What's so fantastic about Apple?

[TheL8Elvis]

Richard Stallman on Steve Jobs.

Stallman proves he is douche all by himself

 

[Dessi]

Perhaps I've been missing something given that the only Apple product I've ever used is my iPod, but I don't see what's so great about Apple, or what sets them apart from any other of the big tech companies (like Google and Microsoft).

Apple did a two things very well:

1) Apple basically cornered the "hipster" market.
2) Its products are very nicely designed, excellent user experience.

On the first point, a big part of their marketing played on the view that PCs are stuffy and geeky, Macs are cool and made for everyone else. Apple really pushes on the idea that their devices are made for movies, music, games, books, web. Software related to those purposes are beautifully designed, you actually do feel cool using their software.

On the second point, Apple markets "beauty" as a feature. I was really impressed with its movie editor, even the webcam software is beautifully designed, I prefer the iTunes interface over all other music organizers (and I can't tell you how much I love that trippy iTunes visualizer), MacOS is gorgeous from end to end. More than anything else, the iPod evolved very gracefully, from this ugly thing with bulky buttons and LCD display like a graphing calculator, to gradually integrating the buttons to the circular touchpad, to full color high resolution dispays, to a family of touch-screen devices supporting a whole mass of apps. Very nice nice design, looks very modern, does a lot more than a vanilla MP3 player.

Apple products generally stand out with one or two "killer features". Circular touchpads set early-generation iPod's apart from other MP3 players, MacBook Air's weighs about 3 lbs, touch screen iPhones were a radically departure from traditional phone design and set the standard for user experience on all other touch screen phones.

All Apple products compliment each other fairly well, which makes it easy for people to buy one Apple product then another and another, all of their products integrate nicely with iTunes, all of them have a very consistent user experience across all of their devices.

Back in my early school days, owning a Mac instead of a PC meant to be cut off from computer games and the surrounding discussion of them at the schoolyard, so that has always tainted my view of Apple a little (even though it's not their fault computer games companies at least then almost exclusively made their games for Windows).

As many good things as I have to say about Apple, their products aren't for me. I like to tinker under the hood, I'd like to use my iPad like a computer, I stopped using iTunes because it keeps adding QuickTime and Safari under my nose. I really love the iPhone, but decided to whore myself for Android instead.

 

[Brian-M]

That said, though, I do think Apple generally does a better job on useability than other manufacturers. They spend time and thought on interface while other makers are adding features.

I've been fed up with the silly Mac V PC arguments for the majority of the 20 plus years I've been successfully using my various Macs to earn an easy living...

I've never debated Mac V. PC, since I've never used a Mac. But isn't a Mac just a brand-name PC? Shouldn't it be Mac OS V. Windows?

If you were to install Mac OS X on a PC, and Windows 7 on a Mac (both are possible), which one would Mac enthusiasts prefer? Which one would PC enthusiasts prefer?

Is there anything special about Mac hardware that Mac enthusiasts prefer, or is it simply the software which makes it "better"?

 

[Modified]

Is there anything special about Mac hardware that Mac enthusiasts prefer, or is it simply the software which makes it "better"?

The case.

 

[roger]

Stallman proves he is douche all by himself

That is wonderful.

 

[WildCat]

I've never debated Mac V. PC, since I've never used a Mac. But isn't a Mac just a brand-name PC?

It's kind of like a PC that you can't upgrade or tinker with.

 

[WildCat]

And guess who's impressed with Android?

Wozniak says his main phone is the iPhone and that he loves "the beauty of it" as well as its simplicity, compared to Android. But, he says, Android phones are not that much harder to deal with, and "if you're willing to do the work to understand it a little bit, well I hate to say it, but there’s more available in some ways."

...He says the iPhone is a great choice for many people, including those "who are just scared of computers altogether and don’t want to use them. The iPhone is the least frightening thing. For that kind of person who is scared of complexity, well, here’s a phone that is simple to use and does what you need it to do,” he told Lyons.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/17/10175148-wozniak-likes-his-android-phone-a-lot

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I've never debated Mac V. PC, since I've never used a Mac. But isn't a Mac just a brand-name PC? Shouldn't it be Mac OS V. Windows?

If you were to install Mac OS X on a PC, and Windows 7 on a Mac (both are possible), which one would Mac enthusiasts prefer? Which one would PC enthusiasts prefer?

Is there anything special about Mac hardware that Mac enthusiasts prefer, or is it simply the software which makes it "better"?

The soul.

 

[This is The End]

Some of their decisions are exactly the opposite of user-friendly. When I got an iPod I almost had a heart attack when I realized I had to go through iTunes in order to download some music onto it. That was many years ago and it's still at the top of the most moronic computer-related things I can think of.

I don't like that either. I wish it would just appear as a new drive/folder like every other device.

I thought this was an artifact of the old DRM system they used to get the record companies on board. Because if you can drag-drop em in, you can connect to another computer and drag-drop em out. The idea was to make the iPod a dead-end in the chain.

That actually makes sense. And after they dropped the whole DRM thing they didn't want to 'fix' it because their users were already used to the proprietary method (and it would be seen as 'admitting' that they did something wrong).

Yes, stupid decisions like that are probably what kept the iPod from being as successful as it could have been...

Everyone knows products all suck and are just hype and marketing.

The iphone 3GS, 4, continue to lead sales because it's all a trick.

Yup, all marketing hype.

Humes Fork - were you really looking to start an Apple -vs- whatever flame war ? How else does this end ?

Ah yes, I wouldn't have ever believed that Apple promotes religious thinking until TheL8Elvis joined in May of 2011. 300 posts, every one of them pro-Apple.



(Just messing with you Elvis, I know real apple fanboys, you aren't even a 5 out of 10 on the apple fanboy scale.)

 

[This is The End]

<snip>

If you were to install Mac OS X on a PC, and Windows 7 on a Mac (both are possible), which one would Mac enthusiasts prefer? Which one would PC enthusiasts prefer?

<snip>

Good point.

 

[Kid Eager]

I've never debated Mac V. PC, since I've never used a Mac. But isn't a Mac just a brand-name PC? Shouldn't it be Mac OS V. Windows?

If you were to install Mac OS X on a PC, and Windows 7 on a Mac (both are possible), which one would Mac enthusiasts prefer? Which one would PC enthusiasts prefer?

Is there anything special about Mac hardware that Mac enthusiasts prefer, or is it simply the software which makes it "better"?

Apparently not - I've recently been working with an organisation that bought Macbooks, and installed Win7 on all of them.

I therefore asked "Why the Apple laptops then?" Their answer was visual impact (appreciation for great industrial design), compact size, lighter weight. I next asked some of the users what they thought of the Macbooks, and they were very positive about the units, even though some wished that OSX had remained the OS.

Having said all that, Apple has been successful in part because they market an outcome - the focus is on what you can achieve, not how you go about doing it. In the same vein, you're buying a Mac/iPhone/Macbook/iPod/whatever, not hardware X and software Y. The trick was hiding the complexity - the same thing that drives techies and control freaks (and for that matter, libertarians) nuts.

 

[Eddie Dane]

For those interested in brain science, marketing and decision making, I recommend reading Buyology.

 

[Brian-M]

It's kind of like a PC that you can't upgrade or tinker with.

Nonsense. You can tinker with any machine.

Whether or not it still works afterward is a different question altogether.

 

[Lamuella]

The iphone 3GS, 4, continue to lead sales because it's all a trick.

That's a little bit of a misleading stat, to be honest. It's a bit like comparing Mac sales to Dell sales rather than Mac sales to PC sales. There's only one brand of iPhone (albeit one brand with several models) whereas there are multiple brands of Android phones. If you want a phone that runs iOS, there are basically three to choose from that are still being sold. If you want an Android phone, there are dozens.

 

[Aidoneus]

I've never debated Mac V. PC, since I've never used a Mac. But isn't a Mac just a brand-name PC? Shouldn't it be Mac OS V. Windows?

If you were to install Mac OS X on a PC, and Windows 7 on a Mac (both are possible), which one would Mac enthusiasts prefer? Which one would PC enthusiasts prefer?

Is there anything special about Mac hardware that Mac enthusiasts prefer, or is it simply the software which makes it "better"?

The "Mac vs. PC" branding goes all the way back to the first 1984 Macintosh, where it was directly marketed against what were then IBM-Compatible PCs, and I guess the slogan stuck, even if it doesn't have any relevance today.

While there is nothing special about what is often considered to be a computer's hardware (the processor, hard drive, graphics card, RAM etc are all identical between a Mac and a PC), when Mac enthusiasts talk about a Mac's hardware being better, they tend to mean the outer casing and things that the user actually interacts with. Aluminium casings, glossy displays and Apple's trackpad etc.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

I've never debated Mac V. PC, since I've never used a Mac. But isn't a Mac just a brand-name PC? Shouldn't it be Mac OS V. Windows?

If you were to install Mac OS X on a PC, and Windows 7 on a Mac (both are possible), which one would Mac enthusiasts prefer? Which one would PC enthusiasts prefer?

Is there anything special about Mac hardware that Mac enthusiasts prefer, or is it simply the software which makes it "better"?

Good question.

Ah yes, I wouldn't have ever believed that Apple promotes religious thinking until TheL8Elvis joined in May of 2011. 300 posts, every one of them pro-Apple.

Not True. I know I made some anti-linux and anti-windows posts too.

That's a little bit of a misleading stat, to be honest. It's a bit like comparing Mac sales to Dell sales rather than Mac sales to PC sales. There's only one brand of iPhone (albeit one brand with several models) whereas there are multiple brands of Android phones. If you want a phone that runs iOS, there are basically three to choose from that are still being sold. If you want an Android phone, there are dozens.

I suppose it's all in the interpretation and what you want to prove with the statistic whether it's misleading or not. Top 3 smatphones for Nov/Dec: 4S, 4, 3GS.

<...>when Mac enthusiasts talk about a Mac's hardware being better, they tend to mean the outer casing and things that the user actually interacts with. Aluminium casings, glossy displays and Apple's trackpad etc.

This is a good point in response to Brian-M's question regarding hardware.

Macbooks and Macbook air are generally regarded as very nice hardware no, matter the OS. Things like not having the whole laptop creak or flex if you pick it up from the corner, having aesthetic appeal. All of that ties in to the general attraction of the hardware. Because Apple controls the hardware, thier is less searching for weird audio drivers, trackpad drivers or whatever (windows and OEM manufacturers have steadily improved in this front, I admit). The only other laptop I've really liked as much as my macbook was my thinkpad, back when they were still made by IBM. Was the only pointy-stick I ever liked on a laptop.

As for software, I think much of it is what you are used to. There is probably not a huge difference between MacOS and Windows 7 from an end user perspective. I think the whole iLife suite (iphoto, imovie etc) is well done, and scratches a pretty big itch for what end users want to do with their computers. I don't think it's all marketing hype - I think Apple does 'get' what the 'typical' end user wants to do and does a good job catering to that experience. From a power user perspective - OS X is posix compliant and is built on BSD ... how can that not be a good thing ?

 

[kajata]

What's so fantastic about Apple?

the prices

Not nearly as bad as it used to be. Especially iPads and iPhones which are priced about the same as the competition.

 

[Rat]

edit: Whoops, wrong thread.

 

[Zelenius]

It's their design and their marketing. Even many people who don't use Apple see them as the "Ferrari" of the tech world. Even as a Linux hermit, I admire the designs of both their hardware and to a lesser extent, their software, although just about everyone else has caught up in terms of user-friendliness. However, I don't believe they are worth the price. Years ago I believe they were worth the price(I used to use Macs many years ago and found them more user-friendly than Windows PCs), but not anymore.

I also think some people still buy into the old dichotomy of "good" Apple versus "evil" Microsoft, dating to the Mac versus IBM-compatible Windows PC days. In part this is because Apple was thought to be more innovative and user-friendly than big behemoth Microsoft, who "stole" Apple's usually already borrowed/stolen ideas and used them to monopolize the desktop PC market.

Of course, many Linux users see both Microsoft and Apple as "evil" and Linux as "good". Or maybe that's just me

Indeed, some folks claim Apple is even more "evil" than Microsoft.

Reasons Apple is evil.

 

[Almo]

It's kind of like a PC that you can't upgrade or tinker with.

I have really had it with this perception.

I write bash scripts on my Mac.

I set up an SVN server that was visible through a web interface over the internet. Doing this required messing around with such arcane things as httpd.conf.

You can tinker with Mac OS X. The point is, you don't have to.

You can upgrade them too. I haven't done that a lot, only having replaced video cards, added RAM or added hard drives.

It's like creationists. You can tell them the truth about evolution over and over, but they don't get it.