Ferrari Mailing List: Re: NFC Apple Vs PC

[Adam Green (FlatCrank]

I've been researching the same move for one particular (and expensive) machine that's sort of letting the team down a bit lately.  I think Windows vs Mac includes some Google versus Apple decisions.  If you're Google-centric (Chrome, Android) then Mac isn't so compelling.  If you're more interested in applications or music and movies, then Mac wins hands down and Google is just as good on either platform.  In either case, Windows has no compelling value or advantage in price or performance from a branded machine like Dell, which generally scores poorly on reliability and support, as does IBM and Lenovo, as does Toshiba and HP/Compaq ...  : |

The only question would be any application that's on Windows and not on Mac.  There's not many these days, but there are some important ones, so you have to check your footprint of applications and licenses.  Microsoft Office and Intuit Quickbooks are two that keep at least one Windows machine in the house for me.  

If you want a killer laptop, MacBook Pro is by far and away the best of the best and delivers top shelf performance.  Technology unveiled at CES two weeks ago will arrive throughout 2012, but it could be very late in the year before the laptop market reflects these new machines and really, if you want a super thin and light, the MacBook Air is the best of the best and has the processor power that previous versions lacked.  If you want an actual desktop (desk-side tower) it's a matter of choosing operating systems because the machine price/performance ratios aren't compelling.  Apple will be more expensive, but you get a turn-key machine with no compromise on performance plus a local store for support and applecare as a service contract (well worth the money.)

I run mostly Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) but have one MacBook Pro (this thing under my fingers) running Lion.  Once you're accustomed to the convenience and simplicity of the Mac, the PC becomes subjectively all the more painfully cumbersome, even when running the same applications.

Since the "Sandy Bridge" Intel architecture came into the Macs, their raw performance is as good as it gets, so any price/performance advantage to a PC is whittled down to a negligible degree except for technical applications.  If you want to compare performance, look at geekbench and run it on your current machines to see just how surprisingly slow they are and how fast a new Mac performs.

Keep in mind you can always run Windows "on" a Mac (either by installing both Mac OS X and Windows on the same Mac, or by installing an application called Parallels which creates a virtual environment in which Windows runs happily and is perfectly stable and fast, at least in my experience.)

As for compatibility, if the peripherals are recent models or just about anything using USB, they'll work and backward compatibility isn't painful.  You can always check their respective support site and look for the necessary Mac OS X drivers.  Usually, it's just a matter of plugging it in and bingo.

The Apple Store "Genius" staff can schedule an appointment to make the transition for you.  I think it's free.  They'll take your old laptop, do a backup, fire up the new Mac and transfer as much or as little as you wish, right down to browser passwords and history, etc.  I even seen people with a delivery cart bringing in their old desk-side PC tower and monitor ... I think Apple has decided it's a strategic win to suffer the cost of literally helping each user one by one to "make the switch" as they say.

http://www.apple.com/why-mac/

If you're reasonably competent and sure you can backup and restore your current machine, it doesn't require a trip to a store.

http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/

I'm currently debating updating an old Windows PC to a 12 core Mac Pro.  The Mac is over $5K, but the two year old PC cost that much and it benchmarks about the same as my new MacBook Pro for half the price.  Sheesh.  The Mac Pro is twice as fast for the same money after two years.  Computers are cheap.  My rationalization to update is that the Mac Pro can mean an all Mac environment and run Windows on Parallels for those tasks and still deliver high performance (Parallels costs less than 10% according my geekbench comparisons ... a 10,500 score on OS X becomes a 10,000 score when running Windows 7 or Ubuntu 10 on Parallels 7.)

If you have older Windows applications, you'll most likely have to pay to update licenses to new versions and "migrate" to the Mac OS X platform.  This is tedious or as streamlined, case by case, depending upon the software vendor and their state of health.  For example, I still run a PC with Quickbooks and Quicken for lack of convenient migration path.  I think Intuit is healthy and moving to win back their Mac users, but we'll see.  For now, I see no luxury in having the accounting on a Mac, so nothing is broken.  All of these machines can "see" and share files and printers and backups, so there's no leap forward.

I should add that the new "App Store" approach to the Mac is turning out to be a really nice way to sift through the otherwise insurmountable hundreds of thousands of seemingly identical applications on offer.  There's also the joy of not having everything preceded by a virus scan or an update to repair or replace software broken or out of date on the Windows 7 box.  I have a pretty stable environment on the Windows machines, but the intrusion of virus threats can be a little tedious.  So far, so good and it's all free software, it's just a bit clunky compared to the way OS X is so quiet and unobtrusive about its updates.

And the final "win" I'll score to Apple is the integration of the iPhone, iPad, iTunes, Apple TV and Mac.  It's finally at a point where almost anything you have is available to each device with little or no effort.  I should mention  I recently moved to a Google phone (the grandly titled Galaxy Nexus) and the integration with the Mac is just as good.  I think Google is going to finally challenge Apple now that Chrome really works and Android (the equivalent of iOS on the iPhone) is, in my humble, easier to use than iOS ... ironically, the "best" new features on the iPhone 4 are old news to Android users (except Siri, which is great ... Google voice command isn't as clever, but it does work for calls and navigation, even reads email, etc.)  

The thing Apple products don't understand is having multiple users for the same device like an iPhone or iPad or Apple TV ... these all assume one user (even though they have the appearance of multiple users, it doesn't work out very well.)  Google TV and Google Chrome (their operating system equivalent of Mac OS or Windows, as well as a browser) assume each user has a login and completely separate interests, then Google+ handles sharing and communication -- infinitely less painful than Facebook, which my kids have finally, thankfully, deleted from their lives, if only because their friends have gone counter-culture and decided that FB is not cool.

To answer your question: "should be fine." : )

Adam

On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 11:11 AM, Larry <l02turner [at] comcast.net> wrote:

I am considering taking the plunge and changing to Apple products    -  but I have a couple of laptops running Win7 that are still very usable.  If I change the desktop to Apple type, will I have any compatibility problems?  Peripheral problems?

 

Thx

LarryT