I am just floored at how cool these computers are. I've always owned PC's and didn't even know what was possible with these computers. From what I've learned so far the difference is the operating systems. I'm currently running Mac OS-X on a 1.83Ghz core duo with 512Mb of DDR2 ram. The system is pretty stout but it needs at least a gig of ram to be fast.

Here's some of the things that blow me away in the operating system.

1. NO VIRUSES EVER!! How awesome is that?? This was my reasoning for buying the system. My last PC crashed numerous times thansk to Limewire and spyware. Never again.

2. Peripheral add-ons (software, hardware, etc) requires no drivers or patching. Just plug it in and the OS does everything else.

3. It automatically detects my monitor (37" widescreen HD) and optimizes the display depending on what I'm doing.

4. iTunes...good lord. One of the coolest things I've ever used in my life. Music, movies, tv shows, music videos, podcasts....everything on their server. Super fast downloads. No junk. I don't even mind paying for the downloads. I must buy about $100 a month in iTunes downloads. The search engine it uses is AWESOME...so intuitive. I had no idea someone could be this creative with an interface.

5. Ability to dual boot and run any OS you wish. Apple makes a HD partition that allows you to specify a partition size and the OS that it will run on. If you want a pc game or window utility you can just open it up in a seperate window. That;s all there is to it.

6. SHERLOCK: quit possibly the coolest search engine for common search items. I go to the movies frequently and on Sherlock you just click "movies" and it'll display the lsit of ALL movies palying within a 25mile radius of your zipcode....it doesn't even ask you for your zip...it knows automatically. After selecting the movie you select which theater you want to watch it at then the show time. This same flow is used for plane tickets, hotel stays, stocks, dictionary, etc etc

7. Widgets, I can't get enough of these. Small programs that operate in the background (flip side) of your desktop. There are about 50k widgets available for free online and they can do anything from play solitaire to find the lowest gas prices in your area to give you instant weather radar maps...I use about 15 widgets at a time including some my wife likes (coupon finder--just type the name of the store and it gives you their current coupons online) There is almost no end to the widget list. If you can think it you can get it....FOR FREE.

8. Media creator...This section is just way too large to go into detail here. Anything you an think of.... wanna make your own website? iWeb. Make your own DVD movie? iDVD. Want to create your own music albumn (made from scratch music) GarageBand is for you. Their photo editor rivals photoshop and is AMAZING when you slideshow...it'll play your current mp3 or a selection of favorites. I love classical piano balads when watching slideshows of my car collection. So much stuff I can't even scratch the surface of it.

9. The Dock: Basically the toolbar on the bottom of a windows pc. The Dock is as easy to set up as just drag and drop. When it's not in use it's off the bottom of the screen. When you point to the bottom of the screen the Dock pops up and displays your programs in an amplified scroll fashion....basically as you drag your mouse over the icons they grow and shrink like a rollercoaster. Very cool effect. No production value...just awesome looks.

and lastly...

10. Apple Hardware.. I bought the Mac Mini 1.83 Core Duo system. It's 6" x 6" x 2". It has a slot loading DVD burner, built-in bluetooth and 801.11.gb as well as airport. the hardware is sleek, well put together and apears to be amazingly long lasting judging by the number of 10yr old iMacs still on the market. the best $800 i've ever spent.

 

Wow, you only payed 800 for your system? Pretty good deal. You're right, you only need a gig of ram and you're completely set.

I didn't know Mac's had so many great features. I've never owned one either. Widgets sound cool - kind of like Window's services but better... And there's no doubt that iTunes is just absolutely amazing.

It really looks like Apple is going in the right direction and they know exactly what they're doing when it comes to attracting customers with their sleek, stylish, usable software AND hardware. I think Microsoft is missing out on this fast growing multimedia market and they're going to really have to try hard to get their foot in the door. MS doesn't seem to get it when it comes to usability and stylish software. Vista is out and I have yet to hear what it's like but for sure it did not create the same level of buzz that the iPhone and appleTV did.

Speaking of iPhone, this thing is just amazing. Too bad we can't get it in Canada yet. It HAS OS-X on it. That alone makes it better than any phone/blackberry/pda.

Just watch out though, now that OS-X may become as common/popular as Windows, you might start seeing viruses stream through and massacre OS-X. Hopefuly Apple will respond quickly if this does happen (with some sort of anti-virus or firewall solution) but Apple does have a history of taking a long time on their support issues.

 

i'm buying an iPhone when they come out also....need one for work.

I bought my wife a new laptop today with vista on it and before I ever did ANYTHING on it it had 2 rundll.exe errors and crashed on me.

I handed it off to her and said "you're the one that wanted this junk, figure it out."

I'm done with pc's.

 

Vista is a piece of crap, i wouldnt even consider it an option as an OS until sp1 comes out.

Despite microsofts undeniable desire to make windows user friendly the truth is that 99 out of 100 errors are due to user error. The truth is that in order to keep windows(any and every windows) running correctly, error and virus free, and at its fullest potential you really need to know what you are doing.

Mac may look good, but remember it still just a PC on the inside. . . there is a reason mac has switched all their hardware over to pc hardware. Also good luck trying to run any truely useful programs on a mac os, even a mac os with a windows emulator. By truely useful im talking, pro E, Cobalt, Matlab autocad just came out with a mac version though; for these programs you have to be running windows or linux, they constantly crap out on a mac running a windows emulator so that it is impossible to get any real work done

My 2 cents on macs vs pcs, WOOT WINDOWS XP!!!!!!!

 

i dont use a windows emulator...I use windows on a harddrive partition. I have a true dual boot system.

For what I use a computer for the Mac is 300x's better than anything I've ever used. I'll never go back.

 

Once you go Mac you never go back huh Matt?

My preference is XP also, I messed around with Vista yesterday at Best Buy and I wasn't very impressed either.

 

I also think Vista made a poor choice in all those 3D graphics. I'm sure you can turn them off but I doubt the average user knows that. It will only bog down most people's computers. Alot of people just need a basic single core system for 500-600 bucks that runs windows and lets you open outlook, IE, burn CDs, and play mp3s. With Vista being hardware hungry, these people are going to think that their system is slow...

I guess we still prefer XP b/c as stated earlier, it's finally becoming somewhat stable. Kinda funny that Vista had two rundll errors on a fresh install.

As for being able to run all that other software like Matlab - who cares about that stuff, nobody uses it except for engineers and if you really do insist on running that stuff on Mac, seems like Matty says you can run dual boot (wow that is really awesome). If you want to play games or develop, than I can see buying a PC with windows would make sense. That's the real reason I have all PCs but I would consider buying an iBook.
Apple may have switched over to Intel cores but that's b/c they're smart. And they did it in 6 months, seemlessly. That's incredible and now their computers are competitively priced. Apple really is what Apple is intending to be, the fact they use the same hardware for their computers is irrelevant. Look at your PC and tell me what shape your box is. It's exactly that, a box. Apple is no longer just that "other manufacturer" of computers with no software available. IMO, the software they do have is actually better in every aspect. They make modern, stylish products that have a "wow" factor attached to them. You could have a monster PC with quad core, 4 gig ram, 1 terabyte HD and however many vid cards you can jam into it, but in our culture, nobody's going to give two craps about that box when they see that cool looking Mac.

Hey I don't even work for or own a Mac. I only continue to be impressed by their products. It's only a matter of time before I really do own some.

 

my mac is sweet! one of the new macbooks (black of course)

http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300)
120GB Serial ATA; 5400-rpm
6x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

 

Have you played around w/ iphoto/iweb yet? - and widgets are freak'n awesome... hard to live w/o 'em

 

and i just bought me a bluetooth laser mouse / 4 port usb hub... got it setup great now...

 

Jack - nice monster laptop =D

 

For starters I am an engineer so that software is really important to me.

Apple switching over to pc hardware was by for the best move they ever made, what it allows people to do, is use any operating system they want on the same machine, with dual or even triple boot setups. They rocognized their weakness and took steps to change it, this also allows for future programs to be easily ported from one system to the other, so in the near future we will probably see versions of said programs running on macs, but NOT YET.

To me it seems pointless to buy a computer based on what shape the box is but more so on how powerful/useful the machine is. Windows can do everything, so if you are running a windows machine you dont need to have a dual boot system, but if you are insistant to run the latest OSX ( plus Which ever animal they are calling it now) you can install it on any PC, oh the wonders of hardware standardization.

 

Jackelope: "2GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300)"

I'd like that.

My 3.5 year old Dell laptop has been rock solid, no blue screens or anything adverse--though the rear USB port has been on the fritz lately. The lack of RAM makes it hard to run bigger programs like Photoshop or Illustrator (though Illustrator is a lot nicer to the system, thankfully), but it runs everything else flawlessly.

Macs seem foreign to me (yes I hardly use them, but now must at school), especially with that cyclops-button mouse they had for years, but I'm not opposed to them.

phals: "...oh the wonders of software standardization."

just like SAE standards for cars, eh?

 

yah... world of difference between mine @ work (400 Mhz PowerPC G4, 1.25 GB SDRAM) and mine @ home...

plus - @ work... one button "pro mouse" (corded) - @ home, comfy two-button hi-precision mouse (bluetooth)

 

If you are going to quote at least quote me right, i said hardware standardization. . .

And no not like SAE standards on cars, all home computers now use the exact same internals, this makes programing much much easier as you only have to code things once and they should run an differant operating systems with very few differances.