Switching Sides

I’ve been reading through some of the threads at XvsXP.com and realized something about the whole “apple vs pc” argument. I’m sure that it’s been realized before, but I only really got it now.


Because the two technologies don’t interop well nicely at all (hardware wise), and one is fairly expensive to get in to (or out of, especially if you have expensive software), it seems unlikely that lots of “PC people” ever come over to the “Mac people” side, or vice versa. Buying a $3000 system to try out something is just not worth it for the average Joe.


Moreover, once you are in the PC or Mac world, you tend to get to know it well, and entering a strange new environment, even one that is proported to be very user friendly is a hard adjustment to make. Alt… erhm.. I mean “apple key” – tab switches apps but not windows of individual apps? What a POS! What, apple key.. erhmm.. I mean “alt” – tab switches between every single window, not just apps? What a POS!


Because you are nicely entrenched and very familiar with one environment, it takes an open mind to not listen to the stories that each side tells and instead try it out for yourself. Oh, right, there isn’t an extra $3k to “just try it out”, I forgot.


Of course, each side just ends up badmouthing the other and beating each other about the head with “I know more people who have BSODs every day” and “every mac I’ve used has crashed at least once a day” and “my Mac/XP is incrediably stable and I’ve never had a crash once” etc etc ad nauseum.


Anyway, that’s my shallow and oft repeated thought for the day. I guess the reason I keep on writing about this is because I want to make an informed statement at the end of the day about my (currently very recent) mac experience.

2 Comments on “Switching Sides”

  1. Nice comments on the PC to Mac conversion. But since OSX has come out more and more Unix/Linux/PC admins are moving to the Apple platform because it’s Unixie. They also like the Apple notebooks because they are much lighter then most PC notebooks. When I was at the LISA conference in Philly last fall the breakdown seemed 70% Apple notebooks, 30% PC based notebooks. Just my noticing of these things.

  2. I think that many of the comparisons between the Mac and PC are done by two groups: people that have to justify why they love the Mac, and complete idiots who have never used a decent operating system.
    Is the Mac platform better? If everything you are using it for works, then yes. It is more elegant, has an easier interface, and is just generally better engineered.
    When is Windows better? When you need specific hardware, a specific application, or when there is a specific feature that is (often poorly) implemented. Or if you really like computer games.
    You should use linux if you are developing, esp. embedded systems or servers.
    It is all about the proper tool for the proper job. I rarely think that Windows is actually the proper tool, but sometimes it is. That doesn’t mean Windows is more user friendly, just that it is sometimes the right tool.