I've recently been involved in a bit of a flame war regarding Macs vs. PCs on twitter. Unfortunately, 140 characters isn't quite enough to explain my real feelings. I am definitely on the Windows side of the argument, but I'm not as staunchly opposed to the Mac platform as my tweets have made me sound.
So let me set the record straight. I don't hate Macs. On the contrary, they're quite beautiful. Also, the operating system is solid and straightforward to use.
The main reason I don't care to own a Mac is that I like to build my own machines. I spend weeks researching and plotting every single component in my machine. I wouldn't own a Dell or a Toshiba or an HP for that very same reason.
I think it all boils down to comfort. The C drive comforts me. Unless Microsoft really disenfranchises me somehow in the near future, I'm perfectly satisfied with the performance and UI of Windows. Especially now that Windows 7 is out in the wild. I've been running Windows 7 RC on my home PC and I love it. And I can't wait for IBM to upgrade my workstation to Win7 (although I'm not holding my breath).
The Eastern Townships School Board, the public school system in the region where I grew up, provides MacBooks to most of their student population (grades 3 thru 11). I had access to these MacBooks, and was involved in informally troubleshooting problems with them at Sunnyside Elementary School. I ran website design workshops with the students, and struggled with providing good instructions for the kids because of a lack of good WYSIWYG web design freeware. I ended up installing Nvu and Paint.NET on some old Windows desktops. Granted this can now be solved by VMWare Fusion or Parallels, but neither of these are freeware either.
So I've eaten the green grass on the other side of the fence, and it's not quite as green as advertised. I've never seen a pinwheel of death in Windows. There are pros and cons to both platforms, and I feel strongly that the none of the various pros of Mac OS are compelling enough to lure me away from my comfort zone.
Feel free to enjoy whatever OS you like best. If you need to be coddled by Apple to enjoy your computing experience, go for it! Essentially, I don't care to evangelize or be evangelized. I will make my own operating system and computer platform decisions.
2 comments:
Well "opined", Rob!
I had a Mac in 1994 (deleted the email icon on desktop, saying "I'll never use that") and had a job in 1997 where I used one. Spent a day using one last week. It was pretty but I kept finding myself either not knowing how to do something or not being able to do something. Obviously, it was stuff I hadn't learned yet, but I like my Delete button. No "Delete" button on a Mac? In the end it felt like just different ways to do similar things to meet similar goals.
Oh, and I'm tight, so not likely to spend even $1000 on a computer.
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