Tech writer tries to propagate ‘no software for Mac’ myth

44 Comments

“A standard is supposed to be what everyone agrees on, but getting people to agree on anything isn

44 Comments

  3. hey iNewt– if you use Safari, all you need to do is highlight the word you can’t spell and then right click or control click. It will provide spelling suggestions.

    Reply

  4. I think you are over reacting just a bit. The article is not even about Apple. It just made one reference to the fact that there are more applications available for the PC than for the Mac. That is true, though meaningless in itself. In the end, standards are just those devices, processes, materials etc, that a perponderance of any population decide to use. It says nothing about quality, usability, performance or anything that is truly meaningfull. I don’t see any value in this article.

    Reply

  5. There is one area that the Mac is really hurting in…full-fledged, robust, multi-user accounting software with all the bells/whistles. All you have are the lower end, personal/small business packages.
    Had a manufacturer that was more then willing to switch everything over to Macs (desktops/servers) but couldn’t get an accounting package that as robust as they were used to. All were either Windows or Linux.
    So, the Mac lost out. šŸ™

    Reply

  6. Sheesh…..have you ever checked into the quality of some of those applications on PC? Some of them are horrible! Ugggh…and they CHARGE for this crap?

    Help these people!

    I absolutely love some of the high quality app’s the shareware people put out on OSX and they do a better job than some of the PC app’s out there. It amazes me to no end.

    Reply

  9. My charting programs don’t run on macs. I need lots of monitors. VPC isn’t available for g5’s yet (I guess). There could be 36,000 mac apps and it wouldn’t help me. So in fact a mac cannot do everything a pc can everytime. Does it matter? Naw, I don’t get those virus things anyway and use Firefox.

    Windows sufferers might have a crutch, but mac devotees are equipped with cane and walker, always willing to wave one and lean on the other when their ox is gored, even when just imagined.

    Reply

  10. > So in fact a mac cannot do everything a pc can everytime.

    Well neither can a PC run UNIX apps well if it’s OS is from Microsoft, which is pretty limiting in a lot of ways, since there’s tons of specialized software that only runs on UNIX os’s, especially programming-related and server-related stuff. Cygwin and such emulators try to fill this gap, but if you rely on them long enough you’re going to hit a showstopper snag, especially if you use their X windows support.
    So that’s one thing Macs can do that Windows PC’s can’t, as well.

    Reply

  11. George:

    I have been exposed to two of those “full-fledged, robust, multi-user accounting software with all the bells/whistles” packages. Absolute crap. Actually, they were fine for the accountants (go figure) but for everyone else (counter sales, sales staff, maintenance, etc.) they were unusable. They needed to do stuff their way, and then transfer it over to the “full-fledged, robust, multi-user accounting software with all the bells/whistles” accounting package at the end of the period.

    Very compelling.

    Which is not to say that someone shouldn’t write a proper “full-fledged, robust, multi-user accounting software with all the bells/whistles” package for the Mac. I think it would sell like hotcakes.

    Mike

    Reply

  12. I love this quote..”…that generally makes crossing the road an anxious moment because you donļæ½t know which way to look first,” Ed Sperling writes..”

    You know, when I was growing up, you looked BOTH WAYS before crossing…and it didn’t matter which direction you chose first.

    Moron.

    Reply

  14. “Had a manufacturer that was more then willing to switch everything over to Macs (desktops/servers) but couldn’t get an accounting package that as robust as they were used to. All were either Windows or Linux.”

    Linux? Accounting?

    I’m curious, what package did they end up choosing?

    “My charting programs don’t run on macs. I need lots of monitors.”

    I’m a bit confused, Joe. By “monitors”, I assume you mean lots of little devices which monitor things and not “displays.” The reason I bring it up is just that I know the Mac supports as many displays as you can fit graphics cards. I’ve run Macs with four displays (Hey, I had a bunch of leftover graphics cards) just fine. I know Windows will handle multiple displays, too, as long as you don’t remove Internet Explorer from the Operating System… :^)

    I agree, though, that one of those areas where third-party application support for Macintosh sucks is with external hardware devices.

    Reply

  17. “best in class” applications”…including Microsoft Office 2004 (Mac, baybee)!

    Question: what do MOST human beings do with their computers?

    Answer: surf the web, word processing and spreadsheets.

    Fact.

    And any Mac can do these tasks. Therefore…non-issue. Let it die already.

    Reply

  18. That’s AutoCAD.

    I used Vectorworks for awhile. I switched to ArchiCAD.
    Vectorworks does “BIM” light. It freaked me out when
    modeling a building and when switching from 2d to 3d
    and then back, Vectorworks moved walls on me. Now,
    if you are in the trade and this happens and you don’t
    catch it or if you have to constantly spend your time
    making sure that walls and such are staying put…

    I called Vectorworks and they in no way could help. So,
    they are copying ArchiCAD, or it sure looks like it, so it
    is probably getting better.

    But, it is for sure, ArchiCAD is the Mac of the CAD world
    and AutoCAD is the MS Office, other than they don’t
    have a Mac version.

    Do yourself a huge favor, purchase and learn ArchiCAD.
    You have no idea until you do. And you will be using a
    “BIM” based application in the future. AutoDesk is fervently
    trying to incorporate it in to AutoCAD.

    Reply

  19. I love this quote..”…that generally makes crossing the road an anxious moment because you donļæ½t know which way to look first,” Ed Sperling writes..”

    You know, when I was growing up, you looked BOTH WAYS before crossing…and it didn’t matter which direction you chose first.

    Moron.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~
    Uhh.. you look left first. Unless you’re English, in which case.. right. Note the word FIRST in the quote.

    Reply

  20. It’s really only relevant if you could get a dollar for every application on a particular platform.

    Other than the main applications most people need for their daily surfing, resumes and entertainment, why else do you need so many software applications? Choice?

    Choice is fine, but if the choice itself is crap, what’s the point? “Hmmm… I’ll have that fine looking black piece of poo there.”

    Companies talk of “Best of Breed” applications, but still choose to conduct most business using a 2ghz celeron PC running M$ software.

    Reply

  21. I suggested some days ago that we need to organize a whip-round to buy Joe a Mac!

    I still suggest this.

    A ‘Buy Joe McConnell a Mac’ PayPal account at ‘buy-joe-mcconnell-a-mac.com’.

    My contribution to this endevour, is the creation of this idea. It has a retail value of $10US ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />

    Reply

  23. God not this old chesnut again!

    I though the ‘there are no applications for the mac’ died with OS 8.

    Bloody hell – this would be funny if it wasn’t so bloody old history!

    MESSAGE FOR WINDOWS USERS – GET A MAC AND USE THE BEST SOFTWARE IN THE WORLD!!

    Reply

  24. I think the problem that most people have with software apps is that most developers will just develop them for the PC environment by default since that is what 95% of businesses use. Microsoft “created” the .net “standard” for developers to write apps for buinesses using PCs.

    Reply

  25. Re: spell checking

    Enable Edit->Spelling->Check Spelling as You Type and possibly misspelled words will be underlined when you type them. Ctrl-<click> on any of ’em to pop up a menu with suggested corrections (or No Guesses Found), as someone already mentioned.

    Also, tapping the Esc key while typing brings up a menu of choices matching the current word up to that point.

    Reply

  27. It’s great that there are features like spell check for Safari, but why are so many Mac features undocumented?

    I am a 98% Mac user, but I do have to say that the Windows help menu is much better. No question that you need it more, but…….

    Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that the features are there,
    just would like to know about them. And I am a 16 year Mac user.

    Reply

  28. Kenh:

    Any help menu that you have to use regularly will seem better than one you look at once in a blue moon, simply because you’ve grown familiar with it through practice. I spend about 98% of my time on Macs and the rest on PCs; I actually have to look at the online help about equally for each platform, and find both help systems about equally disorganized and maddening.

    By the way, I suspect one big reason AutoCAD isn’t available for the Mac is that AutoCAD’s user-interface standards are totally incompatible with either the Classic or Aqua UI guidelines. I’ve had projects where I had to switch back and forth frequently between Mac-style UIs (Illustrator, Photoshop) and AutoCAD-style UIs. The ‘syntax’, if you will, of the drawing tools is almost exactly reversed from one set to the other, so that if you’re used to one, the other will be hopelessly counterintuitive. Jumping back and forth, I had to remind myself constantly which way I was supposed to work, and wasted a lot of time in a sort of cognitive jet-lag. (It was as if I lived in a town where you drove on the right on half the streets, and on the left on the other half . . . and each street was right-handed or left-handed at random. Imagine the accident rate!) It is certainly possible to design a top-quality CAD package for the Mac, following Apple’s UI guidelines, and make it file-compatible with AutoCAD, but it would not look much like AutoCAD when it was ready for release.

    Reply

  29. >MDN mentioned: iMovie, iPhoto, iChat AV, Final Cut Pro, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, Safari, Mac OS X, Sherlock, etc

    I like FCP, DVD studio Pro, and Mac OS X. The rest are pretty much useless to me.

    On the PC, there are many just as good (if not better) apps – Premiere Pro, ACDSee, etc. Many people are used to working with this apps (many of which are Windows-only). So unless apple finds a way to make these apps run just as fast on a Mac, or the developers create Mac versions, or somehow the Mac starts running faster than PC equivilents, then there is little reason for consumers to consider switching to Apple.

    I love using Apple products. But the Apple experience isn’t compelling enough to spend the thousands of dollars to switch.

    Of all the possible scenarios, the one that would work best for me is:

    VPC7 runs Windows apps (including games) just as fast as on a PC. I’d run out and buy the fastest PowerMac I could afford (dual 2 Ghz or higher with 1-2Gigs of RAM) and use that to run FCP, DVD Studio Pro, etc… as well as run all my Windows apps and plugins that go with them. And if there were money left over, I’d probably get a PowerBook and run it the same.

    Reply

  30. >MDN mentioned: iMovie, iPhoto, iChat AV, Final Cut Pro, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, Safari, Mac OS X, Sherlock, etc

    I like FCP, DVD studio Pro, and Mac OS X. The rest are pretty much useless to me.

    On the PC, there are many just as good (if not better) apps – Premiere Pro, ACDSee, etc. Many people are used to working with this apps (many of which are Windows-only). So unless apple finds a way to make these apps run just as fast on a Mac, or the developers create Mac versions, or somehow the Mac starts running faster than PC equivilents, then there is little reason for consumers to consider switching to Apple.

    I love using Apple products. But the Apple experience isn’t compelling enough to spend the thousands of dollars to switch.

    Of all the possible scenarios, the one that would work best for me is:

    VPC7 runs Windows apps (including games) just as fast as on a PC. I’d run out and buy the fastest PowerMac I could afford (dual 2 Ghz or higher with 1-2Gigs of RAM) and use that to run FCP, DVD Studio Pro, etc… as well as run all my Windows apps and plugins that go with them. And if there were money left over, I’d probably get a PowerBook and run it the same.

    Reply

  31. but why are so many Mac features undocumented?

    Documentation is low on the food chain?

    Sometimes just exploring menus, preferences, options, etc. is a way to discover new, useful things without documentation. Surprising how many people never take time to do that… seems a natural way to get basic familiarity with many apps. Of course not everything is obvious without some explanation, but that’s the stuff to ignore ’til you find more help.

    Reply

  32. many of the most popular PC apps are not available for the Mac. just face it. Blaster and MyDoom are wildly popular PC apps that just isnt worth porting to the Mac. ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />

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  33. ACDSee? In my opinion, iView Media Pro run circles around ACDSee. I used ACDSee for a while, but moved to iVMP and I’ve never looked back. It’s awesome! A Windows version is available for those Windows users who would like to check it out.

    Reply

  34. Well, even if it’s an “old chestnut”, I can’t help but chime in.

    I’m a recent “switcher”, and while I very much like my new Mac, I have to admit that our household will not go completely Mac because there are some software packages we use (birding, home remodeling, some games, and others) that are only available for Windows. Believe me, I’ve looked. 18,000 titles are meaningless if they don’t include the titles you want/need. And don’t tell me about Virtual PC. I’ve tried it, and it’s not a practical solution for everyday computing.

    In my professional life, all the really good apps have been Windows-only — as another poster mentioned re his client’s accounting needs. For many (most?) of us, it’s sad but true. If I was a video producer, I might not think that; but I’m not a video producer, not do I care much about downloadable music via iTunes (all of these download services have only diminished sound quality even more!), nor do I think that Safari is best-of-breed (on Windows Firefox rocks; as it does on Linux where it beats Konqueror, the source code of Safari). But I really don’t want to get into a no-win rant about which application is better. The one YOU like best is the best, right? The point is that there are some categories of — or specific industry standard — applications that are just not available for the Mac.

    I’ve also noticed that some of the cross-platform apps are not as good on the Mac (it used to be the other way around!): Word is missing a couple of things I was used to; Quicken on the Mac is a buggy, half-implemented joke compared to the Windows version I was used to; FileMaker can’t display toolbars under OS X (and FileMaker is owned by Apple!) — and this just scratches the surface. Even my printer driver sucks compared to the same printer under Windows (an HP Officejet 6110, for the curious).

    The “truth” of whether there are any apps for the Mac is completely subjective, depending on what the user needs. Having experienced both platforms, I can say that Windows offers a richer computing environment — including all those “free applets” (MyDoom, Blaster, etc.). You win some, you lose some; there’s no free lunch; blah, blah.

    Whether OS X is superior to Windows XP (or Linux) is a separate discussion, and I’m NOT claiming that Windows is better. I’m only commenting on the narrow discussion regarding the availability of applications on the Mac based on my own everyday experience.

    Reply

  38. To Joe McConnel, and others with the need for a PC emulator that will really make a difference using the G5’s advanced processor design:

    Try http://www.openosx.com/wintel
    MUCH cheaper than Virtual PC if you have an OS CD already

    It IS optimised for the G5 and if you look through the site with more than a cursery glance, you’ll see there are fairly-straightforward tutorials for installing different OS’s, including Windows XP.

    Not tried it myself yet – anyone had a good experience?

    Reply

  39. “G5 owners – alternative to Virtual PC”

    Thanks for sharing that link! Much appreciated!

    I’ve still got a shred of hope the new VPC will have enough pep to run games.

    Reply

  40. “G5 owners – alternative to Virtual PC”

    Thanks for sharing that link! Much appreciated!

    I’ve still got a shred of hope the new VPC will have enough pep to run games.

    Reply

  41. Might as well let this nonsense go; most Windows users have drank the kool-aid and are incurably myopic. But there’s a silver lining here folks- so what if we’re in the minority? Screw the legions of dumbasses! Our platform has how many virii and / or worms? Zero. Theirs? Hell, I lost count. So let them yammer on about how great their peecees are whilst they spend all their time downloading and installing patches, virus definitions while they worry every single time they make an online purchase that their digital identity could be stolen and exploited. But hey, they have waaaay more solitaire choices than we do…

    Reply

  42. From what I’ve read Bochs (which WinTel is a front-end for) is still immature, development is slow, and it works best running Win98 (yawn).

    And I wouldn’t pay OpenOSX for repackaged Open Source code.

    Reply

  43. I guess Macs arenļæ½t for everybody, just as knowledge, or Power, or even Happiness. To achieve any of the above, one must first open the eyes and realize that there is more to our world than what is fed to the mindless masses.

    It said Win 95 or better… so I got a Mac !

    Reply

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