Defending Apple...

How well do I do at defending Apple? (read below.)

  • Good- you cover all the basic things people want

  • Okay- but you need a bit of improvement

  • So-so- your evidence is off

  • Bad- you didn't provide good evidence to support yourself

Results are only viewable after voting.
Ricky

Ricky

Registered
Okay, some of this stuff may be or is completely inaccurate, but I sounded like I knew what I was doing, huh? :D

Background: This guy was bashing Mac without knowing very much about it. I had to set him straight. ;) By the way the guy used a bit of crude language, so watch out.

"Okay, lets see, an iMac has a slow ass CPU that comes packaged with a monitor.  You really can't change your monitor to a 21-inch Flatscreen CRT can you now?"

The iMac has a 700 MHz G4; a supercomputer.  7 pipeline stages, and Pentiums have 20.  Less pipelines means faster speed.  It's not all clock speed.  Processes have to go through the pipeline stages, and if the program has an error (all programs have pipeline errors)  the current processes are dropped and the pipeline starts all over again.  At least if the processes are dropped on a G4 they don't have to travel as far through the pipeline.  These add up quickly.

As for the 21-inch flatscreen, the iMac has a built in VGA-out.  Therefore, video mirroring is certainly possible.

"Couple that with the crappiness that is the standard Mac Mouse.  Then there's the fact that there really isn't that much of a market for Mac hardware, as opposed to PC hardware."

The Apple Pro mouse has an opticle sensing mechanism, which means no cleaning out the tracking mechanism.  As for the one button, try a Wacom Graphire.  It's a tablet with a cordless 3 button mouse that glides over the tablet without the ball.  I have one, it's great with my iMac.

"Really, there is no monopoly on anything on the PC market since everyone has a piece of the pie, driving prices down and increasing quality of products through competition.  Example, the AMD and Intel wars, which has caused us to jump to 2ghz and beyond within a year and shown us that even Intel will cut costs to meet with competition."

The current monopoly is Bill Gates of Microsoft and Windows SOFTWARE, not Intel and AMD processor HARDWARE.  Try interpreting the news a little better.

"There's also the nVidia vs ATi war, where nVidia released a graphics chipset called the Geforce 4 Ti4200 which is actually CHEAPER than the Geforce 3 Ti500, which performs slower than it but was the fastest of the previous generation."

Macs feature both makers of graphics cards.  The iMac has a GeForce 2 by nVidia.

"I'd rather have my complete customizability over having to buy stuff that's "Mac Compatible".  And since when did companies such as A-Bit, Asus, EPoX and others create such wonderful tweakable motherboards for the Mac?"

First of all, there are several companies making processor upgrade cards for Mac.  Also, most of the devices you can buy for PC are either already supported by Mac OS X or the company has released drivers for them.  Almost everything has hybrid compatibility.

"And that's just hardware.  If you ever hope that certain utility that was programmed by someone in their spare time will work on a Mac, you're wasting your time.  The only people who program for Macs are Application companies and the occassional game company."

Application is a synonym for Program or Utility or Executable.  Learn this first.

And if you want games, get a PC.  Macs are serious production machines, not for the light hearted.  Programs for Mac that aren't on PC include Fire, an IM program that supports six different services at once; iMovie, a program dedicated to making your own home movies; and several programs got started on Macs as well.  Photoshop and Microsoft Excel were ported over to PC's.  There is almost always a Mac port of every PC program, and if not that, a complete (and most often better) replacement.  Don't shun software support out so easily.

"Right, great software support my arse."

Right, PC's my foot.
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I was really trying hard to not curse at the guy. XD; How did I do?
 
Sounded like a good job to me. People like that guy aren't worth arguing with though. These people don't know much if anything about what the macintosh platform is really like and they don't know it's history. Way too many people in this world need to understand that their precious pc's wouldn't exist if it weren't for Jobs and Woz. Anyone (billy gates) can slam their fist down and say " I want it " when they see something they like, but when it comes to copying everything that apple does, the pc market really does a good (meaning crappy rip offs) job of that. And yes, that's exactly what microsoft/dell and all those other companies do. Everytime my dad gets a dell flyer in the mail I get really mad because on the cover they are touting some great thing that they think they are the pioneers of. Oh wow, dells are coming with dvd burners now! Too bad all the (especially consumer) software to edit and make great movies to burn with those dvd players is horrible. Hmm, iMovie or windows movie maker. And movie making is just the beginning, when you seriously look back in the history of apple, you will see that they started just about everything that pc people love today, its just a shame that they don't know who really created it. Gotta love people who bash apple and then go and install a firewire card into their peecees. People like that guy you argued with before have the right to chose for themselves. All I know is, I'm going with apple, the company that started it all...
 
Another question to ask him: "Have you ever tried a Mac?" If not, he's definitely not worth wasting your breath. But I do think you did just fine.
 
Thanks. It's nice to hear positive feedback. :) I choose Apple as well, because I started on it when I was two. :D Ever since then I have thought of PC's as a bunch of rip-off boxes all thanks to Microsoft.

A perfect world would be a Mac world. :)
 
I think a perfect world would be a healthily diversified world. I have always been of the opinion that every OS has its place. Right now, I'm not sure where I would put Windows (probably in the trash ;) ) but I wouldn't want to see Unix go away.
 
On the first 2 I think you could insult him a bit. For 1, he wanted to but a 21-inch CRT on the iMac...

And about mice, the 2 biggest mouse-companies on the PC-side, Logitech and Microsoft, are both making their mice Mac compatible...

Good work thou
 
plus: Apple supports *all* whatever branded USB three button (or more) mice at the system level.
 
Good job, but I've gotten tired lately of having to explain simple answers to idiots like this. I mean, we're probably just as bad in other people's eyes, but there's more of them :)

It's just not fair!!!!!
 
One of the most important things - after the facts have been set straight - is for me always to include the following into the discussion: Usability.

"User Interface Design is a very complicated field." I'd start. "But 'the Macintosh way' is not only easier to learn for first time computer users and children (which it clearly is), Apple also provides clear user interface guidelines to developers. Apple shares the knowledge, time and energy they have put into the design & functionality of the Mac OS X interface with developers and users alike."

Important points in this discussion are, for example, the menu bar, which Windows (and other operating systems) are missing. It's much easier to miss, for example, the 'File' menu in Microsoft Word on Windows than on Macintosh. Also, Mac OS X has much less errors in its interface design. A good example for *bad* interface design is that you shut down a Windows machine via the 'Start' button (which means exactly the opposite). It's always good to also 'confess' that even Apple has flaws in interface design. The Dock, for example, has a high miss-miss-hit rate, mainly because it's centered instead of docked to an edge. Icons change their position when more applications are added or opened. You can 'confess' that this is something where Apple has to (and will) improve.

I think it's important to not only set Windows-Fans straight about some misinterpretings they are doing, but to also lead the discussion on a track where Apple clearly wins.

Apple has its 'Everything's easier on a Mac' page, which you can point Windows-Users to. http://www.apple.com/easier/
 
A friend of mine and I always have fought over computers and it's fun :) He has always been a Windows person until recently he migrated over to Red Hat Linux. The way I see it I can stop arguing with him because he now has a decent computer (aka "not windows").

But being a guy, he still feels the need to provoke me so he quoted the CEO of Red Hat (forgive me, I don't know his name), "Would you buy a car that had the hood welded shut?" Which was originally directed towards Windows when the CEO said it but my friend was referring to my mac.

I replied "My hood is not welded shut any more than yours is, the heated leather seats are."

That is going to be my new argument against anyone who uses windows. "Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?" For me anything *nix is my friend because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
 
Would you buy a car that had the hood welded shut?
Click to expand...
Well, considering the sheer numbers of computers and automatically adjusting garbage under the hood of modern cars, they might as well be welded shut...
 
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