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You can go and buy a KIA for a fraction of the cost of even a lowly Honda. Do you really WANT a Kia? After all, it'll take you to the same place as that Honda, or Beemer, or even VW Passat you know, at a fraction of the cost. If it rings your chimes, go for it.
But please, why does MS feel it's even necessary to pick on the little kid on the block?? Can you spell the word S-C-A-R-E-D??? You betcha.
Some people will choose PC's.
Some people will choose Mac's.
Some choose entirely different products.
The number of posts from Mac supporters is downrigt scary in how they are trying to make a case for choosing Mac over PC. It doesn't freaking matter what you say or think- people will make their own decisions.
Apple had their ads out unchallenged for years. Now Microsoft is doing the same thing. Unless you are afraid that the Mac doesn't stack up and needs you to defend it, then back off and let the product speak for itself.
I happen to have both and find this entire thread silly. :)
The people who buy macs in general simply don't know a whole lot about computers, and would rather spend the extra grand or so for the sake of convenience. Any power-user that enjoys the benefits of OSX will install it or Linux on any machine that they desire to be safe, secure, and easy to use. It's just the difference of having the patience and know-how to do so.
BS. Pure BS. If that were so, no one would switch to a Mac.
""The people who buy macs in general simply don't know a whole lot about computers, and would rather spend the extra grand or so for the sake of convenience."'
If you didn't know anything about computers, and you bought a pc you could very well decide to switch to a mac. Nothing about the above statement says anything about how computer savvy pc users are vs mac, just that devoted mac users *do* tend to be less technically savvy than devoted pc users.
For day to day office related work, I use Windows. I work in an Exchange controlled network and do a lot of work with Sharepoint, Excel, Powerpoint and a variety of Windows "only" apps in order to do my work. However, when I get home, I like my macs for simplicity and for my side ventures which are all multi-media related.
Both can be good systems however the hardware is another story all together. The reasons PC hardware is so much cheaper in branded systems are several.
1.) Adware/Bloatware... The OEMs get paid quite a bit of money up front to bundle all sorts of craptacular bloatware onto the systems they ship, which allows them to lower the prices while still keeping their margins high.
2.) Outsourced tech support/call centers. EVERY PC OEM outsources it's call center work to India, Malaysia, China, Indonesia or elsewhere. Apple hires call center groups in EVERY country it operates in so when you call them up, you know you are speaking to someone in the same country familiar with your vernacular, etc as well as being one of a very small few American companies, employing more Americans.
3.) Warrantee support. If you have a problem with your Dell, HP, Sony, etc you have to either send it back in to them and be without your system for who knows how long or you have to go to a local place like BestBuy for repairs if you are not educated enough or comfortable going into your system. With Apple, you call up and reserve an appointment at your nearest Apple Store and get it diagnosed right in front of you. If it has to go in for service, rather than waiting to track down a part that might not be common anymore, they'll upgrade your hardware. AppleCare (Their extended warrantee plan) gives you 3 years, parts, labor, etc regardless of reason. I consider it my personal hardware "upgrade" plan as I've used it for more than what I paid for many a time and have yet to be disappointed.
4.) Quality of components. The major PC OEMs buy in bulk at the lowest price point. Simple business, however they don't go through and test each hardware component as it rolls off the line, let alone after complete assembly of the unit. Why not? Because it costs a lot more. Apple DOES do this and has agreements with their OEMs to do this as well, otherwise they'll lose Apple's business.
So with these four issues (There are many more, but I'm out of time) alone, people should be able to understand a little better why Apple systems cost more. The argument of "They are the same components" is false as while the video card and processor may be the same, the OEM of the HD, the RAM, the Logic Board, the fans, power supply, various ports, etc are NOT the same as with every other OEM...
2) Wrong again. Dells business models have never had overseas call centers.
3) Wrong again. You can pay extra for in home service, you can get an exchange part overnighted if you are comfortable with it or you can send it in or you can take it to a Best Buy. How do you keep the statement of all the high quality of the machines and brag about using warranty to upgrade. You just take in a working machine and they just upgrade it because you ask them to?
4) Right. These broad generalities are just wrong. You can find a wide selection of quality, prices, service choices and features and benefits. You can buy a $399 machine with the quality of crap. You can buy a $6000 dollar machine with all kinds of options not available for a Mac at any price.
And if you think an OEM vendor cares more about losing the business of 10% of the market over 90% of the market you're delusional. Tell Western Digital they have a choice of Apple or Dell to keep as a customer and see who they choose. Why do you think a company with smaller margins cares less about post sales costs and will happily pay a lower price for a crappier component just so they can take on support, shipping and techs and **** a person off so they won't buy their product again. Since most people are buying a replacement PC and not going to pony up for the same trip through hell you say they've been having the illogical pronouncements in your post are so ridiculous I thought it April 1st or I was reading the Onion.
Spend a little less time in front of the reality distortion field generator or at Mac Daily News.
"1) Sorry. And wrong. All Dell business models do not come with adware or bloatware. I can order one with Linux instead of Windows if I want. Microsoft does not make computers. Try as hard as you want to, these broad generalities do not apply over all PCs."
Really? Try looking at the start-up registry on ANY "consumer" model product they ship. HP Imaging center (Regardless of whether not you have a multifunction, printer, camera, whatever...), weatherbug, yahoo IM, MSN IM, and many more. You mention "business models" and of course they don't ship corporate boxes with anything other than perhaps Server 2003 or Vista Ultimate depending on your choice of configuration but you are talking about completely different SKUs. The people in these commercials are going to RETAIL stores and purchasing RETAIL computers. Thus the price is lower on the RETAIL end because of the additional bloat...
"2) Wrong again. Dells business models have never had overseas call centers."
No, again you are referring to corporate systems, not RETAIL which yet again, is the point of these commercials... Have you ever attempted actually contacting Dell, HP, Sony, Gateway, Acer or Toshiba's tech support for a RETAIL computer? You are dealing with India my friend... Apple? You are talking to California. As for corporate systems though, look at comparable model thinkpads versus Macbooks, they are fairly evenly priced for features however to buy a RETAIL version w/ similar specs it's cheaper. Why is that? Because of the reasons I've given already which offset the cost from the OEM to 3rd parties in order to make their margins. Rocket science this ain't...
"3) Wrong again. You can pay extra for in home service, you can get an exchange part overnighted if you are comfortable with it or you can send it in or you can take it to a Best Buy. How do you keep the statement of all the high quality of the machines and brag about using warranty to upgrade. You just take in a working machine and they just upgrade it because you ask them to? "
So, you think because you pay a company more for the ability to have in home service that somehow proves me wrong and/or you right? This is the point, under standard warrantee, you have full hardware and software support in person through Apple. You do NOT get that with any other RETAIL system OEM unless it's from the local 'puter guys with a small shop down the block. As for the upgrades, I just research common problems with the hardware and work to force the issues to occur on mine so as to get the upgrade at the time I like. It's called being an informed consumer utilizing what is available to me under the conditions of the additional plans I purchase. Not at all unlike how CompUSA used to sell "replacement plans" for their PDAs, MP3 players, etc... I upgraded multiple minidisc players, Palms and iPods by using these plans. Again, informed consumption..
"4) Right. These broad generalities are just wrong. You can find a wide selection of quality, prices, service choices and features and benefits. You can buy a $399 machine with the quality of crap. You can buy a $6000 dollar machine with all kinds of options not available for a Mac at any price."
What option (other than built in flash like biometric readers) can you not get on Apple and only on PC? Specific brands or models of devices? Sure but complete lines of hardware? That's rubbish. A drive is a drive, RAM is RAM, optical media is optical media and the list keeps going. Yes, specific models of video cards or audio cards may only be Windows native on the box, but if you look around online for even 2 minutes, you'll see people who have tested them on OSX systems and can let you know if they work OOB or require drivers along with locations... Burners (regardless of internal or external) are the same exact story, as goes with printers, scanners, cameras, faxes, audio or video equipment, joysticks, controllers, mice, keyboards, etc, etc, etc... What's your point?
"Tell Western Digital they have a choice of Apple or Dell to keep as a customer and see who they choose."
How about you tell Samsung to try and sell flash media to other companies. Apple buys 90% of their flash media for their devices and Samsung's division would have to fight to make sales again compared to the guarantee given them by working with Apple. Back in the final G4 tower days, they made a deal with IBM and exclusively had access to their "DeskStar" line of hard drives. They currently have the market on Firewire 800 and most 400 as well not counting Sony's "iLink" 4 pin FW connection... You are too naive to continue this conversation further at this point. Sleep is far more important than addressing each and every one of your misconceptions at this time.
PS, I WORK for MS and use both OS's on a REGULAR DAILY basis. I'm no fan-boy, I just have my preference when it comes to the two...
Exactly!!! lol
There are entire categories of hardware you can't get, period, in your current mac. Read some of the comments above for a good, comprehensive list.
Also, I just bought a mac. I don't want itunes, quicktime, ilife, imovie, numbers, pages, ichat, frontrow, garageband etc preinstalled any more than I want any other bloatware.
Just because you don't think the preinstalled crap is bloatware on a mac, doesn't mean that it isn't. All it means is that your opinion is one-sided and thus your argument is moot.
"Also, I just bought a mac. I don't want itunes, quicktime, ilife, imovie, numbers, pages, ichat, frontrow, garageband etc preinstalled any more than I want any other bloatware.
Just because you don't think the preinstalled crap is bloatware on a mac, doesn't mean that it isn't. All it means is that your opinion is one-sided and thus your argument is moot."
Ummm, the i-apps can be removed simply by deleting them. They don't run background processes which slow down your overall performance unless you are using them. This is in NO way even REMOTELY similar to 3rd party pre-installed software the OEM is paid to put on their retail systems in order to keep their profit margins intact.
The point you are trying (but failing) to make seems to be completely unfounded as I don't hear you complaining about Windows coming with Media Player, Internet Explorer, Paint, Calculator, Wordpad, Notepad, Media Center, MovieMaker, etc, etc, etc... You aren't even talking about the same thing. The point is 2nd and 3rd party software that is added to the basic WinPE (Windows Pre-Installation Environment) image in order to drop the cost on the system further...
They then go and post false news articles about Apple settling lawsuits over advertising and QC issues and Apples well known propensity to refuse to acknowledge issues to the point of removing members posts .
And even though they are too dumb to get tech, they stumble on making iPods and iPhones overwhelming leaders over the competition but fail with computers.
You can't be spouting such overwhelmingly stupid theories with the main theme that your incredible wisdom and keen judgement is so rare only 10% of the computer using population can understand it and expect to be taken seriously.
Many people are perfectly happy with their bargain bin computers, many people prefer building their own piece by piece to make it completely custom (As I have done with two of my PCs and one of my macs) however when going to a store and looking at the price of the broad OEMs, that price is kept that way because of the conditions mentioned previously.
1.) Apple's price is higher because of these conditions as well. I really don't think you could even attempt to try and argue that localized support for every nation a company does business in to better satisfy their customers is going to be cheaper than farming it out to India.
2.) Also, there can be no argument that OEMs get paid to bundle software onto new system images for retail computers which also offsets their costs.
3.) Apple has free support via their retail channels on ANY product regardless of whether or not you paid for an additional warrantee or if it's out of warrantee. They just charge for the parts/labor if it's out of band however they will diagnose the problem and attempt any and all troubleshooting to fix it before charging. This costs more than the standard "We'll fedex you a cardboard crate to send it back in" method the majority of other OEMs use.
Do you disagree on those three points? You still only blather about the corporate end which wasn't even a point of discussion in the initial point. As for "spouting such overwhelmingly stupid theories", what are you talking about? What "theories" have I spouted? I have brought up specific, well-understood, marketing points that Apple is keen to let investors know about even if they don't push it in the consumer space so much... As an investor in both MS and Apple, one gets to find out much more about the practices and intent behind company's actions than your average lay person who just makes unfounded assumptions and doesn't address actual points like well, you...
Do you disagree?
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/06/kellner-microsofts-vista-ought-to-die-soon/
Yes, these are VERY WELL made ads. Yes, Lauren is hot. Yes, these ads strike a chord in the Mac trolls because... guess what? They are not based in falacies like the Mac ads. Really guys... You should get out more often. Disconnect your iPods, let go your Mac keyboards. Take some fresh air, will you?
The hardware drivers from the various manufacturer are just as important as the OS. Some work better than others. Blaming poor drivers or components on Microsoft is just a strawman. Your tightly integrated unix underpinnings mean zero if I have to run Windows for an application. And you are basically talking about account permissions. Macheads toss out Unix as a marketing term, which really only means POSIX compliance. You may or may not understand what that means, so I apologize for any offense taken, but most Mac users I've talked to couldn't explain it and most don't even know what BSD is.
Linux does not have Unix underpinnings, but is equally resistant to viruses and malware and does the heavy lifting across the internet. It has replaced Unix for a huge percentage of mission critical, zero downtime applications.
Apple is very careful to limit choices on the models they sell to limit the possibility a customer can purchase a cheaper machine for a purpose. iMacs have displays because people would buy them instead of Mac Pros. Apple doesn't want to sell Minis, it wants to give the perception that the iMac is a bargain when you compare feature-function-benefits.
Finally, comparing Apple quality and service is meaningless until they get to a similar number of machines in service doing the tasks under OSX that are done using Windows. When people complain about Windows they are often complaining about a software program running under the OS that Microsoft has nothing to do with. They don't market, sell, install or give support on it because they've never seen it. If it doesn't exist as a native OSX program you lose by default. If I tried to switch out the laptops our people take out of the country to Europe and South American my international service agreement we have will fix the laptop onsite within 24 hours.
Not single sourcing hardware and software has tremendous benefits. Apple would implode if they had to deal with all the tasks and variables being done by machines using Windows. It's like saying a mouse is easier to maintain than an elephant. Both are mammals and do the same things like locomotion, need to eat and expel waste, procreate etc...But unless the mouse grew to be the same size as the elephant it's not the same.
Apple is a mouse.
Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it?s this veneer ? that the designers are handed this box and told, ?Make it look good!? That?s not what we think design is. It?s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. ? Steve Jobs
There are also a few hardware aspects which do not even exists on windows laptops. The main one is the multi-touch trackpad. The new multi-touch gestures that they incorporated into the os make life so much easier. Whether its using a three finger swipe to move back and forward between pages in the web browser or zooming in and out on pdfs by pinching my fingers together on the trackpad, the multi-touch gestures greatly improve the ease of use factor and are very intuitive.
If the hardware alone was not enough, Mac OS X is a far better operating system than vista (or XP for that matter - XP was good but now it is just too old) As far as usability goes, macs are more intuitive and look a lot nicer. As far as efficiency goes, macs require less resources to do more.
Overall, in terms of hardware, the general specs would tell you that you pay more for the mac than you would for the same windows based laptop. However, if you take a detailed look you see that instead of getting hardware which is already being outdated you are getting the latest and greatest. Microsoft can throw around numbers like 2ghz or 4gb of ram but none of that really matters. Any 'true' computer guy could look at the deeper specs and tell that from a hardware only point of view macs are just better.
From a software point of view, my opinion is that macs are better. However everyone has their own preference and some may like windows better.
Also on a side note. On apples website they say that the 13" macbook gets about 5 hours of battery life doing "wireless productivity tasks". They sell themselves short a little bit here. I get up to 7.5 hours of battery life while surfing the internet.
Enough said.
I have my issues with Mac, Linux, and Windows, respectively, but I enjoy using each of them. There are things I can do on the Mac that I can't do on the Windows machine. There are things I can do in Linux that I can't do in either, and visa versa each way. Stop the hate; it's annoying.
I upgraded because I wanted to, not because I needed too.
MAC vs PC wars are boring.
Get this .... all Operating Systems Suck..... Some Just Suck Less than Others...... It always depends what you are doing with it at the time ....
Who Cares about the "Marketing Hype" ..... Eventually the leader becomes the follower then the follower moves back to leader......
I find the OS market pretty weak in general.. Nothing really has changed.... even windows 7 is not that impressive .... Its VISTA that works..... MAC is really Linux with a fancy front end.... The hardware is all the same.... Nothing new for the last 5 years to make anyone what to dish out cash..... so the only thing left is how the box looks .... PC = How many colors can they paint on the box.... Mac = User Image...Breaking free of Microsoft Bonds....
So again All Machines Suck.....
- by ppgreat April 4, 2009 8:51 PM PDT
- Bottom Line: There is a reason that Microsoft is spending millions of dollars to go up against Apple. This is not a dispute about Apple vs. Microsoft, as much as it is that Microsoft has trouble with the value proposition that Apple is currently offering.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 3 of 6 pages (229 Comments)The Microsoft Business Model is simplistic: maintain the monopoly. It is no different than what Apple faces with iTunes or the iPod.