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is apple computer good?

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AtomSmasher:
 Once again, I'm not sure where you get your information, but just did a quick price check and Vista Ultimate edition is only $280, not $500.  And I didn't need to fudge the price since its the full top of line retail version of the OS.  I see that OSX is only $115, so it is significantly less expensive, but when you add in that you'll be buying it 3 or 4 times for each one time you buy a windows OS, it adds up to a fair amount more.


--- Quote ---Both get the job done, some people prefer more incremental releases for a smaller price and some prefer longer releases with free updates that charge more.
--- End quote ---
Fair enough.  And I'm not trashing on the company, all I said is that it's something thats always bugged me about OSX.  Since you like OSX so much, I can understand why you'd be willing to pay a bit more for it in the long run.

I actually paid $50 for my version of XP six years ago (bought from a special promotion directly from MS, it also came with a bobble head, baseball, and a pack big league chew  :) ), so paying every year or two for a new OS is not something I'd be willing to do.

Blanka:
Problem with Mac is that most developpers hop on to the next OS very quick. 10.3 or 10.4 are very stable and very good OS-es. Leopard is more eye-candy than it ads really usefull new stuff. And even if you want to support Leopard-features, it does not mean you have to trash 10.4 or 10.3 support as a developer. Yet many do this. Guess >50% of all new software for OSX is Leopard only. It's horrible. Some good exceptions though. With little effort you can both support Time-Machine and other Leopard stuff yet make the program work on 10.2 Jaguar.
With Windows, software developpers support a way longer lifespan of OS-es. Many new programs still work on Windows 2000! That is a 8-year old system. Try to find support like that on a mac. So not only OS-upgrades are cheaper on a PC, all your software is cheaper on a PC, as you can work longer with older products, both old programs on new OS-es and new programs on old OS-es. 10.3 is from 2004 yet almost no new software runs on it! Don't even think about using modern stuff on 10.2 (2003) 10.1 (2002) or 10.0 (2001).

Fun exception, Macromedia Freehand 10 for example was ported to Cocoa immediately with the release of OSX. The program still runs pretty good on Tiger and Leopard. Adobe CS on the other hand still uses Carbon code which has origins in OS 9 which gives way more compatibility issues. Some open source developers still support 10.2 and up. Support for 10.0 and 10.1 is not needed BTW. These releases were very immature OSX-es. Since XP an Apple user was in a way forced to spend 3x129$ on new OS-es. You can buy pretty much Vista for that (especially if you take into account the low OEM price you pay if you buy a new DRAM module along with Vista).

Demon-Seed:
Hey
Wow.. I was away for a week and come back and bang loads of discussion!  I can not believe how confusing this decision is.

For a computer.. cosmetic is important but not as important as function.  There is way too many opinions...on here..  some say apple rocks. others say no.... some say its overpriced others say no..... I guess it is a matter of opinion, however that being said why do so many swear by apple, and say they would never go back to a pc?  I do not like somethings a mac has such as the updates your talking about. The other thing is I have not used a mac much.  My brother has one and loves it.. I will try his.

On the other hand, they seem a little more expensive, for the cost difference I could go to dell and order a better machine.......It seems that there is many opinions on here,however is there anywhere to find a non bias comparison?

thanks for all the posts.... keep em coming....links etc would be helpful as well.

Grasshopper:
Historically, Apple machines have generally been considered to be more stylish and functional than equivalent PCs. However, I was looking at new Laptops a few days ago and I’m coming to the conclusion that these days Apple is perhaps more about style over substance.

The Apple Laptops still looked just that little bit nicer than the Windows ones I looked at (although the aesthetic gap has closed somewhat). They had a pleasing air of minimalist elegance about them. Somehow they're just more tasteful. The designers at Apple realised long ago that sometimes less is more. Unfortunately, most PC manufacturers and Microsoft still seem unable to grasp that simple concept.

However, when it comes to functionality, I’d say that if anything ordinary PCs are now a better bet. In some respects Apple is now being different just for the sake of it. For example Apple mice look cool but Apple still stubbornly clings to its one button design even though two button mice simply work better. The same goes for keyboards. The new Apple flat keyboards look awesome but they’re less comfortable to type on than even the cheapest no-name brand full travel keyboard.

I also have to say that Apple’s build quality has always been a bit suspect. The Apple keyboard I looked at felt superficially sturdy but it had a couple a keys missing. Once you get beyond the elegant appearance, it doesn’t appear to be any more durable than a typical laptop keyboard, and they’re notoriously flimsy.

However, the main reason why I probably won’t buy an Apple laptop is simply that they don’t sell low end models. Maybe their prices are now comparable to similarly specified PCs (I haven’t checked) but I don’t really care. I just don’t understand why anyone would buy an expensive laptop when the cheapest ones are so damned powerful, and generally far better value for money.

Even the bargain basement models now typically come with 2gb of memory, and 160gb (or bigger) hard disks. That’s an awesome amount of computing power for surfing the internet and doing basic office tasks. And the handful of tasks that require extra power are mostly the types of thing you wouldn’t want to do on a laptop anyway.

protokatie:
I have a different view than many here, and the reason is thus: Computers have for a long time been much faster than what they are needed for. Basically, the biggest push to make faster and faster machines has traditionally been games (say for the past 8+ years or so)

Example: Get an old 800 Mhz P3 (cost $0.00 if you look), throw in some really cheap extra ram, wipe the HD and install TinyXP Ultimate and throw in a 250 GB second HD. Other than playing games, that old-assed machine will still be able to do pretty much what ever you want. Granted there are a few CPU intensive utilities out there (3D rendering, Mpeg transcoding) but for the most part you would be able to do pretty much everything you can do with a modern machine (including running most of today's applications). And yes, even photoshop will run just fine on that old machine (as long as it has a decent amount of ram), some of the special effects may take a few seconds to finish as opposed to being instant tho.. (woop-de-doo).

Example2: I still use my Amiga 1200 (w/ 28 Mhz and 10 megs ram) and it works just fine for Word Processing, sound editing, and Raytracing (Imagine 3.0). Although the later means walking away from the machine come render time.

Basically my point is, get a computer to do the work you need the computer to do. (IE look at the software available for it and see if the hardware can support it). If you are just doing spreadsheets and wordprocessing, get GEOS for the commodore 64 and you will be doing fine.

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