Mac vs. PC: or Apple's deathmatch

I’m an avid user of the computer. I have used it for over 8 hours a day, every day, for the past 15 years. I have thoroughly used DOS 3 to 6.22; Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95, NT, 98, 98SE, 2000, Me, XP, Longhorn, and Vista; I used Mac OS 8 to 10.4.11; as well as Linux distros Ubuntu 6 to 8.10, Mandrake, and RedHat. When I say that I used the computer thoroughly I mean that I used: Word and text processors, games, video editing, sound editing, sound composing, image editing and composing, worked with a plethora of 3D modelers, played music, formatted, partitioned, installed, burned, anti-vired, dismantled the hardware, rewired, and upgraded hardware, watched films, chatted, blogged, surfed, programmed and coded numerous scripts, did web and graphic design, used torrents, p2p networks, hacked and customized every single bit of data in all of the above to the highest degree of my capability. Please correct me if I missed something here.

Having said the above I consider my opinion regarding the “PC vs. Mac” very competent. Therefore, I will try to review this issue from all the perspectives known to me. Feel free to argue with me, or correct me. If there are things i missed let me know. I’m open to criticism!

Typical Claims: Mac is better than PC:

Mac is Apple Macintosh, a registered trade mark of a proprietary computer hardware, software, and consumer electronics giant. P.C. stands for Personal Computer. This statement and suchlike are obviously made by an extremely incompetent person. Possible translations: 1. Current Mac OS is better than current installable PC OS; 2. Mac hardware is better then any available hardware used to construct PCs; 3. Windows and/or programs available for a Windows OS is less capable then that of a Mac OS. 4. Mac has the perfect balance between function and look. 5. Mac is Minimalist. 6. There are no viruses in Mac.

#1 Current Mac OS is better than current installable PC OS:

Currently, there are a hundred plus Linux distros available to be installed on any modern personal computer. There are Windows, Unix, FreeBSD, and many more others, including micro OSs used in handhelds, productions houses, design ateliers and etc. To claim that Mac OS is the absolute best then any other is to try ALL available ones. I believe there is only a hand full of people that attempted to try out at the most 50% of those. Most importantly, Mac OS is installed on a PC because Mac is a Personal Computer, by definition.

#2 Mac hardware is better then any available hardware used to construct PCs;

Once again Mac is a PC (personal computer), it is constructed out of available PC hardware. Today’s Macs run on Intel powered computers which means that all of the hardware available in a Mac is also available for a PC or an equivalent of such can be attained. In fact for the price of any current Mac a more powerful PC could be assembled. The only thing exclusive to a Mac is the box and a built in chip that acts like a key to allow Mac OS installation.

#3 Windows and/or programs available for a Windows OS are less capable then that of a Mac OS

One must be very bored to have tried all available software alternatives in both OSes. I assure you that windows by far has more software written for it than any other OS in existence. I love to hear what people come up with when they show off the capabilities of their Mac Books. Usually, these people just couldn’t or didn’t want to find that function on a Windows, or they don’t realize that Windows is evolving in parallel to Mac OS.

#4 Mac has the perfect balance between function and look(this one is the most popular amongst the hipsters)

While functions is comparable in both there are uncountable PC models and looks that one would discover if they made a thorough search. Moreover, you simply cannot beat the functionality offered by paying only one third of a price, which is what many clone PC vendors offer.

#5 Mac is Minimalist (i love this one)

Is minimalism a good thing or bad? I bet most people coming with this statement have no idea what minimalism constitutes. I’d say Mac’s design is usually economical, or even utilitarian, rather than than minimalist in comparison to many others. Most of the finer intricacies found in Windows and Linux systems are simply not offered in Mac OS, because those ‘confuse’ the casual user.

#6 There are no viruses in Mac.

Is this something you heard from a FutureShop electronics representative? So did I. I laughed really hard at their naivety. Viruses are an issue that come with a territory. Windows is more widespread and thus it is also more widespread amongst the community hacker and virus scripters. The more popular Mac would gets the more viruses there will be designed for it. in fact, Symantec is already manufacturing an anti-virus for Mac Os [Link]. Of course the Mac one costs more than the PC one, even though there are tens of years of experience of fighting with malware on a PC. Mac users are paying for quality? I don’t think so. More over, if Windows users payed for every bit of software on their computer and only used the Internet for professional needs the wouldn’t have encountered any viruses in the first place.

In conclusion, a person that prefers a Mac must admit that:

-either they are a mainstream consumer that judges the computer industry simply from what is readily available on a shelf in a computer store or from what is found in the first 4 items appearing on Google.com search.

-or They simply prefer the look of a Mac computer, or prefer the user interface of a Mac OS.

The problem, really, is that this choice is often made without making the slightest attempt to do any research! Many don’t know that there are lighter and slimmer laptops out there than even the Mac Air. That Mac OS can run on any PC, as well as Linux can run on any. They don’t know that Windows and Linux can be made to look identical to Mac Os in addition to an infinitely growing amount of looks and feels of UIs available; all that to no additional cost.