Why don't people use Macs?

[iMacMan]

1. They grew up with DOS?
2. They are Democrats! lol I would say I'm wrong on this one?
3. They think the Mac is way too expensive?
4. They think the PC has more programs/games?
5. They don't think?
6. They don't care as they have better things to do?
7. They love viruses/spam/add ware etc...?
8. They only know control/alt/delete?
9. They have never used a Mac and therefore why try something different?
10. They love their operating system?
11. They don't want to try something different?
12. They use PC's at work?
13. They use both?
14. I'm running out of "They's".
15. Please respond with your own comments........

[KeepItSimple]

Next

[Midzuki]

2. They are Democrats! lol I would say I'm wrong on this one?

Very wrong. Many people think the Macs are for the gays.

3. They think the Mac is way too expensive?

They know the Macs have been too expensive so far.

4. They think the PC has more programs/games?

Same as above.

11. They don't want to try something different?

I'd like to try "Windows minus ``so-many design flaws´´".

Have a nice day.

[jman98]

I'm wondering what the motivations of the original poster are. I work in IT as a Unix system administrator and work with Macs some at work. There are things I like and things I don't like. They are far from being perfect. However, I have found that people who like Macs are hardcore fanboy types (even the women) and they have no objectivity at all. If Apple was to put cow crap in a box and call it iTurd and sell it for $150 and all you were getting for your money was a bunch of fertilizer you badly overpaid for, I work with people who would pay it with no questions asked and then afterward I'm not sure if any of them would be honest to admit that they wasted their money.

As far #3 goes, Macs ARE more expensive. If you want to make the "you get what you pay for" argument, I think that's fine, but they ARE more expensive. If you have a Kia budget, you don't go to the Porsche dealership and Macs ARE too expensive for some people.

As far as #4 goes, it is 100% true. The biggest defect of Macs is a lack of software. All of the video tools I use run only on Windows. Despite a hatred of Windows that borders on pathological, Windows is what I run at home because that's where the tools that I use are. That's reality.

As far as #7 goes, viruses DO exist for Macs and I don't know of any OS that has some magical ability to stop spam. You can deal with spam on any OS with the right tools including Windows.

One of the reasons people don't use Macs is that they tire of the smugness of Mac users and the whole superior attitude so many of their users have.

[edDV]

#6 true
#13 true

#4 Video on a Mac is highly constrained to a few workflows (e.g. iLife, FCP or AVID). Whenever I edit on a MAC, I feel I need a PC next to it for all the utilities needed to get the job done. Home Theater on a Mac is inadequate.

Macs are for people who want to be told what to do and lack a sense of adventure. It's like Beacon Hill Boston vs. the Wild West.

[pepegot1]

Software!!!!!!

[terryj]

You'll get a gazillion different answers to this posting, all fueled by people's personal opinions,
and none absolutely "correct". When it comes to PCs and Macs,
"beauty is in the eye of the beholder", or in this case,
"One mans computer is another one's trash", etc.

so #16: They use what they were either exposed to at an early age,
or what they grew into later in life.

If you were exposed to Macs at an early age, and always had one close by
(School, home, the one at Dad's office) you gravitate towards it in your own life.
same with a PC.

or

If you went to work at a job and you were first exposed to a PC,
and your cube mates passed around games on floppies/cds/dvds,
and you enjoyed the heck out of them on the machine, you
would then buy one for yourself and continue to stick with that machine
for as long as you could run it.

I kept a PC for years just because of Castlevania, the first Wolfenstein
etc. But when I got a Playstation, I left PC Gaming behind.
for others , the MMV. *shrugs*

When I first learned to edit videos and make VCDs, it was on a mac.
I've stuck with that for video, and since video is my #1 hobby now,
I have several macs at home.

I still use a PC at work, and I still have PC Servers at work. I use them,
and have no qualms about it. Each tool does what it's supposed to do,
regardless of price or how shiny it is or isn't.

1. They grew up with DOS?
2. They are Democrats! lol I would say I'm wrong on this one?
3. They think the Mac is way too expensive?
4. They think the PC has more programs/games?
5. They don't think?
6. They don't care as they have better things to do?
7. They love viruses/spam/add ware etc...?
8. They only know control/alt/delete?
9. They have never used a Mac and therefore why try something different?
10. They love their operating system?
11. They don't want to try something different?
12. They use PC's at work?
13. They use both?
14. I'm running out of "They's".
15. Please respond with your own comments........

[shititin]

[boldego]

I won't buy one because of their cheesy comercials

[handyguy]

Because Mac users don't like to share stuff.

[Des]

Macs are for people who want to be told what to do and lack a sense of adventure. It's like Beacon Hill Boston vs. the Wild West.

Great analogy!

I have used and learned well: Tandy Basic, Basic, DOS many flavors of, Commodore Basic, CP/M, GW Basic, Amiga OS <fan-boy>, Windows 3.11, w95,w98,w2k,wxp, Vista x64 <still learning>, MAC os 6 through X

The MAC OS frustrates the hell out of me. I find I can never figure out where it likes to hide things inside the folder structures. I want complete control of where things go and where they are, I don't find the MAC enviroment forthcoming when it comes to that. Other petty annoyances too. If you don't mind the lack of control then I will say that MACs are a lot of fun for the uninitiated.

My wife loves here MACs.

--dES

[serega]

It's not MAC. It's Mac.

[Des]

It's not MAC. It's Mac.

Ok, Mack :wink:

[aedipuss]

macs had always been slower and more expensive than their pc counterparts up until they became pc's themselves with intel processors. now they are just more expensive and run fewer software apps. oh and they were truly ugly when they first came out in the puke beige colored towers with little black and white built-in displays.

apple's jobs and woz were a couple of thieves who stole the parts to build their original computers from their employers. i could never bring myself to reward them by buying a single apple product when they really should have been incarcerated for their felonies.

[GMaq]

Because they are shamefully unaware that Linux has all the UNIX benefits, is free (for the home user) both in cost and philosophy and is quite happy to run with PC hardware!

[orsetto]

Sigh. The question that will not die, despite the fact it has been utterly irrelevant for years. I wrote one of my first long-ass posts on this very topic, hoping to bury it, but there's always another re-animator. What it boils down to is this:

Mac users, Windows users: STOP THE WHINING and arguing. The war has been over for years. The victor in some ways did not deserve to win (always the case), and should be a little more humble about it. The minority platform needs to STOP falling for juvenile fight bait and stop trying to defend itself against stone-walled closed minds: it didn't work fifteen years ago when you still had a chance, and it sure as hell won't work now that you've been totally eclipsed. The debate is pointless, just buy what you need: Windows as a default, its what "everybody" uses, or Mac if you don't mind being in the minority and can make use of its advantages.

First off, its long LONG past the time the $ argument should be off the table. This "Macs are more expensive" whining makes otherwise intelligent Windows users sound like f-ing morons. Why? Because you people have no hesitation spending $400 to upgrade your systems and software for the utterly useless Vista transition, you buy $600 Sony Playstations and $300 Nintendo Wii units and thousands of dollars worth of games without breaking a sweat. And thats just the people at *poverty* level, don't let me start on the middle and upper classes. The fact that a perfectly capable, well-equipped Mac might cost $150 more than a built-in-someones-garage PC gaming hotrod is meaningless to anyone not in the specific market for that PC gaming hotrod. And if you ever do need a Mac for something, you can swap a cheap Mini right into your existing keyboard-mouse-monitor. Or even buy used very very cheap: Macs remain relevant twice as long as Windows hardware- I often still use my 2001 Titanium PowerBook with the latest OS and apps with no real speed penalty. You can buy one for peanuts second hand.

Windows users, there is an alternative to your platform that once upon a time was so elegant it made Windows look like a Fisher Price toy, and its still an important option for some users and a spur to keep Microsoft inventive. GET OVER IT, and get over yourselves already! You want to talk about "smug" and "arrogant" and "fanboys" and "gay", try dialing back to 1989 when Mac was light years beyond the half-DOS, half-prehistoric bug-ridden Windows world. All we heard day in and day out was bleating from the Microsofties that they had the "real" computers, despite the fact no one without a degree in computer science could figure out how to type a letter on one. The TRUE source of all that animosity was stark staring TERROR that their highly-paid jobs operating and managing those piles of sh*t would soon be unnecessary if Macs became popular. And regarding the software argument- please. Most of the animosity concerns games, which is such a pathetic argument it isn't even worth debating. If you primarily wanted a game console and typed letters on the side, you bought a Windows box. If you needed your computer for graphics work and typical office work, with a few games on the side, you bought a Mac. Everyone knew this: no one went shopping Macs for game use. Why the hell people carped on this is beyond me: Windows played all your dopey games, and was 40% cheaper anyway, so what's your argument? Go buy a Windows box and be happy.

The non-game situation up until the late 1990s: there was ten times as much software available for DOS/Windows as for Mac, like today. HOWEVER, unlike today, 4 out of 10 applications were still for DOS and the Windows apps were often junk or becoming outmoded. The leading applications that everyone used on PC were available for Mac. In an age when EVERYONE was being forced into MS Word and Excel, who the hell cared really that there were two dozen bit players on Windows offering spreadsheets and word processors? They were doomed. As far as page layout and Photoshop, there was no choice for the pros: Windows was not up to Mac levels yet and would not catch up for quite awhile. You folks who've spent the last 20 years using Windows for nothing but games and Word have no context for your Mac bashing- for a good decade there, Macs were an absolutely necessary professional tool that could accomplish in minutes what DOS/Windows could not do AT ALL. As such, those who needed them put up with Apples gouging because Macs paid for themselves. Those of you who were not professional graphics users in the late 80s to 90s cannot imagine how Macs revolutionized the business- if you were a professional photographer, and your choice was limited to a $100 Kodak Instamatic vs a $250 Nikon SLR, you would buy the more expensive camera in a heartbeat without question. Same difference.

Flash forward to 2008. Windows has won long-since, period. Partly from MS marketing savvy, partly from wrong-headed business inertia, partly because OSX destroyed everything that made Macs easy and fun, and partly because the Mac was originally designed at a time when the personal computer was just that: personal. Pre-networks, pre-web, the Mac was a single user productivity paradise. The rise of the internet, and lowest common denominator chat rooms, games, and sex sites that relied on Microsoft's crafty exclusive sabotage in Windows Internet Explorer, is what finally killed Mac dead. Mac survives because of the millions of legacy files professionals still need access to, because it still has a slight edge in certain applications, because it IS much less vulnerable to hackers and viruses targeting your grandmother, and because there's always a subset of users who want an alternative or who tumble for the Apple design ethos. It hangs in there, but its a minority platform, and as such why the hell SHOULDN'T they use the snarky ads? What have they got to lose? Why does this bug the crap out of you Windows loyalists? You should be LAUGHING at this, you won a 94% landslide, remember? David is expected to go after Goliath in this manner. Sheesh. And again, for the many people who really only use email and maybe write an occasional letter, a Mac will remain effectively bulletproof to viruses and hacking and is the easiest option for them. True, Macs are THEORETICALLY as vulnerable as any other platform but in practice, in the home, nothing ever happens and it is SO much easier helping clueless friends and family when you don't have to constantly monitor and update their buggy virus protection software.

Mac users, you LOST. Sadly, no one really gives a crap about your sometimes superior technology or hardware design. All they care about is zombie games and internet sex sites. They will never stop baiting you and calling you "gay" (despite the fact that ALL the "gay" websites are Windows-centric and not Mac-friendly at all ) Game over, you live in occupied territory, be grateful your platform hasn't been utterly wiped out, because it certainly almost was in 1997. There is no point whatsoever trying to engage in rational (or even irrational) discussion with Windows users, they have a one-track, paranoid, blinkered attitude which mirrors your own of years gone by. And sometimes they're totally right: witness the dearth of truly useful DVD decryption and backup software for Mac, theres nothing close to things like Windows CloneDVD/AnyDVD for Mac. Nonetheless you have a thriving subculture: enjoy it, and just roll with the punches.

Personally I use both Mac and Windows and occasionally I boot into Knoppix-Linux. I was raised on Macs, couldn't figure out DOS at all, then transitioned to Windows when companies I worked for did so. I spent ten years as Mac consultant for ad agencies and the like. I have specific uses for each platform and need them all.

[disturbed1]

I don't run a Mac because I like to build my own PC. I've only bought 2 OEM PCs in my life. A Sony Vaio with 233mmx pentium and an HP with a P4 1500 and RDRAM.

This falls into the argument of OS vs. OS vs. OS. They are all great and each offer their own benefits. There is no clear better OS vs all others.

[Video Head]

Way too addicted to right clicking...

I always found it interesting how Apple acuses Microsoft of stealing the GUI from them...I wonder if Jobs and Woz can remember where they were the day they thought of the GUI...and the mouse...

Do you still need to buy a "MacCracker" tool (for over a $100) just to open the case? Talk about a locked-out proprietary system...

[aedipuss]

you mean the XEROX gui they "incorporated" into the mac and then sued m.s. for copying? we were using digital research's pc GEM gui in the early 80's before the first mac was sold. had a 2 button mouse to boot...

[edDV]

Don't beat up on Woz. The Apple II was brilliant and got the company off the ground. Since the plane crash he just hasn't been the same. Job's Lisa was a dud.

The original Mac was pretty but MacWrite, MacPaint and a dot matrix printer was it. It took Adobe Postscript, the Canon laser printer and Microsoft's Office to make the Mac a useful personal tool. Next, desktop publishing apps and Adobe's Photoshop opened the professional door.

It was Windows 95 and especially Windows NT that almost killed the Mac. The powerful Intel chips + NT platform attracted all the pro apps (especially video) in the late 90's. The Mac was black and blue with a shrinking share.

Apple's decision to write in house apps (e.g. Final Cut to iLife) caused long time supporters like Adobe to abandon the Mac, except for Photoshop. Gates continued Office support and even financially rescued Apple a couple of times to keep them alive.

Apple now has some company regulated pro niches with Final Cut Pro and some remaining publishing workstations. It took Jobs' return make the Intel decision possible and to focus the company back on the general consumer. Personally, I'd like to see them put more pressure on Microsoft at the low end. There needs to be a home personal computer entry solution below the MacMini and iMac. It could even offer a stripped down OSX.

[redwudz]

I have two Macs. (And a load of MS machines) One is a 733Mhz G4 that I haven't used in a year or two and did use for photo processing. I also have a 1984 Mac that I am planning to restore.



I gave up on Macs because of the price and availability of software and the frequent expensive OS upgrades. But I did like the OS.

[Video Head]

Mac has a niche in the graphic artist realm. They do have some die hard followers who preach them like it was a religion...but it's just a computer at the end of the day. Mac is expensive. Everything you connect to a Mac is more expensive - the "M" models - mostly due to the fact that Mac is over engineered and uses specialized processes such as Adobe PostScript. The periferal manufacturers know that Mac fans will pay more, so they charge more. It's like a Mercedes - well designed and built, expensive to buy and maintain and no more powerfull or appointed than others in one price range lower.

I had an Apple II. Good machine. When I started studying programming we used Commodore PETs and I slowly migrated away from Apple. In the early '90's I was putting together an editing studio and once again looked at Apple as a solution. I had several friends with music studios who used Apple and swore by it. Apple seemed way more focused on the music side and I wound up going with the other Motorola guys - and an old friend - Commodore. Commodore and their ubiquitous Amiga could not make a sustained go of it even with NuTek propping them up in the corners with the Video Toaster. Then Apple started trodding down the same road...it certainly looked like the end was comming until Jobs recognized that people like music and like to take it with them...not exactly a computer but the iPod did save Apples ass. An excellent move by Jobs, the cash started to roll in and payrolls could be met...hard to tell if Apple is a computer company or a media company these days.

[usually_quiet]

This is on par with the discussions that go on in parking lots all over the US between those who drive Chevrolet pickups, Ford pickups and Dodge pickups. Any minute now I expect to see signatures appear featuring a little boy taking a whiz on the logo of someone else's OS.

Besides all the other reasons people have mentioned, I have a PC (a desktop) because I can add/replace internal drives, and PCI cards using off-the-shelf items from a variety of manufacturers. Every time I look at the Apple pages in catalogs, the hardware offerings are more limited, mostly external devices. I already have enough clutter around my desk. I don't want more.

[Des]

I think there is something being missed here regarding the Mac and Apple products in general; Since Steve Jobs' return Apple has positioned itself overall as a 'lifestyle' company. They have worked hard to make sure that their products more or less 'click together' to form a working whole. The PC market really can't say the same thing as it has always been more cobbled together from bits and pieces than aything else.

This isn't bad for the home user who just wants things to work and really doesn't do too many technical things on a computer and has little inclination to supe it up. Add some powerful design apps to it like the Adobe CS suite and Final Cut Pro and then the better color management system Macs use for printing and now you've attracted design and graphic people who also don;t want to fuss around too much. Pretty the boxes up and viola! You have attracted fashion designers and artists and let's not forget the music market which has been using Macs since the late 1980s.

As for Steve Wozniak, he has been very altruistic since leaving Apple and last I heard was concentrating on music and art projects associated with the computer for handicapped and low income kids. That's pretty cool in my book.

Proudly typed out (but not spell cheked) on my PC running Vista X64, while my wife does lesson plans and listens to The Raconteur's CD on her Mac across the hall.

--dES

[verbal0007]

...However, I have found that people who like Macs are hardcore fanboy types (even the women) and they have no objectivity at all. If Apple was to put cow crap in a box and call it iTurd and sell it for $150 and all you were getting for your money was a bunch of fertilizer you badly overpaid for, I work with people who would pay it with no questions asked and then afterward I'm not sure if any of them would be honest to admit that they wasted their money...

One of the reasons people don't use Macs is that they tire of the smugness of Mac users and the whole superior attitude so many of their users have.

Couldn't have said it better myself...made me lol....although, this is a pretty good assessment as well:

One thing PC users can do that Mac users can't:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant

[Epicurus8a]

Why don't people use Macs?

For the same reason people don't use HD-DVD. (ie COMPATABILITY!)

[Captain315]

I had Apple and thank God I got away from them. I saw the writing on the wall when Jobs began forcing you to buy from "their" retailers, meaning the Apple Shops. He shut out everyone else so he could grab more money with less product investment. Apple (Mac) users like to think they march to a different drummer when in fact they're just out of step with the world.

[zoobie]

they do use macs...a lot...for fcp

[lordsmurf]

I've worked in media many years, and have used both Windows/DOS and Mac machines since the 1980s.

Let's dispel a few stupid myths:
1. Both Windows and Mac have equally powerful design software, and have for many years. Aldus PageMaker was on Windows 3 and DOS . Same goes for Illustrator/Freehand, Photoshop, and others most of you have probably never heard of.
2. Windows/DOS systems had laser printers from HP and a few specialty companies (LaserMaster, for example), that could also do Adobe PostScript printing for just as long as Apple could.
3. Apple monitors do not have better color or calibration or anything else. That's simply ridiculous. Quit buying cheap crappy monitors. Use a Spyder to correct your colors. In fact, for most of the history of Apple machines, they used wholly inferior monitors compared to the non-Apple (third party) counterparts. I was not at all uncommon in places I worked in years past, for us to buy a non-Apple monitor for our Apple machines. As years went by, the Macs disappeared.
4. A huge number of newspapers, design firms, graphic artists and other publishing/printing/graphic houses left Apple years ago. The only reason news/graphics/education got them to begin with was the ass-kissing discounts they were given, which ended in the early 2000s. Mac and Quark are eating the dust of Windows XP and Adobe InDesign. If nothing else, dumping an expensive Mac at news/educational facilities was a huge cost-savings decision.
5. Apple never has and probably never will be as powerful at video as a Windows machine is. It lacks hardware options, software option, and workflow conveniences. FCP and DVDSP are great tools, but that's really all that exists, in a limited DV workflow (excluding the very recent re-emergence of Adobe CS3 suite for OS X -- which is ONLY possible because OS X now runs on an Intel CPU). Professional videos are largely created in Windows-NT-based environments (NT4, 2000, XP).
6. Mac is more expensive. That's all there is to it. Even today, similar-spec machines cost twice as much from Apple as an OEM Windows machine sold at computer, electronics and office supply stores. I had to spec out a new machine last week, and it'll run $4200 for an Apple machine, where an HP would have run about $2200.

I use both and have for many years. Each system irritates me in some way.

Most Mac fanboys I've run across didn't even start using Apple equipment until the past 8-9 years. They honestly have no idea what the hell they're talking about. I don't understand the religion. It's almost more annoying than Scientology.

I clicked on somebody's link up above, and this was in it:

After the recent Apple conference, Mac fans were elated. One person was quoted as saying "I've had a Macintosh now for a total of 35 days, and I'm really excited to be part of the Mac community." Part of the Mac community? It's a computer, not a social movement, *******! I feel like Apple is not just selling computers, they're selling a way of life, and I'm not ready to be that heavily invested in a product

I think that's pretty spot-on.

[iMacMan]

HOLY CRAP! I thought this post would be deleted...

I posted this because I wanted to hear opinions (good/bad)?

And holy moly you people delivered! It's a great discussion no matter what you use!

This is what's great about forum's! Speaking your mind!

By the way, I use a Mac  (not to offend PC). I just use what works as I know you all do!

Many thanks for all your replies and keep them going !