A phenomenon I’ve never understood. I can crash a Mac just as fast as I can crash a PC. And typically the latest PCs are better performers than the latest Macs, because third-party PC makers don’t have the restrictions that third-party Mac makers…oh, wait. There are no third-party Mac makers. Sorry, please move on, nothing to see here…
on 26 Jun 2012 at 12:38 pm Sigivald
I dunno, my Apple PCs don’t cost any more than an actually equivalent non-Apple PC.
(And I’m not sure, contra Nathan, that the “latest PCs” – even ones I build myself, as I do – are any better than the “latest Macs”, unless one really wants to spend a pile.
I mean, an i7-2600 is an i7-2600 whether it’s from Apple or a DIY.
Now, of course, if one doesn’t care about build quality, size, noise, or “mere aesthetics”, one can save a little. But I find that I do.
But then I run Macs, PCs, and Linux for my server.)
I am not talking about the CPU so much as I am talking about add-in cards and suchlike, which must have the Jobsian Kiss Of Approval before they may sully the carcass of an Apple machine.
Sig, it’s all well and good if you’re editing video, but if you have to do any real engineering, you can’t do it on a mac. For the price of an entry Imac that can’t do anything I want it to do, I can have a PC that will. It’s a tool, you use the one that fits you. Mac users at my office pay for the pretty and the status and the cachet of owning a Mac, not because it does the job better. And it makes sense that these people-as the study found- will pay 30% more for the same thing if it’s couched in the “We’re cooler because we’re Macheads” deal.
on 27 Jun 2012 at 1:00 pm Sigivald
og: Oh, for very specialized stuff requiring Special CAD Video Cards, you’re right, no doubt.
For the other 95% of the computer market, though, especially in Nathan’s area of “latest PC” vs. “latest Mac” that I was responding to, not quite so much – see below for the other 4.95% of the market that isn’t engineering or “general PC usage”, though.
(Yes, for mere office work, very few people “need” a computer that costs more than, oh, $300 or so, and thus a Mac is not a great deal, because Apple doesn’t even try to serve the no-margin crap market down there.
And those machines are all crap that, while it’s cheap, you’re getting exactly what you pay for – not “the same crap”, but actual feces.
Responding to the video cards point, those “latest Macs” have decent video cards if you buy the ones that are intended for Doing Video Stuff. Yep, they’re not $600 gamer cards.
But when you add a $600 gamer card to the “latest PC” and then a monitor to match the Mac, you’re… paying more than Apple charges. Getting more video, yes. Paying more, yes. Not “more for the same shit”.
I mean, if the argument boils down to “really high end gaming is totally a lot better on a PC”, no doubt! If that’d been the clear context from the start, I’d have agreed in a second – I do my gaming on a PC for the excellent reason that it’s a superior gaming platform at the API level.
But neither “more for the same shit” in general, nor “typically better performers” is something that I can agree with, having looked at the specs and the prices over and over for years.)
on 27 Jun 2012 at 2:30 pm Og
No, sig, its not about cards. The hard engineering stuff is written for pc.
A phenomenon I’ve never understood. I can crash a Mac just as fast as I can crash a PC. And typically the latest PCs are better performers than the latest Macs, because third-party PC makers don’t have the restrictions that third-party Mac makers…oh, wait. There are no third-party Mac makers. Sorry, please move on, nothing to see here…
I dunno, my Apple PCs don’t cost any more than an actually equivalent non-Apple PC.
(And I’m not sure, contra Nathan, that the “latest PCs” – even ones I build myself, as I do – are any better than the “latest Macs”, unless one really wants to spend a pile.
I mean, an i7-2600 is an i7-2600 whether it’s from Apple or a DIY.
Now, of course, if one doesn’t care about build quality, size, noise, or “mere aesthetics”, one can save a little. But I find that I do.
But then I run Macs, PCs, and Linux for my server.)
I am not talking about the CPU so much as I am talking about add-in cards and suchlike, which must have the Jobsian Kiss Of Approval before they may sully the carcass of an Apple machine.
Video cards, for instance.
Sig, it’s all well and good if you’re editing video, but if you have to do any real engineering, you can’t do it on a mac. For the price of an entry Imac that can’t do anything I want it to do, I can have a PC that will. It’s a tool, you use the one that fits you. Mac users at my office pay for the pretty and the status and the cachet of owning a Mac, not because it does the job better. And it makes sense that these people-as the study found- will pay 30% more for the same thing if it’s couched in the “We’re cooler because we’re Macheads” deal.
og: Oh, for very specialized stuff requiring Special CAD Video Cards, you’re right, no doubt.
For the other 95% of the computer market, though, especially in Nathan’s area of “latest PC” vs. “latest Mac” that I was responding to, not quite so much – see below for the other 4.95% of the market that isn’t engineering or “general PC usage”, though.
(Yes, for mere office work, very few people “need” a computer that costs more than, oh, $300 or so, and thus a Mac is not a great deal, because Apple doesn’t even try to serve the no-margin crap market down there.
And those machines are all crap that, while it’s cheap, you’re getting exactly what you pay for – not “the same crap”, but actual feces.
Responding to the video cards point, those “latest Macs” have decent video cards if you buy the ones that are intended for Doing Video Stuff. Yep, they’re not $600 gamer cards.
But when you add a $600 gamer card to the “latest PC” and then a monitor to match the Mac, you’re… paying more than Apple charges. Getting more video, yes. Paying more, yes. Not “more for the same shit”.
I mean, if the argument boils down to “really high end gaming is totally a lot better on a PC”, no doubt! If that’d been the clear context from the start, I’d have agreed in a second – I do my gaming on a PC for the excellent reason that it’s a superior gaming platform at the API level.
But neither “more for the same shit” in general, nor “typically better performers” is something that I can agree with, having looked at the specs and the prices over and over for years.)
No, sig, its not about cards. The hard engineering stuff is written for pc.