macs suck., pcs rule. Options

[sadolakced acid]

well, really, it's just a friendly mac v pc thread, and i know it's been posted before, but really, more people will click here if i name it 'macs suck'

my beef with macs-

i used mac OS way back when. bad experiences. not too much a legitimate reason today, but a reason none the less.

but the major one:

proprietary.

i don't know about now, but i know before that everything apple makes, they make it proprietary if they can.

for example, a PC owner can easily upgrade thier optical drive. they could pop in some more memory, or add in a new sound card.

now, sure, mac hardware may be good already, but you won't deny it's not the best, that would be much too expensive.

and as time goes by, it means the only way to upgrade is with a totally new computer.

i mean, sure, it works fine for people who don't want to be bothered to upgrade thier computers, and for the average user, macs are probably pretty good.

but i can't be hassled to buy a new comptuer if i want a CD burner and don't have one.

now, maybe apple has changed and i'm not up with the times. but irregardlessly, i severly dislike and avoid any company that insists on proprietary measures at any time.

which is why i do, and probably always will, hate apple.

[*mipadi*]

Are we discussing Apple's corporate ethics, or the Macintosh platform here?

I'm not going to justify Apple's ethics. Admittedly, as much as I love the Macintosh, I'm not always a terribly big fan of Apple. Do I think they make excellent products, from a technical perspective? Yes, I do. Do I think they always go about marketing and distributing their products in a completely honest way? No, I don't. A lot of things about Apple unsettle me. I don't agree with their refusal to license FairPlay. I don't agree with much of their negative marketing. So I'll certainly agree that Apple isn't always a completely honest corporation, and does have some arrogance about it.

Of course, so does the competition, Microsoft in particular. Microsoft funds and distributes misinformation about Linux. Microsoft prevents computer companies from using anything but Windows in many of their computer models. And many of Microsoft's internal documents that have come out in the wake of their various antitrust trials show a high degree of arrogance.

And let's not forget that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist on not one, but two continents.

So again, I'm certainly not trying to justify Apple's marketing behavior. I'm not even trying to say that "two wrongs make a right" or "Apple is the lesser of two evils". I wish all companies would act in a more, well, mature manner. But, as I've said before, if we're going to single out Apple, let's put the focus on all players in the IT industry. It's unfair and even hypocritical to focus on Apple, to the exclusion of anyone else.

Of course, since this is a "Macs suck" thread, not an "Apple sucks" thread, it would be a lot more fun to discuss technical merits, not business practices and ethics.

On another note, I also think you're taking Apple's marketing materials a bit too seriously, and trying to read between the lines in an attempt to find something about Apple to hate. I don't think Apple ever claimed to have invented break-away power cords in a vacuum, without any outsider influence whatsoever. They do use it in a fairly novel way that's not in widespread use, and I think that's about as far as their marketing goes. Where would we be if a company was criticized whenever it was inspired by other ideas, instead of re-inventing the wheel with each new product?

Look at this point: Apple was the first to the market with built-in wireless capabilities in laptops. Now it's almost impossible to buy a laptop without built-in wireless capabilities. Should Dell be criticized because it "ripped off" Apple's idea? Absolutely not. Old ideas evolve and merge with new ones. No problem with that.

Or, geez, look at Alienware. I don't know if they still do, but Alienware once touted a design feature of its machines that kept cables organized and untangled. But one could argue that they were ripping off one of the features of the original iMac, which also featured cable minimalization. Now, should Alienware be criticized for claiming to "invent" tangle-free cable design? No, because its emphasis on that design wasn't meant to insinuate that it was a completely new and novel idea—it was just an attractive feature of the design of Alienware computers.

Likewise, Apple's not claiming to revolutionize the idea of the magnetic power cable, just that it's a novelty in Macs and laptops in general—which is true. They're using it as a selling point. Just because they emphasize it, does not mean they lay claim to its invention. You're simply reading too much into their advertising.