Apple Macintosh computers are experiencing “surging popularity on college and university campuses across Minnesota and the country,” Julio Ojeda-Zapata reports for The Pioneer Press.
“Apple’s Macintosh once was an endangered species in U.S. higher education amid the brand’s market doldrums and Microsoft’s seemingly unassailable Windows dominance,” Ojeda-Zapata reports. “Now, the Mac is back in a big way.”
“This is said to be fueled in large part by iPod fever among students. Apple not only makes the popular brand of portable music and video players, but its ubiquitous iTunes software is innately linked to the iPod,” Ojeda-Zapata reports.
“Student users also like the Mac’s near-immunity to PC-type viruses and spyware, and the fact that the latest Macs can run the Windows operating system along with Mac OS X courtesy of the machines’ PC-compatible Intel processors,” Ojeda-Zapata reports.
Full article here.
Another article from The Pioneer Press detailing how Mac use has surged at other U.S. colleges and universities is here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Linux Guy And Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
@Mac Lifer Teacher
Dude, WTF is up with comment about farmers? Are you implying that farmers are as dumb as the typical Windoze user? I happen to live in a community that has a fairly large contingent of Mac users – veteran Mac users and new switchers and guess what, some of these folks are FARMERS you pompous ass.
It’s scary to think that of all things, you’re a TEACHER and you’ll be passing on this same uneducated attitude to your students!
And no, I am not a farmer but I’m smart enough to know that we can’t live without farmers. You’re an idiot and shouldn’t be teaching!
@The Mac That Roared
Moo.
*laughs hysterically*
@Peanuts
sweet jesus that was funny on so many levels.
@The Mac That Roared
I think you got a dirty little secret, your a pig farmer and you masterbate your male pigs to inseminate more female pigs like a show on TV I saw, right?
Come on, fess up.
oink! oink!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
@Mac Lifer Teacher
I was following your thread, and pretty much in agreement, until you threw out the “Farmer” stuff!!
Farmers are not “Conformers” They are the biggest non conformers in the country, they are not about to “conform” to a 9-5 job for the “man”, though , they will work 12 plus hours a day for their lively hood!
I am not a farmer, but proud that I can call many of my “good” friends “Farmers” These folks still hold dear to them, the values that made our country great, “Family, God and Country”
and if some one was able to do a survey, I bet a larger % of farmers are Mac users , than the general population!
Farmers are “Thinkers” and in todays wold, have to be pretty savy business managers also!
I’m gonna have to side with Hotinplaya on this one. Mac Lifer Teacher should be banned for offensive comments.
I’d say the number of Macs in any of my college classes on any given day is approaching 50% fairly rapidly. My university has also begun placing iMacs in computer labs. Of the ~50 computers in each lab, approximately 10 are Macs now. Good news.
–mAc
I was in a PC World shop here in Nottingham England yesterday in the little Apple shop which is kind of like an oasis in the desert. I believe it is like one of the little Apple shops you get in Best Buy stores stateside. It’s run by Apple employees. There was only one guy working as it’s a Sunday and he seemed a little snowed under so I offered to help demo a few things (14 years Mac experience I think qualifies me) he was very pleased and took the offer. Anyway, Anyway, a student came in and this student had recently installed Vista on his Dell box and as a result he headed straight for the Apple shop. I can say he was suitably impressed with everything I showed him and all I showed him was iLife and iWork. All he would have to pay for on top of his Mac purchase would be iWork and that’s £55. He is waiting for his student loan then he is popping right back in and getting a Mac Mini.
And yes, I am sure Zune Tang is a Mac using satirist.
Zune, your cover is blown, I suggest you play a new character now as your anti-Mac, anti iPod character has been dome to death and it’s humour is no longer there. How about a redneck Dell user named Bud who thinks Macs are made by Dell and his inspirion is actually a badge engineered MacBook. You could start with lines like this: “D y’all know how I can git ta tha sisterm preferences from the Start button there dudes?, Supn wrong with my Dell Macintosh!!!”
Papa-Raboon
You haven’t lived until you can juggle bananas.
@pr
“New macs CAN and DO get viruses…just not in the OS…
But Microsoft Word Macro viruses..”
Yeah but the issue is not born out of an Apple mistake. Oh contraire monsieur, it is again the fault of Microsoft’s shoddy programming.
M$ can’t even get it right on a secure operating system.
Name one single virus … one … that Macs do get. There are zero, as in -0- viruses that affect Macs. No one single one in the world. Period.
I teach on my MacBook Pro in college, and my students just gag when they see my Keynote presentations. It’s so much nicer than a power point one.
in the 6+ years i’ve been visiting this site, i believe this is the first time i’ve seen a Mac story occasion a flamewar about the relative merits of farming.
Nice work folks …
Are those farmers Republicans or Democrats?
I am not a farmer, but proud that I can call many of my “good” friends “Farmers” These folks still hold dear to them, the values that made our country great, “Family, God and Country”
Unfortunately, that’s old school, and a dying breed. What was once a respected occupation died in the 80’s and 90’s.
Modern-class operators are savvy all right: avoiding taxes, collecting nice subsidy checks, and employing those illegal aliens. I’d rather deal with P.T. Barnum than today’s corporate farmer.
So what does this have to do with Apple in colleges? With any luck the ag school students are using Macs too.
I think that college campuses are a great starting point. It’s usually one of the first times that students can make their own decision of what to buy (for many things) and so many go with a Mac.
When world domination will really start to kick in (again) is when you start reading headlines like this that say elementary school instead of college.
This, of course, requires that more primary schools have Apples/Macs.
When I was in elementary school in the early/mid 80’s all my school had were Apple IIe’s. So, what did I get in 3rd grade as my and my family’s first computer? An Apple IIe. Man, I had the dual floppy drive, tape drive, monochrome green and color TV out, 300 baud modem, the works.
Of course, now mom and dad have a little bit of a clue or have used computers themselves, so they are making the buying decision, but I can’t help but think that if more elementary schools had Macs that the surge would be really huge. It’s really the topic of a whole other article/thread which has been discussed before.
Talk about start ’em young. Heck, it worked for me. Start on an Apple IIe and 25 years later it’s a quad core.
MDN: “start” (I’m not kidding) as in “start ’em young.”
@ green acres
family farms did not die off, you need to get out a bit more often. I was about to jump in my pickup to hunt down your ass, but you did add the comment “corporate farmer”. OK, there are those who do farm on that level, but many farmers are still family operations.
But to touch on a few of your points:
avoiding taxes / yeah right – where did you read this? farms support so much more government then typical business it is scary. check out the taxes on 80 acres of farmland, come back, and we will talk more. income tax, can’t advoid any taxes there, sell your grain (as an example), check are no longer even made out to the owner (farmer), but rather to his bank, no hideing of income like many other business.
collecting nice subsidy checks / again, you don’t read much do you? I have to challenge you to actually look into these “money programs” from the government. You will never meet a farmer who claims that he got rich from any government program. P.I.K. programs as an example were a joke, like almost all government programs it was an idea to help, but had very little effect on farm income. Low interest loans are LOANS farmers pay back.
employing those illegal aliens / strike 3 – you think we have millions of mexicans here for farmwork? Are you that stupid? There just isn’t that much farmwork (manual labor) to be had, and no mexican is going to be trusted working an expensive piece of farm equipment, they can do to much damage in a very small amount of time. Look to the cities to see who is employing the no skill mexicans.
Thanks for proving your “brain power”
Interesting note on government: There are more people working for the dept. of agriculture then there are actual farmers. hurrah for big government.
Zune Tang, you said ‘What if they need to make a “If you drank the last cup of coffee, make a new pot” sign for the break room?’
A sign for a new cup of coffee is just about the most importat event of your life, man. Dude, you really need
to get a life!
I love it how people actually think Zune Tang is a real Windows user and is serious.
satire (noun): the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
I don’t remember the last time I saw a laptop in class that wasn’t a Mac. Though only about 10% of my classmates bring in any computer to class at all. Maybe the others have pcs, but they’re in the computer shop having viruses and malware removed?
I’ve got to admit that this farmer/city slicker flame war is something new and novel here at MDN.
Hey Eastern Hemispherians: Aren’t you upset that the farmer discussion is so U.S.-centric…? Sure you are! Tell us about it!
There, that should keep it going.
Farmer: no mexican is going to be trusted working an expensive piece of farm equipment, they can do to much damage in a very small amount of time.
hi there … i think you must be in the wrong place. The racist convention is in the next room over.
Thanks for clearly identifying yourself in any case. It makes it much easier for the rest of us to justify ignoring your posts.
I’m just glad someone didn’t take this to the next level and turn it into the old ‘farmers versus ranchers’ debate!
Keep it up! I think it’s funny every time.
I thank God for the hard working American farmer.
Farmers on average tend to be more Windows oriented users because the software they need to manage their farms is Windows only.
Also Farmers plan out their plantings and harvests many years in advance to balance out the soil and other factors. They also, in the case of animals, do have to work everyday, often early in the morning, every morning. Even Sundays, because animals need to be milked or fed everyday regardless.
So Farmers tend not to be pioneers, often doing the same thing everyday for years, for generations and even plan their offspring to work in advance and train them to think and believe the same way.
There is nothing wrong with this of course. But it is conforming and not a pioneering free-thinking mentality. To say that Farmers don’t Think is wrong, it’s just that they tend to think in conforming ways and more likely to believe, use and do “what everyone else” around them is.
That’s not to say there are Farmers who “Think differently” I’ve met some in Oregon trying to grow food in ingenious ways. But they do make the minority as farming is a occupation that tends “to do things the same way it’s always been done”.
A lot of Farmers are very sensitive because most of the population thinks they get their food from the store. Most people don’t realize or want to know the lengths it takes to process food for consumption, especially processing animals. It’s a nasty, gross job that no “suit” will do.
Again processing animals is a mundane repetitious job, done the same way over and over for years on end. Lending again to the “conformist” mentality. Factory workers often are conformist mentalities as well. As well as most corporate workers.
So most everyone is a conformist and a Windows user.
To use a Mac, it shows your a “nonconformist” a pioneer mentality, artist, photographer or other free thinking open minded person who “Thinks Differently”. Which appeals to college level students before they have to “conform” to the corporate world.
Because Mac O S X doesn’t have the software choices the conformists need, Mac’s used to be dropped in favor of Windows PC’s out of college. Of course now it’s possible for some time (until Microsoft finds a way to stop it) for Mac hardware to run Windows so people can just “play conformist”, unfortunately playing conformist often turns into being a full time conformist because their paycheck is tied to becoming one.
Corporate Amercia has excellent methods to force one into their way of thinking, and paying one less and less in the process. Turning “free thinking” people into fscking mindless M$ robots.
What will happen is once a Mac user gets up to speed on Windows, has a lot of their files and such in M$ only formats the next purchase they make will be a cheap Windows machine.
There is always a threat that M$ will lock their OS to only PC vendors. Much like Apple does. When the Trusted Computing chip makes it’s rounds in updated hardware.
You’ll see.
@ex Farmer
After all that you talk about “M$ only” formats? Huh? Sorry, but that’s a pretty weak argument. How many “M$ only formats” are there?
Office documents? Nope.
Windows Media files? Nope.
Access Database files? Okay, that’s one.
Image files? Nope.