Microsoft Losing Big To Apple On Campus 764
destinyland writes "Apple is closing in on Microsoft's share of operating systems among the computers of incoming freshmen at the University of Virginia, confirming earlier reports of an ongoing trend. A yearly survey shows that among 3,156 freshman who own computers, Microsoft's share is just 56% (down 6%), with Apple's share rising to 43% (up 6%), continuing a six-year pattern. In 2004, it was Microsoft 89% vs. 8% for Apple. 'It seems likely that the Mac-using students will outnumber their Windows cousins this school year,' notes one technology blog, citing a new study showing that 70 percent of college freshman are choosing the Mac. Other interesting data from the Virginia study: In 1997, 26% of incoming freshmen said they didn't own a computer, a number which has now dropped to 0. Laptops now comprise 99% of the computer population. And Linux use has dropped from a high of 2.5% in 2004 to a rounding error this year."
LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:2, Insightful)
Linux dropped to a rounding error? Really??
Maybe those running Linux didn't want to goto jail for knowing how to use a hacker OS with that scary black screen and gray text mode or maybe this article is full of shit.
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps there's been an increase in multimedia design students, for which I understand a Mac is best.
Perhaps the decrease in Windows use is due to a drop in enrollment for spreadsheet classes, for which I understand a PC is best.
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Afraid I have to be a bit tough on that one, "student employees of ITC, known as Computing Advisors (CAs), a group of first-year students hired to advise and assist their peers with computing", the tough world of statistics. So the students that require the greatest assistance in computer use are using either Windows or Apple, students using Linux require very little assistance and that's down to rounding error area.
So 43% of computer assistance requests are made by students that use apple computers (reg
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:4, Interesting)
Shame you couldn't be bothered to read beyond the first sentence, and then went on to make a blindingly stupid assumption.
"The data is based on a census of first-year residence halls each fall conducted by the CAs....This table documents how many first-year students brought a personally-owned computer with them to college."
It's nothing to do with counting assistance requests. It's a census of ownership using the population "living in first-year residence halls", not the population "sought assistance with their computing."
Was it poor comprehension on your part, or just a demonstration of how far an OS fanatic is prepared to twist any facts that don't match his preconceptions?
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Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:4, Interesting)
Come on.
Before IBM jumped on the bandwagon, the little computers people bought for themselves were known as personal computers. Then, when IBM saw that those just might cut into their business of selling big, expensive computers, they tried an experiment selling small, (relatively) cheap, computers using off-the-shelf parts, and came up with the imaginative name of IBM Personal Computer.
When the IBM clones came, they were called IBM PC compatible. That got shortened to PC compatible, and eventually we had just PC. Now, most people "know" PCs as separate from Macs even though Apples were PCs before "PCs" were.
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know if you're sarcastic, but I can't stand the stupidity of your comment.
I know you're just trolling, but I can't stand the stupidity of your comment. The term "Personal Computer" has nothing at all to do with IBM. It refers to consumer-based computers, and the term was around a full decade before IBM shipped their first PC (frankly, IBM did not believe the PC would ever take off - they thought it was just a fad).
The first complete personal computer (not an electronics kit) was the Commodor PET. The first commercially successful personal computer was the Apple ][. The best selling PC model of all time, the Commodore 64, was released just a year after the first IBM-PC, and the IBM machine didn't touch the Commadore's 17 million unit sales figure (obviously).
IBM, frankly, was almost a decade late to the party. They sold a very expensive desktop in the mid 70's for scientific and business use, but nothing at all targeted to the home user until the early 80's.
The association between the IBM compatible PC and the term "PC" was gradual. It was fueled by IBM's growing popularity in the 80's, and cemented by Microsoft's business savvy - in particular, by not selling their OS to IBM, allowing it to be licensed for use on any compatible hardware. Since hardware had to be made compatible with the IBM to use DOS, and DOS was the only real OS a hardware manufacturer could buy without writing their own, the IBM compatible PC and Microsoft took off like a rocket ship.
Eventually, PC became synonymous with IBM compatible PC, but it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the name of the first IBM PC. It was simply because the IBM PC was so popular in the 80s, that if you were going to buy a "PC", you were going to buy an IBM or IBM compatible PC.
In other words, you're an idiot, so why don't you please die instead?
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You're overreaching there. The PET was released in 1977, the IBM PC in 1981. That's 4 years, not a decade. And both were marketed to business primarily, not consum
Apple: putting the camp in campus since 1993 (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder why that analogy sprang to mind when reading an Apple story.
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He didn't actually say you can't.
He did, however, say, "No they really don't. It's why you can't run Mac OS on an IBM PC-compatible, without some major hacking.", where "they really don't" refers to "They use the SAME INSTRUCTION SET."
The statement "No, they really don't" is false; they really do run the same instruction set, for all sane definitions of "instruction set". The reasons why "major hacking" is required have nothing to do with the instruction set the processors used in Intel Macs and the processors used in PC-compatible machi
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:4, Insightful)
and it's free- something that ought to appeal to poor starving college students.
Most college students purchase a computer before their freshman year and intend it to last throughout their entire four year program. That means they are still at home, still largely unphased by the costs of college, and living far more dependently on their parents' income than they will on campus.
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>>>That means they are still at home, still largely unphased by the costs of college
Good point. A former teacher just asked my recommendation for her college-bound kid. I searched the advertisements and said, "Here's a nice HP laptop for $350, or you can get the better Toshiba with double the RAM for $450. Both hav the latest Windows 7 OS." Well my ex-teacher followed my advice but her kid had a fit and insisted she "had" to have a MacBook...... they ended-up spending $1500.
Kids don't care if
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:4, Informative)
Well you're either lying or simply mistaken.
http://apple.com/store [apple.com]
Choose the macbook. Add all the internal upgrades (RAM, HDD)
And it's not even close to $1,500. Not to mention as a teacher (and with her daughter being a student) they'd be entitled to a fairly big discount, at least 15% when I bought mine.
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not lying but maybe the teacher was - SHE'S the one who said it cost her $1500.
The cheapest MacBook is still $1000..... still a hell of a lot more than $350 or $450 for the WIN7 machine. Way overpriced. Why buy an Acura when a Honda is just as good (and made by the same company besides)?
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Insightful)
The $450-range Toshibas are pieces of shit. The 15" laptops have horrible ergonomics and build quality. They feel like they're going to fall apart if you move them around too much and the keyboards are off-center from the screen which makes them horribly uncomfortable to type on. The number pad they so "thoughtfully" include isn't used nearly enough to make up for the ridiculous ergonomics. Even the smaller laptops are bulky and don't fit well in backpacks or messenger bags. The power supplies are monsters and have very fragile feeling DC connectors. If you tilt your laptop back a little too far you're likely to snap the damn thing off in the plug. They're also really unbalanced so tilting your screen back too far will cause your laptop to topple backwards.
You can (and obviously will) naysay Mac laptops but at least some thought went into their industrial design. They fit neatly into bags because they don't have oddly shaped bottom panels that catch on things. The MagSafe adapter has saved me from destroying my computer on a number of occasions, and they go to sleep and then wake up from sleep very quickly. I'll spend the extra money to get a laptop with features that actually make it nice to use. Bullet point features like a faster CPU or RAM don't mean a whole lot when I'm putting it into or pulling it out of a bag a hundred times a week.
The justification would be the same as for the nicer car, if the car feels nice and has better fit and finish it's probably worth the extra money. You interact with the fit and finish every single second you're using the thing. If it's build cheaply you feel it every time you touch it. I'll get a car with power windows and locks so I don't have to check every door handle when I get out like a rube to make sure they're all locked. I can roll all the windows down at once when it's been sitting in the sun so I don't need to crank the AC when I get in it. I'll get the more comfortable seat that's easier to adjust because I sit in it every single day.
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse you?
The $450 toshiba laptops are fine and half the models in that range come without a keypad.
On the other hand I prefer my $550 lenovo. They did include a keypad but with thin keys, making the keyboard about normal sized since the screen is 16:9, which I prefer anyways and have on all of my desktops. I could have gotten a $400 lenovo or toshiba but I wanted a video chip that didn't have intel written on it.
The three macbooks I've used on the other hand I can't stand, the keys all have that weird feeling like theres already a fine powder spilled on them. Other than that, which admittedly is a personal pet peeve and probably doesn't apply ot a lot of other people, they're fine ergonomically, but by no means far superior to any other laptop.
Also they should check the numbers on how many people buy a mac going into college, realize its an expensive piece of shit after a year(Compatibility? Whats that?) and have to go buy a real computer anyways. I personally know 3 people that have "had to have" one and were immediately disgusted that they had spent so much money on something that offered very little extra and was actually worse in some cases. Of those people 1 admits it freely and 2 give you a strange look and espouse the virtues of the mac while already having admitted they won't buy another one.
Compatibility (Score:3, Insightful)
There is more to measuring compatibility than naming off an office productivity app. Far more insidious is the business apps that run local and have no Mac or Linux counter part. These apps are legion, because those corporations aren't software companies, so they write one version...for Windows. Where I work, the computing landscape is littered with these apps. For accounting. For sales. For engineering. For manufacturing. I have to support every MS OS in one form or another because of this. A one-
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and they go to sleep and then wake up from sleep very quickly.
I finally got around to using the Windows 7 upgrade I bought (on pre-order so it's been a while - it was just too cheap to pass up, but I never figured it would be much of an improvement). My formerly Vista laptop now wakes from sleep, with network connection, just as fast as my girlfriends Mac! (like 2 seconds) I am kicking myself for waiting so long...
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Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:4, Insightful)
Why buy an Acura when a Honda is just as good (and made by the same company besides)?
This is telling. I'd buy the Acura. Heck, I drive a Lexus instead of a Toyota. They may be made by the same company, but they aren't the same car. The noise suppression alone is worth the difference in cost, but there are a dozen other reasons to choose the Lexus too, including resale value, dealer support, complementary car if you ever need warranty service, etc.
It all comes down to what you value. If you value price above all else, you're not the target audience for a Mac. If you care about elegance, simplicity, compatibility, and longevity, Macs are not a bad deal.
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I don't think you are lying, just missing salient details.
Most MacBooks will last a long time; 6 years would be about average, but 7 years or more is not uncommon. That's better than twice as long as any other laptop manufacturer. So consider the useful life of the machine before you throw money away on garbage. Because, no matter what, you get what you pay for. I don't even have to know what the machine is to tell you a $1500 machine is gonna be a lot better than a $350 machine. They aren't made of the sa
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Insightful)
I've done countless comparisons of Macs to comparable Lenovo's, Dells, HPs, etc. For comparably equivalent machines, (sames size LED backlit IPS panel, same HD size and speed, same bus, memory, processor, bluetooth, camera, etc, etc) with comparable software (that generally means Win 7 Home Ultimate) Macs are, generally, 10% to 20% more, and not way overpriced.
Generally the Mac will have less ports, but has as compensation the large multi-touch track pad, the smaller mag safe power adapters, and that ultra-rigid unibody design.
I don't consider it overpriced, but it may be over spec'd.
I know the average Mac user doesn't actually know how to use a computer
as for this piece of GP AC weaksauce, the average Windows user doesn't know anymore about using a computer than the average Mac user. That's because they're, uh, average users. The person who actually knows how to really use a computer is in reality pretty rare - most people just learn (barely) how to use the software they need and do things by rote, and this isn't limited to Mac users. I see people double-clicking links in IE all the time...
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Insightful)
riiiiight....cause no Mac machine has ever had a manufacturing flaw, or problems related to cost-cutting measures. All the other machines fail at least 5 times a year and the Mac computers run flawlessly.
Nobody ever has to bring their Macbook to the Apple store because of optical drive failures, broken internal video cables, or hard drive failures. Gosh, Apple's NEVER been on the ass-end of a class action lawsuit for not supporting their hardware flaws and pretending they don't exist!
It's only those guys who buy cheap PC hardware who have to hang out with the Geek Squad all day or week.
Only Windows 7 barfs and never MacOS, that's why They took FORCE QUIT off the main drop down menu right? (Oh wait....hey!)
This is the kind of complete hyperbolic drivel that makes people who actually work with a wide variety of computers on a daily basis hate Mac fanboys.
I wish there were a planet that actually existed that was as beautiful as the one you fantasize that you live in...it'd be nice for me as an IT worker to have such an easier job where we could all get Macs and save fortunes and hours of time because they're perfect.
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Only Windows 7 barfs and never MacOS, that's why They took FORCE QUIT off the main drop down menu right? (Oh wait....hey!)
Apple can't guarantee the quality of the applications you run on your mac. The force quit is there when an application hangs. Blaming Apple for putting a force quit option in their OS is like blaming Lexus for putting air bags in their cars because with all the other safety features a Lexus has, it's uncrashable!
If you're going to bash on Apple for karma, at least find valid talking points.
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:4, Insightful)
Please don't insult us by saying that Win7 is just as good as OSX.
Please don't insult Windows by claiming that OSX is anywhere near as good as it, let alone better than it.
The hardware is better and the software is better.
The hardware is the same, but costs more (inexplicably). The software is worse. Neither of those is a compelling reason to choose a brand. In fact, they are the compelling reasons that keep me away.
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you think is going to happen now that OSX is reaching a sizeable portion of the market ?
Maybe it will get hit by viruses... or maybe it won't. I can't predict the future, and neither can you. I do note that the article you linked to is dated 2006... four years have passed since it was written, and the virus apocalypse has yet to arrive for Macs.
Oh, and guess what's going to happen to your shiny computer when you start installing third party software to try and fix the problem
Hmmm... the second link is titled "Mac OS X anti-virus software: More trouble than it's worth".... i.e. it's do-nothing software at the moment, because it has very little to protect against.
Sorry you can't say that OSX antivirus is "not getting viruses in the first place".
Sure I can, because that is currently the case: OSX machines simply aren't being attacked by viruses. It's like living in Argentina during World War II. The country's defenses may or may not be adequate to hold off the Nazis, but unless and until the country is actually attacked, it's not a problem for anyone. Yes, a virus could break out tomorrow that causes all kinds of problems for Mac users... but that's true of any OS. In the meantime it's silly to demand to run anti-virus software when the number of viruses is so small that the base OS can keep up with them by itself.
Stop calling them liars (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop calling them either liars or idiots. You are the one who is way off. Take a Macbook, expand it from 2GB to 4GB, change the 250GB drive to 500GB, add iWork, add Microsoft Office home and student edition, and add Applecare because now you've got quite a lot riding on a measly 1 year warranty. You're looking at $1676.95. And that's without Aperture, Logic Express, Final Cut, Filemaker, no DVI adapter, and no airline adapter. Just that stuff will take you up to $2491.90, and that's the CHEAP version of Filemaker.
So, $1500.00 is easily reached with the bottom of the line Macbook, even with a 15% discount.
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Listen up. The post I originally replied to called the people liars for saying they paid $1500 for a Macbook. I demonstrated that you can easily pay $1500 - and in fact a whole lot more - for a Macbook. That's all. I didn't compare anything to anything. Prattle on if you must. ou're not proving anything.
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And there is a very important thing that Windows users love to deny, but I witness each and every day: The typical Windows machine is constantly in need of attention for malware, driver problems, and so forth. Macs... aren't. You can debate the reasons until the sun goes down, but it doesn't change the fact that a Mac requires a lot less maintainance from its owner.
That only holds true if the problem is not the owner. In the majority of cases, that is the problem. Because I don't click yes on every link I see offering me free porn, or to enlarge my penis, or to download pink kitty icons, I don't (as a rule) have problems with malware. Your other reason, drivers, is complete bullshit. My drivers got installed once. When the OS was installed. On my machine I did it (since I installed the OS), on the average user's machine it would be done by the manufacturer... but stil
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Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Informative)
>>>you are missing an important detail: quality.
Toshiba is rated #2 in long term reliability,
Apple is rated #4.
http://voyager8.blogspot.com/2010/04/most-reliable-laptop-brands-are.html [blogspot.com] - But of course you will now come back and tell me why thee FACTS should be ignored, in order to bolster your religious belief that Apple is better quality than Toshiba. It's like debating evolution with a Christian... you never get anywhere.
.
>>>Windows laptops, unless they happen to be a Mac, are good for about a year and a half. Then they get pretty annoying. After 3 years, they are nearly unusable. By year 5, lets be honest, they collect dust and prevent papers from blowing away, and nothing else.
>>>
My Winodws98 laptop is over ten years and works just fine.
An OS 9 Macbook? Not so much.
Won't run Opera, won't run Safari, won't run iTunes, won't run IE. (They all require 10.4 or higher.)
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If the build quality you experience with PC notebooks is low, it's because you are buying crappy notebooks, it has absolutely nothing to do with OS or hardware.
Just admit you are a snob and be done with it. No one really cares that you drank the kool-aide. Hell, computer people have been drinking the kool-aide for a couple
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>>>I do not think Linux is such a terrible operating system that it would see no use whatsoever
Maybe it is being used, but the students checked "Windows" because that's the primary OS installed on their machine? I'm surrpsied how far Mac has come. When I visited Penn State 1.5 years ago, I went to all the old Mac labs but they no longer existed. Everything had been converted to IBM PC compatibles. Ditto another local college which had just 6 Macs on the whole campus (located in the music buil
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Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Interesting)
At my college (an engineering college) you'll find it nearly impossible to find anyone that uses a mac. 90% or more of the students here have windows based machines, only an odd handful of people have macs. That's for numerous reasons.
1. macs are bloody expensive. A lot of mac models have really nice hardware, but this is completely negated by their price. You can buy a nice windows based laptop for about $800. A comparable mac laptop is somewhere around $1200 at the minimum.
2. macs won't run the software required for a lot of engineering. Now, let's be very clear here. This isn't idiot college admins making windows software mandatory when there are suitable alternatives. The software we use is stuff like solidworks (3d modeling program) and NI labview. These applications have no OSS equivalent. Even if they did, these applications are industry standard so it actually makes a lot of sense to use them.
3. Most of the people here are smart enough not to fall for the hype that apple likes to spew. "Thinking different" is great and all, until your computer costs 3 times as much as everything else and isn't even compatible with what you need to do. People here are generally smart enough not to fall for the "OHHH! SHINY!!!!" factor that macs have going for them.
And now to my second point. How was this study done? Did they survey every student on campus? Did they just ask the people that hung out in the local starbucks (and thus skew it towards mac users)? Did they send an email to the mac users group and ask them what systems they used? Does this university focus on liberal arts, engineering, both? How many people are from each department? I looked it up on wikipedia, but couldn't find detailed statistics. Different professions and fields of study demand different computers. Multimedia generation and editing will be done on mac, engineering stuff will be done on windows, and experimental physics stuff is generally done on linux.
And of course this survey is only about INCOMING FRESHMEN. What about the people that have been there for 3 years? How many people stuck with their mac? How many people found it to be worthless, sold it, and bought a windows machine?
Long story short: This study should be taken about as seriously as political polls.
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For things that you couldn't do with a mac, you used windows. I really don't see how you call paying for vmware fusion, paying for windows, then having to run a second virtual computer just to use one software package "no problems using a mac". Sure, you might be using a mac, but it's a mac running windows.
Running HSPICE on unix machines remotely also doesn't count as "using a mac" because you aren't using a ma
free (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people don't care about "free" when all they see are computers for sale that come with the "free" operating system already installed. Very few people really buy a barebones computer and then go pay retail or otherwise acquire some OS. All they see is a bundled price, this has been industry standard for like forever, so that is how it goes. A starving student will buy used, and THAT will come with a "free" operating system on it.
Yes, it SHOULD have been made a requirement at the retail level ages ago to SHOW the software cost in the total bill, or to force these guys to offer alternatives, but the government didn't care, people didn't seem to care, so there ya go. It's just what comes with the machine, so the software is "free enough" for people.
And for that matter, very few people build their own desktops, and when it comes to laptops, that falls way way down to insignificant levels, even within the hard core tech savvy crowd. They may wipe the disk and install something else, but the incidence of barebones laptops or build from scratch laptops is microscopic in terms of numbers. It is possible, just very unlikely.
So "free" or Free never enters the picture for most people. Just the way it is.
And that deal with Dell and Canonical..from day one you could see Dell wasn't sincere about it, it was a sop or something, just to get them shutup and to "prove" to the shareholders or whatever that "linux doesn't sell" so they could eventually abandon the idea and have it go away.. They had "dell recommends windows..yada yada" on top of the pages for the few models with ubuntu they were selling! I mean, WTF, I saw that and thought "no way am I ever buying from them for being such dickheads about it". And there was no price savings, and most models you couldn't get, and you had to hunt to even find those. It was a con from day one. Ya, they would sell you one, but their effort was some sort of con, a half assed attempt designed to fail. That's my opinion of course, can't prove it, but recommending windows on top of the linux computers page is rather glaring evidence that they never were sincere about the effort.
The fix has been in for a long long time now. Wintel on your boxes, or now Apple has such good cred with phones and whatnot they are using that to boost sales with their other offerings, and free operating systems are relegated to mostly server use and the one dude out of a thousand-that's it, one in a thousand maybe- who geeks out with the hardware. And even there the free software enthusiasts are dwarfed by just the gamers. Heck, most hardware geeking that kids do revolves around video games, I don't think this can be disputed, so that means Windows.
It looked for awhile that netbooks might provide the big breakthrough, but that is lost now as well, back to mostly windows on those things from the manufacturers.
I like linux just swell, use it exclusively. never tried any of the BSDs but I assume they work fine as well. so now you have to ask the question, why having totally free stuff doesn't work, and the only credible answer is, it isn't a real mainstream business, and there is no credible mainstream retail level business to be made from it. As such, it will continue to exist, but at low levels and "hidden" like in various gadgets with embedded systems, android phones, etc. But mainstreet-mainstream desktops and laptops, DOA. When Free and free doesn't work, it is no longer much of a viable business model, if it ever was to begin with.
Now if someone with really DEEP pockets wanted to out canonical canonical, and do a "stack", hardware plus guaranteed to work free software offering (just offering the software is not a real business model with any hope), and then advertised the snot out of it nation wide/globally..perhaps.
Short of that, small mom and pop "linux installed" sales, and a few enthusiasts, and that's it. And half the enthusiasts (right here on slashdot for one example) still use windows and a
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Linux dropped to a rounding error? Really??
That's essentially where Linux stands in the July stats from Net Applications. The iPhone at 0.7%. Linux, all flavors, at 0.9%. Operating System Market Share [netmarketshare.com]
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Depends on how they're counting the installs - notice that they ask in the survey about their "primary" OS... so dual-boots would likely translate to "Windows", since they'd use that on their non-mac computers for the majority of their actual schoolwork (read: Office docs, especially those ending in *.docx, *.xlsx, and such).
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:4, Insightful)
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Perhaps the headline should be "PC Vendors Losing Big To Apple On Campus".
Surveys dealing with what kind of hardware people buy or plan to buy may not even ask what OS will be used, or if more than one OS will be installed. Certainly there are some people using Macs with more than one OS, but the share totals don't add up to more than 100% proving my point.
I think if a little effort were made to educate students to some of the advantages of Linux, many of those with PCs would at least add it to not be tota
Re:LINUX rounds numbers fine (Score:5, Interesting)
http://itc.virginia.edu/wireless/encrypted.html [virginia.edu]
At the bottom:
*ITC provides limited support for these operating systems to connect to the unencrypted wahoo wireless network.
Sounds like they basically tell incoming freshman, "Don't use 'Linux,' use Windows or Mac OS X, or else we will not help you." Here is something else to consider:
http://www.uvastudentcomputers.com/shop_undergrad.asp?mscssid=30F0745C151949448828BA5BF0423D90 [uvastudentcomputers.com]
Notice that they place Apple's laptops higher on the page than Dell's or Lenovo's -- and that they choose words like "fastest" and "most powerful" to describe them (compare with the descriptions of other machines). This store is located in UVa's bookstore, and so incoming students are likely to purchase their computers from there. No surprise, then, that so many students at UVa are using Apple products.
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They even tried to help me with an issue connecting with WPA - which ultimately is a Linux problem not their network's.
That's funny, I am on a WPA connection right now, and my university uses enterprise WPA, which my Fedora laptop has no issue with at all.
Basically it's no problem and I suspect a lot of people who run Linux like me are realizing how good MBPs are and so are using them as school computers. You don't want to run into problems with Linux right when you need your computer for something important, and OS X is the most stable platform for that while also being very geek friendly.
You know, some of us consider proprietary software to be un-friendly, and avoid Mac OS X for the same reason we avoid Windows.
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Wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
Joking aside, I wonder how much that market share number changes when you look at the mobile market. I'd bet 95% of incoming students have cell phones of one type or another. I'd also bet that Windows-based mobile phones are probably near zero percent, with iPhone and Android sharing the lion's share of the market, but it'd be interesting to see what those numbers are for college students as compared to the outside world.
Oblig Simpons quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux use has dropped from a high of 2.5% in 2004 to a rounding error this year.
Paraphrasing Principal Skinner: Why, there are no children using Linux, either! Am I so out of touch? (pauses to think) No, it's the children who are wrong.
Now we wait (Score:2)
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Wouldn't it be easier to just watch them adapt?
I'm sure the majority of COBOL and FORTRAN programmers back in the '70s and '80s are still alive today, after all...
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Oh, we're alive, all right, but as to how many of us have decent tech jobs currently... that's something else. We cost more to insure, we tend to be less "hip", and we don't have the energy levels of a 20-year old. Nor are we particularly enthused about working more than a normal workday. And these are the (essentially correct) assumptions us "oldies" face when applying for any job. There
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wouldn't be surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
So, does this mean... (Score:2)
Apple is now the big man on campus?
Office (Score:2)
Which is going to suck extra hard for them given what a complete disaster Microsoft Office for the Mac is!
(iWork is marginally better for some things, but in my experience both MacOffice and iWork suffer from various glaring compatibility problems with Windows Office!)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Surprisingly result (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Surprisingly result (Score:4, Insightful)
UVA is a state school, but is sometimes called the "public Ivy" (Bobby and Ted Kennedy both went to law school there after Harvard). UVA and William & Marry cater more to the polo shirt and pearl set crowd than other state schools here like VCU, ODU, etc, which are more what one would consider "public".
Everyone I know that went to UVA came from a fairly well-to-do background, or had insane amounts of financial aid. A couple of my friends had full-ride scholarships + stipends for undergraduate to UVA.
I would be surprised if more than 10% of the students there couldn't afford a Mac if they wanted one.
Not really (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting result. Certainly isn't the case at my local University. I do wonder about the demographic of the surveyed college? For example are they fairly wealthy? ...
As I said, I am deeply curious how rich these kids are.
UVa is a so-called "public Ivy". It's consistently rated in national Top 25 rankings every single year. Its competitors are schools like the Ivy's, U. of Chicago, the big 3 in California, Northwestern, etc. They're as selective as any Ivy, and so they're attracting the same kind of affluent students. There have been some complaints in the state of Virginia that UVa prefers out of state "stars" to some of its own better students (whether or not that's actually true, I don't know). But most UVa students, academic-wise and income-wise, wouldn't be out of place in any Ivy school. UVa has more in common with Brown or Dartmouth than they do with, say, Penn State.
Re:Surprisingly result (Score:5, Funny)
Bellevue Community College isn't a University... it's a Microsoft Outreach program.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I definitely see the trend growing here in St. Louis, MO -- including with students just getting ready to go away to college. They're not necessary well-off financially, but many of them work over the summer to save up for a new Mac to take with them. (That's exactly what our last babysitter was doing....)
A basic Macbook notebook just isn't all that expensive, in the grand scheme of things! I find it interesting so many PC/Windows users act like anything with the Apple logo on it is unattainably expensiv
Maybe it's the hardware.. (Score:5, Interesting)
You can run Windows on a Mac when you need.. But if you buy a Mac for the better hardware specs, you might as well play with the Mac OS - which you'll find runs smoother on Mac laptops than any Windows-based laptop I have seen. Just try the touchpad on the newest Mac laptop and you'll see it is far superior to any touchpad on any Windows laptop available now.
Seriously.. the laptops available for Windows fucking suck. They're shit. They're all shit since IBM sold Thinkpad to Lenovo. Dell makes shit. HP makes shit. The consumer 'Best Buy' laptops are shiny shit. The 'enterprise' class laptops are flimsy shit. Nothing available holds a candle to any of the Mac laptops in terms of hardware. They're all too thick or flimsy or get too hot. The only thing Mac is missing that would allow it to take over the enterprise is a docking station (probably because that's against Steve Job's whackjob religion.)
Show me a Windows laptop with hardware that can hold a candle to Mac's current lineup, and I'll buy one. I'm currently using a Dell M4400 and I think it's a flimsy piece of crap that has a formfactor as usable as a potato chip and somehow it gets good reviews. I don't own any Macs - but other developers I work with use them.
Oh ya.. and Windows 7 is a crappy OS that just happens to be less crappy than Vista.
It's really sad.. I went from being the biggest nerd in the world that had to have every latest and greatest gadget to being the most jaded. Every new electronic device from cell phones to laptops is missing features I used to have with an old device. At least Mac is making an attempt to introduce higher quality with newer devices. Every other company is racing to offer the cheapest piece of Chinese shit they can find.
If I haven't affended you a little, it's because I spent so little effort in my rant. Am I the only one that is completely annoyed by the lack of technological progression in consumer electronic devices - both hardware, software, and everything else that has to do with them?
Better hardware - HP EliteBooks (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, I accept your challenge: The HP EliteBook line. (Which are never in stock at Best Buy/Future Shop.)
I'm typing this on a three year old HP 2710p which has since become the 2740p. It's an extremely tough 3.6lb machine with a lovely screen and stylus support, trackpad and trackpoint, a light (like the ThinkPad lights). The battery is rated for 5:30, up to 11 with an optional slice. It can take a very slim dock for extra USB, DVD, video, etc. The 2740p has both touch and stylus support and can be conf
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously.. the laptops available for Windows fucking suck. They're shit. They're all shit since IBM sold Thinkpad to Lenovo.
You have a good point. I remember when I worked at university's IT department we treated Apples and Thinkpads as equals. When an affluent professor asked for a laptop recommendation, we recommended one of those, depending on OS choice. When a poor postdoc or a graduate student needed a laptop with the most computing bang for buck, we offered to setup a Dell Inspiron (price/performanc
Re:Maybe it's the hardware.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
On top of that, you can use Quick Look. Just select the first file, press the space bar, and you have a lightweight window that displays a preview of your file. Just press the up/down or left/right keys (depending on your view) to scroll through files. It can display previews of photos, videos, documents, you name it. The way they integrated this extremely useful feature into the OS is one of the best things about OS X, so I'm surprised that people don't know about it.
Granted, it was a feature introduced in
Re:Maybe it's the hardware.. (Score:4, Insightful)
As a mac user, i must say the GP makes a good point and point out that the first 2 methods you mention won't show pictures in full screen and are thus crappy. The 3rd one is not intuitive. How would someone know this wouldn't open dozens or hundreds of preview windows?
A 4th solution is to import all the pictures into iPhoto but it's needlessly time and disk consuming for the purpose stated.
Apple needs to fix this. That is all.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
On 10.5 and later, select the image and hit the space key. Use arrow keys as required to navigate.
In 10.4, press Command+(1/2/3) to switch views. Command+2 is 'scientific', Command+3 is 'programmer'.
If your movie is full screen, hit Command+Shift+3 and it'll create a picture on your desktop. If your movie is wi
Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Private High Schools too (Score:2, Interesting)
Recently the private school my daughter goes to went 100% Macbooks and servers. Support and forced upgrade costs pushed the IT department to draw a line in the sand and decreed absolutely no MS allowed (except for Office).
Of course it's a double-edged sword. There's higher upfront costs but the TCO is greatly lowered through IT not having to deal with the all the problems related to using Microsoft software. And switching from one monopoly with crappy products to another potential monopoly with ok produc
Statistics are sometimes skewed for convenience... (Score:2, Informative)
The real reason students and rents are buying Macs (Score:5, Informative)
I answer help desk phone calls at a large research university that brings in about 10,000 freshmen a year. It's very common for them, or their parents to ask "Which kind of laptop should we buy, PC or Mac?". It's not that they don't like one or the other, or they don't know the difference. It's not that they care which is cheaper, or which looks prettier. It's not that there's a particular processor that's better than another, or the graphics chipset is faster, or any of the geek stuff that we argue about.
They just want to know, for this campus, which machine will give them or their kid the least amount of hassle while doing everything they need to get through four years of classes. Will it run MS Office? Does it work with the on-campus apps (online class material, email, calendar, etc)? Is it going to break and cost me more money in two years? If it *does* break, how much of a PITA is it to get it fixed?
When people, incoming students or parents, ask which they should buy, I tell them honestly that I have a 13" white MacBook with OpenOffice that does everything I need for all of my classes, works with all of the on-campus apps I need to deal with, and generally causes me no grief, and I like it.
When people ask me which is better for dealing with viruses, I answer that 100% of the calls I receive for malware/virus infections are from PC users; I add that I still run antivirus software on my Mac, and the university requires all Mac users to run it, but I've never taken a Mac virus call. I am enough of a hacker to know that Mac OS X is not perfect, and that it has security holes. But I've yet to take a call that dealt with the results of one, and I've taken plenty of calls for Windows machines whose end resolution was a complete reinstall.
After that explanation, people go next door to the store and buy a Macbook, and I never hear from them again unless they have forgotten a password.
That, friends, is why Apple is kicking the crap out of machines running Windows.
Your message in one line (Score:3, Insightful)
Your post can be summed up in one line:
Computer *USERS* want the least amount of hassles to get the job done.
That is something many of the computer *ENTHUSIASTS* in the FOSS community do not understand, can't keep up with or refuse to accept, finding the idea offensive. That is why Linux is barely on the map ( I am and have been a linux user for 10 years ).
Microsoft won its market share on price for "good enough" quality versus excellent quality at a stiffer price.
That was a long time ago. As the article
Re:The real reason students and rents are buying M (Score:5, Insightful)
And when Apple has a decent market share (which is what you're helping them achieve), the security holes will get exploited.
Okay, look, I'm sick and tired of this argument. Market share doesn't mean shit, installed base does-- malware authors are not looking at market share reports and saying, "Oh, if only Apple had x%, I would SO write for OS X!" The installed base of OS X today dwarfs that of the classic Mac OS that existed in the 90s, back when Apple had ~15% market share. Yet malware was quite a bit more of a problem in the classic Mac OS days than it has been in the OS X era.
It was worth people's trouble to write malware for an OS that had several million fewer machines running it back then, but it's not worth their time today for an OS that has a much larger user population? Care to try to explain that?
~Philly
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The reason OS X doesn't have any malware is not technical, it's economic. Back in the days of Classic viruses were mostly written for kicks by people who were essentially hobbyist programmers. These days viruses are mostly developed for profit by people in developing countries, in particular ex Soviet states.
This shows us a few reasons for what is observed. The first is that malware writers target the OS they use themselves because that's what they're familiar with. Apples laptop lines are selling like gang
What study actually shows this? (Score:5, Informative)
I did a quick search and it appears I am not alone in thinking this guy is making up these numbers.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/08/07/big-macs-on-campus/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+fortuneapple20+(FORTUNE:+Apple+2.0) [cnn.com]
I wager he just shorted the stock and knew apple fan boys would parrot his lies.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Different populations (Score:5, Informative)
So is it my turn to talk about how you probably shorted the apple stock and new that the apple haters would parrot your lies?
Doesn't jive with what I've seen either (Score:5, Interesting)
I work at a university and I can confirm that you see a lot more Macs there than in the population at large. Number of reasons for this:
1) Apple is in with the hipster crowd and a lot of university students are. It is "cool" to own a Mac so they do for that reason alone. Same reason they'll spend $60 (really) on an Ed Hardy T-shirt (there's an Ed Hardy store right next to campus)
2) They tend to have more disposable income in that regard and income they aren't attached to. Normally their parents buy them a computer since all programs recommend it and some require it. Easier to spend extra money when the cost isn't your direct consideration.
3) The university computer store pushes Apple really heavy. The staff there are Mac fans and Apple gets a large amount of floor space, and that space is right near the entrance.
So you see a lot. But the majority? No not really. Also there's a big difference between Apple winning and MS losing. The computer store also does brisk business in Windows licenses and VMWare Fusion. Part of the reason Macs are now viable is that they run Windows. One of our student workers told an amusing story of the first test for 1Ls at law school. You have to have a laptop for it, they use a crappy automated testing software. Also, said software is Windows ONLY. This is clearly stated in the materials you get. This leads to much whining from the Mac owners, and then a run to the bookstore to buy Windows 7 and install it with bootcamp (said crap software won't run in virtualization mode).
Same kind of thing in the department I work in. We have a number of professors that buy Macs for their labs. In some cases, they only get a few. Their desktop, maybe a couple others are Mac and are used mainly for word processing and Internet surfing, maybe some Matlab work. The research systems are Windows. In others they are all Mac, and right after they get their shiny new Mac, they have us get a license for Windows 7 and Fusion. We have a number of important software packages that are Windows only. Also paying a premium for a Mac for a desktop isn't such a big deal, it is grant money anyhow. Paying a premium for a bunch of computers for simulations, well that is a bit harder to justify.
So ya, the point of all this rambling is that I've no doubt Mac sell well on campus, that is easy to see. However I do doubt that it is a majority, and I doubt even more that it is hurting MS.
Brain Limit (Score:3, Interesting)
College can be very demanding and any time at all spent paying attention to a computer or its software or its operation needs to be avoided. Linux is a superior OS but there is a learning curve and the time spent paying attention to the computer may drain the constant pressure towards narrow concentration on subject matters. Back in the day we used to see hackers who used Apple machines simply because they wanted to use all of their concentration in penetration of other peoples' systems.
unprepared for employment? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wouldn't lack of experience with Windows be a detriment to someone looking for employment in the business world, where Windows runs on well over 90% of all computers? I realize you can run Windows on a Mac, and many people do, but that seems like an expensive approach to gaining these valuable skills.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh and Windows skills are in shortage?
I'd sooner be proficient in a Unix based OS and know some really sought after skills than simply know only Windows.
Owning a Mac or using a Linux machine means you get exposure to Windows and OSX/Linux since Windows boxes are unavoidable.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Useless Computers, Useless Degrees (Score:4, Insightful)
Proficiency in OSX does not equate to proficiency with Unix.
I can guarantee the vast majority of OSX users have no idea that it is based on unix.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It is the year of Linux on the desktop if you count smartphones as desktops
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
... considering Apple does not even offer Macbooks with core i3's. You must get core i5 or i7 and pay out the wazoo (to the tune of $1700+) for it or else you're stuck with core 2 duo's, as far as I know. Then again, UVa is not a tech school and so I don't expect many of their incoming class to know or care. Meanwhile, my $500 dollar laptop from a local store 4 years ago still runs AutoCAD 2010 just fine with a $40 RAM upgrade.
Not everyone's primary concern is finding a cheap computer. Apple has always shied away from bottom feeding and releasing cheap computers. The real telling one would be to find out how much of the Microsoft percentage went with them over price. If 3/4 of the Microsoft camp went that way over price then the numbers may be heavily slanted for Mac already.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm surprised at this... (Score:4, Insightful)
The only reason the colleges can even get away with that is because of the interest-free loans and other moneys that the students don't have to actually work for. My bet is that once they're out on their own, having to pay their own bills, whatever the perceived value-add that Apple has will be as obsolete as their college computers.
Re:I'm surprised at this... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a LOT of programs at most universities that require you to buy a Mac.
I'm currently a college Junior and have never encountered this. What programs require a Mac, and why?
Re:The Apple Way of Life (tm) (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. Apple provides installed access to the UNIX terminal underlying the OS, includes an X server on the install DVD so you can run most (free) UNIX software with a simple recompile, and also puts their development suite, including full documentation, on the install DVD so you can do that recompile, or write some apps of your own.
Very locked down.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sheer speculation: laptops are very different from phones. Given Apple's move to the Intel architecture and the introduction of Boot Camp, their computer division is even moving away from lockdown, since you're not even locked into using their OS anymore.
Re:Wait, let me get this right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent is either stupid or a troll. I don't care which.
Look, regardless of what you think about Macs and PCs, how many *average* PC users keep a computer more than 5 years and are satisfied with it? How about Mac users? I don't know about you, but in my sample group, half the Macs I know of acquaintances having are several years old. It never occurs to them to replace it.
Contrast that with the PC users I know, who end up buying a brand new computer every 2-3 years since 'it's broken'. Now I know it just needs a reformat to be good as new, but they don't.
Average non-technical liberal arts major hears "Our 5 year old Macs are working great!" and "My Windows machine crapped out on me in two years" and realizes, unlike you, that the Mac is at worst two and a half times the cost of the Windows machine. So, they make a prudent investment and buy a Mac - security, simplicity, and quality all come free. So, they made the sound financial choice *without considering the time most people lose screwing around with a PC for 5 years*
When you're used car shopping do you pick the 1989 Geo Metro with 200k miles on the transmission for $300 over the 2002 Honda with 80k for $3000? Sure, at first you'll save money - but not for long...
Re:Wait, let me get this right... (Score:4, Informative)
It's easy to argue that Macs last 2.5 times as long when you just make up facts.
If you have a 5-year-old Mac at this point, it's PowerPC so you can't even run many newer applications (nor can you run the latest Mac OS). If it was a laptop, the battery is now pretty much useless (and it's difficult to find replacements) too.
My friend's T60, which he purchased in early 2006, still runs Windows 7 (and Fedora) great.
Lots of people on my campus have Macs, but the majority of them are unibody, which means that they are at most 3 years old. I never see pre-Magsafe Macs, which means that they are at most a little over four years old.
Claiming that "security, simplicity, and quality" all come free is at best misleading.
In 15 years of running Windows, I have never (to my knowledge) been hacked or infected with malware. I use the built-in Windows firewall, install updates as soon as they are available, and (now) I run Microsoft Security Essentials, which is free and easy to install. Time and time again we have seen that being "UNIX-based" doesn't really mean squat from a security perspective in a world where malware and hackers increasingly target applications like browsers and PDF viewers. Safari has not done particularly well in that regard, especially when you compare it with Chrome (which I use) or even IE8, both of which sandbox essentially the entire browser. Apple has repeatedly demonstrated that they did not take security seriously (e.g. DEP which was only added in 10.6, and an ASLR implementation that is still extremely limited).
Simplicity is in the eye of the beholder. I (and many people I know) find Windows to be simpler. Want to use a 5-button (back/forward) mouse on Mac OS? You need special software. On Windows, you just plug it in. In the case of my G5 mouse, Logitech doesn't even make Mac software for it, so you need to use a third-party program. Bind a mouse button to PTT in Ventrilo? Easy in Windows, damn near impossible in Mac OS X. Keep your computer from going to sleep when you shut the lid? Easy in Windows, hard in Mac OS X. Need to connect a Mac to a projector? Make sure you brought your dongle.
Obviously not everyone uses Ventrilo, not everyone has a 5-button mouse, and not everyone needs their laptop to stay on when they close the lid. But these are just the problems that I had when I briefly owned a Mac. But I do dispute the idea that Macs are somehow simpler when I have seen no data to that effect.
As for quality, well, it's been a mixed bag for Mac users. I know a lot of people who have trashed their MagSafe adapters or had their battery recalled and a lot of people who had overheating first-gen MacBooks. I seriously doubt that a plastic MacBook will hold up nearly as well as my (incidentally, cheaper) magnesium-frame ThinkPad T400 if it were dropped. I know that the Mac would do more poorly if Diet Coke were spilled on the keyboard (the T400 has keyboard drains).
Consumer Reports says that Macs are on the low-end for failures, at 19% per year. But Sony (17%), Toshiba (16%), and Compaq (18%) all have fewer repairs yet. Acer is tied with Apple at 19%, HP and Gateway are a point behind at 20%, and Dell/Lenovo are a bit further behind at 21%.
With your supposed "5-year" lifecylce, the chance of a failure in a Mac is 65%. For the worst PCs (Lenovo/Dell), it's 69%. That's not dramatically different.
I think I'm going to go with Consumer Reports rather than some random guy on Slashdot who (supposedly) has a bunch of friends with PowerPC Macs.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Whatever:
1) Not every environment is like the one you work with - my browser doesn't highlight spelling errors, yours does - bravo, your environment has training wheels, that helps you look smarter than you otherwise would appear...
2) I never said students shouldn't protest tuition increases, I simply pointed out the dichotomy of buying expensive computer hardware whilst "crying poverty" when it comes to school tuition.