The Verdict is out, Macs are better than PCs

[Chibi Kitsune]

honestly mac fans are one thing that keep Chibi from liking macs

[E6600]

I thought you had better reasons than this.

[Power666]

Originally Posted by E6600

I thought you had better reasons than this.

No, some Mac fans are pure snobbish, insistent, elitist assholes.

Originally Posted by superslug

The embedded market won't push the tech in the direction needed to compete on the desktop market. The priority for an embedded system is power (and heat) and footprint. I still think that they would need to sell more in market where the return for researching performance was higher.

Technology rarely originates in the middle of the pack so to speak. It'll either come from the bottom (embedded) up or from the top (server/mainframe) down. Right now the entire CPU market is obsessing over power consumption, something the embedded market has had an edge for ages. Those techniques have migrated upwards into modern chip designs regardless of market segment. The whole system-on-a-chip design was first released in the embedded space though once could argue that that philosophy was inevitable regardless of market segment.

In semi-related news to this, Apple has bought PA-Semi today. PA-Semi is a maker of embedded PowerPC chips. It looks like their offerings will appear in things like iPods, iPhones, and the AppleTV. I'd love it if they released an Xserve with PA-Semi chips as they're incredible performers. They have an eight core chip with a quad channel DDR2 memory controller. It'd be a Photoshop monster...

[E6600]

No, some Mac fans are pure snobbish, insistent, elitist assholes.

True, but then again some PC fans are just as bad.

In semi-related news to this, Apple has bought PA-Semi today. PA-Semi is a maker of embedded PowerPC chips. It looks like their offerings will appear in things like iPods, iPhones, and the AppleTV. I'd love it if they released an Xserve with PA-Semi chips as they're incredible performers. They have an eight core chip with a quad channel DDR2 memory controller. It'd be a Photoshop monster...

I don't think it'll go into the iPhone or iPod, the power consumption is a bit too high for these applications, but it is reasonable to assume that it'll go into Apple TV, Time Capsule, and who knows maybe Apple will go after the ultra-mobile notebook market.

[superslug]

it would be really interesting to see what apple could do in the ultra mobile-market. Its kinda in a similar state to the mp3 player market before apple came in with the ipod.

[PirateThom]

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

[Newerest]

This isn't really conclusive. They were completely misspeced.

[E6600]

Originally Posted by Newerest

This isn't really conclusive. They were completely misspeced.

But the pricing was identical in the case of notebooks and for the desktops the Mac was actually cheaper.

[Chibi Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Power666

No, some Mac fans are pure snobbish, insistent, elitist assholes.




In semi-related news to this, Apple has bought PA-Semi today. PA-Semi is a maker of embedded PowerPC chips. It looks like their offerings will appear in things like iPods, iPhones, and the AppleTV. I'd love it if they released an Xserve with PA-Semi chips as they're incredible performers. They have an eight core chip with a quad channel DDR2 memory controller. It'd be a Photoshop monster...

Chibi is surronded by them, yet none can tell you why Mac>PC
no specs, just "Macs never crash"


sounds tasty

[Power666]

Originally Posted by Chibi Kitsune

Chibi is surronded by them, yet none can tell you why Mac>PC
no specs, just "Macs never crash"

There are several reasons why I tend to favor Macs. The security model is superior with well defined user account and authentication. This is due more to the flaws of Windows as other operating systems like Linux, Solaris and other Unix all adhere to the same model as OS X. Vista is actually an improvement here but it still lags behind the competition. No operating system will be 100% secure but the way OS X is designed does make it less vulnerable than Windows.

Apple hardware tends to be more reliable than typical PC systems. That doesn't mean that you'll come across a system that is bad, but the chances are far less likely with a Mac than a PC. Further more, shoddy hardware is often the cause of small but notable percentage of crashes.

The 64 bit transition on OS X is transparent. With Windows there are distinct distributions for the 64 bit edition and the 64 bit applications exist separately from their 32 bit cousins. OS X is a hybrid 32 bit and 64 bit design. One application distribution can contain the 32 bit PowerPC, 64 bit PowerPC, 32 bit Intel, 64 bit Intel and I believe ARM binaries in one package. This makes installation simple as no matter what system you have, you're going to be running the correct version for the hardware/OS that you have.

OS X has gotten faster with subsequent releases. Part of this is that OS X 10.0 was just slow to begin with compared to OS 9.2 that preceded it. However, it caught up to speed with OS X 10.2 and has only gotten faster since. From current indications, OS X 10.6 will continue the tradition as some features are already known.