Dude, you got a Dell?  What are you, stupid?  Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows!

103 Comments

1. Why:

   You do have compelling arguments about a Dell running Windows being a better purchase than a Mac running windows, and if that’s strictly the operating system we’re assuming is running for the sake of this argument, then yeah, I myself would have a hard time justifying the Apple frills. However, I’ll belabor the point a tad more in pointing out that while you were able to mention that laptops are starting to get a lot of the stuff the powerbooks have had for years now, not one of the manufacturers out there combined them all like Apple did. Think about the choice of a powerbook 3 years ago with all the aforementioned features and compare it to a Dell 3 years ago and I think the price difference becomes a bit more justified. The point being that Apple usually stays pretty ahead of the curve when it comes to this stuff, and who knows what we can expect to see with their new macbook non-pros. In fact, if they get out duo cores for under $1500 with 13.3″ widescreens and a few extra clever Apple only features in the same vein as magsafe then I think my argument will be quite justified based on hardware alone.

   However, as it currently stands, the argument is moot as far as I’m concerned. I’m not even sure what claim you were refuting since nowhere in the article does it mention anything about running exclusively Windows on the Macbook. What made me switch away from XP was OS X and I did it at a time when I could truly care less about Apple’s industrial design. The fact of the matter was, when I realized I could get out of the box programs like Garage Band that made all the other music production software I’d been tinkering around with on my Windows box seem bloated, overcomplicated, and unintuitive by comparison, and the rest of the iLife package for free, plus work in an environment that not only feels like its ten years ahead of what Microsoft has to offer in XP, but actually is about 6 years worth of development beyond XP. For me, it’s ALL about OS X, and the whole falling in love with at first my tiny Mac Mini, and now my sleek Ferrari like iMac 20″ pretty much came later. I think that for the average person, if you CTO an HP desktop with similar specs as the iMac, add a 20″ widescreen LCD monitor, throw in media center, add the $200 worth of software needed to compare to iLife, plus add in the yearly cost of about $100 for virus protection and whatever other features (camera, bluetooth, remote, firewire, microphone, 4 button mouse, keyboard with USB hub built in, etc) the iMac has you are WELL above what you’re paying for the iMac. It’s a fairly compelling argument, I think, even if you never even boot into OSX and eliminate the savings you get on virus protection and the iLife package.

   Apple’s real ace in the hole is OS X as you mention. However, I think that the stability and overall quality would start to slide to that of what XP is if Apple just started licensing it out to every random hardware manufacturer out there because that would mean that many more configurations Apple would need to throw in support for in OS X, not to mention Apple wouldn’t be able to be there for the customer on every software, OS, and hardware related issue (which for most people its weight in gold). So to me I don’t think it makes business sense for Apple to compete with MS at their own game (which you’re right about, MS plays it so well). I think that Apple really has something here with controlling the whole widget, and if any other company offered a competing all-in-one solution like Apple, say.. Google, or even MS themselves if they decided to make hardware and complete digital lifestyle packages, I would welcome them with open arms.

   I’m not an Apple fanboy, but I really think they’ve got the best thing going on right now (especially in light of all the Vista delays and XP security issues… how embarrassing.. we’re talking on par with the BMW in your example catching on fire every 20,000 miles).

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2. “We’re talking on par with the BMW in your example catching on fire every 20,000 miles).”

   Not to argue with your statements on reliabilty, but you have seen the picture of the Magsafe connector which caught on fire?

   Not to mention the 12″ and 15″ G4 battery recall.

   Apple does in fact build notebooks, which do in fact, catch fire!

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3. You’re not seriously comparing my analogy to a few isolated incidents are you? I think it’s important to stay on point here, I’m comparing Windows’ vast security flaws to BMW’s catching on fire, and you bring up the 1 or 2 cases where a manufacturer defect ends up frying something on the hardware. Why, Why?

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4. Actually it was a recall of thousands upon thousands of batterys, not an “isolated incident”.

   I get the spin, Well this is really the new Mac space heating and power port lighting connector.

   Buy a mac because no PC has such a feature where the unit entertains you with a cheery candle like flame which eventually grows to provide toasty warm fires throughout your house.

   Likewise while trying to unplug your PC, if you can’t see the power socket in the dark, just wait for the helpful locater flame to come on.

   The naked flame is of course much more beautful and practical than the warmth usually given off by boring Windows PC power supplies.

   After all, who doesn’t like a nice open fire, and what woman, or gay mac owner isn’t attracted to the idea of being rescued from their flaming house by burley firemen.

   You see, it’s a Feature not a Problem.

   Can’t wait until the PC world “catches up” with that one.

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5. Man this discussion just went downhill.

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6. I’ve been reading the discussion between Why and Stegg with interest. I found that the arguments were being well presented (I give Stegg the nod for sticking to the point and his more rational approach). That is, until Why somehow lost it with the “naked flame” thing. It was at that point that his true colours were revealed (“…gay mac owner…”). It seems that, as any cornered rat, he’s gotten angry and defensive to the point of offensive.

   Stegg, you win… BIG TIME! I’m buying a Mac as my next computer (I don’t want to have Windows drag me into the slimy bottom as it appears to do to others).

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7. Now you’re just not reading right, nowhere do I say ALL Mac owners were gay, as if anyone should care if they were…

   Now if I’d said that ALL Mac owners might like to be rescued from their house by burly firemen, then somone might take offense at that. But I only said the gay ones might.

   There are obviously 5 categories (perhaps more if you want to get technical)

   1) Straight Male Mac owners
   2) Gay Male Mac owners
   3) Straight Female Mac owners
   4) Lesbian Female Mac owners
   5) Various forms of Bisexual Mac owners.

   Categories 2) and 3) are often attracted to Burly firemen, as are, depending on thier exact preferences some members of Category 5).

   Category 4) if the play the Femme in a relationshipp are often attracted to Burly firewomen.

   Gorden, Stegg Sorry if you’re now sitting at home trying to get the idea of being rescued by Burly firemen out of your head, either because you’re a straight male and are now having trouble with latent homosexual fantasies, or are female/gay/bisexual/lesbian and firemen/women just don’t appeal to you.

   Gordon, to read the post as you did and to respond as you did says more about your attitude towards homosexuality than anything else. Slimy Bottom, because the word Gay is used in a post, c’mon what kind of redneck are you?

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8. so guys there is a good thing about this because we can have the power of the mac and then for gamers ( like me) we can use the best operating system FOR GAMES

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9. so Mr.why are you a total pc freek because you sure sound lke it and you dont mention one little good thing about the os o and Pcs last only about 1 year until threre out dated and the mac lasts about 3 years… so 1200 time three

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10. o i own 1 pc that i use about 3 days a week but past that i Use a mac

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11. “Pcs last only about 1 year until threre out dated and the mac lasts about 3 years… so 1200 time three”

    Yes, I heard that Apple was using a special version of the Pentium processor which gets faster over time, where Dell just use the standard version which stays the same speed as when you purchased it.

    You can’t be serious in thinking that the two machines with identical hardware won’t become outdated at the same rate, can you?

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12. How do you guys take a comical post about a small problem and get all offended by it? This is the internet fellas….

    Why hasn’t chosen a preference or said ‘PCs are teh fastarrr!” or anything along those lines. All he said was that the hardware was the same(which we all know) and that the things the extra cost goes to is the overall cosmetic things, OSX, and better tech support(if you care about that). Add in the fact that if you had a PC with the same hardware you could run OSX and then you’re only brought back once again to the fit and finish difference.

    I thought the image of burley firemen climbing through the window was pretty funny. (not too mention hot….) ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />

    PS-email master…the power of the mac and the power of the pc should be the same if not greater for the pc. If you cut down on some resources you can get the pc using about 100mb of ram at idle and I believe OSX uses quite a bit more. Unless your talking about the power of the OS.

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13. Plus he forgot to add the isight camera to the price of the PC and the ability to run dual monitors, plus his PC can only run one OS whereas Intel Macs can run both.

    His hatred towards macs and mac users are caused by his dire financial situation, we should feel sorry for him since he can’t afford a Mac and obviously never will be able to, it must be pretty sad to live in poverty and only able to afford a PC with Windows.

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14. ya know he can buy a mini…. mac mini… one of the refurbed ones

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15. ok i all mac and everyting but you actually have to try them out NOT IN A DEMO and actually the dell ( i know it kills me to say it) that was… faster
    how do i know this a went to apple yeterday to meet up with one of our friends and he had both of them so i askd and also cause i work there awsome place.

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16. “isight camera to the price of the PC and the ability to run dual monitors”

    When did you last look at a PC? Almost every notebook shipped in the last few years has a chipset capable of dual monitor uasge with different data on the external and internal display. and the Mac has the same capability. No win there.

    Webcams cost $14.95 and up.

    So add $14.95 to the price, but remember the Dell came with a free modem which is about a $50 option on the Apple.

    Give up on the idea that the Mac is “better value” You may prefer it for other reasons, but nobody can say with a straight face that the hardware is better value than a Dell for what you get.

    “PC can only run one OS whereas Intel Macs can run both.”

    Reminds me of the Blues Brothers quote “We got both kinds of music here, Country AND Western”

    Well I can assure you there are more than two operating systems in the world, and my PCs can run many of them.

    And as for hatred towards Macs and Mac users, where do you get that? I already said I’d buy one for the right price.

    If hatred can be implied from pointing out that a Mac isn’t the cheapest PC in the world, and that you pay an $800-$1200 premium for OS X (A premium many have said they’ll gladly pay) I guess you’ll find that most of the world hates you. Back off on whatever you’re on, you’ll probably become a little less paranoid.

    And if I hate Apple products, I better just go and run over my iPod (Crunching sounds in distance)

    I feel better now…

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17. Why says “You don’t get to own 95% of a market just by luck.”

    This is always a widely mis-interpreted comparison.. You can’t compare Apple vs. Microsoft in marketshare because they are different business..

    Yes, both companies make operating systems for computers, BUT, Apple is a hardware company first, software second. Microsoft is strictly software. The OEM vendors that compromise Microsofts 90% software marketshare is very long.. Dell, Sony, Hp, Compaq, Gateway, etc. etc.. Apart from Dell, with a 16% marketshare, the majority of hardware vendors that support Windows only have single digit piece of the marketshare pie, just like Apple.

    So when you break it down, Apple is not such a small player in the hardware business.. Considering that up until now Apple computers have strictly been running Mac OS, 4% is a pretty respectable number.. With Boot Camp, that number will easily double in 1-2 years..

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18. Why says, “Webcams cost $14.95 and up.”

    The webcams that cost $14.95 are junk, iSight caliber webcams are easily in the $89.95-$119.95 range.

    Why says, “Give up on the idea that the Mac is “better value”:

    Wrong, You should give up on the idea that a $1200 iMac is comparable to a bargin bin $400 PC.. There simply is no comparison.. Apple is about quality, not commodity… They will never be the cheapest, but they are becoming more and more competitive.. With the iMacs design, feature set, included software package, dual-boot capabilities, and duo-core processor, it is a far better value than any comparably equipped Dell you will ever find….It is also very competitively priced..

    There will always be cheaper PC’s available, but cheap does not equal value.

    BTW.. Mac mini’s start at $599…

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19. Man, Why…

    You take yourself so seriously. Good travels on your road to heart disease.

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20. Mike K

    If you think it’s better value, I’m sure Steve Jobs is very happy. Apple have worked hard to create that impression, and at least with certain consumers, been quite sucessful. All power to them. To find a way to take what is after all a commodity product and differentiate it in the minds of consumers is a very big achievement for a marketing team.

    Even if a good webcame were $100, it still wouldn’t erase the price difference.

    I’m not sure why you thing the Core Duo, or dual booting and the ability to run other operating systems is unique to the Mac, the system I quoted was not a $400 Dell, it was a $1200 Dell and it matched the Apple feature for feature. (Well the Dell had twice as much video memory and a modem, and the Apple had a built in camera but I regard these as minor differences, so not much basis for a price argument unless you value that built in webcam at $800).

    Between them HP, DELL and Lenovo have about 40% share. And other vendors have the rest. That diversity and vibrancy and competition in the PC market is good for it. It produces parts for people who want to build their own machines, low end PCs for those on a budget, high end PCs for those who value performance, style and/or service over price and everything in between.

    Can I get a 3.2 pound core Duo based Mac? No but Lenovo will sell me one. A built in webcam if I wanted one? Yes, Sony did that first. A big, powerful but heavy workstation class laptop? Sure. The PC customer has thousands of possible hardware choices, all in a commodity market which keeps prices reasonable even for the high end stuff.

    Comparing Microsoft’s software business and Apple’s software business is valid. Microsoft has huge market share, and Apple a tiny one.

    Whatever way you slice and dice that it’s not good for Apple. Producing an app which 2% of the PC marketplace ends up using is worth about as much revenue to a company as producing one that 50% of the Mac community uses.

    Talk to any marketing person and see what’s easier, selling to 2% of a potential market or to 50% of a potential market.

    And when it comes to profit, because software development involves fixed up front cost amortized over the number of units shipped, there’s no question as to which market a strong, capable company should focus on.

    Interestingly the one reason to focus on a Mac is that competition is less. If you don’t have the resources to build an app which competes with the big boys in the PC arena, move over to the Mac where the same competition doesn’t bother to play. The second reason is if your Mac app drops out of your PC development efforts at little extra cost.

    Apple is the Betamax of the O/S market. Some argue it’s better technology. But for most it’s not different enough technology that it makes a difference to most customers, or jumps the price gap.

    And the thing that makes a platform viable is the software not the hardware, and Apple just gave the world’s software vendors a way to address Mac customers without the time and expense of building a Mac specific version of their software.

    Apple releasing commodity Intel hardware has obviously allowed Apple to close the performance gap between Mac notebooks and PC notebooks, and no doubt done wonderful things for Apple’s margins.

    After all we just noted they can sell about the same PC for about twice the price Dell gets. And lets not fool ourselves thinking that the small differences between the machines means that the Mac costs Apple more to build and accounts for the price difference. That’s partially true but for the most part that’s using a stong brand to generate pure profit! That’s great for Apple!

    But now Apple’s on Intel, a good thing for Mac buyers but a bad thing for Apple is that people can directly compare specs, price shop the hardware and compare Apples with Apples and Dells and HPs, and that will no doubt cause downward pressure on Apple’s hardware prices.

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21. I love the people who argue that Macs are expensive and bad value based on the fact that you can buy cheap pc’s for under $500. Guess what? Those cheap PC’s aren’t as good quality as a Mac. Those cheap PC’s aren’t as good as high end PC’s. No-one looks at a $2000+ Dell and says that they’re bad in comparison to a $500 Dell. They’re different products in different brackets.

    Webcams can be bought for $14.95 and up. Fine but they’re not the same. If they were then every person in the world would only buy the cheap one.

    It’s just a totally stupid comparison.

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22. “I love the people who argue that Macs are expensive and bad value based on the fact that you can buy cheap pc’s for under $500.”

    No, I am arguing that you can buy an equivalent quality Dell for $1200, and you can also buy a much cheaper Dell which will be just as robust and reliable, although perhaps not as nice or as fast from $499 and up.

    The problem I’m pointing out is that Apple doesn’t have the notebook product in the $499 bracket for those who want a Mac but don’t want to pay a huge price premium for it because they have something else they’d rather do with the extra $800-$1500.

    Sure there are consumers for whom price doesnt matter. Even those consumers want to get value for what they pay. Nobody pays two or three times the list price for a car just because they can.

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23. Why, you are wrong on so many fundamental levels it’s frightening..

    You seem to have a hard time understanding the value of a Mac.. Let me explain… Okay, so you have a comparably equipped iMac and Dell, both costs roughly $1200 bucks.. Hardware aside let’s take a look at what the iMac has over the Dell and talk about value:

    1. Design. You can argue till your blue, but Apple’s award winning designs are the best in the industry. From the thinnest laptop enclosures with no visible screws (MacBook), to the smallest, lightweight form factor of it’s desktop mini, to the all in one design with the cpu and components behind the display of the iMac. Critics and consumers agree, Apple’s attention to detail in design simply can’t be matched.. But considering design is subjective and not a selling point to some, I’ll go on..

    2. Security. Mac OSX has been free of malware and virus attacks. Whether this will change in the future is unknown, but to date, there have been over 100,000 security threats to the Windows platform, many of which cause severe damage to data and loss of productivity to businesses and consumers on a daily basis. In contrast, there are less than five (5) proof of concept exploits in Mac OSX, none of which have caused any real world damage. Never mind the additional several hundred dollars the average Dell user will spend on anti-virus solutions, the time required to maintain and admin the average Windows PC is substantial compared to a Mac running OSX. How valuable is your time and data? The (current) security benefit of an OSX machine is PRICELESS.

    3. iLife. Apple’s award winning software suite with photo and music management, movie editing, music creation, dvd authoring, and simple web page creation is included free with any Mac. It would cost hundreds of dollars to purchase software equivalents for a pc. And as PC magazine and dozens of critics agree, none of the purchased PC equivalents even come close to matching iLife’s integration and ease of use. Add to that Apple’s included apps like Mail, Addresbook, iCal and (current) Mac only features like Dashboard, Expose and Spotlight and it is impossible to argue that the software included with a Dell running Windows is a better value.

    4. Boot Camp. A Mac is the only computer in the world that can dual boot OSX and Windows. Need I say more? Are you still not getting why a $1200 iMac is more valuable than a $1200 (or less,) comparably equipped Dell? A Mac will do everything that a PC will do, plus all of the above. THAT”S CALLED VALUE.

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24. Why says, “Comparing Microsoft’s software business and Apple’s software business is valid. Microsoft has huge market share, and Apple a tiny one.”

    WRONG. Microsoft and Apple have a completely different business model.. Apple’s uniquness is that it is technically neither a hardware or a software company, they are a combination of both, a “systems” company if you will.. Apple is a complete user experience, Mac AND OSX, iPod AND iTunes. Microsoft is strictly a software company..

    Microsofts product is a software operating system that sells for between $100-$300. Apple’s product is a hardware and software system that sells for between $599-$2999. Very different indeed..

    I can assure you that if Microsoft sold hardware and software systems as Apple does, they would not have a 90% marketshare… I can also assure you that if Apple licensed it’s operating system to OEM vendors as Microsoft does, their OSX marketshare would be significantly more than 4%.

    The bottom line is that THEY DON’T. They are different business models with different philosophies and can’t be compared in an Apples to Apples (no pun intended) fashion.

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25. Why says ” Apple releasing commodity Intel hardware has obviously allowed Apple to close the performance gap between Mac notebooks and PC notebooks, and no doubt done wonderful things for Apple’s margins.”

    HUGE WRONG. Do you mean the Intel core duo chips that cost 36% more than the previous generation PPC G4 chips? Or do you mean the new 13″ widescreen displays that will be in the new Macbooks that cost an additional $15 per unit than the previous 14″ iBook display. Or do you mean the $799 core-duo Mac mini that has the lowest profit margin of any computer that Apple has ever sold?

    Of course, Apple could have stuffed their laptops and base model Mac minis with cheaper less-powerful processors and components and added $ to the profit margins, but again… Apple is not in the commodity business.

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