Mac computers


What are the disadvantages to having a mac these days.. besides that intel processor that is being added this year.

You can't run Visual Studio.NET without virtual PC? Windows lovers might sneer at your white/aluminum laptop?

I don't really see many disadvantages to having a Mac.

The main disadvantage is going to be your local support group. If you don't know anyone that has a mac you'll need to get online and get help with things.

Another is that there is a lack of support for the mac out there with other software. Google is starting to warm up a bit. I recently got Sirius and some of their things don't work well on the mac. You'll run into that stuff once in a while.

Finally just the cost of software. There is some great freeware, but there is also a lot of things that I had to purchase for my mac than I did in Windows/Linux.

Finally you mentioned the move to Intel. I have the latest 17" PB and I was coming from a IBM 1.6 Pentium M thinkpad running Ubuntu and the performance is actually a bit less than I was expecting. My thinkpad was faster in most things. Just for the record, I did get the 7200rpm drive on my PB with 2gb of ram so this is actually beefier in most ways to my old IBM.

Edit:
That sounds pretty negative. Don't get me wrong, I love my PB. Size/shape it's great. I love the BT built in and I find I am using my laptop more than tweaking it like I was always doing with my Linux install.

I know you weren't trying to be negative, but I'll address a few of your points.
I've come to learn quite a bit about OS X, so I'm pretty comfortable with using it now (I have a 20" iMac). I've found that Apple's support as actually been pretty good. Yeah, there was one time that I talked to a rep that was kind of dumb as rocks, but I blame that more on the fact that they were dumbing down information that I as a power user wanted to have. It would be a different experience if I were a new user, for example (or wasn't really angry that my hard drive had died (which promptly got fixed, returned to me and billed to Apple with relatively no problems)). Apple's support both online and on the phone is pretty decent, especially when compared to Dell's support, for example.

I'll agree with you. Some things just don't get ported to OS X. Some things are emulated and improved upon by Apple-friendly coders. But if you're looking to use a specific piece of software, make sure you look into whether they support OS X for it. I haven't had too much of a difficulty in this, but then I try to use cross-platform software in general.

I kind of found that too. There is some cool freeware, but there are a lot of things that are like $5-10 bucks to use. On the flipside, it generally means the quality of it is very high compared to regular freeware products (and you get support), but it depends highly on what you're looking at for software. Some software I gladly support (Synk for backups, and Transmit for FTP, for example) since I believe it's really, really helpful to me.

Heh, you have two "finally"s. In terms of laptops, the new Intel chips end up being about 3-4 times faster than the old PowerPC chips, so laptops will experience quite a boost in performance. Desktops less so, but still apparently noticeable, so I hear (I have a PowerPC iMac). I don't really see the move to Intel as a "disadvantage" really... the Universal apps are supposedly doing a nice job with the transition. I'll hopefully have first-hand knowledge pretty soon, assuming that they come out with <15" laptops tomorrow at the special event (crossing my fingers).

Just a FYI

When I mean support I mean going down the hall and and seeing Bill doing some cool trick with his machine you've never seen before. In many offices using the same machines allows for a lot of cross sharing of the tricks and quick cheats to do things. I am the only guy with a Mac in the office so I don't really get to ask the guy one office over "how do you do those merge thingies again from the address book" type questions.

Now I'm head of IT here so I'm not supposed to need to ask those questions anyway, but it might effect others.

On the software side, I agree that it's worth the money. I have purchased lots of things like Transmit. There are also some GREAT free apps. I would pay huge amounts for Quicksilver it's that great of a free little app.

Ah, yes, I see what you mean. I get some of that because I'm on a very Apple-friendly campus, but I get most of my tips and tricks just through my connections online (TUAW, Digg, and so on).

Shhh... they might hear and then make us pay! But yeah, I would pay oodles for Quicksilver myself... it's singly the greatest and most productive application I've ever used on any machine on any OS ever.

Why is the switch to Intel a disadvantage? From what I have read the move is a good one for Apple. The G5 ran too hot to put in laptop, from what I understand, and switching to Intel allows them to up proc speed in both desktops and laptops.

Also, there is always the dream that perhaps Apple will make an OS for "Wintel" PCs and we'll have a real OS war on our hands for the first time, well, ever. (Which I personally think would be a great thing.)

Nah, we're too elite for you, Josh. Fess up to it already!



I don't know why I included that ^ there.

The disadvantages to Macs are usually with periphales (cell phones, PDAs, etc.) and not much else. The software selection has grown, and the myth of little to no software is just a myth and untrue. Some software you'll have to pay for, but it's still there and rather inexpensive if you ask me.

I wouldn't say that you will need much Apple support. I haven't called them yet. No troubles or anything that I couldn't find online through a Google search. However, I've been using a Mac since I started using computers as we had them in grade school. Still, I was on Windows alone for two years and the switch back was as easy as pie and quite enjoyable.

The best advantage, it is so easy to install and uninstall apps. That's my favorite at least.

That must be why I worked in a Mac lab for 3 years in college. Seriously, though, having two legitimate, well-supported, user-friendly OSes for a variety of affordable hardware would be a really good thing.

Well, as someone who's currently on a Mac I'm not so inclined, as it would require Apple to support a wide variety of platforms and hardware combinations more than it current does. But we'll see how things go.