Can Anyone Explain The Animus Between Mac & PC Users?

[KittyWampus]

it escapes me utterly.

There are various feuds that pop up on the DU from time to time that I have no reference point in understanding.

The trash talk that happens between Mac and PC'ers seems so flipping unnecessary.

[boobooday]

1. Some of my best friends use PCs

:shrug:

[KittyWampus]

5. some of my best friends don't even have a computer yet or know how to use one.

they can afford it, too.

[NeedleCast]

21. Not to bring to much seriousness into this thread

but you should encourage them to learn. I worry about my mom, who is getting up there in years. My dad is fairly computer literate but my mom probably doesn't even know how to turn it on. Since my dad keeps all their financial and other important paperwork (at least in part) on the computer, my mom will be at a disadvantage if my dad passes first.

[KittyWampus]

26. I have. They are artists, too. And I've always had older women friends. Being able to handle

ones affairs after the husband dies was an issue for some women I knew back in the 80's. But now, that doesn't seem to be the case. Generational.

[jpgray]

2. Both systems work decently well, it really just depends on your personal preference

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixQE496Pcn8

[Last Stand]

88. I own both and beg to differ.

My iMac has a fraction of the performance problems of my PC. That's just in terms of day to day use, surfing the internet, email, Word doc's and photos. Mac beats PC hands down.

There is a clear advantage for PC's for gaming and pure availability of compatible programs, however. Not enough to convince me it's worth the hassles.

Not worth fighting over though.

[jpgray]

89. You prove my point very well--a lot of it depends on what you value

[SharonAnn]

143. Brand of computer and type of operating systems are "religions". That's my experience after

working in the computer business as a systems engineer for more than 40 years. People just have their preferences and they are so strong that it's like a "religion".

I've learned to be agnostic about it and just ask what there preference is, what they want the computer to do, and help them do that.

If asked, I'll usually explain a preference in terms of how that one is useful, not how it's "better".

This has been true since the days of mainframe computers and hasn't changed since then.

Some computers and operating systems have more software or different software the performs certain tasks better, some hardware has specific chip sets that perform certain tasks better.

[ipfilter]

3. It's a holy war like Linux vs. PC.

However, you've never seen a fight like Vi vs. Emacs.

[KittyWampus]

7. okay, what the heck is Vi vs Emacs?

[ipfilter]

10. Vi is a far superior text editor for Unix and Unix like systems.

:)

If you really want to see a holy war, look to FreeBSD vs. Linux. Those wars are downright uncivil.

[Sebastian Doyle]

134. Even bloody at times

But when Tux and the Little Beelzebub Satan Devil are on good terms, they can still agree on one thing.......



Windows sucks!

[markbark]

12. Believe it or not....

they are text editors.

Religious fervor runs a pale second to the flamewars over that BS

--MAB

[KittyWampus]

28. Face -> Palm. People can flame each other out over ANYTHING. How DARE you prefer apples

over oranges.

[NeedleCast]

32. You're just another shill for Big Citrus

I've got my eye on you.

[KittyWampus]

37. Can I deduce we are both anti-banana?

[Sebastian Doyle]

131. Now wait a damn minute, Banana basher!

The Banana 6000 was the best computer of the 80's.

[NeedleCast]

42. Puritan that I am, I oppose all phallus shaped fruits and vegetables

[Occam Bandage]

43. So the Bolivian Dong-pepper is out, then?

[NeedleCast]

53. Hehe, is that really a thing?

Hehe, dong-pepper.

Yeah, I'm a child...

[anigbrowl]

95. They're both text editors from the Unix world

Both are flexible, powerful, and utterly unusable unless you are willing to learn a lot of special key combinations to carry out even the most basic editing functions. Back in the days of slow networks and dumb terminals, it was worth knowing how to do this, because the time needed to draw menus on screen or offer any kind of graphic display was a hindrance to getting anything done.

Vi was fast, simple and consistent (once you knew what you were doing), so you could sit down at any machine, run vi, and edit your code or text as fast as you could type it. Emacs was more a 'swiss army knife' and allowed many tasks to be automated (once you knew what you were doing). Vi people hate Emacs because they figure competent editors should be able to do all their editing and layout with a few simple commands instead of futzing around with their editing software. Emacs people look down on vi because they figure the whole point of using a computer is to make the machine do the boring repetitive stuff.

The editor war is like a geekier version of the Mac vs. PC debate. Mac users, like vi fans, want something that's just fast and consistent even if it's quirky at first. PC people, like Emacs users, want to be able to customize and tweak everything, even if that results in being able to crash the system. If you strongly prefer to drive an automatic car, you'd have preferred vi and might prefer a Mac. If you think that driving stick is is what makes you an adult, then you probably prefer using a PC and would have preferred Emacs too.

I know this sort of thing seems like the most abstract geekery, but it's actually indicative of fundamental differences in how the brain works. Macs (and vi) appeal a bit more to task-focused and somewhat more extroverted people. PCs (and Emacs) have more appeal to the process-focused, introverted thinker. Of course, these are simplistic caricatures: it's also true that both approaches have a high degree of overlap and offer similar overall functionality, and a majority of users make their choice based on cost and ubiquity rather than developing such a strong preference that they truly dislike the alternative.

[MattBaggins]

154. And if you prefer to build your own car;

you probably use Linux or BSD.

[cliffordu]

149. lol....

I'll let one of the experts.....

[TahitiNut]

61. "Linux vs. PC (DOS)" is merely todays' iteration of Unix vs. The World

:shrug: DEC did the 'job' back in the early 70s by spreading Unix and PDP 'puters in all the CompSci departments.

[cliffordu]

150. Yeah, but the difference is that I LOVE UNIX AND UNIX WORK ALIKES,

and I RAWK, so they are KEWELER, and more 3117.....

[hunter]

81. Bah. Anymore I just use gedit.

I've let my mad vi and and Emacs skills fade away.

In college I wrote must of my term papers on ordinary typewriters or with vi.

The Emacs zealots irritated me -- I saw Emacs as a tool, not a religion. I didn't spend a single moment adding any shiny decorations to it. I prefer my hammers plain, and if I don't have a hammer I can always use a rock, especially in a world where nails are rare.

Oh yeah, Microsoft and Apple both suck. Most UNIX users watched the development of these "operating systems" with abhorrence. Apple finally threw away the hideous rat's nest the Mac grew out of in favor of BSD, but the Microsoft operating system continues to spread across the landscape like some horrible fungus from outer space, getting bigger and bigger, and covered with oozing and essentially unsupportable sores of corrupt stinking zombie flesh. The only possible thing that could stop this monster would be for Microsoft to embrace WINE but Microsoft also knows that would be the death of it. In our modern version of feudalism there are corporations "too big to die" and Microsoft is one of those corporations.

I use Debian. But the only computer I ever truly enjoyed writing code for was the Atari 800, and this was my bible:

[Bandit]

140. Linux is an operating system and PC is a computer

completely different things. A PC can use Linux as it's operating system.

[ChaoticSilly]

152. Well, you know what they say...

EMACS is a pretty good operating system. It just needs a text editor. :evilgrin:

[Captain Hilts]

4. Beats me. For my field it's PC. For more artistic types, it's Mac. So what?

[Occam Bandage]

18. Yeah, I have to keep Boot Camp on my Mac to run analysis software.

The only downside is that I have to use a USB mouse to right-click; Apple still has some sort of phobia about putting two buttons on its laptops, and Windows of course doesn't recognize mousepad gestures.

[Romulox]

121. Don't use bootcamp much any more, but there is a workaround for right click

Don't recall the name of the app/driver, but I had something on my mac that allowed standard OSX one button right click functionality in XP through bootcamp. I'm sure if you google, you'll find it.

"Apple still has some sort of phobia about putting two buttons on its laptops"

I much prefer Apple's "two finger right click" method.

[Occam Bandage]

133. I have an app that that lets me ctrl-click for right-click in a pinch,

but that's a pain. I also greatly prefer Apple's two-finger-for-right-click-and-scrolling method; it's much smoother than the scroll bars other manufacturers put on their trackpads.

[Romulox]

138. I had that for a while, but there is "two finger" right clicking available in bootcamp, too. nt

[MineralMan]

6. Same nonsense as the Ford vs. GM idiocy.

It's all just willy-waving.

[bullwinkle428]

35. Beat me to it!! All those stupid "Calvin pissing" window decals on either

the Ford or Chevy logos are the same intellectually equivalent argument...

:dunce:

[MineralMan]

52. Precisely!

[ConcernedCanuk]

94. Did I not read, right here on DU that some tribes say "hello" by willy-waving??

.
.
.

obviously this would be in a warm climate methinks . .

not like Siberia or Northern Canada . .

:dunce:

[gkhouston]

101. That's how most people on DU say hello.

Especially in the Lounge. :silly:

But what do I know, I'm just an old Emacs/Mac fan who likes Linux and tolerates PCs when necessary. :crazy:

[cliffordu]

151. Nah, we do it up here when it's cold, too...

It's just a real short conversation, that's all....

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

8. Essentially, one side thinks they're morally superior to the other

It stems, more or less, from Apple's longtime marketing strategy, depicting their users as more "hip" or more knowledgeable because they use their products.

[eeyore]

29. See, now that's the problem...

As someone who's had Apples since about 1983, I would say it has a lot to do with PC users attitudes and apparent need to ridicule Apple users. I can't tell you the number of times I've been accosted by a PC user, unsolicited, asking me why I would spend sooooo much money on such a piece of shit computer that has no software. All I can say is that when I try to work on a PC the UI literally offends my sensibilities. I have owned them for accounting, and trying to get anything done just makes me wonder why the hell people are stubbornly subjecting themselves to such an inferior user experience. All I can tell you is that you buy a Mac, turn it on and go. It took me most of a day to set up my PCs.

So, it goes both ways. You think I'm "hipper than thou" and I think you are sadly clinging to a clearly inferior product. Makes me feel the same way when I see someone driving a Chrysler K Car.


;)

[Political Heretic]

107. You're product isn't superior if it won't do what I want.

Program compatibility.

You give me program compatibility and I will be on macs forever. :)

[Tommy_Carcetti]

97. Wow, it's just like the abortion debate. nt

[MattBaggins]

156. ahhhh, no it's not even remotely like the abortion debate

[mike_c]

9. democrats use PCs, republicans prefer Macs....

It's as simple as that. :evilgrin:

[Occam Bandage]

13. Creative, arty types use Macs. Mindless corpodrones use PCs.

I think you've got that backwards, sirrah. }(

[ipfilter]

19. I think that was the evil intent. nt

[aquart]

36. People with money bought Apple products.

Everyone else got IBM clones. That's how it began. We couldn't afford anything Apple. Snotty, exclusive, expensive group. And they haven't changed a bit.

[eeyore]

46. Why do people persist with that bizarre stereotype?

Macs are not more expensive, especially in the long run. It really is the equivalent of Republicans stereotyping all liberals as dirty hippies. Grow with the times, my friend. You're living in the 80s.


;)

[Common Sense Party]

90. We're not dirty hippies?

I need to shave and shower, man.

[Deja Q]

125. Uh, I can home-build a PC for $1500 -- the same specs (sans 6GB of RAM) would be $2800 as a "Mac"

If all I do is browse the web, a $800 Mac would suit me fine. Of course, there are $400 PCs that do it equally well and now that more articles are showing hackers breaking Macs... (it was solely a matter of time, those who think any platform is immune isn't thinking).

Indeed, I know a Mac fanatic at work. He says "It's about the brand." Sometimes stereotypes are created out of some underlying facts.

[MattBaggins]

157. You can home build a mac for the same price as building a PC.

[aquart]

127. And I can get a pc off eBay for $166. I cannot afford an Apple anything.

You're living in a much more lavish world than I, if you think that the initial outlay for an Apple product is not prohibitive.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

66. :eyes:

another example of not understanding the reason for owning Apple.

Please... it's like telling an artist "you don't need to use that expensive water color paper - just paint on newsprint."

[JCMach1]

112. Exactly... never could afford it...

that and the apple proprietary propensity...

[Deja Q]

124. Bull. Also,

how come Adobe delayed 64-bit Photoship on the Mac until CS5, and yanked Premiere from that platform entirely? :(

PCs can do the same things.

Windows operating system may be superficial crap but the money is in the applications. That's why most people stick with it despite it all (apart from 'ease of use' and/or other claims). I dinked around with two Linux distros -- I'll never use SUSE again and people were whining about x, y, and z regarding Fedora. Enough to scare me off. Since I'm going to get my Bachelor's degree, the student discount might make the Mac properly affordable. Until then, I'll limp with Windows; Vista has some unwieldy quirks, but for better or for worse I tend to tinker in ways most don't...

Indeed, Apple would suit itself better in the long run to open up its operating system, as it works on a lot of PC hardware already. (Like Linux, FreeBSD, BeOS, et al).

[yurbud]

14. blashphemy! it's the opposite.

[baldguy]

16. Because PCs require actual thought & understanding to use.

Macs are designed for 8 yr olds.

[Occam Bandage]

22. Meaning that no thought or understanding was put into their design.

It's an operating system. It should be intuitive. The goal isn't to ensure the lesser beings of the Earth must pay their dues and spend hours in frustrated agony before they may join the inner circle of users.

[baldguy]

75. Not quite.

[Uzybone]

84. LMAO

I like the webcam dig.

[Egnever]

110. Thats really the bottom line

macs are proprietary to the extreme. PC's use a global standard.

I like the way macs run but screw working on them if anything breaks.

[ipfilter]

85. Good stuff. nt

[Occam Bandage]

91. I don't get this "PCs are badass and you just can't handle the FURY" argument.

Both Macs and PCs (and Linux boxes as well) are capable of being equally high-powered. It's strange to see the glorification of a susceptibility to viruses, crashes, and awkward interfaces. It's like surviving terrible design is a point of pride for you.

If you really want a high-powered, ultra-customizable, home-built, tech-savvy rig, you want Linux. If you want a functional computer, you want Mac. If you want to play XBox 360 games at five to ten times the price, you want a PC.

[Romulox]

122. I'd rather play Super Mario Brothers than Call of Duty 17 any day.

[Occam Bandage]

130. I'm looking forward do the day they finally run out of World War Two battles to recreate.

Eh, what am I saying, they'll probably just re-do Normandy and Stalingrad again. I want a Civil War game. Walk in a regiment, stand 30 yards from the enemy, hit the 'reload' button, wait 30 seconds, hit the 'fire' button, hit the 'reload' button, wait 30 seconds, take a bullet to the chest, die, respawn elsewhere in the regiment, hit the 'reload' button...

[MattBaggins]

159. The bike needs a little tweak though

You should have three bikes

1: Kids bike with training wheels.
2: Kids bike without training wheels.
3. Motorcycle

1 = Mac
2 = Windows
3 = Linux/BSD

Nothing funnier than Windows users claiming that windows is for "power" users.

[Elwood P Dowd]

33. So Al Gore and Barack Obama are 8-year-olds for using Macs?

:eyes:

[KittyWampus]

41. No, but their penises are tiny (if i'm understanding the nature of the controversy correctly)

Life = School Cafeteria or Locker room

[Occam Bandage]

45. Now you've got it!

[eeyore]

Why does my friend, a prominent physicist prefer Macs then?

He has them at home and at his lab. Can't stand working on PCs. He was once president of the American Association of Physics Teachers.

8 years olds my ass.




;-)

[Lorien]

93. Translation: Macs are easy to use (bad) PCs always require maintainence

and replacement (good).

[MattBaggins]

158. Wow a 9 year old making fun of an 8 year old.

Compile your own kernel and then come back telling us how much more advanced Windows is.

[Lorien]

92. Yeah that explains why Al Gore is on the Apple board of directors

:eyes:

[mike_c]

104. he's such a sell out....

:rofl:

[stanwyck]

144. Dead wrong. I work for a graphics service bureau

artists and photograghers use Macs.
We shudder when we receive PC files - they're not from graphics people, they're from administrative staff.

[Occam Bandage]

11. Mac users, especially converts, are often so very happy with their

slick, trouble-free new computer, that they have to tell everybody and anybody who makes a reference to their computer that they really need to buy a Mac. As for the long-time Mac users? We're still irritated about the, oh, decade or so in which PC users rightfully laughed at Macintoshes for sucking.

PC users get defensive (nobody likes being told that their thousand-dollar investment and everyday companion sucks), especially when that is combined with Apple's snide, mocking "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ad campaign, and especially when pretty much everyone agrees that Vista is the lamest OS release since Windows ME.

Macs are more expensive, somewhat less flexible, and you have to jump through hoops (or install Windows on a partition) to play games. But Macs have a more streamlined, more stable, more secure operating system, often better quality hardware, and certainly have the most pleasing aesthetics of any hardware manufacturer out there. From this, comes the endless attempt of each geek to prove that his toy is better than your toy. After all, nobody likes thinking that someone else has a better toy than they do.

[markbark]

24. I'm not picking on you...

so PLEASE don't take it that way
Macs are more expensive, somewhat less flexible, and you have to jump through hoops (or install Windows on a partition) to play games.
Feature for feature, the Mac just isn't that much more expensive than a PC. (<= $100)

As far as games? I'm always mystified as to why the same folks who complain about Macs being "too expensive" will drop $2800 on a gaming box that has the same functionality as a $600 XBox/Wii/PS3

--MAB

[Occam Bandage]

31. The MacBook Pro (their professional-oriented laptop) is $2,499 for the mid-line version.

Going to Dell's site, I can get an Inspiron 15 with every single hardware feature for $959. Macs are more expensive. And I say this as a Mac owner.

[eeyore]

55. True, but that Dell will last you about 18 months at best

I've owned both Dells and Macs. The Dell became buggy and useless, likely more a fault of the crappy Windows OS. On the other hand, I still own a perfectly usable Mac Plus from 1986, complete with external floppy drive and a HUGE external 40MB hard drive that I bought in 1990. The Dell has long since been recycled due to failure to perform.

Sometimes you get what you pay for.

[anigbrowl]

99. Like a car, it's down to how you drive it

I have a decade-old Dell laptop I keep around for when I want to surf the net in bed (vs doing computational heavy lifting at my desk). It runs fine, and I spend very little time on maintenance for any of my computers...but that's partly because it's no thing for me to take it apart at either the hardware or software level if something goes amiss.

[NeedleCast]

100. I've got a Dell Laptop and Desktop

The laptop is two years, the desktop is four years old. Both continue to run almost as well as the day I pulled them out of the box. The laptop has traveled with me on over 200 flights, been through customs serveral times and been used, abused and ridden hard on it's tour around the world.

Your milage may very, but Dells have been extremely reliable machines for me.

[madokie]

15. I would have gone with an apple

when I first bought a computer back in '89 if AutoCad would have run on it. Now I just like to fuck with the OS's innards too much to switch. Thats what DOS did to some of us :-)

[NeedleCast]

17. People with too much time on their hands

Some people can't be happy unless they're putting down someone or something else. I work in an office space that uses MAC and PC and there's never any bloodshed.

[Uzybone]

20. Idiocy

Apple and MS don't mind having fan boys though.

Imagine if there was a feud between those who favor front loaded washing machines vs top loaded? Thats how stupid the Mac vs PC (or Xbox vs Playstation) feuds are.

[KittyWampus]

34. OMG! Front load vs. top load

:D

[Occam Bandage]

38. Front-loaders are more expensive, have a smaller capacity, and are harder to repair.

And they're harder to use (more stooping) for anyone who isn't a dwarf. The only reason to pick one is that they're trendy.

[ipfilter]

47. They appear to have a smaller capacity

but you can stuff them all the way full. Plus they are good for the planet by using less water per load. The only people who use top loaders are those who don't care about the environment. ;)

[JerseygirlCT]

73. Can you?

We just got one, and I've been afraid to try that. I don't want to set off all those bells and whistles!

[ipfilter]

82. I stuff as many cloths as I can into it.

It's 3.7 cubic feet and we use every one of them. If I put that much laundry in my old top loader, with a higher capacity rating, they would not get clean. I didn't get the matching dryer right away and my previous dryer could not dry the larger loads in a timely manner. The matching dryer is 7.8 cubic feet. It is twice the capacity of the washer because you can stuff so many clothes into the washer.

[JerseygirlCT]

105. Good to know - thanks! nt

[KittyWampus]

49. actually, they use less H2O (only fills up bottom half) & clean better (more agitation via gravity)

[Dora]

54. You're wrong. nt

[endarkenment]

59. Oh and you can stack the dryer on top of the washer.

A minor point of course.

The capacity of the front load washers is now about the same as top load.

[Stinky The Clown]

23. I own 'em both. I use 'em both.

The Mac's a better machine, mostly. The OS is certainly better.

A comparably equipped PC costs the same as a Mac. Mac's are very well equipped and built of first rate bits. If one were to custom build a PC with the same or comparable components, one would pay what one pays for a Mac. Then the difference would be the OS. The Mac OS is clearly superior.

Not all software will run on a Mac. But it is getting better. The Mac version of Office, just as an example, is better than the PC version right now and the files share with no conversion issues. I need to run AutoCAD. It will not run on my Mac. Sorta. Macs can easily be configured to dual boot. Better yet, there is emulation software, like Parallels, that let you run PC and Mac software side by side on the same desktop and cut and paste between them. On my dual quad core (that is 8 processors!) MacPro with 16 Gb of Ram, AutoCAD runs about twice as fast as it does native on my newest PC. That amazed me.

On the flip side, for an average user, you can do PC computing for a lot less money that you can do Mac computing. You just do it slower. And with less reliability.

Mac controls every aspect of their computers - hardware and software. Drivers are built into the OS so there are no conflicts. The OS is run in a way that no programs interact with it so it stays rock solid stable. But all this is at the cost of compatibility and flexibility. I wanted to get a webcam for my Mac Pro. Only a very few will work with a MAC and they all cost well north of hundred and a quarter. I gave up and put a camera on my PC for forty nine bux.

Anyway, you could go on and on.

In my view, having both and not really one to give a shit about which system is the best, I have to say the Mac is the better machine.

[madrchsod]

25. i know of no one who uses an apple

and i hope i never do....i have read that apple users never brush their teeth.

[yurbud]

27. Macs are far more user friendly & to extent PCs are, they copied or licensed features from Mac OS

PC users follow the logic that if most people are buying something, it must be better.

The dominance of the Windows OS is mostly because Steve Jobs at Apple made a decision early on to only put the Apple OS in Apple computers, so they would work together more seamlessly and so Apple could exercise more quality control. That also raised their prices.


Microsoft decided early on to just make software. It is easier to ramp up production of CDs of your OS than to do so for whole computers, and easier still just to license the OS to computer companies to load on the computers they build.

The result is Apple has a built in limit on their market share, but ironically, the chronic bugginess of new versions of Windows makes me suspect Jobs was right from a technical standpoint if not from a market dominance one.

[NeedleCast]

30. And Mac users follow the logic that if a 20 something hipster with a goatee is selling it

it must be the superior product.

I mean, all PC users are pudgy middle-aged, nerdy white guys. The commerical told me so!

;-)

[yurbud]

77. I use a Mac at home and PCs where I teach.

I spend half my time helping students find their flash drive in MY COMPUTER once they've plugged it in, and the other half showing them how to remove it safely, both of which are intuitive on the Mac.

I realized years ago that another reason PCs dominated was most people were just using them to play games, so they didn't deal with the shitty OS much. Businesses like them because there's a lot of them and the machines are cheap. Techies like PCs because they give them work; sort of like a mechanic who works on American made cars.

[NeedleCast]

102. Not sure what that says about your students

Plug flash drive into USB port.
Wait two seconds for PC to identify drive.
If flash drive has autorun software, click on open file to view folders option.
If flash drive does not have auto run software, double-click my computer and locate new drive.

to remove flash drive, double-click safely remove hardware icon in system tray
Select flash drive from list.
Click OK
Remove from USB port.

If these instructions take longer than 30 seconds to explain, or you have to run through it more than twice for someone who regularly uses a flash drive, remove their computer and replace with cardboard box. They wont know the difference.

[yurbud]

146. it's actually even simpler on a mac. plug in flash drive, and it appears on desktop

and sidebar of save menus.

To eject it, you simply drag it to trash or click on eject icon next to it in the finder window.

[LanternWaste]

39. Coke v. Pepsi, Part II

Coke v. Pepsi, Part II. Nike v. Adidas. Ford v. Chevy.

I think we tend to invest some of ourselves into particular consumer products like cars, clothes and computers to a degree into which a negative critique on one of the mentioned products is translated into a negative critique of the person themselves. And Madison Avenue is quietly laughing.

The Cola Wars in the eighties was the first instance I'm aware of two companies engaged in symbiotic advertising that duped the consumers into advertising for them by stirring up a frenzy.

I've used both, and though I'm more comfortable using one rather than the other, they're all simply consumer appliances to me.

I perceive the intractable secular dogmatism associated with the debates simply as the consequence of great marketing and P.R, with consumers being conned into working as pawns, yet convincing themselves they're "too cool for school."

But that's all simply my own little opinion. :)

[Marr]

40. It goes back to the Middle Ages.

Mac users invaded the PC lands and started building castles. It was all downhill from there.

But seriously, the current king of the stupid hardware feuds is the X-Box/PS3 conflict.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

44. My point of reference is ....

as a MAC user.

I got my first Apple computer in 1987. I worked in advertising and it was and is the industry standard. The graphics capabilities and ease of use is what made the MAC essential.

BUT - I have a friend who is a surgeon and a professor at a leading hospital on the East Coast - he will only use Apple and was able to get his whole department on board. My husband, an attorney, is a PC person. After the HELL he went through with Vista, and the blue screen and multiple warnings about security issues for every little thing, he switched to a Mac - he runs Vista on the Mac and it works beautifully - He will never buy another Microsoft product again.

PC people love to tell us Apple users that we are stupid for using such an inferior product - they love to say it. I have heard it from lots and lots of people.... :eyes: This comes up when they send a a file that does not translate well to Mac. The PC people like to tell us that we pay too much money for our computers - for me it is like a greasy spoon cook telling a 4 star chef that they spent too much money on their knives. You get what you pay for. I have a computer that has never frozen or crashed or gotten a single virus. I have had it for 3 years. I replaced the battery a year ago - Apple did not charge me for it. It is the only thing that has ever happened.

I refuse to get into the PC V Apple debate... It is mind numbingly senseless.

[DemoTex]

48. The intellectual roots of this on-going, scintillating debate can be found here:

[TahitiNut]

50. Sure. As a fella who spent his career in IT, it's very familiar to me.

It's a manifestation of the Proprietary 'Culture' War syndrome. Throughout the history of IT/EDP, there have been single-tool zealots who've invested some limited time and brainpower in learning ONE product. ONE programming language, ONE implementation of some technology ... and then invest the rest of their efforts in evangelizing (and crusading) for THAT particular flavor against all others. It's a kind of self-preservation or indoctrination. Nine times out of ten, the most vocal zealots haven't gained expertise in the alternative technology and merely adopt the posture of loyalists.

In my particular area of career concentration, programming, it manifests itself in programming language 'Camps.' Low horsepower propeller-heads in the C, APL, assembler, Fortran, PL/I, YouNameIt 'camp' have a single language skill ... and proceed to proclaim it superior to all others. (I, personally, learned well over a dozen programming languages to an expert level and did programming-for-pay in each.) Today, we have the Microsoft Zealots ... people who invested their time and (sometimes) money in getting 'trained' in Microsoft's particularly arcane framing of Information Technology. They're not much different from the IBM indoctrinares of years past. It's all they know. They didn't learn non-proprietary framing - they were spoon-fed the corporate proprietary approach. We saw the same thing when DEC scattered PDP computers throughout the CompSci departments of colleges and universities and Berkeley developed a version of Unix that was made available to CompSci students. Folks graduated having learned their CompSci on Unix platforms ... and DIDN'T WANT TO LEARN ANY OTHER. It became the 'intelligentsia' platform of choice.

The fact of the matter is that PROFESSIONALS in IT often select their personal computer based on market penetration. It makes little sense for many to invest in gaining expertise in a platform that's only 10% of a market into which they're peddling their services.

So ... 95% of the 'wars' and posturing are self-serving. People 'argue' in favor of what they know and sneer at thing about which they're ignorant.

[DemoTex]

56. Bwaa haa haa!

My point exactly! But the words escaped me.

:rofl:

[TahitiNut]

58. Yeah ... I saw your post after I completed mine. I'm in awe. Yours was FAR more succinct.

Kudos, bro. :pals: I admire pithy and succinct.

[KittyWampus]

63. there are a couple of very informative and thoughtful replies on this thread. Thanks for the insight

I

[TahitiNut]

67. You're welcome. I've been an observer of these Wars for over 40 years.

The 'old' seems 'new' to the more recent draftees. :shrug:

FWIW, my Apple expertise goes way back to the Apple II and the Lisa. My DOS experience precedes DOS - CP/M and the 'bigboard' computers of the late 70s and 80s. I was the 'local expert' in a variety of technology platforms over the years ... IBM mainframes and Unix minicomputers and workstations and a variety of communications technologies. In most cases, it was INTERNALS expertise, not just 'user level' skills. I personally found that ALL such platforms and technologies have strengths and weaknesses and were fascinating to me largely BECAUSE of their differing personalities and prevalent design paradigms.

These 'religious wars' have been going on forever. :shrug:

[NV Whino]

51. One of my clients is a former Microsoft mucky muck

I walked into his house for a meeting this past summer and saw.... 4 Mac laptops. One for each of his kids, one for him and a new Mac Air for his wife.

Just sayin'.

[TahitiNut]

60. OMG! My next door neighbor, whose family worked a lifetime at Chrysler, ...

... drives a Chevy truck! Chevy MUST be superior!!!

:sarcasm:

[anonymous171]

155. lol Mac Air. nt

[Extend a Hand]

57. in the beginning was the command line

Here is an authorized update of a 1999 essay by Neil Stephenson
that kind of explains some of the history.

http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html

[NashVegas]

83. I Tried to Read That and Got Halfway Through

As a non-progammer, it's really a very, very simple matter to me.

Computer study was about 2-3 years behind my graduating HS class; I started a career in a highly creative, if not well-paying, field (art, entertainment, lit) and expanded it into other aspects of the same or similar fields.

While Macintosh programmers were writing software to assist me and other creative workers, PC programmers were writing software to switch me into a position where I am assisting a machine what's abilities are inferior to my own or even worse - as many in my field have - being replaced by it altogether.

Is it any surprise that people whose jobs or hobbies were in the arts and humanities would hug their Macs and loathe the PC, while people who opted for safer, more quickly lucrative careers would push the PC, with its read-the-fucking-manual methodology, for its ability to seemingly replace earned knowledge and skills with a few key-strokes?

[anigbrowl]

120. The thing is, though...

that a lot of the fun, creative, assistive software gets prototyped on the PC end, about evenly split between Windows and Linux/Unix. Take the new Safari browser - it has all these cool multi-page/3d displays that allow you to manage multiple web pages at once in a very intuitive visual manner. Awesome...but I've been doing that since last summer. Similarly, iTunes is very good (and is what I use these days) but iTunes appeared quite a while after WinAMP, xmms etc. had been around for several years. Don't even get me started on things like Compiz. I work in the arts and I can't stand using a Mac, it slows me down a lot of the time.

[NashVegas]

128. That's Wonderful For You

I happen to have different needs and a different experience.

[customerserviceguy]

62. I had a networking instructor

who was famous for saying, "It's an operating system, not a religion." He was talking about Novell vs. Microsoft, but the principle remains the same.

[TahitiNut]

65. The 'religion' analogy holds true for one particular reason.

MOST devotees of various religious faith traditions ONLY know that religion. It's the one they first (and last) learned. They know no other. They were 'taught' (indoctrinated) in a way that insinuated DOGMA into their thought processes. The same holds true for corporate (proprietary) IT ... and the corporations KNOW it. Crusaders in the IT wars are cannon fodder for the corporate powers they've been drafted into.

[RedCappedBandit]

64. I hate my pos macbook. I couldn't care less what anybody else owns, though.

[jeepnstein]

68. It's nothing...

Walk up to a bunch of guys with vintage Toyota Land Cruisers some time and tell them "Nice Jeep!"

[ipfilter]

70. Talk about throwing red meat to a pack of wolves. nt

[eeyore]

69. You'll find more satisfying answers regarding Israel v. Palestine

You may as well just go to the Gaza Strip and ask each person you meet, " What seems to be the trouble here?"

You will never crack this nut. I have my reasons for using Macs, but mostly they just make more sense to me. I don't find the appeal of building my own badass Franken-PC that can destroy all others. I just want to buy a computer that works without trouble, does what I require of it, and lasts until I've worn it out. For me, that's a Mac.

Oh, and anyone who still uses a PC at this point is a fucking dolt who enjoys daily corporate punishment. :evilgrin:

[infidel dog]

71. Who gives a fuck about a geek slapfight? Get a life.

[JerseygirlCT]

72. Escapes me too. Whatever you like - why is it something

to judge someone on? It's just stuff, a tool.

[EnviroBat]

74. I just HATE THEM SO MUCH!

[timtom]

76. As a PC user

(who reluctantly bought into MS-DOS when it was clear the Commodore Amiga wasn't going anywhere), no.

I use the PC and do not enjoy Mac, but, bear absolutely no ill-will to any Mac user.

And I do not consider them lesser beings.

[progressoid]

78. Mac users often have six toes on their left foot (if they have a left foot)

PC users are usually plagued with hairy moles.

[IDemo]

79. Newegg, dual boot XP / Linux Mint

http://www.linuxmint.com/about.php

[AlCzervik]

80. To entertain the rest of us.

[SecularMotion]

86. It's no different than Ford vs Chevy

Advertisers market products in a way that consumers will identify with certain brands. When other people are critical of those products, people who identify with the brand may be offended and feel they must defend "their" product.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

87. Sure. Many Mac Users Are Pompous Over Zealous Annoying As Hell Nose Lifters.

Not all of them are though. But many are. So it's fun to see them get all riled up.

[eeyore]

96. Oh Yeah?

Many PC users are combative, pimply goaders who never grew out of their affinity for debate club, Dungeons and Dragons, Rush and trench coats. Oh, and don't dare to bring one out of their parents' basement and into public - their melanin deprived souls will run screaming to the nearest video game store or 7-11.

Not all of them, though.


}(

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

98. There's One Now!

:rofl:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

153. "it's fun to see them get all riled up."

NOW I know why you're still at DU when 95% of the opinions of 95% of the posters are anathema to yours.

[MrScorpio]

103. "Are you blind, KittyWampus? Well, look at me. Look at me!"

"Mac Users black on the right side. "This PC User is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right side."

[Political Heretic]

106. Geeks get really worked up about their toys (says this geek)

Although, ultra Geeks will be waving their Linux flags at me I'm sure (Unbuntu forever!)

It's really very stupid. It all boils down to personal preference and what you use your system for.

[TrogL]

108. A lot of it is psychology, the rest is the Operating System

Full disclosure:

• I do not own a current Macintosh nor have I used one in decades.
  
• I do own an original 1984 Macintosh and it still works.
  
• I have several friends who own Macintosh laptops
  
• I own various PC's running Windows 2000, XP and Vista
  
• I do UNIX systems administration (primarily) and Windows server administration (secondarily) for a living
  

No doubt you've seen the recent Mac vs. PC ads. They portray the right-brain vs. left-brain arguments that are at the core of much of the Mac vs. PC wars. The Mac owners I know are artistic types (musicians and artists). The PC owners I know are primarily gamers or just ordinary users of email, office products and browsers. The gamers tend to scream and curse at their machines because they're never fast enough and they crash a lot. I blame a lot of this on the game. The regular users tend to be baffled by their machines because they usual run fine but occasionally lock up or become really sluggish and they don't know how to fix them.

A bit of history.

UNIX has been around for a long time. You can google for the details but it started as a mainframe/minicomputer operating system/kernel. Some users had access to some hardware and it ran hopelessly slow for what they wanted to do because it ran a huge multi-user operating system. They needed something lean, mean and fast so they wrote a single user kernel (the guts behind the operating system) to run their application. It was an immediate hit and they dubbed it UNIX, the "U" meaning unary. Their boss told them to rewrite it so it was multi-user (so much for unary) and the rest was history. It was designed from the ground up to be lean, mean and fast with state-of-the-art memory management, security and with features such as automatic disk defragmentation. Its user interface sucked because it was designed to be used by technical people. It was also a "home-brew" effort, which morphed into the "open source" community.

The Macintosh started out as highly proprietary piece of hardware with a very proprietary, closed operating system. There were very few applications, but they were brilliant - true word processing (MacWord) and graphics (MacPaint). In 1984, when I was in a market for a computer, I needed it to do three things - word processing (my handwriting has been completely illegible since grade 4), graphics (I can't draw worth shit) and mainframe terminal emulation with the APL character set (google is your friend). I believed all the advertising and went to the IBM store, took out my checkbook and actually had a system on the cart ready to go when (as an afterthought) started asking whether the system would actually do those things. They salesman kept saying "why would you want to do that?" so I tore up the cheque in his face and stormed out. I bought my Mac the next day 'cause it would do all of it, including the terminal emulation. The problem was that that was all it would do - there was no other software. However, there was a poster on the wall for the local Macintosh Users Group. Next thing I knew, I was writing Macintosh software (you had to buy several books, software and teach yourself Pascal and Object Oriented Programming) and people all over the world were using it - another open source movement.

It took years for the PC to catch up. When it finally did, it was because of extremely inexpensive hardware and some bad decisions on Apple's part. It eventually reached the point where Apple was having problems maintaining its own proprietary operating system, so they made an completely insane, off the wall, brilliant technical decision. They trashed their operating system. Yup. They trashed their OS and adopted a UNIX variant. Because Macintosh OS and GUI had been written using Object Oriented methodologies, it was a relatively simple matter to break the links for the Graphical User Interface (GUI - the windowing environment) and their propriety kernel (the guts) and drop the UNIX kernel in. Hence, they could concentrate on improvements to the GUI and leave the kernel to the open source community - people like me. They were left with the best of both worlds, a state-of-the art GUI and a designed-from-the-ground-up secure operating system kernel maintained by geeks like me.

Things did not bode so well on the PC side of things. Microsoft's operating system has always been in-house, always proprietary and always problematical, especially its memory management. They literally stole the Windows environment from Apple and plonked it on top and tried to make the two work together. It's always been a nightmare. Then they decided to tack-on multi-user capability (rather than it being designed in from day two). The whole thing is a hodge-podge mess that's never worked right, cannot work right by design (because there isn't one) and is responsible for Windows' horrible performance (that's why you need a gazillion gigahertz processor and gobs of RAM just to make it run at all), constant crashing and susceptibility to viruses. It's unfixable without a complete rewrite, or just trash the kernel and adopt UNIX like Apple did.

The problem is, that I've probably lost most of you with that explanation. To most people, the computer is the application and they have no clue what's going on behind the scenes. They don't even understand the distinction between application and GUI especially because in Windows there is no distinction. Windows is not an operating system - it's an application bolted on a kernel never designed to do the things it's being asked to do. Microsoft has so badly blurred the distinction between what is OS and what is application that's impossible to pry them apart. Windows Explorer code is everywhere. If it gets clobbered by a virus, it's into your operating system.

Finally, Microsoft absolutely refuses to follow any sort of standards. All the way back to mainframe days there have been standard ways of doing things. They are documented in RFC's. Microsoft always changes them, then calls them their own and claims to be the standard. They made a huge noise about Active Dirctory Services being the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's just Kerberos and LDAP with just enough tweaks to make it not work properly with industry standard Kerberos and LDAP. You have to buy separate software to make it work properly but even then it's a kludge.

So here's the whole war in a nutshell.

Windows:

Pros:

inexpensive

available in small markets

easy to use (in its own way)

lots of people have it

lots of propreitary applications

really good games

Cons:

proprietary closed OS

bloated

buggy as all hell

insecure

poor interoperability

non-standard

Macintosh

Pros:

robust, secure operating system

easy to use (in its own way)

lots of open source applications eg. Open Office

really good niche applications eg. music, artistic, drafting

Cons:

less market adoption

not available in many stores

proprietary hardware (less since Apple adopted Intel chips)

many PC titles not available, especially games

single-button mouse

[KittyWampus]

109. Thanks! I pretty much understood your post (or got to what you were trying to express)

In fact, you explained it so well, you could probably be a good teacher.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

115. It's stupid tribalism. Perception by one group that the other is snooty and superior acting.

The group that feels snubbed then gets angry and reactive, and the perceived snooty group reacts to that.

Not going to get into the issue of whether advertising campaigns by one camp or the other encouraged such feelings, ahem.

I have owned many many products related to both "camps". There are advantages and disadvantages both ways. There is nothing morally superior about one or the other, just consumer goods.

Apple and Microsoft are both huge corporations and both are happy to exploit monopolistic advantages when they have them.

Microsoft for decades with operating system monopoly, and Apple with DRM bullshit with the huge competitive advantage they enjoy in the digital music/player area now.

A good chunk of hardware for both "camps" is made in low wage factories in Asia too.

Nothing magic there.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

137. Good points

I am a musician, and every recording studio I have been in over the last years runs ProTools on powerful Macs. Want to hear a profanity laced tirade? Ask any recording engineer about using PCs. The response will peel the wallpaper, at least IME.

[mmonk]

111. Maybe this will help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vci_9yaOZe4

[crimsonblue]

113. I have many friends that use PCs,

but secretly I feel very ashamed and sorry for them.

[mudesi]

114. Mac Users Are Stupid Corporate Zombies

Who have fallen for a marketing campaign to such a degree that they attend conventions like it's a religion.

[Elwood P Dowd]

117. Mac users Al Gore and Barack Obama are stupid zombies?

:eyes:

[mudesi]

123. What A Pointless Rebuttal

What does that have to do with anything?

[urgk]

148. A pointless rebuttal was exactly what that post deserved. (n/t)

[Occam Bandage]

129. Nothing stupid about it. I'm well aware that a major corporation, being Apple,

is far better at designing hardware and software interfaces than I am, so I pay them to do it for me, and I enjoy the result.

[demodonkey]

132. Hear, hear. Apple simply produces a better product. (And I have used both.) nt

[Malikshah]

116. Think John Cleese and his views on Communism...

Replace Communism with "MAC" or "PC" and you'll get the picture...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoATWN68IZA

[Lydia Leftcoast]

118. I think it started as a form of geek machismo

When the Macs first came out, they were so easy to use compared to the PCs of the time that real computer geeks looked down on them.

You still see some of that today, when people say that they could build a PC for a Mac costs or that they can't play every game in the universe on a Mac.

Well, I'm not a gamer, and I don't want to build my own PC.

[nadinbrzezinski]

119. Mostly hot fans of both

now I hate Vista (does not work well in the system we have and before anybody says it, top model, top sofware)

Now I run XP on my handheld since I could not run a couple programs with WINE and the drive is way too small to double boot to linux or XP

But I type this from my Mac

The advantage, viruses, what are those?

The way I see it, they're tools, and both companies do things that I find questionable

MS... way too many, especially when it comes to driving others out of bidness

Mac, well they moved all production to China, you know what I mean right?

[Deep13]

126. You mean the animosity?

Beats me. I have a PC at the office and an Imac at home.

[Better Believe It]

135. I like Vista and unfortunately very little software exists for Mac's.

Some of my best friends used Mac's. Now they use PC's.

[varkam]

139. Holy shit - and here I thought I was the only person on the face of the planet that liked Vista.

I used a computer with XP the other day and I swear Vista has spoiled me.

[Better Believe It]

145. Some people don't have enough computer horsepower to use Vista

That's why they have a problem.

A year ago I bought a HP with a Intel Core2Quad and 3gb of RAM. It can handle anything Vista and games can throw at it.

I think a lot of people probably upgraded to XP with computers that are too slow and don't have enough RAM to properly use Vista.

So they naturally don't like Vista.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

136. I had a PC for years

It ran Win 98 and I could count the number of times it crashed in seven years on one hand and have a majority of fingers left over. But I couldn't add the new bells and whistles, and MS basically stopped supporting the system. The horror stories I heard about Vista's bugginess and clumsiness from a couple of turbo-geek IT pros I know convinced me to switch to Apple a year ago. Those same folks swore up and down that Win 98 was the best, most stable version of Windows EVER. I find my Mac to be more intuitive and it is rock solid. I've used a couple Vista PCs. Blech. I don't care if it can do 40 krillion things if it isn't easy to do the things I want a computer to do.

Apple fan/owner, but not a PC enemy, that's me.

[Odin2005]

141. Mac Fanatics are annoying. Apple is just another corporation looking for maximizing profits.

The notion that they are inherently better then Microsoft just because they are the underdog is moronic. It seems like a way for certain people to feel smug and superior.

[Solon]

142. The feud makes no sense anymore, Apple is just another PC manufacturer, like Dell...

the only major difference between them and other PC manufacturers is that they package their own Proprietary Operating System in with the PC they sell.

[urgk]

147. I have to use a hair dryer to start my 4 year old mac g5.

I have a bad logic board like hundreds of other users online. And I read about a fix where you take out the main fans and point a hair dryer on high at the circuit board for 15-20 seconds to start the machine. To replace the part in this relatively young machine, I'd have to pay $1000.

I like macs a lot. But lately, I don't really love Apple.

For what it's worth.