Some random guy switches to Vista

nyxtom

Some reporter... comments on all the differences between Macs and Vista computers, noting what the majority of Mac OS computers are missing. More at the article after the jump.

Mac Guy to Vista

[EDIT]:
Original Title was "Hi I'm a mac..." guy switches OS computers. But actually it seems more like an article from an MSNBC Contributor Joe Hutsko. But that would be a funny commercial.

Giganticus

DELETED

ShimSham

This says the reporter switched operating systems.

I thought you were saying the actor who plays a Mac in the commercials switched to Vista.

nyxtom

Ah, my original reference was from
http://on10.net/Blogs/jesse/veteran-mac-user-moves-to-vista/

nyxtom

Justin Long is the actor in all those commercials whoops.

TheFonz

The "I'm a Mac" guy said he doesn't really give a crap about computers.

Accualt

ShimSham wrote:

This says the reporter switched operating systems.

I thought you were saying the actor who plays a Mac in the commercials switched to Vista.

Same here. That would make for a glorious commercial.

Giganticus

DELETED

lordswing

heh, my friend who recently got a brand new laptop with Vista on it gave me the link to that, thinking the guy switched from a Mac to Vista. Too bad he didn't read all the way to the end, and I just laughed when I brought it up to him.

FreddyD

Accualt wrote:

ShimSham wrote:

This says the reporter switched operating systems.

I thought you were saying the actor who plays a Mac in the commercials switched to Vista.

Same here. That would make for a glorious commercial.

I always thought it was funny that the boring PC guy is getting the vast majority of new PC games.

Games for Windows is just great marketing because if you don't play video games there is really no reason to upgrade to Vista.

Echo

Topic changed to reflect actual contents. :P

Marlor

TheFonz wrote:

The "I'm a Mac" guy said he doesn't really give a crap about computers.

Whereas the "I'm a PC" guy (John Hodgman) is a hardcore Mac fan in real life.

Variable

Marlor wrote:

TheFonz wrote:

The "I'm a Mac" guy said he doesn't really give a crap about computers.

Whereas the "I'm a PC" guy (John Hodgman) is a hardcore Mac fan in real life.

... he'd have to be. think about it.

Brodo Faggins

He switches back to Macs at the end of the article.

Rook

Brodo Faggins wrote:

He switches back to Macs at the end of the article.

omg spoilers

KKprofit

Rook wrote:

Brodo Faggins wrote:

He switches back to Macs at the end of the article.

omg spoilers

[spoiler:cadf94fcbe]Vista dies lol[/spoiler:cadf94fcbe]

Rook

Vaguely interesting, if quite poorly written/proofed. I think the biggest sticker was how shitty the hardware was, which isn't really anything to do with microsoft or vista.

PatboyX

Rook wrote:

Vaguely interesting, if quite poorly written/proofed. I think the biggest sticker was how shitty the hardware was, which isn't really anything to do with microsoft or vista.

not surprised it comes off sloppy. he seems to consider a system-wide spell checker a necessity. maybe he comes from the spelled right = proofread school of writing.

Giganticus

Hey I'm switching to Vista today...

...from XP...

...and because I get it for free.


And yeah, his main complaint is that the hardware is fairly crappy. That's not Microsoft's fault. Stuff like the sleep/hibernate when powering down thing is purely down to Dell too, as Vista (and XP) support Hibernate. Plus Macs and PCs use the same processors now, so if Sony/Dell invest some cash into making their shit quieter/cooler, Vista would compete directly.

skace

After all the pros and cons he lists throughout his article, here is his main reason for going back to Mac:

"But I really miss that peaceful, Zen-like quiet I felt with my Mac when I’d wake it up or put it instantly to sleep. For me, it just works right, without really having to think about it."

Bwah? Wha? Quiet as in... the sound of the fans? Hardware specific? Wake it up or put it to sleep? Hibernate? Turn off the monitor? What the fuck is going on here?

That just struck me as odd, I mean he had much better reasons in his actual article.

Cameron_Talley

skace wrote:

After all the pros and cons he lists throughout his article, here is his main reason for going back to Mac:

"But I really miss that peaceful, Zen-like quiet I felt with my Mac when I’d wake it up or put it instantly to sleep. For me, it just works right, without really having to think about it."

Bwah? Wha? Quiet as in... the sound of the fans? Hardware specific? Wake it up or put it to sleep? Hibernate? Turn off the monitor? What the fuck is going on here?

That just struck me as odd, I mean he had much better reasons in his actual article.

OS X's sleep function works PERFECTLY, and has for some time. It's instant, smooth, and takes less than a second to come back from sleep. Maybe that's what he meant. In my experience, I've NEVER been able to get XP to Hibernate correctly, and when you open the thing back up, you get the crappy "resuming windows" progress bar from the ancient times.

Seriously, it's just one of those little things...Other Mac users will probably understand what he means.

ihd

Cameron_Talley wrote:

skace wrote:

After all the pros and cons he lists throughout his article, here is his main reason for going back to Mac:

"But I really miss that peaceful, Zen-like quiet I felt with my Mac when I’d wake it up or put it instantly to sleep. For me, it just works right, without really having to think about it."

Bwah? Wha? Quiet as in... the sound of the fans? Hardware specific? Wake it up or put it to sleep? Hibernate? Turn off the monitor? What the fuck is going on here?

That just struck me as odd, I mean he had much better reasons in his actual article.

OS X's sleep function works PERFECTLY, and has for some time. It's instant, smooth, and takes less than a second to come back from sleep. Maybe that's what he meant. In my experience, I've NEVER been able to get XP to Hibernate correctly, and when you open the thing back up, you get the crappy "resuming windows" progress bar from the ancient times.

Seriously, it's just one of those little things...Other Mac users will probably understand what he means.

There's the thing though - Vista's got a new default hibernation mode that's supposed to be a lot better than XP's hibernation / standby functionality.

skace

Cameron_Talley wrote:

OS X's sleep function works PERFECTLY, and has for some time. It's instant, smooth, and takes less than a second to come back from sleep. Maybe that's what he meant. In my experience, I've NEVER been able to get XP to Hibernate correctly, and when you open the thing back up, you get the crappy "resuming windows" progress bar from the ancient times.

Seriously, it's just one of those little things...Other Mac users will probably understand what he means.

I just press my power button on my monitor.

Malkor

Why do people use hibernation/sleep again?

Rook

Malkor wrote:

Why do people use hibernation/sleep again?

Laptops and on the move. E.g. switching trains or busses and don't want to save everything etc

EggyToast

So in other words, while he likes the OS, he prefers a system where the same company provides the hardware and the OS.

Hard to argue with that -- it's why a lot of people like Apple.

DigDug2000

EggyToast wrote:

So in other words, while he likes the OS, he prefers a system where the same company provides the hardware and the OS.

Hard to argue with that -- it's why a lot of people like Apple.

It's also the main reason why Macs have never had more marketshare than PCs.

EggyToast

DigDug2000 wrote:

EggyToast wrote:

So in other words, while he likes the OS, he prefers a system where the same company provides the hardware and the OS.

Hard to argue with that -- it's why a lot of people like Apple.

It's also the main reason why Macs have never had more marketshare than PCs.

And this thread was going so nicely.

RiemannLives

EggyToast wrote:

DigDug2000 wrote:

EggyToast wrote:

So in other words, while he likes the OS, he prefers a system where the same company provides the hardware and the OS.

Hard to argue with that -- it's why a lot of people like Apple.

It's also the main reason why Macs have never had more marketshare than PCs.

And this thread was going so nicely.

But it is quite a valid point. What's the Mac marketshare right now? Less than 4%. Four fucking percent. Honestly they are an ultra-fringe product in the home computer market. If they could offer their quite competetive OS on hardware that didn't have an obscene markup (seriously, Mac hardware is like buying Popcorn at the movie theatre) they would have a hell of a lot more than that.

EggyToast

RiemannLives wrote:

EggyToast wrote:

DigDug2000 wrote:

EggyToast wrote:

So in other words, while he likes the OS, he prefers a system where the same company provides the hardware and the OS.

Hard to argue with that -- it's why a lot of people like Apple.

It's also the main reason why Macs have never had more marketshare than PCs.

And this thread was going so nicely.

But it is quite a valid point. What's the Mac marketshare right now? Less than 4%. Four fucking percent. Honestly they are an ultra-fringe product in the home computer market. If they could offer their quite competetive OS on hardware that didn't have an obscene markup (seriously, Mac hardware is like buying Popcorn at the movie theatre) they would have a hell of a lot more than that.

marketshare is a moot point because it includes enterprise and corporate sales. Because Windows machines are purchased in the hundreds to roll out, say, a phone-sales department, that should count as some meaningful number or percentage of sales? Especially since Apple doesn't really attempt to go after the corporate marketplace.

I know a ton of people who own macs at home but have to use Windows at work. Are those people "mac users"? Does their marketshare "cancel out"? Hopefully you can see my point on why it's a useless statistic, as there's a TON of mac users who still have an old PC around somewhere.

It's essentially a useless statistic without providing more information. Something that's handy to bandy about when you want to poke fun, sure, but does it reflect home use? Enterprise purchases? Does a MacPro purchase count the same as a $300 Dell? What % of those people are those buying a new machine at what point in the product's lifecycle (e.g. like saying that the PS2 has sold 100m but is only actually owned by 80m).


I also fail to really see this markup thing. I don't see equivalent Dells (matching both components AND form factor). The only obvious markup is the $150 extra for "black" on the macbook.

Glal

Apple makes money off hardware, the OS is just a shiny, delicious bait. They'd need a rather substancial market share boost just to get their profits even again.

mausmalone

Rook wrote:

Malkor wrote:

Why do people use hibernation/sleep again?

Laptops and on the move. E.g. switching trains or busses and don't want to save everything etc

Yeah... I put my laptop to "sleep" when I leave work so that I don't have to boot up from scratch when I get home. Note that "sleep" means uber-low-power mode and is nigh-instant. I just close the lid on my laptop and about a second later I hear a "beep" and the sleep light turns on. I open the lid and hear another beep and the system is ready to go (though it's set to require username/password).

"Hibernate" means to basically do sleep mode, but for far longer. What it does is save your computer's state completely, then shut down windows and power-off the machine. When you come out of hibernation, it starts up windows and restores our saved state.

My computer can stay in sleep mode for about 5-7 days before the battery depletes. Hibernation mode actually turns the computer off, so it could stay that way indefinitely.

If you see the status bar, though, you're going into hibernation .... if you're doing this more than once in a blue moon, then that means you probably really want sleep mode instead but don't know the difference.

EDIT: also, in either mode, the hard drive parks its head, which means that if you're going to be carrying it around or jostling it, it would be safer to go into either hibernation or sleep first. My laptop detects motion and parks the hard drive automatically, but some others don't.

DigDug2000

EggyToast wrote:

RiemannLives wrote:

EggyToast wrote:

DigDug2000 wrote:

EggyToast wrote:

So in other words, while he likes the OS, he prefers a system where the same company provides the hardware and the OS.

Hard to argue with that -- it's why a lot of people like Apple.

It's also the main reason why Macs have never had more marketshare than PCs.

And this thread was going so nicely.

But it is quite a valid point. What's the Mac marketshare right now? Less than 4%. Four fucking percent. Honestly they are an ultra-fringe product in the home computer market. If they could offer their quite competetive OS on hardware that didn't have an obscene markup (seriously, Mac hardware is like buying Popcorn at the movie theatre) they would have a hell of a lot more than that.

marketshare is a moot point because it includes enterprise and corporate sales. Because Windows machines are purchased in the hundreds to roll out, say, a phone-sales department, that should count as some meaningful number or percentage of sales? Especially since Apple doesn't really attempt to go after the corporate marketplace.

I know a ton of people who own macs at home but have to use Windows at work. Are those people "mac users"? Does their marketshare "cancel out"? Hopefully you can see my point on why it's a useless statistic, as there's a TON of mac users who still have an old PC around somewhere.

It's essentially a useless statistic without providing more information. Something that's handy to bandy about when you want to poke fun, sure, but does it reflect home use? Enterprise purchases? Does a MacPro purchase count the same as a $300 Dell? What % of those people are those buying a new machine at what point in the product's lifecycle (e.g. like saying that the PS2 has sold 100m but is only actually owned by 80m).

I also fail to really see this markup thing. I don't see equivalent Dells (matching both components AND form factor). The only obvious markup is the $150 extra for "black" on the macbook.

I didn't mean to be mean, but that's pretty much exactly my point. If you compare a Mac to an equivalent Dell, you may get the same price, but Dell alone offers a few dozen different configurations that are less powerful but much MUCH cheaper. Not to mention the hundreds of other companies out there making machines. You have lots of options with PC's which is part of what makes them less user friendly, and part of what makes them more versatile.

Anyway, just like the original guy said, it works well for a lot of Mac users. They like having a system where the hardware and software all come bundled and work well together. Its not a dig against Macs. Its the same business plan they've had since they first started, and it seems to work well for them. Its also just kept them from building the diversity of machines that the market out there has demands for.

Azio

Cameron_Talley wrote:

skace wrote:

After all the pros and cons he lists throughout his article, here is his main reason for going back to Mac:

"But I really miss that peaceful, Zen-like quiet I felt with my Mac when I’d wake it up or put it instantly to sleep. For me, it just works right, without really having to think about it."

Bwah? Wha? Quiet as in... the sound of the fans? Hardware specific? Wake it up or put it to sleep? Hibernate? Turn off the monitor? What the fuck is going on here?

That just struck me as odd, I mean he had much better reasons in his actual article.

OS X's sleep function works PERFECTLY, and has for some time. It's instant, smooth, and takes less than a second to come back from sleep. Maybe that's what he meant. In my experience, I've NEVER been able to get XP to Hibernate correctly, and when you open the thing back up, you get the crappy "resuming windows" progress bar from the ancient times.

Seriously, it's just one of those little things...Other Mac users will probably understand what he means.

OSX's sleep function is anything but perfect. I would say one out of five times I use it on my Macbook, the computer goes into a coma and simply refuses to wake up until I reboot it cold. OSX has no analog to Hibernate, which is a much better feature because it fully powers off the computer and works pretty much 100% of the time. Sure, it takes a few seconds. But this is basically the amount of time it takes to open a beer, so I don't care. And the progress bar? Seriously, who the fuck gives a shit.

Cameron_Talley

Azio wrote:

Cameron_Talley wrote:

skace wrote:

After all the pros and cons he lists throughout his article, here is his main reason for going back to Mac:

"But I really miss that peaceful, Zen-like quiet I felt with my Mac when I’d wake it up or put it instantly to sleep. For me, it just works right, without really having to think about it."

Bwah? Wha? Quiet as in... the sound of the fans? Hardware specific? Wake it up or put it to sleep? Hibernate? Turn off the monitor? What the fuck is going on here?

That just struck me as odd, I mean he had much better reasons in his actual article.

OS X's sleep function works PERFECTLY, and has for some time. It's instant, smooth, and takes less than a second to come back from sleep. Maybe that's what he meant. In my experience, I've NEVER been able to get XP to Hibernate correctly, and when you open the thing back up, you get the crappy "resuming windows" progress bar from the ancient times.

Seriously, it's just one of those little things...Other Mac users will probably understand what he means.

OSX's sleep function is anything but perfect. I would say one out of five times I use it on my Macbook, the computer goes into a coma and simply refuses to wake up until I reboot it cold. OSX has no analog to Hibernate, which is a much better feature because it fully powers off the computer and works pretty much 100% of the time. Sure, it takes a few seconds. But this is basically the amount of time it takes to open a beer, so I don't care. And the progress bar? Seriously, who the fuck gives a shit.

Theoretically perfect. I believe the Macbook Wake from sleep issue is a well-known problem. Not that I'm defending it, but it's a problem on that particular hardware model.

Also, I believe with the new intel processors The Macbooks have a "Deep Sleep" feature, which is comparable to Hibernate.

Brodo Faggins

Glal wrote:

Apple makes money off hardware, the OS is just a shiny, delicious bait. They'd need a rather substancial market share boost just to get their profits even again.

They're actually making huge profits, according to their latest profits report.

ginguskahn

I think the point wasnt really that he stayed with Mac because the hardware was better designed, but that there was no real reason to stay with Vista. He wanted Vista for "newness" sake, and not because it really offered him anything more than he was used to. So why not stay with Apple and have the better designed hardware and everything he needed in a form he was used to?

Obviously things like the noise/heat bothered him, but if he had found some really awsome feature he NEEDED in Vista, he would have bought the Sony anyway.

Terrorbyte

Glal wrote:

Apple makes money off hardware, the OS is just a shiny, delicious bait. They'd need a rather substancial market share boost just to get their profits even again.

Oh, their record-breaking profits? Those? Seriously, the next time you're thinking of posting in a Mac-related thread, just punch yourself in the groin.

Marlor

RiemannLives wrote:

But it is quite a valid point. What's the Mac marketshare right now? Less than 4%. Four fucking percent. Honestly they are an ultra-fringe product in the home computer market. If they could offer their quite competetive OS on hardware that didn't have an obscene markup (seriously, Mac hardware is like buying Popcorn at the movie theatre) they would have a hell of a lot more than that.

Mac desktops are made from expensive components, and are thus expensive, but they really aren't obscenely priced. A Dell that is similarly configured to a Mac Pro will cost a lot more.

The laptops are competitive too. I purchased a Macbook recently, and compared it to a similarly specced Dell. The Macbook was cheaper. Macbook Pros are a bit overpriced, but they are built like a tank, and include a lot of superfluous features in an attempt to justify that price.

I would never buy a Mac desktop, because I like to tinker and upgrade my desktop machines. But a Mac laptop makes sense, since you can't really upgrade a PC laptop anyway.

As far as tying the OS to the hardware goes... Apple tried to license out MacOS a decade ago. Several manufacturers took up the offer, but nobody was really interested in buying the "Maclones". People use Windows because it is the dominant OS (and hence has unmatched software availability), so other OSes will continue to be marginalized for the forseeable future.

Sushisource

Marlor wrote:

As far as tying the OS to the hardware goes... Apple tried to license out MacOS a decade ago. Several manufacturers took up the offer, but nobody was really interested in buying the "Maclones". People use Windows because it is the dominant OS (and hence has unmatched software availability), so other OSes will continue to be marginalized for the forseeable future.

UNTIL THE DAWN OF GOOGLEOS!

I could not resist.

Daedalus

Sushisource wrote:

Marlor wrote:

As far as tying the OS to the hardware goes... Apple tried to license out MacOS a decade ago. Several manufacturers took up the offer, but nobody was really interested in buying the "Maclones". People use Windows because it is the dominant OS (and hence has unmatched software availability), so other OSes will continue to be marginalized for the forseeable future.

UNTIL THE DAWN OF GOOGLEOS!

I could not resist.

Does Google-Os sound like a kind of cereal to anyone else here?