Friday, January 13
5 more reasons I won't be buying a Mac
Chris Pirillo again from Lockergnome:
Support. Think about it for a second: just how many millions (if not billions) of Windows PC hardware configurations are out there? Now, how many Apple hardware configurations are there? Believe me, thousands of Windows problems are rooted in the very hardware the OS itself is running atop. When there are a limited amount of possibilities that exist, you should find a solution quicker - or possibly know that no solution exists.And just how many of those configurations already outsell all Macs? A few I bet. And if we get into actual models, I think this item is really specious. Yes, Apple controls the hardware such that they didn't have to support everything under the sun. But let's see, we've seen other cards that support the Mac as well as the PC. And now that they are following Intel, there should be yet even more hardware going under the Mac hood. This could get quite sticky for Apple.
Malaise. This market is full of it - PC manufacturers who knowingly make crappy systems, larger-than-life brands who can't deliver on their "help desk" promises, etc. To put it to you another way, I'm still struggling to find a computer builder who isn't gonna give me a raw deal for a system. I know what kind of hardware I want, but I also appreciate having a single warranty (four years, minimum). Forget about all the names you think are great - because they're not. They *ALL* suck, and it may be time that we consumers start telling 'em to get their act together and give us an amazing experience. Not to say that Apple would be any better, but it's no worse than any existing PC alternative!And Apple is different how? The warranty sounds impressive, but is that realistic? I've got Apple Genius Bar personnel that can't figure out that a laptop's Win Sock (way of communicating with the Ethernet card) has been screwed over by a piece of malware. "We don't support Windows" was what the guy heard. Yet anyone who's had to deal with spyware and malware knows exactly what to do. Genius? Fscking idiots are what they are. And why was this guy going to the Genius Bar in the first place? He owns an iPod, and iTunes was working correctly for him.
iPod. Yes, it's overpriced. Yes, the ala carte pricing stinks compared to existing (and future) subscription models like Napster. However, it's also holding over 80% of the portable media player market! Car manufacturers, accessory crafters, and countless other services are springing up around a single device - and there's no such thing as an iPod killer, so get over it. If something isn't iPod compatible, it likely doesn't have longevity or enough market share to be worthwhile. You can use your iPod on Windows, but... it's sincerely not the same.Yeah, it certainly isn't the same. See the above. And yes, there is such a thing as an iPod killer. It's called DRM, or, if you rather, Apple being the gatekeeper. If nothing else does, Apple being the gatekeeper for what you can put on the iPod will kill it.
Malware. Viruses, Spyware, et al - they're bad, and they're all over Windows. Even when Vista ships, it will still be vulnerable to the same software that has plagued previous and existing versions of the OS. If you don't want your parents to accidentally send a trojan out to everybody in their address book, don't buy 'em software that might or might NOT work - have them run on OS X. It really sucks to say that, but Windows is still the tallest nail (and it will continue to get pounded as such). When you absolutely NEED your Windows software, it should only be a click away on the same machine.Well, if you do indeed need your Windows software, you're still going to get hit with the barrage of malware out there for Windows. Buying a Mac and running OS X, or running Linux because you are afraid of malware is simply security via obscurity, and that's not a good thing to be counting on. Besides, aren't OS X and Linux security updates still occurring? If you didn't have to worry about somebody taking advantage of a security issue, why fix it then?
Change. When was the last time you were excited about using your computer? Something different is something good - and a new Microsoft operating system (the first one in half a decade) is not likely to do the trick. Are you bored with the way things work? Do you want your computing lifestyle to be interesting again? Consider something new, something completely new... and now for something completely different.Yeah, I do want change. I want to be running a dual Xeon dual core system with 4 gigs of memory, a terabyte or more of disk storage, and easy backup of that storage. And I really am ready to get off this damn upgrade treadmill, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Sorry, Apple switching to Intel may be change for Apple, but for the rest of us that run Windows? That's not really a change now, is it? I'd be better off running NetBSD and calling that a change. And now all the big-endian and little-endian stuff gets interesting.
These arguments don't convince me in the slightest that my next PC is going to be a Mac. It will be an interesting time to see how convincing it is for other people. Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/13/2006 06:41:00 PM
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