Mac v PC: The age old debate continues

I don't really think I am going to have any terrific insight into this that you've never heard.  Of course that is a liberty I can take on my own site.  You as the reader can do with it what you want.

Yesterday a friend of mine mentioned on Facebook that she was using a Mac at the library and loved it.  Immediately afterwards you see the standard debate start, one person in particular posted something about the macs being overpriced, monopolistic and so on. My gut reaction would have been to take the typical 'someone is wrong on the Internet' stance.  But I soon realized that from the average persons perspective, these things sound almost true.  So I thought I'd address some of his points in a wordy blog post because I almost never need to write anything over 140 characters.  I realize that this might be the worst thing I've ever done, written a blog post because of something I saw on Facebook.

I'm a fan of Apple, iPods and iMacs are both things my wife and I own and use on a daily basis.  They are not flawless but that is another post.  I say this only to establish bias ahead of time so you don't feel clever for calling me out later.

Let's get started with the complaints:

• Apple is monopolistic

  I'm a bit stumped on this one.  Monopoly as I understand it would mean no competition.  There is competition for Apple, on the computer front, music front, and on the portable device front.  Just because some Apple stuff only works with other Apple stuff isn't really a monopoly.  Hey I could be wrong, that's just how I view Monopoly.  I'll give you a couple of examples.

  • iTunes only syncs music with iPods

    Don't use it then.  Seriously.  Apple isn't a monopoly just because their software only works with certain devices.  They aren't preventing you from using other devices in any way, just can't use them with their software.  You just can't use iTunes to buy music, and there isn't really anything monopolistic in that.  Well, other than the sheer market share of iTunes in the music download world. People take this for granted now, but back in the day almost every mp3 player I ran in to had some kind of proprietary crap to transfer files with.  Call me when Apple puts something in the next OS release that ignores Palm's USB Vendor Id.

    Adding fuel to this fire though, particularly concerning iTunes is the recent antics with the Palm Pre.  Neither party is without blame.  Palm going as far at one point to pretend it was an iPod by using Apple's USB Vendor ID(big, HUGE no no).  But the whole situation does stink a bit, people are buying Palm Pre's and finding out they can't sync their iTunes synced music to it.  At least I assume this is the issue.  I'm not really sure it surprised anyone, the Pre is a direct competitor to iPhone, why would they let them work with their software? It is getting irritating to download these minor updates to iTunes so Apple can fight the latest Palm hack.

    I'll also note that the current practices of the app store for the iPod Touch and iPhone are certainly raising eyebrows.  Not just because they are closed, but because of the things that get rejected, for example, the google talk fiasco.  I won't say much more about this, I just know the 'm' word got tossed around a lot(probably in reference to AT&T) when this happened.  Other app rejections haven't had that blatant edge to them but boy do they stir up a lot of 'press'.

• Macs are too expensive

  My wife and I both think what we got (in terms of user experience overall) is worth the premium.  We love how most of the time things just work, and underneath it all it's Unix.  The user interfaces and available apps cover all our needs.  I don't think I've ever said 'gee I miss my windows machine, or my Linux desktop'.  The fact is they fit our usage wonderfully, and yes for that we pay a bit of a premium.
• 
  This premium is the issue for most folks that don't like Macs.
  • Apple doesn't really offer any mid range desktops that aren't coupled to a display (iMac)
  • Even on their low end(Mac Mini) don't get quite as cheap as a low end Dell.
  • Forget about anything just slightly better than an iMac, the price jumps quite a bit when you go to a Mac Pro.

  At the end of the day though this price isn't paying for better hardware(maybe shiny).  It's probably going toward the awesome that is OSX ;) That is the whole reason I buy Apple.  Not because it is shiny or thin, but because I love the idea of Unix with a very polished desktop environment on top.  No, Gnome on Linux is not polished to that degree.  I've been using it since .99 and even with vast improvements, it's still not there.  Don't even get me started on windows.  A friend of mine summed it up best by referring to it as the 'non deterministic operating system'.  If I ever run in to problems on windows my solution is 'wipe the drive' more often then not.  I'm sure more windows savvy folk don't take this slash and burn approach, but I don't pretend to know a damn thing about windows.

• The names are stupid 'everything is 'i' this and 'i' that'

  I almost hate responding to this one, but I'm way beyond the looking glass here.
  Don't hate the player...  If Apple is good at anything, it's image. They are out there every day shoving this brand in your face.  At some point I suppose the whole 'i' craze was to imply a bit of personal attachment to the stuff.  I don't quite know why they chose that.  If you had this kind of recognizability, would you really just go and change the name of one of your biggest products? We're talking some pretty serious brand recognition here, approaching the point where kleenex is with facial tissue.

If you have any comments, send them to blog@afterfate.net.  Really I don't care if you yell at me, for fraks sake I'll know someone out there is reading.  After all, that's what my delete key is for.  Yes, I realize I am deserving of the following badge.  But this is a blog, you'll get over it. All the stuff I just wrote is based on what I've read, heard from other people and I did the minimal amount of research.  Hey, at least I'm honest.
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