people incompetent.

 

[TheBiles]

Mac's are only for those who refuse to purchase "second best products"

^^^page 6 bump

Interesting, it wasn't really that funny or clever on page 4 or 5 either.

Let's both go get a computer on a $1,500 budget. You get a Mac, I'll get a PC. I'm happy, you're happy.

You're happy because, according to you, a Mac is automatically better than everything out there. I'm happy to know that I bought twice the computer you did on the same budget.

I'm not a budget person, I'll pay a premium to not have second best. Honestly I own both high end Mac and Windows machines. The Mac is a pleasure and Windows is just....Windows.

Take equal amounts of money and find me a Mac that is more powerful than the equivalent PC. A high-end Windows desktop will annihilate any Mac in terms of hardware. You're paying for a brand name and nothing more.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Mac... well, Apple is restrictive as hell. They won't LET you do a heck of a lot of the things that you can do in PC land, or they'll let you do it, but only let you do it "their way". That cuts down a lot of the possibilities for compromising your own system. People say "Macs are easy... they just work!" Of course they do, because they've been designed to keep you in tight narrow corridors that are safe and keep you out of trouble. If you're the kind of person who needs to be confined to keep from hurting yourself, then fine. Mac for you.

:lmao:

Apple built their entire Mac empire on the fact that people are too incompetent to do simple things. Is everyone that uses a Mac incompetent? No. But there is no argument that the incompetent user is a segment Apple has ALWAYS targeted.

They don't put guard rails on roads because people are incomepetent.

I never called Mac people incompetent.

I didn't either. I was pretty clear that not everyone who uses a Mac would fall in this category. Maybe for those who do, incompetent is too harsh. I'll go with "Technically challenged".