In their current issue, PCPRO are running a feature entitled 32 Reasons why PCs are better than macs, I’m taking the oppurtunity to rebuff many of them as mac myths; of course- they do make some valid points, but too many shots are plain wrong. Firstly, for all their claims of not being anti-mac bigots I only highlight their choices for the Mac and PC; beating the Apple adverts by a long shot in insensitive stereotyping.
This post will be furnished with appropriate links and pictures when available as this is from the currently on sale June edition (152).
- Service Packs Really Don’t cost £90.
Although 10.1 was released in 2001, OS9.2 was still in service until 2002 and an upgrade from 10.0 was given for free. 10.2 however can not be considered a service pack, and neither can 10.3. With each incorporating major performance leaps on the last, and graphical user interface overhauls. In fact, 10.2 bought Quartz Extreme- speeding up the UI considerably, and 10.3 carried the idea of Exposé which has just been poorly copied in Vistas Super Alt Tab. Tiger bought more stability and fine tuning, if any could be compared to a service pack, but I challenge you to find one with as many new features. Also, Apple release the 10.x.x releases for free- and these are the truer companion to the windows service pack. I’d also like to note speeds ups in each version, and far greater support for older machines. - No Price Premiums for Flashy Designs
Apple are not trying to undercut the PC market to gain dominance. That’s not their plan, if you want to compare Apple to a PC manufacturer then pick a high end one. Also, they live longer than PCs and although you may have to splash out more for a Mac- you’ll replace it less often than a comparible PC. - Thousands of Decent Games
Yes, Windows has the stranglehold on the PC gaming market. But with the new intel chipsets, more and more developers are making mac games now. Yes, you can run windows on a mac too. And if you’re dead set on upgrading your graphics hardware: then don’t be scared. - Two Mouse Buttons
Welcome to 2007, as suprising as it seems MacOSX has full right mouse button support. The mighty mouse as they say may not by default use it, but it’s there for anyone who wants it. I’ve got used to the control-right click for the ibook and it no longer bothers me- I do hope they put some sort of way of determining which side of the button was pushed on their newer laptops though. - Broadband just works here too.
With the advent of wireless broadband, USB modems are dying out and configuration is web based. And the wireless management for Macs is miles simpler than for windows. - Tailor made systems
As far as I’m aware- most desktop macs are upgradeable and use ZIF. There are many valid claims that having only a few hardware configurations is a bad thing, but this adds to OS stability immeasurably. - Macs are months behind
So be it. What it can do is what matters, when a machine will last 4 years then being up to the minute isn’t so important. Although, I’ve yet to see an 8-core desktop windows machine (without a server liscence). - Life beyond 1st January
How important a factor is the date of the yearly trade show? If you want to get the latest, then ask for the macbook to be saved until after mac world. It’s an annoying business practice, but then again- it is legal. - Superior Search Abilities
Why PCPRO threw in “I hate the Finder, the Zoom button and window resising is different” under this title bemuses me. - Saftey in Numbers
Apple isn’t small. They have an $80 billion market cap. Sony are apparently more prone to experiment with a much larger cap of $50 billion. (That’s leaving the PS3 = sinking ship thing out). No. Apple aren’t going to drop OSX any time soon.
11-22 will be posted on Thurday the 20th of April.
4 Comments
what a load of crap. though i agree with some of it, most of it is wrong. for example if i my mac didn’t have right click, i would have destroyed my laptop. macs have the best mouse. have you seen iphone, well, the mouse thing using two fingers have been in macs for about a year! thats right. if you have a laptop you would know hot awkward clicking or dragging is. in macs, you just tap with one finger for left click, tap with two fingers for right click, and drag anywhere (not just on the corner of the mouse pad like sony laptops) to drag.
There are so many reasons why after switching to mac, you will never want to go back. I think, the problem is that people just dont know what better is since they fear change.
[quote comment=”1003″]what a load of crap. though i agree with some of it, most of it is wrong. for example if i my mac didn’t have right click, i would have destroyed my laptop. macs have the best mouse. have you seen iphone, well, the mouse thing using two fingers have been in macs for about a year! thats right. if you have a laptop you would know hot awkward clicking or dragging is. in macs, you just tap with one finger for left click, tap with two fingers for right click, and drag anywhere (not just on the corner of the mouse pad like sony laptops) to drag.
There are so many reasons why after switching to mac, you will never want to go back. I think, the problem is that people just dont know what better is since they fear change.[/quote]
I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say. This post was written in response to the main feature of UK computing magazine PCPRO in which they make the arguments that I’ve used for the titles. And they are all rebutted within.
No, I don’t have a macbook so I didn’t know that the two finger right click worked. But my ibook doesn’t (at least not without custom software modifications). And for the record, my ibook is set to use the pad for scrolling and mouse and the button for clicking and I use the ctrl key with my free hand. Which suits me fine.
What an embarrassing thing to do. PCPRO cannot even consider themself a real journal of anything if they make assertions as such. Good article, themak. Way to keep them one their toes.
Would you consider this article to be representative of the quality of articles in PC PRO now?
You mention in your post that `more and more developers are making mac games now’. The key problem at the moment is not that most developers won’t develop games for the Mac, but that they /can’t/. Actually, it’s just prohibitively expensive/complicated to do (read: not a big enough market). The reason for this is the vast majority games that developers produce rely upon having DirectX libraries, hence Windows, on your system. Having more powerful onboard Intel graphics chips on a Mac is /not/ going to make a jot of difference to the number of games which will be brought to the Mac; people have been free to add third party graphics cards (ATi, nVidia) to Macintosh systems for ages. The only thing which having more power graphics will do for you is allow you to play OpenGL games from the past and present.
Compare the present situation with how things were about five years ago, with games being released for the Mac subsequent to the Windows release. This is made possible because OpenGL was still widely used at the time as a graphics library for games.
Reading back at what I’ve written above, it’s probably important to say that I’m focusing entirely on the commercial world of games. If the Macintosh world is anything like the one I live in (Linux & BSD) then hobbyist game development is more active, accessible, and portable than ever.