“The firewall between Apple enthusiasts and Microsoft Windows users has remained largely impenetrable over the past two decades. Incompatibility is not just a hardware-software issue, either,” Joseph P. Kahn writes for The Boston Globe. “There are Mac guys (and gals), and there are PC people. One camp might be graphics-crazy, the other price-conscious. But most choose one system and stick with it — to the point that Mac fans are often likened to religious cultists, whereas Windows-philes, who outnumber Mac-ies nearly 10 to 1, have made Bill Gates the richest man on the planet.”
“It’s hardly a fair fight, given the numbers. But the battle for users’ hearts, minds, and screens rages on, with the latest skirmish promising to be among the most bare-knuckled ever,” Kahn writes. “Driving this conversation from websites to water coolers is Apple’s recent introduction of its new Tiger operating system (no relation to the golfer), which tech-heads and industry analysts are hailing as the slickest, most user-friendly computer program yet. Tiger’s bells and whistles are many, including a desktop search feature that allows users to surf for files, applications, and e-mail from one location; an enhanced Web browser; mini-applications, known as Widgets, that multitask with a single mouse click; and an Automator program that rapidly does many functions only done manually on a standard PC.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Kahn propagates the idea that “Macs are expensive” in his article, but facts show that’s just a myth.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple Macs are less expensive than Dell PCs – April 25, 2005
Apple Macs are less expensive, more secure, longer-lasting than Windows PCs – April 21, 2005
Switching from Windows to Mac? Save money by asking to ‘crossgrade’ your software – April 12, 2005
Red Sox and Apple vs. Yankees and Microsoft – October 29, 2004
EarthWeb: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger is a ‘serious enterprise operating system, a pivotal release’ – May 06, 2005
RUMOR: Apple to release Mac OS X 10.4.1 Tiger Update by mid to late-May – May 06, 2005
BusinessWeek: ‘Tiger bolsters Mac OS X’s edge as the best personal-computer operating system’ – May 06, 2005
The Guardian: Mac OS X Tiger a powerful solution while Microsoft’s Longhorn remains on drawing board – May 06, 2005
Chicago Sun-Times: Mac OS X Tiger shows ‘there’s never been a more compelling time to switch to Mac’ – May 05, 2005
Dan Gillmor: ‘With Mac OS X Tiger, Apple is plainly in the lead today’ – May 05, 2005
Jupiter Research VP: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger ‘runs rings around Microsoft Windows’ – May 04, 2005
The Independent: Apple’s ‘faster, smarter, simpler’ Mac OS X Tiger ‘a must-have’ – May 04, 2005
Mac OS X Tiger review for a Windows PC audience finds Tiger’s ‘far, far better than Windows XP’ – May 03, 2005
Longhorn mentioned in nearly every Apple Mac OS X Tiger review to assuage Windows masses – May 02, 2005
Boston Herald: Mac OS X Tiger should compel Windows PC users to think about switching to Apple Mac – May 02, 2005
Mac OS X Tiger will likely improve performance of your Macintosh – April 30, 2005
PC World review gives Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger 4.5 stars out of 5 – April 30, 2005
Forrester analysts: Apple should advertise Mac OS X Tiger on television and in movie theaters – April 29, 2005
Ars Technica: Mac OS X Tiger ‘at least twice as significant as any single past update’ – April 28, 2005
BusinessWeek: ‘Tiger bolsters Mac OS X’s edge as the best personal-computer operating system around’ – April 28, 2005
Associated Press: Mac OS X Tiger ‘provides another excellent incentive to switch from Windows’ – April 28, 2005
Mossberg: Apple’s Tiger ‘the best, most advanced personal computer operating system on the market’ – April 28, 2005
InformationWeek columnist: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger ‘a compelling upgrade’ – April 28, 2005
NY Times: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger is the most secure, stable and satisfying OS on earth – April 28, 2005
Wired News: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger ‘full of welcome surprises’ – April 27, 2005
Apple posts QuickTime movies of Mac OS X Tiger features in action – April 13, 2005
Worse article, ever…
Apple is not perfect but in my experience they do a really good job on the whole for after service. But then I am in Japan which is known for service anyway and perhaps the experience is not as good in the US.
I am sorry you had a bad experience unfettered but without details it is really hard to make a call on whether you were treated unfairly or not. It would seem though that you are perhaps more emotional than most and perhaps on a shorter fuse since you don’t seem to be able to trust yourself emotionally enough to be even able to tell us what happened. Though again it is impossible to tell without more details, this might have been a factor in producing your bad experience.
Regarding the article, I think Macs are gonna be gaining serious market share in the next year. I would like to see it reach between 10 and 20 percent eventually to ensure that program developers have to produce Mac versions of new software.
Windows PC’s are just/almost well enough at work where time is not THAT important… (no qualitytime)
Mac is excellent at home where my personal time is VERY important to me.
MW = “cold” as the feeling I get from using Windows at work!
To Paul –
Your questions have gotten some good answers here, but I just wanted to clarify on one point regarding the Cell processor.
It is not a good general purpose processor. It is not likely to make it into the next generation of macs. Something like it could make it into the generation after that or after that……
Current multi-core processors contain 2 (maybe more in the future,) general purpose processors. The cell contains 1 general purpose processor and in sony’s implementation 8 processors that are very specialized and not very powerfull.
A cell in a mac might give you amazing folding@home benchmarks, but wouldn’t do much else for you. A real dual core proc would make everything perform better as it is like have to complete procs in your system.
Hope this was helpfull…..
A graphic designer contemplating switching to a PC in 2005?
Credibility = 0
Unfettered, I would like to hear what happened also. My got my new mini and found the superdrive did not work. I drove to the Santa Rosa store and got what I would call quite a runaround for about a half hour, that I was mistaken, did I read the manual, etc. After getting really pissy and loud they backed down and handed me a new one, no strings attached. The few times I have called them since they remember me and are quite helpful. But that first time………I am not sure what to think. Had it been just one of the employees, ok, but all three that I first spoke to were very condescending, and had I not been experienced with hardware might well have walked out convinced they were right.
Thank you, DreamTheEndless
I didnt switch yet,
but I am going to.
I did the inverse of what some are saying here.
I am also the PC-hotline for the family.
and while I have my own pc relatively well under control (altough I recently spent another 4 to 5 hours removing shit), I am having a hell of a time keeping those other pc’s of friends and family running.
I wonder how they succeed in each time disabling the auto update feature of the virus scanner, so that in no time the pc is a complete mess again. I even have a few CD’s now with the drivers of each of there pc’s so it helps me more quickly reinstall stuff.
But now recently I bought a mac mini for my mother, and adviced another friend to buy a mac as well. (he never used a pc before, now he has a mac with airport and adsl line… and surfing away).
What a peace
what a silence
I just went there to install it (5 minutes work), have a drink, chat, show some nice stuff on the mac, and since then no more worries.
I love it.
I am actually coming to realise that I have been avoiding certain friends just because I always have to solve pc problems. And now it is the inverse. I want to go over there to use the mac.
Next computer is a mac, for sure.