Sorry to keep this off-topic thread going, but I have an
obsessive-compulsive need to correct misinformation ;)
Shawn Lin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Macs commanded a premium price on hardware
This was definitely true in the past, but it is not any longer.
The thing most people forget about the "cost" issue is that the VAST
majority of consumers don't build their own machine, and will never upgrade
their computer (processor upgrade, etc.) in the future. When their current
computer gets old/outdated, they sell it (or hand it down) and buy a new
one. This is true of both Windows PCs and Macs.
That being the case, the above statement about "Mac price premiums" is only
true if you build your own machine. If you buy from a name vendor, as the
majority of consumers do, there is no longer a price premium. For the same
money, you get as much or more buying a Mac nowadays. And you can upgrade
most Mac processors nowadays for pretty cheap as well.
"Alan Dowds" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I use an Apple in my work as a motorcycle journalist. It's a
>three-month-old G4 500mhz, with CDRW, 384MB RAM. I normally use it
>for Word, Outlook, Explorer, Quark and Real Player. It crashes all
>the time - at least twice a day, often more.
>
>It's less reliable than my own (home-made) Windows/AMD PC. I think
>Apples have become less reliable over the past couple of years. The
>old Performas were almost indestructible. The newer ones seem much
>less so.
There are two things here. The first is that the reason newer Macs are "out
of the box" less stable is that they now have incredibly greater built-in
functionality than Performas of years ago had. On any platform, adding
features reduces stability. Look what USB did to Windows ;) Objectively,
current Macs are far more stable and powerful than older Performas. In fact,
from a statistical point of view, the Performa line was the worst line Apple
every made if you look at repair histories.
That said, any operating system "out of the box" is bad. Windows, Mac, Linux
-- every one can be made significantly more stable with a little knowledge.
That sucks for consumers, but that's the way it is. I run NT, OS 9, and OS
X, and none of them freezes, because they've all been tweaked a bit. The
fact that Alan built his Windows PC leads me to believe that he is quite a
bit more proficient with Windows than he is with Mac OS, which could explain
why his Windows machine is more stable.
As was said earlier on the list, the stability of any operating system is
directly related to how much of an expert the user is.
"Matt Wall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Apple gives huge breaks on both software and hardware for schools,
>studends and teachers. so i would guess that is a lot of the reason,
>not that they want the students using an os that they will use in the
>real world ;)
First, this is a comment from someone who obviously doesn't know the market.
The days of "huge breaks" for schools, students, and teachers ended years
ago. The "big break" Apple gives schools on a $999 computer? About $50. This
is because Apple's hardware is actually price-competitive now, so they don't
have the margins to work with that they once did. Heck, Dell gives bigger
breaks to schools than Apple does.
Second, as for "using an os that they will use in the real world," that's a
silly concept that has never been a good rule for what platform to use, for
three reasons. 1) Studies have shown that *learning* to use a computer is
far more important than what operating system is used for that learning; 2)
the major applications work exactly the same on all platforms; and 3)
technology and operating systems change so fast that a kid using a computer
in 6th grade today won't be using anything remotely similar to that
computer/OS when he's in the "real world." (Heck, Mac OS 7.x and 8 were much
closer to Windows 95/98 than Windows 3.1 was... even Microsoft found it
easier for people to transition from Mac to Windows 9x than from 3.1 to 9x
;)). Given these facts the best thing for a school to do is buy what is the
easiest to teach/learn with, the easiest to support, etc. Some schools find
this to be Windows, some Mac.
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