I am not here to start a flame war.

I am not here to insult people.

I am just here to provide my opinion.

Here is my opinion:
http://retro-box.net/blargh/2012/05/20/why-tandyman100-thinks-the-apple-macintosh-is-overhyped/

Any faults with my reasoning? I wrote this last spring, just now posted it...

I agree with you and think there over hyped massively. They say theres no viruses or crashes. WRONG.



Macs version of Blue Screen Of Death:

I'll second nearly everything Tandyman100 wrote. Although he might have been a bit to kind.

When I read the article, only one thing came to my mind: Mac vs. PC? A Mac is a PC!

I agree with you, that was a well written article.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!



I was trying to not come across as being biased or unfair

I am a Mac user and I agreed with everything in the article.

Why do I use Macs? They suite what I need. I don't care if there are "PC Alternatives" there are no clones. I cannot buy Final Cut Pro for PC (and don't you tell me Vegas is similar, its not) but I can buy it for Mac.

Its based off opinion.

I hope your article becomes popular because it really does make sense. People are always complaining about macs and yes, there are reasons too. But there are reasons to complain about PC's too.

Talk about flamebait. I know your intentions are well but the sad truth is that's what it always ends up being.

The Macs in work need rebooting several times daily. Why I don't know but my windows machine goes weeks without a reboot and then only rebooted because I get forced to by the IT tech for updated.

Macs are good but its personal preference.

Whilst I agree with the points in the article and even love the material he uses your opening yourself up to just being flamed out. I have to agree with my compatriots here much as I dislike falling into the norm the Apple fan boys would rip you to shreds just giving you that. I don't personally think you will get that much resistance here but its a mostly windows forum good luck thou.

I'd say 10/10 for that article though I love it.

Hold up there! I also have an opinion!



The sad truth is - Apple has to take regular PC RAM, and waste additional money to test each unit and make them Mac compatible. That is much more expensive. Same with graphics cards, they have to test it, flash EFI to it, remove PC ports and add Thunderbolt ports. There's also one thing, most countries don't have an official Apple Store, for example in our local Premium Reseller here the products are 20 euro more expensive (so I try to buy them in regular tech shops).



Well, people's iMac G3s and G4s still live and are in the perfect condition. Someone's MacBook here on BetaArchive from 2006 runs Snow Leopard perfectly. Where have you got the information that they "break after a couple of years". Also, there is such thing as AppleCare. If you can't be bothered to buy a new computer, Apple will fix your hyper-old iBook from 2003 if you want (IIRC) for extra price.

About the Mom-n-Pop stores: who knows how they are fixing? Maybe they are inexperienced, and the computer will break entirely, then they say "It's your fault!". If they are experienced enough, they will know how to fix Macs, and have the correct tools.



My friend said it was easy for him to get used to the OS X interface after several years of using PCs.

Also, it was made like that for a reason. Have you heard about Mission Control?



See how cleverly made? I think it's a good feature to keep some apps in memory. They will "launch" fast even on a Core 2 Duo.



Most Mac people use keyboard shortcuts. Command + S, which is Save, for example. And if you get used to the interface, that accident won't happen. Really.



What about driver faults? I had had some problems with WiFi drivers, and I kept getting BSODs on my media center PC, running Windows 7, turns out it was outdated drivers. Then I had BSODs because I mounted a VHD. My friend with a PC running Windows 7 couldn't share his Internet connection just because his Intel 100Mbit drivers were outdated. Again. He updated it and it started working.

And if a driver fails in *nix, it will either won't run or just unload. No kernel panics because of that. Simply.



Well, would you trust a window saying "SistemUpdter asks you to enter the password"? Considering that, was there any virus that didn't use exploits on a Mac yet? At least one? The one, that you can't remove very simply. Mac market share keeps growing. No, still no.



XP install under 30 minutes for me. Vista - nearly an hour. Seven - in 30 minutes. Mountain Lion - in 30 minutes. All on the same computer.

And what's wrong with this article. Should I create one for Windows too, in the same style of writing? Should I tell people how bad are PCs and they all need to move to Macs? I don't think.

Well someone had to go be a flamer we all saw it coming guys so be kind I'll take care of this.

Ok Lets start with the Memory issue you brought up. The memory apple uses is like anything else it uses the regular standard of memory however this is a case of if you buy it through the manufacturer to get so called Special OEM RAM its gonna cost more. The only thing I can think of Apple doing to make the RAM special is by making it proprietary in order for only Apple computers to be able to use it.

Now Lets move on to the reliability of laptops for your typical user a laptop last about 2-5 years before it becomes completely obsolete and non supported by Microsoft or Apple. This is so because most of the features are in the new Operating Systems however respectable these features may be it always lends itself to run on newer hardware.

Now regarding the memory issue this is not an insult so please do not take it as such. What the author of the article is saying is that if you store most of your programs in the memory and only have say 2GB of memory. Your computer will be slow as molasses so its just not a wise decision to do this on a computer with less than the required RAM however this is negligible since apple says what specs will be on its laptops. However storing your programs in RAM and leaving them there is not wise because they should be closed out eventually for sake of resources on the computer.

Lets go on to Driver Issues as of right now most of the time the Windows update program covers this so its pretty much a non-issue in my book. Now regarding your lack of knowledge on Mac viruses this is just blatantly un-true if there are no Mac viruses then what do you say to all those news stories regarding them earlier?

Getting back to the point of when this article was made in early 2000 it was comparing between the Operating Systems of the time so its respectively wrong to take that and compare two OS' that are out right now. Obviously the software and hardware has gotten much better in about 10 years so please keep that in mind before I dissect your reasoning.

I already said. It is because it has to be tested, and yes, it has to be Mac only. That way, the keep the quality of brand.



Like you can't. There is such thing as "Quit", which means freeing an app from the memory. Nearly any Mac user knows about that. In the Dock, right click on an icon and press Quit.



What if there are no drivers in Windows Update, or again, they're there, but outdated. Happens to me sometimes, so I have to go to manufacturer's website, and manually get drivers from there.



Then why did the OP compare the OS as well. Not sure.

Oh, where to start...

There's no excuse for charging what they do for RAM. In actual fact, they generally use generic PC RAM from a variety of chinese suppliers - it's by no means high-quality. There's no special testing needed - Macs *are* PCs. That said, other PC OEMs do exactly the same

You're also seriously misguided about other compontents too. Graphics Cards? No "flashing EFI" to it is necessary. I think they might actually add custom firmware, but there's no *technical* reason to do so. "Thunderbolt" ports on discrete graphics cards are a no. Thunderbolt is an Intel standard - only they can use it at the moment. What you see on discrete graphics cards are Mini DisplayPorts - they share the same connector and Thunderbolt uses the DisplayPort standard to transmit Video and Audio, so for all intents, they are compatible for that purpose, but they are not the same. Only the Intel chipsets can currently provide Thunderbolt.

I've also got a Mac Mini that was dodgy from the start. Just as it's absurd to claim all Macs are crafted by monkeys paid in bananas from my experience, it's just as absurd for you to claim the opposite based on your anecdotal evidence. There are even older PCs still serving their owners fine. Being PCs these days, using mostly third-party PC parts, I'd be surprised if there was a significant divergence in failure rates.

Depends on the type of failure. Linux was near unusable for me with one driver, because it just kept corrupting the display. Windows 7, on the other hand, can quite easily kill and restart display drivers with nothing but a flicker visible to the end user. Windows also has to support a lot more hardware, and will therefore be more affected by useless OEMs - but it's not a problem that never happens on Macs, there's plenty of peripherals and hackintoshes out there that prove it's an OEM thing, not an Apple/Microsoft problem.

Mac have had both trojans that use social engineering and exploit-driven malware. Exploit-driven malware is considered worse, simply because no user interaction is required. That said, social engineering drives most malware today on all platforms, because all the technical effort in the world won't stop a poorly-educated user allowing something they shouldn't.

Windows 7 goes from WinPE to Desktop in about 25mins for me, on my *netbook*. Much quicker than installing Mountain Lion on my Mac Mini.

And what if the RAM unit is defected? They do testing for that. The quality is not the RAM sticks, the quality is in the tests of them and support. (And again, Apple has a significantly lower PC market share).




Flashing EFI is necessary to work in a non-BIOS supported computer, just because the GPU also has BIOS in it. Look here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=877441

And Intel can use Thunderbolt (though they don't yet), as well as Apple. Look here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-ATI-Radeon- ... 1e5f8beac6
Though the MiniDisplay port was replaced with Thunderbolt in new cards.



Well, I heard HP and Compaq laptops break after 2-3 years. In fact, that's true, I've seen it with my eyes. They can also overheat, and parts can be replaced with Chinese alternatives, which makes it fail even quicker. It's not like all PCs fail, yes, but it's not that Macs also fail.



Yeah, I had to make my PC hardware nearly the same as in a Mac, so it works well. There are only a few unofficial kexts (Mac drivers).

Then again, if a driver fails, NT can't unload it. It's not possible there, it will just BSOD. The flicker thing you told about - the driver doesn't fully restart, just the part that renders 3D graphics. And sometimes, if that doesn't restart, then it BSODs. I had that problem in 2010 with my G43 Express Chipset.



That's because a user should have at least some common sense of entering password. You won't enter your password if a dialog box randomly pops up, as well if you download a game. Why does a game need to have root privileges?



It's same for me. Don't know why.

Dunno where you get your RAM, but no-one I know sells defective RAM - any decent RAM manufacturer has a basic level of quality testing before shipping. I understand support costs, but we're talking going from $11/GB to $75/GB (and it's worse in the UK with GBP) - that's not excusable, though as I said, other OEMs aren't much better.

There's no technical need, besides Apple preferring it. You'll find any graphics card for a PC works equally well in a BIOS or UEFI PC. It's simply a case of providing a rather basic compatibility layer. It'd even be cheaper for Apple to do this, but they won't because it impairs their ability to hold a monopoly on supply, and therefore increase prices (and therefore profit).

As I gave an example, Macs also clearly fail. There is no logical or factual reasoning to suggest that Macs are significantly different from any other PC with regards to reliability. You seem to suggest it's because Apple test more (They don't. They test only as much as anyone else in the industry) or that they avoid cheap chinese parts (Indeed, Apple have long pioneered outsourcing as much as possible to China at the lowest cost they can get).

The typical user does not think like that. Time and time again, no matter the precautions people take, as long as the user remains in overall control, security can and will be compromised. That's much my point. People slate Windows for malware, but it's this type of malware that accounts for almost all malware on Windows. It does also account for much of the malware on OS X, but sadly, Apple have not taken every precaution or placed much effort into reducing exploits. Report after report shows that OS X has the most exploits, the longest time from discovery to patch, and the greatest amount of exploits that go unpatched of any major operating system. Conversely, Windows 7 and Windows Vista have turned around Microsoft's previous form to the point that they are able to beat any major Linux distribution even in these metrics.

Yes, and Apple is an OEM company, not a direct supplier. Direct suppliers are only Chinese companies themselves.

Probably because UEFI is BIOS compatible. In fact, it is. That's how Windows XP runs on UEFI machines. Well, my bad, that's not the reason, but still.

Well, RichardG had his RAM corrupted, when he bought a new PC (was that 2011?). He bought it really cheap, (probably direct supplier). And yes, what about their motherboards and accessories. For me they indeed look professional.

Oh, then what about that: http://thesop.org/story/20120507/intern ... flash.html
I don't think Apple doesn't take security seriously, look here: http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/apple ... nes-040312

UEFI is just a more open, updated to EFI.

Anecdotal evidence is not grounds for making claims. Saying one guy had some bad RAM on a PC once, and you've never had that problem with a Mac is not grounds for suggesting that Apple use better quality parts, or test more rigourously.

Read the first article again - it's a flash flaw, not an IE exploit (the only malware exploiting the flaw just happened to target IE - it was present in all versions of flash). And it was patched relatively quickly for Adobe.

Second article manages to neglect mentioning that while they patched it days after the exploit was widely publicised, the underlying flaws had been patched by Oracle in Java months before. It's alright saying "well, they put out that fire quickly", but they did do the equivalent of throwing lit matches around in a fuel station whilst standing next to a fire bucket where they could have safely extinguished the flame before it ever had chance to do any damage.

Yes, and made compatible with BIOS. That's how old hardware is still supported there.

Yes, but have you seen someone with a Mac bought officially and instantly bad RAM. I didn't. As well as most of the PC OEMs, too.

Yes, it was patched quickly OK, for all systems.

I'm not sure what you mean here, but Apple tries to release security patches as quickly as possible (via Software Update or the App Store in ML).

It doesn't *have* to be compatible, it's just for obvious reasons most do. Apple could easily do the same, for less cost than ensuring each graphics card has EFI support. But as I said, this would not be beneficial for their business model, even if it was better for the customer, and no different technically.

Apple could have patched this much sooner, with no expense or cost to themselves, but didn't prioritise it. That's cold hard fact.

They try to be as undependant as possible from the PC world.

OK, it took several months, but tons of viruses on Windows are getting unnoticed (and major ones, remember Security Tool, etc).

Eeh, seems to be more or less intelligent discussion so far... though pwned's argument is about as thin as gold foil.

To pwned I say, instead of arguing, go ahead and write that article on why you think Windows is bad, and then post it here. We'll see what happens. Come up with factual evidence that is indisputable showing the inferiority of Windows-based PCs.

You can't.

One reason is that you can't use the "build quality" argument because there are thousands of models of PC made by dozens of manufacturers around the world, so you're forced to simply compare the software. Windows itself vs OS X? Useless. That is almost entirely personal preference. And don't you dare say "security," because one is just as secure as the other.

I have been using Windows 7 64-bit with no antivirus whatsoever since it came out, and Windows XP before it, also with no AV. A simple application of Common Sense (tm) means I haven't got a single virus. And with Mac OS, it's a similar thing. If you employ Common Sense and don't go clicking on shady links or installing "codecs" to watch porn you'll be fine.

Thing is, Mac users are lulled into a false sense of security and don't employ Common Sense because they believe it's not necessarily; their machine is invincible.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this; it's really early in the morning here, so I'm just going to shut up.

Eh? Macs are PCs you know, just without a touch of the backwards compatibility and interoperability, purely for Apple's sake.

Ones that require User Intervention in order to operate. Nothing anyone can do about that but try to educate users. Such malware is increasingly rampant on OS X as well.

I just don't want to, because Windows is not that bad. Maybe I think that Mac is superior, but it's not like Windows becomes for me instantly awful. Have I already told that, I use both Windows and Mac OS X.
This continues, and BetaArchive will be made a "Mac-rage-topic-every-week" forum.



Well, HP is the most popular one for making OEM PCs, but anyone can say its build quality is not good. I've seen lately, Acers have been performing well, and still. You still see that 8-bit'ized pixelated boot logo of Acer during POST.

Yes, only that .EXEs on Windows just run. And there is registry which you can write to, and get unnoticed by a user. In case of UAC, it pops up so often, that a user would just click "Allow".



But they are trying to make them less a PC. They would probably have still stayed with PowerPC, if not for a number of reasons.

Users see a message "YOUR PC HAS TONS OF VIRUSES!!! UPDATE NOW ONLINE SCAN", and of course they press OK, because they know that Windows is getting tons of other viruses each day.

Just because HP is the most popular doesn't mean jack [censored] about their build quality. I've had horrible luck with HP. Also, I've got no clue what point you're trying to make with Acer. I'm typing this on an acer, and seeing a pixelated boot logo for ~5seconds on boot really doesn't bother me, nor should it bother anyone.
Again, you're simply saying user stupidity is an "insecure OS." You're ignoring the fact that OS X has it's own version of the UAC that seems to pop up under identical circumstances (i.e. when administrative/root access is required). I have kept UAC enabled on here, and it only pops up if a piece of software or a driver is attempting to run an installer. That's it. Same on OS X, if I'm installing software that will modify system files, up comes a password prompt window.

Probably doesn't bother you, but for me, that is the sign of a company paying not much attention to it. That means other things as well. If I paid expensive for a computer, I would like to have a quality everything.

Yes, but the OS X equivalent of UAC doesn't pop up so frequently. And there is no registry (and Scheduled Tasks, which is for some reason still left in Windows, as a big security hole).
And I hate those Internet Explorer click sounds when a bloatware reminds me to extend my 30-day trial.