Mac's

[Skuzzy]

Apple computers are very susceptible to hacking, malware, and viruses.  The saving grace is they are rarely targets, due to the low volume of sales.

Apple also does a great job of shutting down any reports of problems with the threat of law suits.  Remember the exploding iPhone batteries?  You don't?  See what I mean.

There is nothing magical about Apple.  No matter how good it looks, the hardware is rather mundane.  The OS is just another piece of software.

People who raise Apple to some type of mystical status are pretty clueless and get insanely defensive about it.  I have to giggle a bit when that happens.

[zack1234]

See and Skuzzy knows a bit about the commodore 64 as well

[PJ_Godzilla]

There is nothing magical about Apple.  No matter how good it looks, the hardware is rather mundane.  The OS is just another piece of software.

People who raise Apple to some type of mystical status are pretty clueless and get insanely defensive about it.  I have to giggle a bit when that happens.

Yeah, agreed - though I think the integration is a little better than most windows machines, and bottle-necking everything through a single product development effort is good for "quality" in the strictest sense of the word (lack of variation).

And, boy, that Mac Pro DOES look cool.

[Skuzzy]

Yes they look good.

However, they also drop a lot of functionality from the default configuration, as compared to Windows.  Try connecting to a DLNA server, for example.  Windows 7 will connect and play anything from DNLA server, for example.

You have to install third party solutions on an Apple to do that.

My Wife gets so frustrated with her iPad because she cannot figure out how to share things with me.  Turns out she needs to install some third party applications and it will work fine.

Unfortunately, once you start piling on third party apps, you start increasing risks.

Her own take has been;  "As long as you play in the Apple world, it is a nice product, but if you need to play in the Windows world as well, Apple sucks."  To be far, she is a novice computer type and has no idea she is supposed to add things to her iPad to make it work within the Windows paradigm of sharing.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Yes they look good.

However, they also drop a lot of functionality from the default configuration, as compared to Windows.  Try connecting to a DLNA server, for example.  Windows 7 will connect and play anything from DNLA server, for example.

You have to install third party solutions on an Apple to do that.

Works also the other way. Try playing bluetooth audio on Win7 - works out of the box with Apple. And with Windows 'play anything' is often more like 'play for 5 minutes then stop working'. In addition to that, let's take TVBle dlna server for example. How cool is that? Free software that installs on your computer and plays torrented movies and songs. Oops, did I just say free, windows and torrent in the same sentence? Top three in 'do nots' on windows lol.

I always giggle at the Mac haters since they obviously have no experience with them. And your wifes assesment is totally correct, Apple is not supposed to be mixed with windows. As long as you use Apple gear for all purposes it really just works. Apple TV and airport express provide the same sort of functionality, only safer as long as you stick to legal content. You can even do wireless remote desktop to your flat screen tv set using airplay.

[PJ_Godzilla]

it's like i say - all the home nodes that are apple; desktops, pads, phones, tv, all speak flawlessly. netwrok externalities and bandwagon are huge in this world.

[Skuzzy]

Works also the other way. Try playing bluetooth audio on Win7 - works out of the box with Apple. And with Windows 'play anything' is often more like 'play for 5 minutes then stop working'.

I always giggle at the Mac haters since they obviously have no experience with them. And your wifes assesment is totally correct, Apple is not supposed to be mixed with windows. As long as you use Apple gear for all purposes it really just works.

Just for clarification.  I am not a "Mac hater".  Just because their product does not fit my needs, does not make me a hater.

I have never had a need to play anything over a Bluetooth connection.  Not even sure what circumstance I would have to be in, in order to need that functionality.  I am not saying it is not valid.

You meant to say, "as long as you use Apple gear for the purposes Apple intended, it works".

My Wife just bought the wrong product.  It is simple as that.  There are products which will do what she needs for her job.  None of them happen to be Apple based.  She made a lot of assumptions which bit her in the tush.

At least it is easy to make Windows and UNIX play well together, so that is what my home network is comprised of, with the one foreign piece of hardware being her iPad.  I have been looking into putting some Apple specific stuff on the network so she can share a little easier.

[Bizman]

At first I must say I don't do Macs, I rather toss the problems to someone who's more oriented that way. I've laid my hands on a couple of them, though, and let's just say my thoughts are mixed. I agree they look good and as has been said, work effortlessly in their own world. A couple of things I've noticed, though:

Macs have been told to be intuitive. A customer has an iPad, iPhone and a desktop Mac with that brilliant large screen. He managed to get all of his photos to the desktop with ease, but sorting the pictures to virtual albums seemed to be a no-go. He finally found out a way, but that was very clumsy compared to the cut/copy-paste or drag-and-drop methods used in Windows. Dragging and dropping just didn't work as expected! Can't remember how he finally figured out a way, but it certainly wasn't simple or logical in a way he or I were used to.

Another customer had a problem with some browser malware. Apparently some family member had accidentally answered "yes" to some security related question while downloading something. For what I understood, the computer is in family use under religious parental control, so most likely the teenager wasn't downloading pr0n... But as the woman said, their understanding of computing is weak. Anyway, I soon found what the problem looked like, so I could start searching for a solution for it. And yes, I found one and it even worked as supposed. BUT: Recommendations of the cleaner were found on very few less reputable looking bulletin boards, the application was apparently coded by some schoolboy (no offense, some of them are very good) and the GUI wasn't too user friendly. Without detailed instructions on the bbs I wouldn't have been able to do the cleaning. It was like using some Windows 1.0 program without knowing DOS.

[PJ_Godzilla]

i use a Nikon photo editor - makes life easier w/r the photos, imj and fwiw... but that ain't magic either.

And I meant to add, Skuzzy is doing an excellent job not png'ing me.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Just for clarification.  I am not a "Mac hater".  Just because their product does not fit my needs, does not make me a hater.

I have never had a need to play anything over a Bluetooth connection.  Not even sure what circumstance I would have to be in, in order to need that functionality.  I am not saying it is not valid.

You meant to say, "as long as you use Apple gear for the purposes Apple intended, it works".

My Wife just bought the wrong product.  It is simple as that.  There are products which will do what she needs for her job.  None of them happen to be Apple based.  She made a lot of assumptions which bit her in the tush.

At least it is easy to make Windows and UNIX play well together, so that is what my home network is comprised of, with the one foreign piece of hardware being her iPad.  I have been looking into putting some Apple specific stuff on the network so she can share a little easier.

I was talking in general terms about people who a biased against it. Bluetooth audio is very convenient if you happen to have an amplifier that supports it, you can just pair the amp with your laptop and it will play wirelessly. One summer I was in Greece and the hotel owner had a bluetooth enabled Sony amplifier. I asked the owners permission to play music through the hotel stereo so I paired my macbook and blasted away. The hotel owner was amazed and wanted me to do the same with his Windows 7 laptop. I told him no problem. Two hours of useless trying later I found it was impossible to get audio through bluetooth in Win7 without buying a third party bluetooth stack.

What problems have you had with unix and Apple? Apple is based on minix so it's very much like unix inside. I find it extremely pleasing to be able to ssh directly from the native shell, form private key pairs, scp, vlc/ssh tunneling etc. to our linux servers without having to use third party applications like with Windows. iPads are a little tougher but using linux you can just pair your iPhone or iPad to your linux and you get full open directories enabling you to copy/move/delete any media you happen to have on your device just like you would in Windows. Actually even easyer as you don't need to install some horrible mobile phone software.

I find iTunes much easyer than starting to manually copy files though. If I need to share some music I just connect the device to my mac using wifi or bluetooth and sync playlists of my selection to it. Apple lets you authorize up to 5 devices for one user account to share apps and music. That's enough for our whole family.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

At first I must say I don't do Macs, I rather toss the problems to someone who's more oriented that way. I've laid my hands on a couple of them, though, and let's just say my thoughts are mixed. I agree they look good and as has been said, work effortlessly in their own world. A couple of things I've noticed, though:

Macs have been told to be intuitive. A customer has an iPad, iPhone and a desktop Mac with that brilliant large screen. He managed to get all of his photos to the desktop with ease, but sorting the pictures to virtual albums seemed to be a no-go. He finally found out a way, but that was very clumsy compared to the cut/copy-paste or drag-and-drop methods used in Windows. Dragging and dropping just didn't work as expected! Can't remember how he finally figured out a way, but it certainly wasn't simple or logical in a way he or I were used to.

Another customer had a problem with some browser malware. Apparently some family member had accidentally answered "yes" to some security related question while downloading something. For what I understood, the computer is in family use under religious parental control, so most likely the teenager wasn't downloading pr0n... But as the woman said, their understanding of computing is weak. Anyway, I soon found what the problem looked like, so I could start searching for a solution for it. And yes, I found one and it even worked as supposed. BUT: Recommendations of the cleaner were found on very few less reputable looking bulletin boards, the application was apparently coded by some schoolboy (no offense, some of them are very good) and the GUI wasn't too user friendly. Without detailed instructions on the bbs I wouldn't have been able to do the cleaning. It was like using some Windows 1.0 program without knowing DOS.

In iPhoto its extremely simple to arrange albums. You have 3 options: Create a new album by right clicking the left bar and simply drag or copy/paste your photos there. Create a new album from your currently selected pictures. Use smart album that automatically fills your album according to your specifications, you can for example choose to create an album from all pictures taken on june with a certain camera type in certain location or from a certain person using the built in face detection algorithm. I can't see how it can get any easyer than that.

Your customer was probably confused with the automatic 'events' listing that iPhoto makes. You cannot rearrange events because they're events, not albums. He was thinking 'windows' like where you have folders and you have to arrange folders. iPhoto does stuff for you and if you want to start arranging things manually, you have to do it manually.

The only thing I found hard to understand with iPhoto (coming from windows) was that you needed to create an album before you could share something to an another device. For example if I wanted to put our holiday pictures to an iPad to show to friends, I needed to create an album called 'holiday' or something and then drag the event or events that were stored from that holiday to that album. After that I could just share the album with my iPhoto or iPhone wirelessly and it will continue to sync the contents of those albums with the mobile devices also in the future.

Oh I forgot to add there is a 4th way too - built in iCloud sharing. With an easy couple of mouse clicks you have a cloud storage with a cool interface that lets you publish your photos online.

[zack1234]

They are over priced

[PJ_Godzilla]

Not according to those who buy them. That's a great thing about the marketplace. If I offer you a prefilled pie for 10 pound, you might react with, "it smells of ca-ca, I'll only give you 5 pound for it." I can sell you the pie for that amount or not - but critically, both parties have to agree in order for the pie to be sold. In this case, i would most certainly react with some retort like, "it took me several hours to process the chimichangas and balance carefully enough to blatz them into that pan. If you're not interested in paying 10 pound, i'll evacuate my colon elsewhere."

[Bizman]

---extremely simple ---by right clicking the left bar and simply drag or copy/paste your photos there. --- He was thinking 'windows' like---

Well, if you could start by explaining how to right click with only one button! Why use a Windows idiom in such unsuitable context? Anyway, I've found my niche, no need to broaden my expertise into Macs.

[zack1234]

They are overpriced like BMW's people want to think they are getting when in fact they are buying an icon.

If they were that good everyone would have one.

Apple keep the prices high to imbue a sense of technological superiority, business us then again to  imbue a aura of professionalism.

No business in it right mind would uses Apple for proper "Business" use.