Apple is a toy. I've used it both th mac and mac pro. Their hardware is'nt worth a quarter of what they charge, and they improperly put it together to top it off.
The OS is the worse. There are more bugs then a amazon rainforest. Its total garbage. If Vista helped it, it shows how stupid the below average user really is and as far as I'm concerned 9% of market aint crap. With the release of Win7 Apple will be lucky to maintain 4% market after 6 months past final release.
Out of curiosity define Toy. As a developer for numerous PC (Windows) audio programs and becoming a full time Mac user, partly due to Vista, while not being perfect, if you use a mac for a while then come back to windows, the differences are night and day as usability and workflow is amazing on a mac. Additionally, if you price out a corporate LINUX way however its simply not feasible to date, to make this happen, Apples OSX on the other hand, is a great tool and most creative still use Apple hardware/software, especially in Graphic Design, Pro Audio, Feature Film, Television.
On the consumer level, there is nothing that comes close to the iLife package that ships with all new Macs. In productivity, you can create on their PAGES program, brochures and flyers that look wonderful and is easy to use. As far as 3rd party software, and to address the other poster that said LACK of software, take a look at pulpmotion, or bannerzest, better yet, take a looks at findouthow at apples website, compare the MAIL TEMPLATES to OUTLOOKS templates, one looks very hip and modern whereas the other looks like WIN95 bitmap graphics.
Really people, whatever works best for you is what you should use. For me, I find that I need both as Apple wins hands down when it comes to audio, graphics and especially video. For Pro Audio there is nothing that comes close to the LOGIC package at $499, and in PRO VIDEO, for $1000 one can purchase Final Cut Pro and cut a feature film. In fact a FOLEY friend of mine cut the whole movie NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN on Final cut.
Derek Vanderhorst
Apple is not a toy and can be very deep as well as secure while at the same time can be very easy to use for the general consumer. Want to place an image on a document then resize it while adding audio? Simply drag the picture onto the page, drag the audio onto the page, both items will pop up with bars on them to resize. Word still has trouble doing simple tasks such as this, even 2007. You can't drag an image in and you can't just move it around - you have to use a special tool and it requires more effort than it should whereas in pages its drag, drop, resize, - word 07, you STILL can't drag a image around - it's crazy.
Word 07 has a massive footprint and is sluggish compared to iWorks pages. For $79 you get Pages (Word), Numbers (Excel) and Keynote (Powerpoint) and
the beauty of Apple's applications is fluidness throughout most of their programs, for example, if you learn the INSPECTOR (e.g.) in one program, you know it through ALL their programs as the tool bars are common thoughout their entire suite be it iWeb, iPhoto, or Pages - and for most small businesses, you can use pages to create products that once required Adobe InDesign, again, at a fraction of the cost.
In a nutshell, one operating system is right brain, the other left brain - once you accept that this is how the two of them think (Jobs/Gates), people will stop flamming one software over the other.
While I might come across as PRO APPLE, that's not the case. For years I exposed how APPLES CPU's were underpowered and weak compared to AMD and INTEL and did so for years. I used macs only when needed. However, after MAC OS 9 and Apple made the switch to Intel, this changed everything.
But its still not about speed as much as it is work flow - you really have to use OS X for a while to appreciate how each program responds to how your brain works. I used the image onto a document as an example as this really gets my point across that how you think a program should work, Apple delivers.
Either way, competion is great for us and one area that I see MSFT really dominating will be in CLOUD computing - Apple still has problems with PUSH technology and with Windows 7, as I reported BEFORE this article, I stated that Windows 7 will be a huge hit as Developers, IT, Corprate, older computers, and net books will be quick to adopt windows 7 as it is NIGHT AND DAY also, when compared to Vista.
I think how Apple responds (Snow Leopard), pricing, Mac Clones, cloud technology, server workspace will dictate how well Apple does in the very near future. Either way, its an exciting time for end user consumers as we are going to see cutting edge technology at ridiculous prices.
One last thing, having the ability to boot into Windows on a Mac machine is a plus for many people that I know = the best of both worlds, especially since each OS will have things that they are better at then the other.
I say, GO APPLE, GO MICROSOFT
Again, you really have to use OS X to appreciate it's strengths -
go here and check out some of the tutorials.
Apple - Find Out How - iWork
Keeping in mind that iLife ships with EVERY mac, that iWork is $79 for a very powerful suite of products and that their PRO applications cost a fraction of their competition, Final Cut vs Avid, Logic vs Pro Tools (HD), iWork vs Office, iLife vs (there really is no anwser - live tries, but still isn't there yet - maybe someday, I hope so anyway.
Whatever works for you is what you should use. Period. I use both. I need both. I think Windows 7 is there best OS yet. But I have to disagree that OS X is a toy, far from it. Sure to the general mom and pop user it may appear as a toy due to its ease of use, but for the Pro, it is a much deeper program.
Peace
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