How good is the Apple Mac?

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Everything I said is entirely correct. As I said, look it all up. Can't argue with facts, so you call me pathetic names.

I'm not a "fanboy", however. I own Apple products alongside products from other tech companies such as HTC, RIM, Sony, Samsung, Nokia, and indeed Microsoft, among many others.

For the record, I wouldn't recommend an 851W (or *any* Cisco wireless product for that matter) for any use, whatsoever.

I don't particularly care what OS/hardware people want to buy, but I will say that I prefer OS X over any other OS for the following reasons:

1. The GUI. Apple is going the right direction with their GUI, with the goal of creating something that is intuitively operable with any kind of input device (mouse, trackpad, touchscreen). All other operating systems are either copying Apple blatantly, or coming up with absolute trash (have you seen Microsoft's new GUI idea for Windows 8? Talk about train-wreck).

2. The built-ins. If I want to create a smart-card secured VPN, I can do that - out of the box. If I want to start a DHCP server, run an HTTP server, TFTP server, DNS server, or mail server, I can do any of that out-of-the-box - it's all already installed. Which brings me to:

3. Standard tools. Most everything running under the hood of OS X is the same tools that run on Unix/Linux systems. That means I can modify the routing/arp table, the firewall, network interfaces, and virtually anything else the exact same way one would go about it on a unix system. The built-in http server is apache, the DNS server is bind, the mail server is postfix. All of them use the standard configuration syntax, and I can make modifications till I turn blue in the face. This lets me dig deeper into the OS level than apple's GUI tools are capable of, and it gives me all the flexibility I want.

4. Compatibility. I can interface with Windows, Linux, or OS X, in any combination, just as seamlessly as anything else. The built-in mail client has native support for Exchange, and it's the only client besides outlook (that I know of) that is fully-licensed from Microsoft. Incidentally, it works a whole hell of a lot better than outlook does. Beyond that, though, I have support for SMB, AFP, FTP, and NFS, all out of the box.

5. Hardware. You can make all kinds of arguments as to the performance of the hardware (what I would suggest is to take a good hard look at your actual usage and then come back and tell me that a mac can't do what you ask it to do). What you can't do, however, is open up any mac on the market, and say that there's a better *designed* PC out there. Apple spends a hell of a lot of money designing their systems to be as streamlined as possible. That directly translates into better longevity, and less problems down the road. Before I bought my mbp, I was literally going through laptops once every 1-2 years. The batteries would die, the hardware would fall apart, I'd end up not being able to actually use the system. I've had the same mbp now for 4+ years, without a single issue (the hard drive finally died about 2 months ago, which was something I was entirely expecting).

as can both windows and linux using free software, it doesnt get better by coming prepackaged.




the fact is they might spend 10 times the testing time on a specific setup but that means the hardware available in an official mac will always be older than that found in a regular desktop.
you pay almost twice the amount for the EXACT same hardware down to the serial number group (ie. production runs)


there are plenty of good things about macos just as there is any other operating system but they all serve each their purpose,
to me a mac has value in it's simplicity for editing video and audio (photos doesnt really matter anymore as there are plenty of open source software)
my pc is for gaming and most of my documents lie on a linux server (free, fast, lot's of features)

now i dont own a mac but my ubuntu and windows xp and 7 pc's all interface quite readily with centOS(i would have like to use opensuse as hp has official support for suse, dunno how the redhat/centos translates,)

I wholeheartedly disagree. There have been several times where having it already there has saved my bacon. I realize not everyone needs to be able to turn up complete test environments off of their laptop, but I do - and knowing that all I have to do is turn them on, lets me consider doing things I couldn't ever do in a timely manner before. It's one thing to have the ability to do something, it's another thing entirely to have it already there waiting for you to find a use for it.



That also means you're completely free to buy your own hard drive and RAM upgrades and install it yourself (I can even get warranty repairs with my custom upgrades). The stock systems are fairly competitive in price, especially when you consider the cost of the software that comes bundled with the operating system (a competitor to garage band alone costs $300). I'd rather pay a little more for a system I can use 2-3 times as long.

I have friends who maintain linux distros on their PCs and workstations (and one of my workstations is running RHEL 6), and I can't tell you how many times something has broken on the system at the least opportune time and has taken them out-of-action while they had to tweak config files to get it back online. If a senior system engineer can't keep his own desktop functional 100% of the time, I don't expect anyone else to. I have issues with my mac, but nothing has gone wrong to the point that I can't ignore it for a few hours if something critical is going on. Keep in mind that I own a hosting company and make my living running linux servers, and have been doing this since 2002, I'm not just making stuff up.

Your 'facts' are based only on popular opinion. Everyone knows it's a fact that the earth used to be flat, right?

If you aren't a fanboy, then why are you so rabidly defending Apple? I don't care about popular opinion, I don't like Mac OS X, stop forcing it down my throat.

Quarterly profit results and marketshare are facts.

I'm not forcing anything down anyone's throat, I'm defending Steve Jobs against ignorant insults.

I was asking these particular questions a little over a year ago in regards to getting Mac. Finally after pondering and with some assistance from this forum I bought my Imac back in December of 2009. So far (knock on wood, not to jinx it) I haven't really had any major problems or issues. I'm still getting used to working with a Mac since I spent all of my computer years working with PC's but once you figure it out it's not too bad.

For the laptop or desktop, it's really up to you. For me I prefer a desktop, it's just the way I am. I might consider getting a laptop in the future but I don't know.

sure the software is great and having a standard to work out from is always nice, but a properly slipstreamed windows can have as many programs as you can cram onto whatever install media you are using, same goes for linux.
and for anyone with a decent internet connection not already having it there is a matter of minutes, do you really want to pay that much extra for a few minutes?

not to mention properly maintained company networks where everything can be done unsupervised


often when stuff breaks it is because it is being tinkered with constantly,
a couple of months ago i burned my dual GPU, after almost 3 years of service, thousands of hours of heavy load and tons of driver tweaks (most of which were made for performance reasons)and sometimes an OC,
many enthusiast dekstops are made not to be stable but to be powerfull, if you construct a pc to be stable hardware wise for a mac it will also be stable for a any other OS given there are drivers for it.

mind you i would happily own a mac but i think i will be making a hackintosh when i have the resources, i have nothing against it but i do have something against their prices and the fact that some people think any of the different operating systems are inherently better, they have their pro's and cons and everyhting is dependant on application.

i looked up the prices directly, you pay twice the amount for the hardware when buying a mac (counting same license price as win7 to be fair it should be more) even if double it wouldnt come close to competetive.
you are right you could do the upgrades yourself but what about warranty?

they do have some excellent software, i dont know much of ,usic software but in the graphics department GIMP and other open source projects are rapidly becoming just as or more powerfull than even the enterprise edition of photoshop, software is little excuse in the open source culture of the future, everything from the servers to the VPN solutions at the company i work for is opensource and it is all running as good as the windows alternatives used before.

I know, and profits and marketshares are based on popular opinion. It's like saying Metallica is the best metal band because they make the most money. Do you get that?