h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The thing that always put me off buying... no, *one* of the things that always put me off going Mac, was it was such a niche product that a lot of developers just never bothered to make a Mac version of their software (or hardware?), plus I like to build my own PCs. But I always admired the idea that they made good products that worked well and had a loyal fanbase, especially among people who did a lot of graphic work (I don't, so I never really understood why that was).

Now I won't ever have anything to do with them because of the control they seem to want over everything. No-one except me is going to have the power to delete songs from my mp3 player or software from my computer or smartphone (can they really do that or is it a scare story/urban myth?). Not that I've ever owned an mp3 player or smartphone. Yet.

And now that Steve Jobs is brown bread, stories are coming out that suggest in later years he had many of the same avaricious and just plain mean characteristics that he, as a member of the Homebrew Club which held openness and sharing in the highest regard, and by deduction must have been against the idea of coporatism, criticised Bill Gates for when Gates sent his Open Letter to Hobbyists in 1976.

Mac ambassadors are one thing -- it's the Mac missionaries that get up my nose.

One morning a friend arrived and found me fussing over adding my netbook to my peer network of PC's. She immediately launched into telling me how much easier my life would be if I bought into Apple stuff, how much easier they are to use, how much better this and easier that.

And I thought of Douglas Adams, who said he was never happier than when he was taking 4 hours to design a widget (before the word 'widget' was used to name widgets) to do something he could have accomplished himself in 10 minutes without the computer.

And this woman, who doesn't know a task image from a bucket of rusty bolts, started crossing the line from the greatness of Apple to the badness of PC, at which point I had to growl at her and make her stop.

Having a long history of personal computer use is like being a shade tree mechanic. The mechanic who has a deep love of the whole science of internal combustion, and understands engines well enough to fabricate parts to maintain performance, probably would not appreciate having someone insist on extolling the wondrousness of chipped engines (engines with microcumputers) because they are EASIER.

Plus, if anyone tells me they could never get a decent result out of Photoshop on a PC, I am very much inclined to look hard at the operator. I would never be so prejudiced as to generalize about Mac users, would I, but when any, ANY user says easier is better, I suspect that they are looking deeply into the surface of things.

I have never and will never own an Apple product. That said, I don't necessarily try to dissuade others from doing so. I have an Android tablet and on several occasions people have asked me for recommendations. I usually make a residential analogy regarding Android vs. Apple. Apple products are like gated communities with strict homeowners associations. Android is more like living in a zoning free community. If you like to be free to alter your property in any way you see fit, Apple is not for you. If you prefer more security and confidence that your neighbors will behave in expected manners then Apple is your better choice.

I don't mind getting my hands dirty playing around with the software running my tablet and I definitely don't like the idea of being restricted on what apps I can run or allowing someone else to delete files on my device (although that is still an issue with my Kindle reader app).

While I'm thinking of it I need to make a bug report. When I clicked on this thread from My Conversations pop up, I was taken to post 21 even though I hadn't read post 1. This may be an issue with my Opera mini browser on my tablet as it usually brings me to random spots on the page, but at least it usually gets me to the correct page. Maybe I just didn't notice before and it has always been taking me to the last page and I've been missing posts.

Switch to Opera Mobile rather than Mini, Mini serves cloud cached compared to Mobile's device cached.

That's a sweeping generalisation, but the easiest way to explain quickly

I am a Mac user.

I have my reasons for this.

1) the universal access features on Mac computers are lightyears ahead of anything I have tried to use on PC's.

2) i grew up using Macs, my primary school had them we had one at home and my secondary school even had a couple. I know how to use them

3) I find PC's awkward to use, I can use them, but they make less sense to me.

4) my ipod is almost 5 years old and still going strong. My shinymac is coming up for three years old and is also doing fine. my previous laptop (a G3 iBook) was 4 years old when i purchased it secondhand, the only reason I no longer have it is because I dropped it while on a bus and broke something inside it.

I do not own an iPhone. I actually own a Samsung Europa, which runs Android 2.2 It's pants, but it was cheap. I cannot afford iPhone, plus I have played around on my sisters iPod touch, and no likey.

mini

Your *primary school* had Macs? Crikey, did they have a money tree on the field?

I use PCs for three simple reasons:

1) I can upgrade hardware easily.

2) They're cheaper.

3) I have never encountered a decent argument for Macs being better at PCs for that stuff I want to do (play games, record music, surf the net).

Apple were very smart in donating macs or providing them at low costs to schools. They got a whole generation hooked on them. This is especially true in the graphic arts fields. So many people I've worked with swear that macs are inherently better than PCs for photomanipulation and graphics. But I know from working in the field for so many years that it's not necessarily true. PCs are just as capable and a lot more affordable which means you can often buy a much more powerful PC for the same amount as an average priced mac. These students got used to the interface of macs and switching to PCs means hitting a learning curve. And yes, PCs aren't quite as user friendly than macs.


Pastey, I can't switch to Opera Mobile. I'm using a Notion Ink Adam which is not market ready and Opera Mobile doesn't play well with it. Anyway, on a related note, clicking on the "latest post: X (time) ago" link takes me to the top of the last page in threads and not the last post even on my linux/firefox laptop. I think it's done this for quite some time but I believe at some point in the past it did take us to the actual last post. Anyway, these aren't big issues and I just have to make a mental note of how many new posts there are before going to the threads.

"Apple were very smart in donating macs or providing them at low costs to schools. They got a whole generation hooked on them."

Kind of like drug dealers then?

Fruit dealers?

Really, I never saw any problem with using Photoshop on a PC. I know many profs at uni had Macs... especially those from the stranger departments. Those who told everyone to use autocad instad of ArchiCAD. Tells a lot I guess because autocad is a complete program.

I wonder: can you build your own Mac at all? I mean with a PC you can buy the parts and stick them together yourself and get exactly what you need.

Can you even upgrade Macs?

When Apple went over to Intel chips I think there was talk of being able to build your own, but I don't know for sure if it's possible.

>Can you even upgrade Macs?<

Yes, buy a pc.

All the problems I had with PC's have been a consequence of them being an open system. From the start, pretty much anybody could build anything for a PC, soft or hard. Remember when you bought a program with graphics, part of initializing it was having to check what kind of graphics card you had, because until the early 90's there were no set standards for image mapping. I was working in graphics programs in the late 80's, and we were allowing for about half a dozen types of cards -- STB, Creative, Number Nine, 4 kinds of Targas...

Anyway, because the system was open, it was open to abuse, for software that didn't clean up after itself or that would encroach on reserved memory and BSOD the machine. And Microsoft really took a PR hit on account of the bad habits of some third part developers.

But if there were never PCs, only Apples, we would have vastly fewer software applications on the market, and they would all cost as much as Adobe stuff does.

It's always been about the merchandising: http://www.retronaut.co/2011/10/apple-gift-catalog-1993/

It's surprising how many of the people I know read the retronaut

I remember once getting an email from Apple telling me that an iPod would make the perfect Bar-Mitzvah gift (this was after several claiming it to be the perfect Birthday, Father's Day, Mother's Day and Christmas gifts).