Newsflash: Mac Users Love Apple, Hate Microsoft 844
An anonymous reader writes "An article on wired.com talks about how Mac users helped Apple through the dark years of the 90s." It goes on to discuss how a psychologist was hired to figure out how to woo Mac users away from Apple, with some (to him) surprising results.
Mac Users Love Apple, Hate Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mac Users Love Apple, Hate Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
Score: -1, Overrated
DRM
Score: -1, Troll
Windows XP
Score: -1, Flamebait
Re:Mac Users Love Apple, Hate Microsoft (Score:3, Funny)
You
Score: -1, MS Bashing Kook
Re:Mac Users Love Apple, Hate Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mac Users Love Apple, Hate Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Linux Users Hate Apple, Microsoft and even BSD (Score:3, Funny)
Linux/PPC geeks hate Apple b/c it keeps in secret details of its hardware from Linux/PPC developers.
And all linux geeks hate BSD ... b/c BSD is dead (don't you know that?).
Re:Linux Users Hate Apple, Microsoft and even BSD (Score:4, Insightful)
See also:
http://www.apple.com/opensource [apple.com]
News flash! (Score:5, Funny)
Not exactly unknown. (Score:5, Interesting)
If people forgive youre mistakes it means you have succeeded in what every company wants. Brand-loyalty. Lucasarts had it for a long time. Sure they made a couple of stinkers, afterlife, but by and large most gamers where willing to trust them. Hell any lucasarts adventure I will buy without even reading the back of the box. This kind of loyalty is very important since it allows a company to make mistakes/try new things and not be immidialty killed of for it.
If at as a competitor you are wondering how the hell a company gets away with it ask youreself what you youreself have done to win youre customers loyalty. Perhaps it is the small things that allow you to get away with the big things. Surely I can not be only one who thinks that Apple charging for point upgrades makes MS constant upgrade or be obsolete cycle seem mild in comparison.
Any psychologist majors around who can explain this behaviour?
Harley-Davidson - AMF (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Harley-Davidson - AMF (Score:3, Informative)
I believe it was actually the late 60's or early 70's when AMF (better known for golf carts and bowling supplies) bought Harley-Davidson. You are right about cost cutting being a problem during the AMF era, the other problem was AMF dramatically increased production without investing in more/better tooling, and so they had to cut the quality of the hand assembly and fitting work to make due. Many old time Harley-Davidson employees retired or quit during that time which further hurt the craftsmanship and quality. It was the upper management at Harley-Davidson that bought back the company though, not really the 'employees', at least not the line workers.
Re:too bad (Score:5, Funny)
"Is it one of those Harleys?" she asked.
No, I replied, its a '91 Kawasaki.
"Well, maybe than I wouldn't have a problem. Most guys with Harleys spend so much on their motorcycles there's nothing left. The guys that have money left rely on their motorcycle to prop up their image, if you know what I mean."
So you'll look cool, but a lot of people think you're either broke or impotent...
Apple charging for their point releases... (Score:4, Insightful)
If Apple had given 10.2 a bigger number, like 10.5, less people would complain.
If Apple had waited 10 more months to release it, less people would have complained.
If Apple had given a 10.1->10.2 *upgrade* path, less people would complain.
*However*
10.5 is just another number. People would have accused Apple of manipulating version numbers to make their product look 'bigger'.
If Apple had waited longer, people would complain that Apple wasn't releasing fast enough. We have journaling (10.2.2) now. Apple doesn't seem to wait on it's products very much.
Apple released 10.1 as a free upgrade CD(available at Fry's, CompUSA, or Apple Stores) or available for $19.99 online. Logic? They charge $20 for a point release, they charge $129 for a full release, and Apple doesn't otherwise do upgrades.
Microsoft, in comparison, released Windows 95, 98, 98SE, and ME every two years and charged you for it. This is different how? Because Microsoft didn't relelase a Windows 96 for $20, it's okay? Because Microsoft didn't call them Windows 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3? You do know the code name for Windows 2000 was Windows NT 5.0 right?
Re:Apple charging for their point releases... (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows 95 -> Windows 95 B certainly should have been a free upgrade. Windows 95 -> Windows 98, maybe, maybe not. It offered substantially more functionality. Windows 98 -> Windows 98 SE certainly should be, and it more or less is, if you are willing to sit through a lot of time with Windows Update.
Microsoft releases many point patches for their various operating system, though many of them are limited-release hotfixes, which is to say that you have to call microsoft and pay for support time or have a support contract with them (same thing) in order to get them. So, good, and bad.
Apple and Microsoft are both in the business of selling software. Apple just happens to also be in the business of selling hardware, so they get you coming and going. They get to drive new hardware releases of their platform, AND new software releases. This means that you are at their mercy. "Well, our new hardware which is twice is fast as out, and won't run the old OS, which you also must pay for." Sound familiar? The other Appleism is "Well our new OS is out, which you have to pay for, and by the way it won't run on your old though PowerPC macintosh. Even though it is based on the same 32 bit instruction set and has MORE instructions than the 603 which we also used lots of, we will not support operation on your PowerPC 601.
Remember, Apple and Microsoft are both evil companies. Apple is not supporting DRM (until they have to) because the people in their niche market (now two niche markets; people too stupid to use windows and people who want stable Unix on the desktop, plus I suppose a third niche of people with too much money who want a pretty case and a pretty GUI and don't care what OS they run) don't particularly want it, and it would cost them money to implement. If they had a more successful meme (As Microsoft did) then Apple would be in charge of computing, and they would be every bit as evil as Microsoft is.
Re:Apple charging for their point releases... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Apple is 'good' because they address my needs and wants at a price I can (barely) afford.
I think Microsoft is 'bad' because they perpetuate actions that actually interfere with my computing experience. Virus-spam, viruses, infected computers at work, DOS due to viruses, security exploits, not to mention pushing D3d over OpenGL, which I like because I can program it (personal bias, I admit), as well as Netscape over IE because I build Mozilla source (again, personal bias).
If I figure out how to build OpenOffice, I will probably push that over Office, as well
LOL (Score:4, Informative)
Mac OS has not *always* been inferior.
Until Windows 95, you really had no choice except a Mac to do desktop graphics and printing.
Macs had high color
Macs had multiple monitors
Macs had TrueType and PostScript
Macs had color management
So it took until 1995 for a PC to catch up for that (you use Photoshop in Classic Mode, so there's your history for you). So if it was the year 1994 and you had to do graphics, there was no alternative except a Mac... Oh, sure, you could use Windows NT 3.51, actually, but... people didn't.
So until 1995, realistically, Adobe had to survive on Macs and Windows NT. You couldn't have your Photoshop on your Windows 2000 computer without Adobe thriving on the Mac. So say thank you to all the Mac users who kept Adobe alive long enough for Windows to catch up enough for a Windows port to be possible.
What else... Mac OS released without any truly innovative ideas? At the time a mouse, a windowing system, and a desktop metaphor was pretty innovative. Photoshop, released in 1990, couldn't have existed on the PC since Windows 3.0 wasn't available until 1990! The first graphical Mac was unleashed in 1984... of course Windows 1.0 was available the very next year in 1985...
So what else does that show us? Word 1.0 for DOS was available 1983, Word 1.0 for Mac was available in 1985, and it wasn't until 1993 that Word 6.0 (for Windows) was released. Word for DOS had or Word for Mac had only been available up to that point.
Then there's Quicktime...
Okay, so all that is OLD hat. Microsoft (eventually) will catch up, history is showing us.
So what did Apple do new with OS X that is innovative, you ask?
How about security? Of course security is a nasty beast to define, because it is only visible through the lack of exploits. No exploits, no news. Do I think OS X is more secure than Windows XP? Yes. Why? Partially because the core OS is open source, partially because the core OS is heavily related to BSD, and partially because the core OS has been in use since 1989 with the release of the first NeXT workstations. Windows, while similarly old, is not similarly aged, with IE exploits, IIS exploits, ActiveX exploits, and other exploits. OS X gets around IE exploits by not integrating IE, though there is an HTML library available. It gets around IIS exploits by relying on tried and true OSS servers such as Apache, BSD-telnetd, BSD-sshd, and BSD-ftpd. It gets around ActiveX exploits by relying on a scripting technology, AppleScript, that has been used successfully since 1993 to automate prepress, print, publishing, and graphics businesses. Oh, and they don't integrate AppleScript into the html rendering engine, though there is a third party AppleScript plugin available. Yes, there have been AppleScript viruses, just like there are VisualBasic viruses...
But Apple doesn't suffer nearly as badly because Mail doesn't auto execute AppleScript viruses which aren't embedded into the HTML that s rendered by the preview pane.
Alright, so this is sorta cheap, innovation by not being as *bad* as Microsoft.
There's legitimate innovation as well.
OS X 10.0 had it's compositing engine. Vector based, PDF based, output independent. It's certainly not perfect, but it's a continuation of NeXT's PostScript based DisplayPS. Windows already has something called GDI+ and WMF, but I do not believe they are currently used.
OS X 10.0 introduced iDVD, to match the earlier release of iTunes and iMovie, allowing the sufficiently well of Mac owner the capabillity to make DVDs within 20 minutes, though burning them probably took an hour or so.
OS X 10.2 upped the stakes with *hardware* accelerated display technology. Big deal, you say? It's 3d hardware accelerated. Microsoft is hoping to catch up next year with Longhorn [winsupersite.com].
OS X 10.2 also added new networking technology that doesn't yet exist on Windows, though UPnP is close. Rendevous, otherwise known as ZeroConf, is a peer to peer network discovery protocol.
OS X 10.2 added bluetooth support, which Windows XP adds [com.com] later this year.
OS X 10.2 added full tablet and handwriting recognition, which doesn't appear until . Also, you will probably need a new PC, where OS X only requires a tablet, such as a Wacom tablet, instead of a new computer. [zdnet.co.uk]
Anyway, it's really only your loss, not mine, if Apple OS X doesn't somehow suit your needs, and likewise your gain if Windows XP can suit yours (but not mine)
Psychology 101 (Score:5, Interesting)
It's is well known (although I cannot remember the technical name for the effect) that people are 'loyal' to their decisions. Even if they've made a bad choice, there is an internal attempt to justify it.
Re:Psychology 101 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Psychology 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
take this example. you are a peacefull person, you would not kill another human. but then there is this ethnic group that you hate so much that you want to kill them. (this is cognitive dissonance) how do you resolve this? well, you go and kill them anyway, because THEY ARE NOT HUMAN!!! (opinions are hard to change, you will NOT change your belief that you can not kill another human, you tend to stay with the familiar)
another example, your brother is a 'nice person', however so it happens that he kills somebody. (again, cognitive dissonance.) well, he obviously had a DAMN GOOD REASON. (again, you tend to stay with the familiar).
this endowment effect works like the information (beliefs) you have in you work as filters for all incoming information.
another way to say all this is that BELIEFS are impossible to change!
than there is this question: why do you actually have those beliefs that you have? its because they were there first! IT IS THAT SIMPLE.
Re:Psychology 101 (Score:5, Funny)
Beyond FUD, ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beyond FUD, ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I constantly hear the virtues of Linux espoused and many people seem to think it is in every way better than Windows. However, when they get confronted with shortcommings or concessions they had to make in their switch to Linux, they either downplay them, ignore them, or just claim it isn't the truth.
A good example is a guy I know (not mentioning names for abvious reasons) that switched and claimed it was great. Yet, he had to make so many concessions. None of the games he liked ran in Linux (I dunno if wineX has changed this, I haven't talked to him receantly) so he had to dual boot. He had all sorts of trouble with X, hardware incompatibilities, had to spend lots of time trying to accomplish simple goals, etc, etc.
I teased him about this a bit trying to point out to him that the real reason he switched was the hacker mistique that Linuz has (and his infatuation thereof) and that it appealed to his anti-corprate views. Well he of course denyed all this and brushed off all the shortcommings and concessions I pointed out. He claimed that dual booting wasn't really a pain and didn't take that long, that it was fine having to replace some hardware, ignored most of the rest and just rattled on abuot all the things that were great, wether they really mattered or not.
Re:Beyond FUD, ... (Score:5, Interesting)
From a social standpoint, it all depends. Linux supports fewer commercial applications than does Windows; this emerges from the current state of the industry that if you want to market your software, you will write it for Windows.
This has nothing to do with the technical merits of Linux, and everything to do with economics as seen through the eyes of the businessmen who run software companies. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, and very difficult to resolve: the only way to stimulate a Linux market for games is to write games for Linux, and yet no one will do so because there isn't enough of a market!
Re:Beyond FUD, ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is that for a user, the whole experience needs to be considered. This includes everything form ease of use, support, available apps and the whole 9 yards. Pure technical discussion doesn't matter, the question is: does it get the job done the best. Often, Id' even say usually, Linux does NOT do the best job for a given desktop system. That doesn't mean Linux is worthless, just not right for that situation. I find that the peopel that are in the aituation of having switched to Linux when Windows was better for tha they did exhibit a great deal of cognative dissonance, trying to justify their decision.
Re:Beyond FUD, ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would argue that infact many Linux users suffer from more cognative dissonance that a normal computer user (everyone suffers form it from time to time).
I constantly hear the virtues of Linux espoused and many people seem to think it is in every way better than Windows. However, when they get confronted with shortcommings or concessions they had to make in their switch to Linux, they either downplay them, ignore them, or just claim it isn't the truth.
>
Many people do not have games as a motivation. Many people DO have security, privacy, and supportability for the long term as their motivations.
If security, privacy, and supportability for the long term as their motivations, there are clearly few reasons to pay for Windows, and many more reasons to put up with some drawbacks of Linux, Mac OS X, and other open source-based operating systems. It a matter of weighing the pros and cons of each, and making a decision. For myself, the ability to play games has absolutely no weight in my decision on which systems to run a business on.
So, it may not be cognative dissonance in the people that use Linux/UNIX/Mac OS X... i would argure that your persepctive may be limited to more pedestrian computing needs.
Re:Beyond FUD, ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd argue that most of the zealotry displayed by the more rabid Linux advocates is almost entirely cognative dissonance.
For example: Linux 2.2.x was great; and zealots claimed it could do no wrong.... until Linux 2.4 came out. Zealots rushed out and upgraded, singing the praises of 2.4 and decrying the shortcomings of the 2.2 series.
Of course, none of them ever really admitted that the memory manager in 2.4 sucked ass.... not really until it was changed. Then it was safe to badmouth the old memory manager. Go ahead and look back at Slashdot discussions over time to see the progression. And, in fact, you can see it today... as the next version of the kernel draws closer, dissent is slowly building about the rough edges on the current kernel.
It's also the reason that every minor IE bug is front page news here, while it takes a real whopper of a bug on a *nix platform to make Slashdot. Cognative dissonance is a large part of that sort of zealotry as well. The opinion from the top of a pedestal that "my OS is more secure than yours". (The zealots really hate it when you point out that the nitpick bugs they point to in Windows wouldn't have affected a properly set up and administered system anyway.)
Re:Beyond FUD, ... (Score:3, Informative)
That aside, I don't think cognitive dissonance plays into it all that much, at least not in the case of most Linux users I know. The ferociously loyal can be overzealous at times, but there is good cause to be. Just comparing the kernels of Windows 2K/XP and Linux, it is obvious to me that Linux is superior. The TCP/IP stack in Linux is very fast, very stable, and very flexible, though Windows has gotten much, much better of late. The VM system in Linux I find to work much better now as well. It really bugs me that Windows is swapping applications to disk when I still have 300 MB of physical memory left.
As the popularity of Linux has surged I have seen it improve that much more in recent months. I remember when it seemed like 2.4 would never come, now we are discussing what 2.6 is going to offer? =)
Regardless of the technical merits of Linux, there is a lot to be said about an OS and software that is "by the people, for the people". Stallman et. al. make a lot of noise to this end, and piss off a lot of people in the process, but we really have something to be proud of. This little kernel has found its way into all sorts of niche markets, from the lowliest embedded boards to big iron like the S/390, NUMA supercomputers, and more. There is a lot to be said for a piece of software so versatile.
As for making concessions to run Linux, if it means that much to someone to not be dependent on MS, more power to em! I get sick of Microsoft's business practices, subpar software, absurd licensing schemes, dancing monkey execs, and more too. If their products are the best fit for the application, though, there isn't much more to debate.
Re:Beyond FUD, ... (Score:3, Insightful)
resignation (Score:4, Insightful)
Non-Microsoft users not only had the "trial by fire" of chosing an alternate route, but they have to justify some of the dissonance they have regarding format incompatibilities - they may not be able to play a game, or watch a video, or see a web site, that their MS-using friends and family can. If a critical mass of the market were on the same platform as them, however, there would be less of that interplatform disconnect for them.
I took Psych 101... (Score:5, Interesting)
The facts: Apple was floundering because of a number of bad marketing decisions and stagnancy in its software/OS. It also entered a confused clone licensing scheme that cost it money while not affecting market share. All of this is very relevant to profitability, not at all to user loyalty.
Mac users paid a premium for Macs primarily because they wanted them. To suggest that's "irrational" is to presume that Macs were inferior on everything including price, as not all buyers were price-sensitive. Mac users also knew the company would fail if they abandoned it; the Microsoft alternative has not become more attractive to them; the specter of a one-company monopoly was daunting; so they rationally invested not just in the computer they were buying, but also in there being a future Apple.
Now we have a very healthy company that "everyone" said would die "any day now" during the dark days before the Second Coming of Jobs. So in retrospect, are you saying that the people who were wrong about Apple were rational, and the contrarians (like me--I even owned stock) who made a lot of money off of the recovery were irrational? We knew the company had a future, if only it would change strategy, and the decisive factor for me was that Apple was losing money but had tons of cash on hand: unlike the typical tech company on the brink, it had time.
No doubt Mac zealots often go over the top. But even if cured of their zealotry, most of those same people would still be using Macs -- yet that would not have been enough. If not for their aggressive unpaid marketing to family, friends, and bosses, the company would have died. So irrational exuberance is irrational, but in a way that rationally preserves the Mac sector. How many stories have we heard of Mac users pleading with someone not to go with a MS PC, buyers who do so for no reason better than "everyone does it"?
All of the above goes to irrational justification, the old "good money after bad" syndrome. I don't think cognitive dissonance is any more applicable here; it addresses the rationalizations the mind makes when occupied by multiple contradictory deas and used here implies that the critics were right all along, and the Mac people deluded themselves. If Apple had failed, that would be a much more plausible thesis.
Remember, the computer industry is known for nearly zero brand loyalty. Even Dell is feeling with it. So the Apple story is frankly astonishing and, who knows, there may be good reason for it.
New Byline (Score:5, Funny)
Newsflash: Linux users love Linux, Hate Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
Odd quote... (Score:3, Insightful)
Erm - not to be too funny about it as I do like Macs, but Apple is just as much of a corporation as Microsoft - their recent
If the person who said that feels so strongly about it, they should give Linux a try! Ain't no corporations interfering there!
Re:Odd quote... (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
GO NEWTON!!!
From the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoo! Oh, boy, my sides are aching! Oh, my ribs hurt! Oh, man!
Also...
Andrew Lackey, a visiting professor of business and economics journalism at Boston University, said Apple's monopoly in the Mac business allows it to get away with things companies in a competitive market can't...."With Apple you're a captive, and to some extent they abuse that privilege," Lackey said. "I would have thought Apple would be all folksy, like a Ben & Jerry's kind of company. But in my experience, PC companies are much more responsive."
BMW has a monopoly in the BMW market. GM has a monopoly in the GM market. And yet, they both sell cars and compete against each other. I guess that's why this guy is only a visiting professor of economics.
Re:From the article... (Score:5, Funny)
You can't, because it doesn't go, like, "Beep! Beep! Beep!".
Re:From the article... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's do a quick word replacement:
Apple has a monopoly in the Apple market. Microsoft has a monopoly in the Microsoft market. And yet, they both sell cars and compete against each other.
This statement is just as valid as the first one.
Re:From the article... (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft sells cars? Hm. Now I'm afraid to leave the house.
Re:From the article... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bad analogy methinks. Cars are compatible, no matter if you drive a BMW or a GM car, you can use the same roads. It requires no effort to switch between a BMW and a GM car.
If you buy a Mac or Windows however, the lockin effect starts to occur and you find that it's unnaturally difficult to change to something else, which distorts the natural rules of competition. The comment about crack might have been closer than they thought.
Or do you think that had OS X been open and Apples OS X was merely a "distro" that they'd have been able to get away with a $120 upgrade tag?
Re:From the article... (Score:5, Informative)
If you want a car based on bmw engine, you dont get a mercedes or a VW. you get a BMW.
so like the poster above you said, "BMW has a monopoly in the BMW market. GM has a monopoly in the GM market. And yet, they both sell cars and compete against each other.
I can assure you Dell has 0% market penetration in the cow-logo computer market. Therefore, gateway has their own monopoly on cow logo computers.
if you want a Mac, you get an apple computer.
simple as that.
they all have a monopoly on the products they sell, if you define it close enough
Why Do Mac Users always think ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why Do Mac Users always think ... (Score:5, Funny)
This we don't need (Score:5, Funny)
There needs to a psychosexual analysis of the Mac community.
Please, god, no.
Give up Unix, get a Mac (Score:4, Insightful)
"[mac users are] more dedicated than users of any other computer, perhaps even Linux. Linux and Unix users are, in fact, switching to Macs in droves. "
Hmm, what could be the attraction?
Re:Give up Unix, get a Mac (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a UNIX user. I didn't switch to MacOS - MacOS switched to UNIX.
WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh my god! They're right. I've finally gotten away from using a proprietary operating system on non-proprietary hardware, and now I'm going to switch to using a proprietary operating system on proprietay hardware.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, with OS X, it was a bunch of Mac users who were being switched to Unix! (sort of)
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
Despite the unflinching moral declarations of the FSF, most users of so-called "Free Software" care about the gratis a heck of a lot more than the libre... or, at least, they care about the "UNIXyness" rather than either sort of freedom.
In the real world, every Linux-user I know has or wants to have a Mac--and they're not putting PPC Linux on them, they're leaving OSX as-is, save for adding a few utilities.
Count Pointercount (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't try to relegate this type of thinking to only users of so-called "Free Software." I think that most computer users
In the real world, every Linux-user I know has or wants to have a Mac--and they're not putting PPC Linux on them, they're leaving OSX as-is, save for adding a few utilities.
So what? Your world is not the real world. It's viewed through your own subjective, rose-colored lenses. In other words, your anecdotal evidence isn't meaningful.
Beware: Testamonial Ahead (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't all toe the slashdot line. Some of us just want something that works well, doesn't waste our time, and lets us work effectively. OS X fits that bill wonderfully for me, and it plays well with my *nix servers.
I don't get paid based on the liberation of my software, I get paid to get things done. Fuck the KDE/Gnome amateur hour; give me OS X and software that works.
Re:Beware: Testamonial Ahead (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO that kind of post is pretty much redundant. We can sit here all day and say "I used to use operating system A and then I switched to operating system B for reasons C and D". A good number of posts on Slashdot are little more than that.
It is however nothing more than anecdotal evidence. A post slightly above this one says "every Linux user I know has or wants to have a Mac". Again, totally anecdotal, the exact opposite is true where I live and for the people I know. This kind of stuff is fun to argue about, but if you want to get an objective view of what's going on in the markets you don't rely on what you read on Slashdot, you ask the big statistics companies.
No, their measurement systems are not perfect, that's impossible. They are a good deal more informative than "I know 4 people with PowerBooks!". When you look at the numbers however, it seems that Apple is doing rather less well than a lot of people here would say. You don't have to believe me, go search the archives of OSNews, they have reported on it, and Eugenia is pretty much OS neutral if you ignore BeOS.
If anything, I expect we're getting a seriously warped view of Apples market penetration here on Slashdot due to the mod system. A post that says "I haven't bought a Mac" is redundant and quite rightly modded so. Posts that say "I have bought a Mac" are also redundant but get modded up because sometimes people have interesting reasons, but mostly because advertising psychology says that people are inclined to agree with views that appear to justify their own purchasing decisions. There is a post at the top of this thread about it, although there's a lot more to it than just cognitive dissonance.
In particular, psychologists have found that people pay more attention to adverts for a product after they have bought it, which seems counterintuitive until you realise that these people having made a purchasing decision are keen on reassuring themselves that they made the right choice, and so listen more to things that tell them this. It's also been found (sorry, don't have the reference to hand) that this effect increases in proportion to cost, ie if you buy something that costs £10 you're less likely to get upset at reading a bad review of it than if it had cost £10,000.
I think this is what happens with operating systems. Why does Apple garner such loyalty? The Mac loyalists usually say it's to do with the technology but I think it can be better explained by psychology (watches karma drop...).
Windows has an effective cost of zero, as it's included in the hardware price when you buy the machine. What's more, it's a monopoly, people feel they have to use it, so they know they've made the correct purchasing decision - really they couldn't make any other. Because they know this, people are happy to bitch about MS products they use all the time, simply because nobody can turn around and say "well don't use it then". (karma: excellent -> good). There is little cognitive dissonance.
Linux suffers from a different problem. It also has an effective cost of zero, because it's given away for free. As such, using it has no personal investment except of time (which is different). Because of this, people are happy to try it, formulate an opinion sometimes within hours, and then either keep it or erase it and go back to what they were using before. There is no justification need here either, because it cost you nothing, so there is no incentive to put effort into it. For people who do like it, sometimes they dig the whole philosophy thing, and become Linux evangelists.
Apple on the other hand is boosted by this effect. It's a textbook case of this type of psychology. Buying a Mac is a big investment in terms of cost, and because it has such low market share compared to Wintel PCs there is a strong need to justify not going with the crowd. Hence we see arguments like "it's easier, it works better" etc. One thing that's pretty clear is that once you've bought a Mac, you're not going to just dump it, nobody just dumps something that cost over a thousand dollars after a few hours. There is a high internal need for the purchase to be seen as a good one, so people adapt to the quirks of the platform etc.
They then become very defensive when people criticize that purchase, and very friendly towards people who back them up - hence the fact that Mac users seem to get together into groups and the "Mac logo" effect mentioned in the article. An example: slashdotter A says "Mac's are slow, look at their CPU speeds for what you pay!!!". Slashdotter B says "but it doesn't matter, because it feels fast to me (of course it does) and because Mhz is a myth". There is an attack (probably provoked by over enthusastic promotion by slashdotter B, often people criticize stuff simply because it's an alternative viewpoint in the presence of lots of positive viewpoints), and a defensive reponse (karma:good -> terrible). As such, they are more likely to mod down anti-Mac posts and more likely to mod up pro-Mac posts. Non Mac users on the other hand are unlikely to have a view one way or the other, hence moderation gets somewhat bent. Hence, the fact that if you read Slashdot a lot it seems that everybody is buying Macs.
Phew! That drifted rather offtopic for a bit in the middle, but I think you get the gist of my theory.
Mindshare (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd offer a simple piece of counter proof, the treatment of Apple before OSX came out. Prior to OSX the overwhelming attitude of the slashdot crowd towards Apple was disinterested hostility. Apple system were simply not taken seriously at all; treated as more of crippled computing appliances than computers. Almost no one advocated the advantages of OS9 over Windows, Linux, BSD...
Were your argument true, that is that the behavior is based on price and lack of market share there should have been no difference between the behavior on
That is a huge change in attitude. I think the more likely explination is this:
Re:Beware: Testamonial Ahead (Score:5, Insightful)
Your right. I'm not a psychologist, but I've always noticed the brand-loyalty, cognitive dissonace thingy. It goes both ways actually, not just Mac users but Windows users too. That's why Mac v DOS wars have gone on for so long.
And those wars were SOOO stupid! I mean seriously, no DOS box is competition for any Mac. But DOS users kept coming up with reasons that their hard earned money that they put into their box (no computer was cheap back then) was worth it, and better than a Mac.
I've been a Mac user for a very, very long time. And as computers got more popular and, accordingly, Macs have gotten more popular, I've been more and more embarrased to be a Mac user. It seems as the price of Macs dipped below the $3000 range stupider people started coming into the fray.
People claim ease of use, when they have no idea what ease of use is. I see Mac users bickering about why their platform is so hot, and all their arguments are just childish rants. They sound like the old DOS supporters, praising their choice without having any real arguments. Exactly what you said.
(It was also painful to see Macworld, once a prestigous publication headed by Jerry Borrell, turn into the waste of paper that it is today. They used to talk about cutting edge computing issues with a Mac focus, now they tell you how to upload a website to your iDisk.)
Anyway, I don't defend my choice of using a Mac because of cognitive dissonance. I use Macs because they are better to use. Years of using Macs has made me very proficient and, hell, bonded to them, and it would be worse to switch to Windows because I can't use a winbox like a Mac.
Some people are (pardon the term) too stupid to use a computer. In that case, it may be better that they use Windows, since they can get help from just about anyone. Unless if I know them personally, in which case I can teach them to use a Mac and be damn proud of it!
If you have a choice of buying a Mac + having a friend support you, and buying a PC + having a friend support you, the Mac is usually the better choice.
rant off. I think that was a rant. Yeah, definitely a rant.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe (gasp) they switched to Linux because it was the best for them, and MacOSX is now better for what they need?
Most people are practical, not on an ideological crusade like RMS and his ilk.
Linux/Unix Users Switching? Data? (Score:4)
Linux and Unix users are, in fact, switching to Macs in droves.
Is there any data to back this assertion up? I didn't see any in the article. Seems kind of unlikely to me.
Love your mac... (Score:5, Funny)
(I submitted this story but got rejected. It made me sad. But at least I can post it here, be funny, and on topic - woo hoo!)
Re:Love your mac... (Score:3, Funny)
Marketing for Loyalty (Score:3, Interesting)
For those of you new to Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mac v. Amiga (Score:4, Insightful)
"Commodore hired engineers, Apple hired marketers."
And you know, only one of them is still in business. Its not what you sell, its what people think they are buying.
Re:Mac v. Amiga (Score:5, Funny)
Truth engineers don't want to face (Score:3, Informative)
For every dollar you spend on engineering, you should spend at least 2 on marketing. I've heard up to 5 mentioned. It depends on the market, of course.
It's funny to think of all the clueless programmers who constantly whine about "stupid" marketing people on Slashdot, while they in fact owe their jobs to them!
Re:Mac v. Amiga (Score:5, Informative)
- User Interface: Invented by amiga
- 3.25" floppy: Invented by amiga
- Multitasking: Invented by amiga
- Multiprocessing: Invented by amiga
I've got nothing against Amiga. But I do take umbrage with people who claim Amiga invented things they didn't.Sorry. Xerox invented the GUI. Apple AND Atari had GUI systems in the market before Amiga did.
Wrong again. Invented by Sony.
I thought Unix had been doing that for decades before teh Amiga showed up.
See previous point.
Re:Mac v. Amiga (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately the peculiar design of the Amiga, coupled with its lack of processing power (both of which being what made it inexpensive) were a problem because people were forced to customize their software to a particular operating system and machine combination (remember, this is in the early days) to get the most out of the machine, and this led to incompatibility with future releases. Since it didn't have memory protection, this generally meant that when your OS version incremented significantly, things started stepping on each other and exploding left and right.
The Amiga had a fantastic multitasking OS with all the usual features at the time (though again everyone else was exploring memory protection at the time... well okay, not Apple either) which fit on one floppy plus 512k of ROM. They also had the best autoconfiguration around, bar none, because all drivers were user-mode and you could put the drivers in ROM on an expansion card. When the card was initialized, the driver was executed at which point it was mapped onto or copied into memory. Of course this led to needing to upgrade driver ROMs on various expansion cards but no plan is perfect, I guess. In the modern age of flash ROM this would be a non-issue.
Anyway if Amiga invented anything it would be the mindless Zealot.
Don't go with the majority, get tagged as a freak (Score:5, Insightful)
Circa 1999 it was Linux user = hobbyist geek. Now Linux has been revealed as a savior to businesses of all stripes, but if you're an "early convert" you're still seen as a hobbyist geek, rather than a smart person who picked Linux early for the right reasons.
Something similar may be going on now with the Mac. It's been the cultists who have kept Apple and the Mac alive, but with the release of OS X and the influx of UNIX folks and perhaps a few Windows converts, the cultists are viewed with scorn as the faith-driven zealots rather than as rational adopters of what is really just a computer system.
The Mac has always offered something basic that Microsoft and most (but not all) PC vendors simply don't understand. The computer is built to work out of the box for the human being, not the other way around. You can argue all you want about how it limits your upgrade options, costs more, doesn't run as many apps, but there will always be a certain segment of the computer-using population that very strongly wants a computer that just works, with no fuss.
Now why should people who believe in that concept get labeled as oddballs? Maybe its the rest of the population that's odd, for settling on buggy, conflict-riddled, nonsecure by default, inelegant crap.
A Subculture? (Score:5, Interesting)
Firstly there are the old time Mac users - they used a Mac found it easy to do what they wanted and just attached themselves to the system. Many have had Macs for years and will tell you how the Mac "changed their life". Often these users work in "arty" jobs (DTP, Graphic Designers, etc)
Then there are Windows switchers - they got fed up with the Wintel PC, some it was system crashes, some it's more religous reasons.
Linux switchers, often those who were working in Windows/Linux for various reasons. Lots have PowerBooks.
Then there are old NeXT users (not many of us actually!).
And others I'm too stupid to identify. I'm not sure that the Mac is a single culture anymore. I hope this is healthy for the platform.
Of course I have omitted those who "co-exist" and use Mac and something else.
Personal Thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
Disclaimer: I used to be a Macaddict, but I switched to Linux in college "because I can code", and I never went back.
Mac OS X 10.2 - update (Score:3, Insightful)
10.2 is in many ways a new operating system. The "update" from Windows 2000 to Windows XP wasn't free either.
For those who are happy with 10.1 there's no need to change, for me 10.1 works fine.
About
Being an apple-fan doesn't mean you have to agree to all decisions of the company...
all system bias aside (Score:5, Interesting)
So that explains Mac zealotry, since once you get used to using a Mac, going to Windows can be hard since it doesn't have the same usability features.
However, the same can be said about Windows - although it seems that it imposes its own way of doing things, it becomes natural once you are used to it. And when you try a mac, you complain that everything is missing. ^^
Mac OS X should be attractive to Windows users that wish to use some flavor of Unix but who doesn't want to give up a nice interface. But Apple loses in this crowd with the propietary hardware. I would have loved to build a machine with OS X, but I find the idea of buying overpriced hardware ridiculous (for the same price I can buy technically superior and esthetically equivalent components).
Of course for Linux enthusiasts, Apple is just another Microsoft. Don't forget that Steve Jobs once said "Microsoft succeeded in what we have tried to accomplish" (he also said that comparing Mac to PCs was ridiculous since PCs have already won - both quotes from the book "Apple Confidential").
Re:Why Apple doesn't release MacOS X for PC ..?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now they have (generously) 4%, on margins *like* 25% on their hardware. However, that 25% is based off of $2k average price for their machines, meaning $500 per Mac.
Selling a OS X86 for $130 would garner them, possibly, 50% margin (lets be generous), or $75. So they *have* to sell 7 copies of OS X86 to make up the difference, and gain an improvement.
That means they need to sell to, instead of 4%, 28%
Of course they could have higher margins, meaning less necessary sales... but higher margins necessarily means charging more for the product, right?
Or they could have lower margins, due to costs I cannot account for, in which case... 20% or 30% of the market isn't sufficient.
It probably means bundling 'free' iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto would have to stop, or at least start charging, to make more money. $30 per product would mean OS X86 would cost $250... which makes it much less attractive.
Wooing Mac Users away from Apple? (Score:5, Funny)
That would be the PowerMac 7200, wouldn't it?
Mac is where the creative tools are. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just that the technology is so much better than any other platform when it comes to creative stuff of any kind (art, music, video, design). If you replace "Windows PC" in this article with "typewriter" and then read it again you'll see how it looks to a Mac user. No, we're not anxious to trade our multimedia audio/video/graphics workstations with great UI and amazing stability for IBM Selectrics. As a creative workstation, Windows makes a shitty typewriter. That's all there is to it. The rest is window dressing, with non-Mac users wondering what the buzz is about.
Re:Mac is where the creative tools are. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's one of the most insightful statements I've ever read on /. Mac users will always look at PC's with that kind of atitude. There is nothing Microsoft can do, nothing any PC maker can do to change that perception. It doesn't help that most PC's still come in monolithic beige boxes, furthering the belief that PC makers are behind the times
old-timer rapporting (Score:3, Interesting)
ever since, i've stuck to the platform since it's the one i know, and due to the experiences i had using Windows & DOS computers.
one reason why some macintosh users get so attached to their computers (like i used to be, before i began working as an apple technician and became a cynical and hateful bastard) could be childhood traumas loading the mouse drivers in DOS, and being ridiculed by Windows us'ders (actual quote: -Mac isn't a real computer, it's a toy. You don't have to type anything!) enhanced the feeling of being the underdog (which Apple has been branding towards ever since).
so yes, although there might not be much difference in GUI nowdays, nor functionality, i believe it's the brand image of Apple that keeps, and attracts new, users.
having said that, i'm hereby stating my intentions on actually learning more about computers than just how to ResEdit my way to others' MacAdmin passwords, and get a cheapass laptop running Linux and wardrive gothenburg.
"whaddayamean i can't play with myself? it's a fucking playground, isn't it?"
In a somewhat related study... (Score:3, Funny)
How silly, I defected in the mid 90s... (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows NT had true multitasking, none of that memory allocation to each app crap, and was overall more stable (despite what Mac freaks say). Apple's OS was still basically a modified Andy Hertzfeld Switcher program. Hook into GetNextEvent and steal control and pass it to another program. Polling -- yack.
But this past summer I bought an iMac. What a beaut. Unix underneath it all, stable, runs well, a joy to use. Now I still have ah, two XP machines, one 2000 server, one Linux router/firewall, a laptop with XP, and one Linux workstation in the house (between my wife and I), and the iMac is in the living room on the coffee table, but my next laptop purchase will be a Mac, that's for sure.
Anyway, the claim that all Mac users stuck with Apple through bad times isn't true in my case. If they don't make a better product, I won't buy it. Right now, except for the dead-end processor chip they are currently stuck with, it's just a better product... (and if they don't put a G4 in the iBook this January, I won't be buying a crippled G3 iBook nor an over-priced G4 Powerbook.)
I'm switching *back* (Score:3, Interesting)
Its All Wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at it this way. Dos and Unix were (are) command line driven. The text paradigm underlies everything. Macs were never text driven, always visual. You can divide the population very roughly into three instinctive communication/learning styles. Visual, text and aural. These styles correlate to many other personality types, cognitive styles, etc. Computers were invented by the text crew. The aural people have their phones. But for visual communicators, there is simply no alternative to the MAC. Sure there are enough similarities across all modern GUIs that there is some room for substitution. But the text derived systems betray their origins at ever turn.
That is why a comparison between the loyalty of Apple users and Dell users is ludicrous. Think if only one company made mice for left handers. Good or bad, that company would own the market. Comparing the loyalty of its customers to those of one of the right handed only mouse companies would profoundly miss the point. Same here. The user's devotion to Apple is beside the point. The Mac is much bigger than Apple.
This is, of course not to diss the command line derived approach. I use the CLI all the time for Linux, and suprisingly often in XP. But almost never in OSX. You can, but it never feels right.
Amiga vs. Everyone! (Score:3, Insightful)
One Simple Reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has always focused on doing things for the customer, even if it means screwing the developers and the existing user base. Apple has sort of a family-style "tough love" philosophy - almost parental. It will say things like "The dock is better for you. Just take it." Even though people may or may not like it, Apple has your best interest at heart, and so it will jam things down the users' (and developers') throats, if need be.
Microsoft, on the other hand, focuses on the developers. They want to make Windows the best development platform in the world. Microsoft figured out early on that people only buy computers for software, and that people are not going to write their own software. By luring developers to their APIs, MS achieved market dominance. The users in this case are more of an afterthought - they are sort of a problem left to each independant developer.
Some examples:
When Apple introduces something new, Jobs comes out and talks about how insanely great this will be for users. When MS introduces something, BillG will talk about how the API makes it easy for devs.
At Apple, we would routinely make API changes that would break every single major application (like PhotoShop and PageMaker). Our attitude was "screw them, the devs just have to keep up, the new way is better." At Microsoft, we still have code that makes sure WordPerfect 3.5 for DOS still runs in a command window in NT.
I have worked over five years apiece for the research labs at both Apple Computer and Microsoft, so I have some insight here.
Former CEO Shoots Self in Foot... (Score:4, Interesting)
Business decisions made by... former CEO Amelio! I read this as saying: "Even someone who makes as many bad business decisions as myself couldn't sink that ship with so many loyal users manning the pumps." One wonders how these people manage to find employment at the CEO level after comments like that.
I use all three but OSX is my baby (Score:4, Interesting)
The system preferences, all of them, are in one single place, in a thing on the dock called... system preferences. The buttons, window titles bars and other widgets are clear, big and don't fuck with millions of non consistent rollovers that work in some software in one way and in another in another way. One click of the terminal icon and I've got got a true shell at my fingertips, just like the two debian boxes at work. This is why people love it. Lots of people have their problems with the UI but very few of those claim that Windows is more consistent or easier to use.
I'm saving up now and will be getting my new G4Powerbook in January.
I have a dream application athat I've wanted to try writing for about two years now, and the tools, Project and Interface Builder, are there and don't cost any more. If the application is ever made it will probably only find a small audience, and only in the Mac world, since it's being written in ObjC, but I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it because I want to be able to make a useful tool and have fun doing it. On Windows, I can't do this.
Effective marketing = Loyal userbase (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple Computer, Inc. is a business. Furthermore, Apple Computer, Inc. is a typical business. They hire employees, develop and sell products, and satisfy their shareholders.
Apple Computer, Inc. is not dissimilar to Microsoft Corporation. They both control their markets very tightly, will kill off companies that stand in their way, and even risk angering their loyal customers in an attempt to achieve "the big picture".
Apple Computer, Inc. wields lawyers when they think their brand is threatened, to a positively ridiculous level at times. e.g. The Graphical User Interface, The Aqua Theme, Apple Communications, etc. Even Microsoft Corporation doesn't sue as liberally as Apple Computer, Inc. does.
The signficant difference that I see, however, is that Apple Computer, Inc. has stuck to the same marketing theme for more than two decades: Apple Computer, Inc. is for the free thinkers, the rebels, the nonconformists, the people who need to be different. Microsoft Corporation has not.
Apple Computer, Inc's original Macintosh commercial may have been inspired by George Orwell's 1984, but it is from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World that they learned that it takes 64,000 repetitions to make one truth.
Re:QED (Score:5, Funny)
> everything non-Microsoft.
"User" is not the proper term for the adherents of the Gatesian system. "User" connotes an active role.
The proper term is obviously "Used," as in "I was a former Microsoft Used, until I installed Debian."
Re:Linux (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Linux (Score:4, Funny)
Isn't the same true for Linux ?
Yes. When you see another guy with a beard, or walking around barefoot, you know you have an instant friend. (Have mercy on me, moderators...)
Re:Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe there is a certain number of realists among the Linux users. I think the percentage is higher than in the case of Mac users.
Re:Mac == Crack same as Linux == Crack (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ahh, blind zealotry (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you saying that a computer that "just works" and "is prettier" is somehow less worthy? Why are these criteria unimportant in your expert opinion?
It seems to me that a computer that "just works" and "is prettier" is far more valuable than one that doesn't "just work" and "is uglier."
Re:Ahh, blind zealotry (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a good portion of us who are very technically aware, have used all of the major OSes extensively, and feel that Mac OS is much better than Windoze.
There are a large number of you out there who say that "Macs are crap" blindly, without having used one in quite a while or ever. I would say that those people should "atleast [sic] have the decency to KNOW what [they] are talking about".
Re:Ahh, blind zealotry (Score:5, Informative)
That's exactly why I am loyal. I got a product that is useful to me as well as aesthetically pleasing. Who cares how or why it works as long as it does.
Coming from a PC background I can understand having to know how to partition or reformat; or move NICs to PCI slots without shared IRQs; or diagnose DLL and registry problems introduced by 3rd party software products. I did learn a lot, but that's a lot of lost productivity.
Some people like to use computers without having to be amateur computer scientists. That's why people love Macs. That's why people still buy them, despite the good rodgering some people think we got from them over the whole 10.2 and
Re:Ahh, blind zealotry (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, that is knowing what they are talking about. They know they want a computer that works and they know they want something that is aesthetically pleasing to them. The first one is the most important. Why is it that many PC users equate power of computer with complexity? Who cares if you can diagnose 1001 DLL conflicts and then set all your IRQ's properly while installing something in an ISA and AGP slot at the same time. The vast majority of consumers don't want to be bombarded with technical terms that make computer repair technicians cringe at the thought. They want a tool (and that is exactly what a computer is, a tool) to help them do their work. Would the average person want a swiss army knife that you had to configure each time you used a different tool? No, they want it to cut when they ask. Just like the average computer user wants it to print when they ask. And as to aesthetics, if you had to stare at the same thing every day for 8 hours, would you want something that looked like a moving van box with a putrid grey and perfectly square shape, or something with soft curves, and a variety of colors. Soothing appearances help productivity you know.
Re:Ahh, blind zealotry (Score:4, Insightful)
In a few more years the computer technology industry will become a consumer electronics industry. People will not care how the applicance works, so long as it fetchs email, browses the web, and archives Buffy episodes. It will make no more sense then to ask what is under the hood of (what is now called) a personal computer than it does to ask what kind of compressor is running in your refrigerator. Unless you are the equivalent of a refrigerator repair person. But repair people do not run the world, do not determine the future of technology, and do not have any special place in the pantheon of labor. They are like crows, waiting for something to fail so they can profit. They contribute little to the advancement of technology. This is the future fate of tech-glorifying nerds who today think someone is stupid if they don't buy a PC over a Mac based on specifications of the component parts.
A better use of your time would be to find a solution to spam, or invent a fail-safe operating system for information applicances, or devise sensible ways to limit child access to porn, or some other interesting challenge that, indeed, makes no big deal of what is under the hood. If you are not up to the task then you can either go back to school or leave the rest of us alone while we focus our adult attention on things that matter.
Re:Has anyone ever been forced to use a Mac? (Score:3)
I started working at Apple in their datacenters doing Unix Admin and Disaster Recovery work. When I started MacOS X wasn't even in Public Beta, so the PowerMac sitting on my desk had MacOS 9.04 on it. Trying to do AIX & Solaris admin from that box was absolutely horrible! Within weeks I had a new Sun Ultra5 on my desk next to the Mac for the Unix work I needed to do, the Mac ran email, calendar/scheduling, and problem tracking system.
Once MacOS X hit Public Beta I was allowed to run it on my system there (actually encouraged to assist in finding bugs). That's the point that I can truly say I started liking the Mac. I hated the "Classic" MacOS and have been free from it since Jaguar was released (didn't install Classic when I reinstalled on my PowerBook).
I left Apple a year ago, but did buy a PowerBook while still working there. I now use my Mac for everything except the couple of PC only games I play.
Re:BDSM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not to be TOO karma-suicidal, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better Poll (Score:5, Insightful)
I know a few people who passed nearly this same M$ Paradise. Some have switched to Linux/BSD. Others remained in Windows. But no one has ever stopped reading the whole slang dictionary over Redmond. And other OS fans can ever repeat the HATRED about Microsoft we and similar people have.
One thing about you Apple fans. Well, you are naive, sometimes look a little bit childish. You may think that we are too straight-head, naive and childish also. But there is one thing I shall say to you. People, you were ABSOLUTELY RIGHT to stick to Apple. You can't imagine how the Hell goes hot in Windows. Keep the faith people. Apple forever!
More info needed... (Score:4, Interesting)
First off, you're using a 6 year old computer.
Now, secondly, you're giving us no real information about your system - how big is the hard drive, is it partitioned multiple times, is it severely fragged, do you have six thousand INITs running, do you have one of the 8600s that had the bad SCSI controller on the internal buss (but not the external buss!), etc.
I mean, I could make the same claim saying that operations on my 6 year old Pentium take forever, and yet not tell you that there's smoke coming out of the hard drive. My point is that you're just not giving us nearly enough information to back up your point that Macs are slow.
In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.
64 MB of RAM, possible bad SCSI controller, maybe horribly fragged hard drive, thousands of INITs, etc, etc, etc...
I have never had the problems you're seeing with a properly maintained machine... of either OS flavor. Maybe it's you? ;)
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs,
No, please do! But this time, actually describe the problems, not one symptom.
but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 300 mhz machine at times.
Which times, doing what, running what programs, blah, blah, blah.
From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
This is not a flame, but I'd like to point out that you've given no reasons that Macs are not faster or more stable (yes, I know they're more expensive... but not if you figure in the cost of tech support in a large office. ;) )
Where I work, we have 6 Macs (used as Audio Workstations) and 180-odd PCs for desktop computing (email/web/office/etc - simple systems).
Our IT department is 4 full-time people, two of whom are just desktop support full-time and the other two help out and also do network administration.
I, OTOH, maintain the Macs as part of my other duties... and it takes about an hour every two months - keep in mind this is purely anecdotal, YMMV. Scale that up 30x to compete with the number of PCs, and you're still talking about less than one full week of my time every two months.
In my experience, primarily due to the proprietary hardware/OS combination (resulting in NO driver issues or hardware incompatibilities, for one), the Macs are far more stable than the PCs, and as a result cheaper. As for speed... these are also 6 year old machines - 7600s, actually, with PowerLogix G3 upgrade cards in 'em. We spent $120 for the computer, and $150 for the upgrade, a year ago, so they're not as fast as they could be by any means. But they are cheap and stable.
Incidentally, 7600/G3 250MHz, 192 MB RAM in each, ProTools 001s, ProToolsLE 5.1, and MacOS 9.1, with no additional unneeded INITs.
-T