The Mac Tax

RobertKaucher

it_consultant wrote: »

From a Windows perspective Mac fixes the problems that all PCs suffer, crappy third party software. Every crap Windows machine was made that way by viruses or poorly written software. The Windows kernel itself is fine, we have all seen Windows servers that were unstoppable for 6-7 years because the admins were fanatical about vetting any software that was installed on them.

RobertKaucher wrote: »

In the days of Windows XP MS learned a valuable lesson that Apple knew from the start: the most important job of the OS is to protect the user from the developer.

This is very true and Windows is so much better at dealing with this in Windows 7 (and even Vista) than in previous versions. The other day I was doing something in Silverlight and my video display drivers kept crashing. I am certain that this was my fault as some better code seemed to fix the issue. But what impressed me was that not only did I not get a BSOD, but the driver recovered and restarted without issue. I'm certain I would have lost all my work since the last save had this been done on an XP machine.

nerdydad

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

(and Outlook, I guess, since we insist on using Exchange, and I don't like any of the mail clients that have had Exchange support just bolted on).

With Office 2011, the Mac now has a true version of Outlook.

contentpros

I'm happy to pay the mac tax...

A few years ago I switched over to mac and I haven't looked back since. At first the move was simple decision to have many of the native unix commands without having a standalone linux box and windows box with a nice pretty screen and form-factor that saved some space on my desk. The more I used it with all the xcode tools macports etc. the more I became a fan. While it is true I could have gone the other way using linux or windows and vmware to accomplish the same thing. The more I used spaces to organize my workflow the more I became a fan. The big selling point for me was with how smoothly vmware fusion ran on the mac and did a much better job managing resources (then vmware on windows). I can easily run 4 vm's without issue on the mac without a slowdown or hiccup. Trying to do the same thing on an equivalent windows machine would cause the machine to choke.

I guess for me as an old Solaris & Linux geek the mac and its file structure feel more like home. I don't think mac > windows or vice-versa but it most certainly "feels" like I spend much less time fixing or troubleshooting with the mac then with windows.

Regards,

~CP

msteinhilber

I own and enjoy using both. I have a Macbook Pro Aluminum 13" notebook and an HP 8740w Elitebook as well. Without diving too far into the Mac vs Windows notebook and the chaos that always follows it, I think one thing that often goes overlooked in these sorts of discussions is if you want quality then you're going to have to pay for it.

I spent a number of years early on from 1999 through maybe 2003 buying your typical consumer targeted Windows based notebooks either from a big box retailer or ordered online somewhere. These sorts of notebooks, even to this day, are pretty much not very reliable overall - more so true today than it was earlier. From 2004 and on, I've been buying almost exclusively Windows based notebooks but I have been selecting them from a more business oriented product line. HP and IBM/Lenovo have been my favorites in the business offerings and both have been exceptionally reliable to me in terms of hardware reliability. A little less than a year ago I picked up my first Mac with the Macbook Pro 13" and it's been just as solid in terms of hardware reliability up until now too.

Regarding some of the points others have brought up with the Windows vs OSX debate. I am still running the same installation of OSX on my Macbook and I have been using it just as much as I use my HP Elitebook which is probably on it's 3rd or 4th reinstall of Windows. I'm not really a careless person who is getting viruses or malicious software triggering the reinstalls, I just run into issues where the system becomes unstable, locks up, etc. Rather than troubleshoot, I just wipe and reload out of consideration of my time. The Macbook is still operating seemingly just as fast and responsive as it was from day one, and that's not to knock my HP as it's also just as fast and responsive too - just that I have to put in a little effort now and then to keep it running smooth.

Do I think a Mac is a good investment for someone? Sure, why not. But I don't think there is a tax on them really, it's just a well built piece of equipment - much like my HP Elitebook, and both carry a price tag with them that is typically associated with a well built piece of equipment.

Forsaken_GA

Yeah people seem to forget that Apple isn't a software company. Neither are they a hardware company. They're a computer company. Their primary focus is on making the user have the best experience they can think of, and thereby creating fans of their products for a long time.

Take that to the other side of the spectrum - what's your average windows user do? They go out, they buy a prebuilt computer or a laptop they boot it up... and they get all this crappy shareware/trialware and a specially branded install of Windows.

Now those of us that are power users, would never even boot that install. The first thing we'd do when we got home was fire up our own install disc and wipe the sucker clean. Having to reload the system from scratch to make it not annoy the hell out of me is not a good first experience for the end user.

In contrast, the first time I powered up my Mac, I got a cute full motion video of letters in space saying Welcome in many different languages, then I got a basic wizard to setup my account, it found my internet connection and let me register my mac, and then it said 'here ya go bub, have fun'

As I said before, I am still an end user. And I like convenience, and I'm willing to pay for it. My time is worth alot to me.

it_consultant

I end up recommending to my close friends and family that they go ahead and pay the mac tax. I am tired of cleaning up virus computers. Eventually if the mac market gets big enough there will be a mac virus, for now I prefer to have people spend a little more for an OS that will protect itself from them. In a business with professional IT support, Windows and Linux are king for so many reasons. Of course on the corporate network I have a $4k firewall protecting them, a WSUS server force-feeding security updates, corporate anti-virus, and GPOs which prevent user stupidity.

tpatt100

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Yeah people seem to forget that Apple isn't a software company. Neither are they a hardware company. They're a computer company. Their primary focus is on making the user have the best experience they can think of, and thereby creating fans of their products for a long time.

Take that to the other side of the spectrum - what's your average windows user do? They go out, they buy a prebuilt computer or a laptop they boot it up... and they get all this crappy shareware/trialware and a specially branded install of Windows.

Now those of us that are power users, would never even boot that install. The first thing we'd do when we got home was fire up our own install disc and wipe the sucker clean. Having to reload the system from scratch to make it not annoy the hell out of me is not a good first experience for the end user.

In contrast, the first time I powered up my Mac, I got a cute full motion video of letters in space saying Welcome in many different languages, then I got a basic wizard to setup my account, it found my internet connection and let me register my mac, and then it said 'here ya go bub, have fun'

As I said before, I am still an end user. And I like convenience, and I'm willing to pay for it. My time is worth alot to me.

Plus Apple does have a pretty good design team when it comes to packaging. When you unpack an iPod,iMac or iPhone the minimalist way they design the packaging is smart, it does not overwhelm you with documents and diagrams.

eMeS

tpatt100 wrote: »

Plus Apple does have a pretty good design team when it comes to packaging. When you unpack an iPod,iMac or iPhone the minimalist way they design the packaging is smart, it does not overwhelm you with documents and diagrams.

Also when you open the package it smells like baby's breath, and whenever I open my MBP rainbows and happy cartoon unicorns appear.



MS

networker050184

The Mac "tax" is no different than say a Nike tax. The shoes may not be any higher quality than another brand but you are paying for the name.

Sabalo

networker050184 wrote: »

The Mac "tax" is no different than say a Nike tax. The shoes may not be any higher quality than another brand but you are paying for the name.

I only pay the Converse tax, myself... and I shop of Converse Tax Free days!

Mike-Mike

do any of you who have a bunch of Microsoft certs, and work on Microsoft products.... do you feel any obligation of loyalty to Microsoft? like, if it wasn't for this MCSE I wouldn't be making this much money to buy this or that, so I am going to only buy Microsoft products from now on?

it_consultant

I just configured Outlook for Mac 2011 to connect to my exchange server (Outlook Anywhere Style) in six steps. Thats damn good. Better than outlook 2010, light years ahead of Outlook 2007.

tbgree00

Mike-Mike wrote: »

do any of you who have a bunch of Microsoft certs, and work on Microsoft products.... do you feel any obligation of loyalty to Microsoft? like, if it wasn't for this MCSE I wouldn't be making this much money to buy this or that, so I am going to only buy Microsoft products from now on?

I think Microsoft makes great products and that can occasionally bleed over into my consumer life. In business I'm pretty much a Microsoft fanboy and always look for their solution to any problem we have. At home I just buy what I think is cool, which is pretty much everything.

Devilsbane

tbgree00 wrote: »

I think Microsoft makes great products and that can occasionally bleed over into my consumer life. In business I'm pretty much a Microsoft fanboy and always look for their solution to any problem we have. At home I just buy what I think is cool, which is pretty much everything.

Same here

tiersten

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

That, combined with the fact that I can trust my laptop to not crash on a regular basis and cause me relatively little grief in the way of maintenance all make the Apple "experience" very important to me.

The diagnostic procedure for a Mac is very much voodoo though for nearly all users. If in doubt then repair permissions. If that still doesn't work then you buy a third party package that does the same repair permissions procedure. If that still doesn't work then you reinstall...

The repair permissions procedure has some weird mythical abilities attached to it as people who proclaim themselves to be Mac Gurus claim that you should do this regularly for some bizarre reason.

tiersten

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Yeah people seem to forget that Apple isn't a software company. Neither are they a hardware company. They're a computer company. Their primary focus is on making the user have the best experience they can think of, and thereby creating fans of their products for a long time.

Steve claims they're a software company. I think they're a hardware company. What they seem to be going for now is an integrated services company. They want you in the Apple walled garden where you only use Apple hardware, Apple software and if you're using anything else then it had better come via Apple in some way so they can take their 30% cut ala App Store.

I don't see there being a significant "Mac Tax". If you're looking for a low end budget laptop then sure, don't buy Apple because you're going to be paying significantly more for it but you're looking for a budget laptop anyway which isn't their market. If you want something high end which will last you then an Apple isn't that much different than a machine from one of the big PC manufacturers.

Forsaken_GA

tiersten wrote: »

The diagnostic procedure for a Mac is very much voodoo though for nearly all users. If in doubt then repair permissions. If that still doesn't work then you buy a third party package that does the same repair permissions procedure. If that still doesn't work then you reinstall...

The repair permissions procedure has some weird mythical abilities attached to it as people who proclaim themselves to be Mac Gurus claim that you should do this regularly for some bizarre reason.

I've never run into an instance where I've needed to repair the permissions. I did make a mistake once that caused some bad juju, but booting off the install disk and opting to restore from a time machine backup was a quick and painless way of getting things back in order

stuh84

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I've never run into an instance where I've needed to repair the permissions. I did make a mistake once that caused some bad juju, but booting off the install disk and opting to restore from a time machine backup was a quick and painless way of getting things back in order

I did have one issue where an upgrade between the minor versions (something like 10.5.4 to 10.5.5) broke permissions for ProTools, however the repair thing worked a treat and I've not had to use it since.

Personally I've found Mac's quite easy to troubleshoot, but I'm a CLI guy, I don't troubleshoot in menus, I troubleshoot using the syslog files. I basically use it like an OS, troubleshoot it like a BSD headless server. It's not for everyone, but I do rather enjoy it myself.

The amount of issues I've found just by looking at syslog files are stunning to be honest.

rwmidl

Mike-Mike wrote: »

do any of you who have a bunch of Microsoft certs, and work on Microsoft products.... do you feel any obligation of loyalty to Microsoft? like, if it wasn't for this MCSE I wouldn't be making this much money to buy this or that, so I am going to only buy Microsoft products from now on?

I really don't feel any "loyalty" per se to Microsoft just because I have Microsoft certs. When I was last upgrading my computer at home I looked really long and hard at a MacBook Pro. I didn't mind as much paying for it, what got me was how much it would cost me to get the same software I run on Windows for Mac. Yeah I know I could run a VM for Windows on the Mac, but at the time I did not want to. I figured it would cost me about an extra $1000-1500 to get the same software that is "Mac compatible".

myedjo24

I liked the durability of the 2008 macbooks which is the first reason I hopped on the mac bandwagon. Since then, I've fallen in love with osx and completely fills any need I have. I have win7 and ubuntu also installed on it incase I need to use a specific program.