Switching: How long have you used a Mac?
 

With the arrival of the Mac Mini and now Tiger, I see more and more "I switched!" threads in various places. I grew curious about just how many current Mac users were switchers and how many were recent switchers. Basically, is Apple's market tactics (Mac Mini) working to lure new users to the fold?

Vote and let's see!

Me, I'm a Mac lifer. Never owned a PC and I've had a computer since 1983 (Apple ][+ and and Apple ][e).

I think once I have a good idea of how many of you switchers are out there, I'll have a follow up poll to find out WHY you switched.

Thanks for voting!

I started with an Apple II+ in 1982(w/ 48k of ram that I quickly upgraded with a video card to 64k, woohooo) and since then have had more macs than I care to recount.

damn, i suddenly feel really old.

d

In 4th grade we got a used ][e from my Mom's school...the only game we had was a dart game that you controlled by entering in fractions. been a mac head since.

1981 II+, but I seem to remember installing RAM chips onto an expansion card to get it to 64kb. It wasn't a video card. I'm almost sure that the video was shared with the 48kb on the mother board. Can you believe it?! Only 48kb and it had to share video!

Now, where's my cane?
...Hobbles off to take a nap...

About the same for me; also had Atari's and an IBM PC at that time. It never ceases to amaze me how a modern video card eclipses the combined computational power of the first 10-15 years of computers I owned. :)

Craig, your post leads me to another of my idle wonderings.. looking back at how computer technology has leapt forward since those days when each of us had our first computer, I start to wonder (and get giddy about) where it will go in an equal amount of time.

I'm 33 now, and when I'm 66, I fully expect to still be using computers (or their future-analog) everyday. The same goes for the Playstation20! It's hard for me to look at my father in his late 70s and think about all the amazing changes that he's seen in his lifetime! What will we be privy to?

Lifer...Started on the ][+. My boss still has his ][e. I got nostalgic and got an emulator for my mac and play some of my old games...they still make me happy :D

my first mac experience was in '88 when i was learning pasteup for journalism and we had the option to use an se30 (IIRC) running aldus pagemaker if we wanted.

i didnt actually become a convert until '92 when i got my first production design job using a IIx running system 7 with Photoshop 2 & Quark 3.1.1 (among others).

i wouldnt call myself a mac or apple 'lifer'...but, i've been using them for a long time.

First Apple experience when I was 10, took computer classes and learned Logo on
an Apple IIc. Did not use Macs until college, later got myself a used Centris 610,
the second computer I've owned.

Bought a Powerbook in 2003 and then a PowerMac G5 2.0 by the end of that year. Prior to that, I was an Sgi O2/Irix and a PC/Win2kpro user for many years.

My first experience with computers was with punch cards. I was living in Calgary at the time and wanted to better myself so I enrolled in a private (let's be honest it was a rip-off) school to learn how to be a keypunch operator. The school was a rip-off, but the instructor, bless her heart really knew her stuff and taught us a lot more than she was being paid to teach - if we were willing to learn.

This was during the oil boom in the early 60s so I proudly marched my diploma down to all the big oil companies and applied for jobs. I was scoffed at and turned away by all of them. The kindest of them condescendingly explained that there were no computers west of Toronto and there never would be.

Two years later, I was working in the computer department of the phone company in Regina (which you'll notice by looking at the map) is west of Toronto LOL

There were several years in between that and my next brush with computers, but as soon as I could I got up close and personal with a Mac - what were they called - didn't even have a hard drive, just two floppy drives. And the rest is history.

And you guys think you're old Hah!

Margaret

Dad was at uni when punch cards were being taught (born 1947) and bought one of the first Apple ]['s in the UK. Then onto an Apple ][e which I still have. Then mac classic se (still have) and my first mac was an LC II. Then onto a graphite iMac DV SE (mothers machine atm), then onto Indigo iMac DV (server atm, mothers machine to be with tiger), then onto my current 12" powerbook.

I have never and never will own a pc, and I actively use my pb over the school pc's even though it means an (official) lack of printing at college, (I unofficially plug into the network and print perfectly.)

So I'm a Mac "Lifer" and proud to be :)

Hey! I remember punch cards too. I was in one of the last FORTRAN classes at RIT that used them. :D

I consider myself a lifer too. Ok, I own a PC, but I didn't pay for it. I won it as a door prize. I'd sell it, but I don't feel right doing that to some one. ;) Plus, there is one (lousy) application that I need to run on it.

I also remember being taught at school about punchcards (and paper tape I think).

The first computer I actually played on was a Acorn Electron, back in the days when there was a home-grown computer industry in the UK. I eventually owned a Acorn BBC Master. I also knew someone with an Acorn Archimedes, the world's first (or was it second - I think IBM debuted something the same year) computer with a RISC chip. That was in 1987/8. I think I played with it more than they did! The chip was also developed by Acorn. The story goes that Intel refused to supply Acorn with a sample 80286 chip to allow them to develop their next machine (probably for the same reasons that Apple were shut out - allegedly) So they developed a RISC chip. If all true that's a good riposte!

My first brush with an Apple was at college about 1986. I can't remember what it was. Must've been an Apple II or III. Big deadline coming up. It was a hot room, on a hot day of a hot summer, and the Apple did not compute. I was not impressed, and figured that Apple would never make it! Of course, it was Acorn who didn't make it.

Work (early 90's) eventually forced me to the Dark Side (AutoCAD won't run on any desktops but Windows ones.) Also used a Sun - employer owned. When Mac OSX came out I bought a Mac, primarily because my brother raved about them. So Mac user since 2001.

Still think what might have been with Acorn though. I understand a small company somewhere is still making their OS, and some versions of Linux have been ported to their last production machine. Looking back, I think it to both companies detriment that Apple and Acorn 'dated' but never 'married.' Acorn was full of Wosniaks, and no Jobs - Apple the reverse (actually by the late 80's I think they didn't really have Jobs either - maybe that was the problem.) Where they did get together (ARM being their big success story) they made a good couple.

I think the biggest changes in the personal computing world since the 1970's have been the reduction of independent companies working on their machines, or OSs - but at the same time the pace of technological development seems to have increased within the surviving companies. It seems fair to expect more of the same.

Ah, Acorn... I still have my Acorn Atom -- with a whopping 12K of RAM -- and a box of tapes. Great machine, as long as the volume level on the tape drive was just right; I taught myself 6502 Assembly on that thing at age 11. Good times. :)

Although I salivated over the Apple IIc at the local computer store, it wasn't until 1996 that I was finally able to afford my first Mac, the (choke) LC630. If only I'd known at the time that "LC" meant no FPU.

A dropped pile of punch cards
 

Yep, I remember FORTRAN and punch cards. I recall dropping fairly thick pile on the floor, and trying very hard to put them back in order.

Hmm, seems like the stone age. Strange how time flies and pondering thos memories almost make me feel like I should be using a walker or cane.

I am a Texas Instrument 994a, Wang, Commodore PET, 64, 128, Unysis, Win convert. Switched in 2000 due to a new teaching position using both WIN and MAC. Soon after discovered the obvious benefits of the Mac OS.

I also remember punch cards and fortran.

Biggest WIN annoyance - The inability to quickly exit a crashed program. End Now should mean just that.

I marked the poll as having just switched for Tiger, but I have not actually received my new Power Mac system yet. I ordered it yesterday. I got confirmation that the 20" Cinema display shipped today, but the system is not going to ship for another couple of days or so.

I can't wait! :D

Tracking, version 1.0
 

In an attempt to track what we've seen so far, I'll detail the statistics..


After 101 total votes, ranked:

1) 39v (38.61%) "I'm a Mac "Lifer".."
2) 14v (13.86%) "I switched during Panther's lifetime.."
3) 13v (12.87%) "I switched during Jaguar's lifetime.."
5) 12v (11.88%) "I've been a Mac user for more than 5 years.."
5) 12v (11.88%) "I plan on switching sometime in the near future.."
6) 07v (06.93%) "I switched prior to Aug 2002.."
7) 03v (02.97%) "I just switched for Tiger.."
8) 01v (00.99%) "I just switched for the Mac Mini.."

Interesting trends so far.. keep up the voting!



[edit: changed to a more human-readable format, #v = number of votes, (#%) = the percentage of overall votes, sorry about the leading 0s, vBulletin doesn't acknowledge formatting very well.]

Maybe I'm just the oddball here, but none of those really apply well. I've always had a Mac or two around just as toys, but didn't start using Macs as my primary computing platform until around September of last year. I found myself using a blueberry iMac G3/400 "toy" more and more, for real work. So one day I got a 17" PB and put my Dell on eBay, never to look back. I'm a Windows network admin, so I still work on Windows machines, but only use a Mac now.

I switched in May 2002 after 3+ months of repeated hounding from a friend to kick the tires. Picked up a Pismo G3 PB w/ OS X off eBay. After < 2 hours of use I saw the LIGHT hehehehe.

Came from Apple ][, C-64, IBM 360, CP/M, Wang OIS (YUCKY !#$%^@#%$%^!!), DOS, Windows, UnixWare, Linux and Solaris.

Prior to 2002, the only time I touched MacOS systems was to figure out weird things when colleagues were up the creek or setup TCP/IP. An OS with no command line was and still is an impossibility for me.

--Evan

At the risk of starting another Mac vs PC discussion, I have to say that the toy reference has always been amusing to me, since I've never regarded the PC as a usable system. People always seem to be working on their PCs instead of with them. If I didn't have the Mac to switch to, I'd have found something else! :eek:

Perhaps, Other?

:D

I voted 'Lifer'.

After finishing schooling in 1991, I landed my first job in an (all-Macintosh) deparment of mathematics at a university. My only contact with a personal computer at that point had been with a PC on which I had typed up my dissertation. They asked me what kind of computer I wanted, and since I had had no contact with a Macintosh, little contact with any other personal computer, and I wanted to be agreeable, I said that they could get me whatever they wanted. Fortunately, they were all-Macintosh so they got me a Mac IIci, with a (gasp!) 40 MB hard drive running system 7. It was fun to use, and the only time I ever had any trouble with it was when I put more than 128 fonts into the Fonts folder. One had to use font management software to exceed 128 (non-postscript) fonts at that time [please correct me if my memory is rusty here].

A little over 3 years later, my wife and I bought our first computer, a PPC 6100/60. It is still with us, but doesn't get much use. It runs OS 8.1 well, but after that, memory requirements went up and its 72 MB RAM couldn't handle 8.5 and afterwards.

Yellow,

Is MacOSXHints really representative of Mac users though? I wonder what results you'd get on other forums. Have you thought of running this poll on other forums? I know you post/have posted on other forums.Harlot! :)

No, most of the other forums I'm associated with don't allow polls, so I simply have a signature that directs them to this poll. Statistically, it might be somewhat inaccurate, but on the whole, I think it's fairly representative a Mac user base. There are Mac users of all skill levels and time-use here on the Forum. Again, I'm just looking for the general trend amongst my "peers".

Adam does over at MacCast (forums.maccast.com)

Not a forum I've ever been to.

I started with a Mac Plus with external FDD. I've had various Macs, including an 8600, a Sawtooth (dual 450 G4), and currently a dual 2.0 G5. I had a Power 120 in there also. I did buy one PC during that time, and decided that one was enough.

Paul

5 years for me....started when i enrolled at art school for graphic design. we HAD to use macs because all the professional graphic designers use macs. thank god for that cause now im a mac fanatic i love em and now ill be a lifer without a doubt

Update
 

After 207 total votes, ranked:

1) 86v (41.55%) "I'm a Mac "Lifer".."
2) 31v (14.98%) "I switched during Panther's lifetime.."
3) 26v (12.56%) "I switched during Jaguar's lifetime.."
4) 21v (10.14%) "I've been a Mac user for more than 5 years.."
5) 17v (08.21%) "I plan on switching sometime in the near future.."
6) 16v (07.73%) "I switched prior to Aug 2002.."
7) 05v (02.42%) "I just switched for Tiger.."
8) 04v (01.93%) "I just switched for the Mac Mini.."
9) 01v (00.48%) "The obligatory "Other".."

Started using Macs at work with System 7.5, before the introduction of the first PowerMacs. My first Mac (in 1994) was a Performa 6115, 60 MHz 601 CPU, 8 MB RAM, 500 MB HD!

My first computer was a Timex/Sinclair, followed some years later by an AST Pentium, which I brought back after 28 days to exchange for the Performa... so I guess I'm a switcher!

My next Mac was a PowerComputing PowerCenter 132, which I still own.

After that a G4/466 Digital Audio.

I also own a Mac Plus with external HD, and a MacPortable with backlight.

:)

BTW, the subject is how long have you used a Mac.. so Apple ]['s don't count! ;)

They used to have a version of AutoCAD for Mac OS. I remember a friend ran it on his PowerMac 7600 running System 7.6 (or OS 8... don't remember, but it was right about that time frame).

Fair point. And so, to correct my oversight from my previous post:

Original 'Fat' Mac (512k RAM, two floppy drives, and a massive mouse), purchased used in early 1985, with system 1.1 as I recall.

darin

What's the fascination with the command line? I always feel that using the command line is simply admitting/accepting that the OS isn't complete yet. After all, in the terminial you're still using somebody's software. It's just software that hasn't been finished/polished.

That's not true.. just because it doesn't have a glossy GUI interface doesn't mean it's not finished.

I like the command line because I can do a lot of things quickly. I can do them remotely. And I don't have to trapse through a million GUIfied apps to get things done.

That's a personal bias. The fact is that most people can't type nearly as fast as they can click a button. Add to that the number of times they're likely to set the wrong switch, type the wrong command, etc.

As for doing things remotely, a gui can do things remotely. They have been for quite some time. Remember Timbuktu?

My feeling is that most people who prefer the command line like it because they feel like they're getting into the gut's of the system, where other users can't go. Maybe they're getting in a little deeper, but not much, and only because the proper gui hasn't been developed yet. Unfortunately, because Apple has included the command line with OS X, gui development has slowed, if not stopped, in this area.

What are you talking about? GUI development for what? There are just so many things wrong with your post.. but I don't want to get into this pointless argument again. Suffice it to say, you don't like the command line, so I would encourage you to simply stay out of it.

I remember my sister being blown away that her "286" could plot a route from Scotland to London, and it only took 3 minutes to draw a squiggly line...........!..........I figured I would stick with a paper map and pick up the whole 'computer thing' when they got good.

The original imac came out when I was at Uni so I bought one and have never looked back. I had to use a windoze 98 machine for a few months when I cam out of Uni and got my first job doing graphics and it drove me f@*?in bananas! So I poured a cup coffee into it and killed it then forced my boss to buy me a mac. :D

What I'm talking about is the idea that anything that can be done with a cli should be possible, even easier with a gui. That's seems to me to be what the Mac is all about. And I would stay out of the cli if the gui was developed to the point where the cli wasn't needed for anything. :p

There's a handy-dandy set of developer tools included for free in each and every copy of OS X. Knock yourself out. :)

Even more CLI! Yummy. :(

Actually, it's all GUIfied for your safety.

hater....CLI fo life! just kidding. this post has been fun to read. I'm still amazed at how much people can be turned off by a command line.

At the risk of getting clobbered for getting in the middle...

The Macintosh brings us to together in a community (see posts 9,10 of this recent thread) while yet letting us all be individuals.

Mac OS X has both sets of tools, allowing everyone to be themselves and use the tools they prefer, regardless of which is the most efficient in a given circumstance. For each one, there are circumstances in which it rules. For remote work, CLI is much faster than GUI unless the other computer is on your LAN. For ftp, moving a lot of files, each with sufficiently different names, is faster with GUI because it is difficult to glob the files together on the CLI. I won't go any further or I'll expose my ignorance. :)

Moreover, I don't think the outlook for GUI app development is as bad as you might think. Economic forces will continue to drive people (down to the shareware and freeware authors) to develop GUI in new areas as long as there is a market or a need forthem in those areas. Arguably, the GUI development would not be as active on the Macintosh as it is today without the new attention and people brought to the Macintosh by the combined unix/gui Mac OS X. At worst, it's probably six-of-one & half-a-dozen of the other.

:eek: I don't hate CLI. It has it's uses. I'm sorry if I was too strong on the issue. I just worry that the Mac OS could suffer because of the CLI. Much of what's made the Mac worth switching to is the attention to detail that Apple has paid to the UI, and let's face it, no CLI will ever be thought of as user-friendly.

The fact that the CLI is there can make developers a bit lazy. Can't get the front end to work? No problem, just use the CLI! That's not very Mac-like, and it can easily erode some of the best aspects of the Mac OS.

I was an Apple ][E, Mac Plus, then PowerBook 145 cult freak. I still get the chills remember the first moment I saw Karateka on the Apple II and the beautifully rendered PageMaker fonts using ATM on the Mac Plus. I used to carry my Mac Plus to school on press nights in a canvas bag, on the seat of a '53 Chevy. I was a total Apple cult member, guzzling the Kool-Aid.

From 1994 to 2004--my first 10 years out of college--the corporate world's insistence on PC-compatible work pounded me into submission and I owned an IBM 486, a Compaq PII, a custom AMD box, and two Compaq laptops. I hated every minute staring at those Windows. Hated it.

I bought a PowerBook in November 2004. The first three months were total bliss. No platform problems. Clients received Word and Excel documents without even knowing they were generated on a Mac. So, so great.

So I guess I am a switched back.

The sad note, as voldenuit and hayne know all too well having nursed me through serious problems, is that my PowerBook is a total lemon, now on fourth warranty repair. AppleCare has been minimally okay to me. Certainly not eager to make it right.

I'm posting this from my WinXP rig I had to recover from storage. Hopefully, Apple will get the repair right sometime in the next couple of months and I'll rejoin the family. Alas, the PC stays in my office to prevent any more costly downtime. I still prefer the Mac OS, but Steve Jobs can keep his stupid Kool-Aid.

ArsTechnica has a good History of the GUI article today...good timing

Why, you young punk. :D My first computer was an Apple ][ with integer ROMs and a whopping 4K of RAM (quickly upgraded at great cost to 48K). It was a birthday present to myself in 1978.

Never even considered buying a PC till about 5 years ago... sadly, some games aren't available anywhere else, nor do their SDKs run on a Mac. :(

I used to use a Mac just for fun, learning games, etc. when I was younger.
For the last 5 years, I've used a combination of a DreamWriter (more like NightmareWriter!) and an XP pro. pentium III, and various MS machines, scattered about my school.
This year, I have an iBook G4 Panther. As I haven't really used a mac since about OS 9 or 8, (or used a mac for 'serious work', full stop), I find it a bit confusing.

So, what am I? An "Other"?

I spat my dummy with Windows XP in early January 2004, when I sat down at my pc and it died again.

Running my own company as a financial planner, I was spending too much time wishing that my network would work and trying to get it to do what I wanted. The Macs do it right out of the box but I didn't know that then.

I remember 4 years ago wandering in to one of the Mac shops here at Pantip Plaza (possibly the most mind-blowing IT department store you will ever visit) and looking at the ad running on a funny coloured iMac thing and there was something called a Cube sitting next to it. The ad showed a guy in a heat suit using an extinguisher on a Pentium lookalike and another showed a snail with an intel chip on it's shell. The one that really registered with me was the adult setting up a pc out of the box and trying to configure it for the internet and the kid who pulls an iMac out of the box, plugs it into the power and the phone and is online a few moments later. I was that adult.

I didn't have the guts to do it - a combination of all the spurious rumours about compatibility and the considerably higher cost than the generic pc crap I was using. So, January the 16th 2004 and the toys are out of the pram big style and I just jumped on a motorbike taxi and within half an hour, their software man was asking me how I wanted it set up. I remember clearly the "now, now, you'll get better given time" look on his face when I asked which anti-virus package he would recommend.

18 months and a 50% jump in my turnover later, I wish I had made the move when I first went to have a look at them. Loads to learn but I am enjoying the experience immensely and I have dragged so many of my peers over that I should be on commission from Apple! :D

The bizarre experience of sitting somewhere public (the salas at the British Club here in Bangkok are now WiFi) and having people you don't know come up and start nattering away because they have a Mac too - and even because they are considering getting one.

Great stuff!

Cheers All,

Gavin

Sounds like you've been stuck on the PC side so long that you might be fighting the Mac way of doing things. Lots of long time PC users try to make the Mac work the way their old PC did, and that can be frustrating. Just let the Mac show you an easier way. :)

The Mac is definitely the computer I switched to, and the first computer I ever enjoyed, but what I switched from, or at least the platform that all my prior computer experience belonged to, was not a Windows PC, a DOS PC, an Amiga, Commodore, Atari, Altair, TRS, or anything else with a screen.

I don't remember what they called it; our High School had one of them and the computer lab consisted of what I remember as automated typewriters — one would type cryptic command-line instructions, which would be echoed on the paper strip feeding out the top, and the computer would type back its response.

I remember klunking around writing horrid FORTRAN and going through interminable cycles of handing it in and receiving, after turnaround time, a bundle of cards that I would take to a window, and I'd sit down at one of the typewriters and type something that referenced my program name and find that it didn't work, lather rinse repeat and etcetera. All this to get some data sorted and printed out in columns and rows, if I recall correctly. Blah. Everyone kept saying this was the up-and-coming thing and I just hated it. I even hated the games.

Type "strek". Computer says
One of those was you and the other was a Klingon. Depending on what you typed next you'd either slam into a star and die or get phasered to extinction by the Klingon and die.

A teacher dragged us into the Mac lab 9 years later. I plunked down and dutifully created a MacWrite document. Titled it "Intro to Computer Hating". Knew I was not going to like this. Hm. Hmm. Hmmmm. Stayed in the lab a few hours after class was dismissed. Mac 512Ke, System 3, Fall 1986.

mmmmmm xtrek. Many, many hours were wasted playing xtrek on a Solaris wks.

AHunter3 & yellow, you can relive those days: warp, available through fink, is similar. I used to play trek77, I think circ 1982, and warp is similar to that, but somewhat different.

Punk yourself :D

The first machine I ever 'programmed' was an IBM punch-card tabulating dinosaur that you set up by plugging jumper wires into a plug board and then plugging the board into a rack at the end of the machine.

A fair few years ago, that was...

Hehe.. abacus user.. :)

Not quite -- but I have used a slide rule (BC -- before calculators.) :)

PC user - now a Mac user 4 ever
 

I used a PC for years because of my work - I need ACT. Now I use the PC for one program and one program only - ACT on WinXP through on Apple RDC. Works great but still get the blue ctl -alt - delete screens which reminds me how much I love Mac. I switched to Mac for one simple reason. It works! You spend WAY less time screwing around with problems in a Mac - plus it networks much easier - and OS X is a beautiful interface!

Oh yeah...? Oh yeah...? Well... how about the Bendix G-15, consisting of ALU logic flip-flops made with dual vacuum tubes and memory that was magnetic strips on a rotating drum? It had a three-stage boot which involved setting binary switches on the front panel to enable the paper tape loader, then loading the TTY (actually a Friden Flexowriter) drivers from the tape so that you could type programs in with the keyboard? :D :D

OK, probably not as old as the tabulator, but it was the only "real" computer we students could actually get our hands on, since the IBM 1130 and its card reader were behind a glass wall, off limits...

Now that I think of it, though, we used one of those tabulators to validate our decks in case a card got out of order...

Started on a Plus, first Mac I owned was a Quadra 650.

Since then…

PM7200
PM9800 + Original iMac
Original G4 + Slot iMac
G4 iMac + Bronze PB
MDD G4 + White iBook
G5

:)

I am other, because I am not an elitist and never have been. I use both macs and PCs and I fix both for a living. I support everything from consumers, businesses, networks, printers and other peripherals etc. I have more certifications than I can remember.

I like apple products and I like the OS, but IMO the company makes some dumb choices. I think steve jobs is very dogmatic about apple, and his vision is tunneled.

I personally use the PC a bit more because I like the fact that I built it myself, with all the parts I chose, and its configured to my liking. Here go the specs:

AMD 3400+ 64
1 gig of DDR 400 ram
10k rpm SATA drive, 74 gig (raptor)
ATI 9800 pro (will be upgrading that soon)
M-aduio sound card

The system is smoking fast and can run many heavy 3-D games at over 100 FPS. I also do some digital video and audio manipulations on it.

I also own an ibook g3 800 running OS 10.3 on it. I like the mac OS very much, I think its solid.

However, I would like to clear up some myths about windows machines and PCs. I have about an 10 computer network in my house (my roomates and msyelf), which consists of both macs and PCs, and also I have win xp pro, panther, and linux running. My first PC I ever built, I built back in 1997 (im only 24yrs old!) and guess what, it still runs the original load of windows 98 and suse linux on it. Thats right it has NEVER crashed. I always see lots of mac elitists telling me how much PCs suck and they always crash, then they bring their mac into me because of kernel panics or bad hardware or whatever the case is. Both machines are equally easy to use, and both have the same failure/crash rate. I know this because I support both types of machines and both types of clients (buisness and consumer), and I see them both on a regular basis. If they worked perfect I wouldn't have a job. My current windows box has been running for over a year now with no crashes and so has my mac. More people use PCs than macs, and most people do not know how to properly use and maintain a computer.

My main headache with mac os x is the networking side. I can get all my linux/unix/windows clients hooked up fine, but for some reason there is always a mac that needs my personal attention. I will be the first to come out and say that 95% of computer problems are user related or cause by ignorance. However, the networking support was suppose to be vastly improved in Tiger, which I do not own yet. I have worked with it but just recently.

Bottom line is, I will always use a PC especially with these new dual core procs coming out, those are gonna rock. However, even though I like a mac I will never be a lifer. I am biased and I have to fix my own stuff, and like to fix my own stuff. Apple machines are by far the most annoying to take apart and fix compared to PCs. I could list all the design faults I run into with them but hardly few would probably understand where I am coming from. They do not design their machines to be serviceable, they design them to have a specific look, even if that look makes it a pain in the butt to service. I also like to keep my personal systems customized to do what they need to do. I don't have all the third party options a PC has with a mac.

Honestly, I would like to see mac clones again (used to have one myself) and I would also like to see apple developing an OS for non PPC hardware so I can load Mac OS X on a PC and play all my games and build it with the exact hardware I want in it.

Most of you will probably disagree with most that I say, and for the record I am not bashing macs, I think they are ok machines and they get their jobs done. I am just not an elitist.

I agree with you on many points that I have an understanding of. I don't have the background to comment on most of them, however.

In the 'Not a Complaint, but a Clarification' category:

When I voted 'Lifer', I interpreted that vote as "I've been with Macintosh all my life, so I'm not a switcher of any kind." not that 'I'll always be with Macintosh because I'm too much of an elitist to use Windows.' I have and do use Windows occasionally, but not enough to speak with authority on bad or good. I think that this was the intended definition of 'Lifer'

I'm probably the only guy on the planet that actually put off switching to Macs because of all that tiresome Mac evangelism.

Back in the eighties I got utterly sick of designers & printers sneering at anything without the cute little apple logo. It gave me the impression that Mac users were just misguided snobs. I used to think (still do, actually) that it's the work produced that counts, rather than the badge on the computer..... so my first machine was a pc.

Then I started work in a Mac-only studio. As soon as I actually used a Mac I saw what all the fuss was about. I shamelessly changed my opinion, and to this day have a foot in both camps.

Nope, you're not. I certainly was. That and the stupid commercials with people that I definitely don't want to be like. "You're too stupid to use a PC? Here, try a Mac." My very first post here was a comparison of some real-life observations of the two, and how raving evangelism kept me from switching sooner.

5 years isn't that long... So what is the 'Mac way of doing things'? :confused:

What I meant by that was that there are different commands for doing the same things as on a PC, but there is also a more general meaning. I think it basically comes down to ease of use, which sometimes people confuse with being easy to learn or oversimplified. You may have some difficulty unlearning some of your PC ways but with time you'll appreciate the Mac way.

my opinion is biased, but I disagree. The more I work with apple hardware the more I dislike it, due to its overcomplicated design which is not practical to work on, but looks cool. The OS is dumbed down in some ways, but intuitive in others. Its not perfect, its not the best, its not the worst. That is how I view a macintosh. If you compare hardware power over price (bang for your buck) I would have to go with the PC side. They are way ahead of apple in hardware developement and thats why the market is on their side. With the way PC hardware is going with these new dual core processors coming out very soon apple will have an even larger run for their money.

Personally I would like to see apple grow and expand, it will create more IT jobs and give a diversity in the market. IMHO, apple as a company needs to change a few things to do that, but as of now I don't see them making that leap into the mainstream market. I have been using computers since about 1986 (when I was 6yrs old) to present, and have been in the IT field for over 6 years now.

I voted for "I switched prior to Aug 2002" but I should probably have voted for Other.

In March of 2002 I got my flat panel iMac and got rid of the Windows machine I was using. I still use that as my primary computer, but December of 2003 I built a PC and I'm running Windows 2000 on that. So I'm multi-platform.

Part of this is that I'm a software developer by trade. And finding jobs writing software for Macs is a lot more difficult than finding jobs writing software for Windows. So I want to be able to write programs on Windows to keep my skills sharp. Part of this is also the fact that I see advantages and disadvantages to both platforms. And part of this is that I wanted to build a computer with a nifty custom case.

So I switched in March 2002, then went to multi platform later. Yep, scratch one from "I switched prior to Aug 2002" and put it on the Other pile.

Update: Er, March 2002, not March 2001. In March of 2001 the flat panel iMac wasn't released yet.

Depends on the performance level. At the high end, Apple hardware becomes cheaper. I recently did a comparison between an Alienware high-end system and a dual G5. The Alienware machine was nearly double the price, and the dual G5 is faster.

Done and done.

Thats because Alienware marks up hardware like crazy. Part the system out through CDW and then order X quantity, I guarantee you will get it a LOT cheaper than a G5, which better overall hardware specs, you could probably even get dual procs. Generally take about 40% of the cost off the alienware and thats what you can build it for.

Like I posted earlier, just wait for the dual core processors to come out, then imagine running two dual core processors, the results should out perform most hardware on the market. However, thats just what they are currently guessing and we will not know until it happens like 6 months from now.

Sure, then add a few hundred dollars for anti-virus and anti-spyware packages, plus the cost of all your down time (thousands?) when some gets by your attempts to stop it. :p

Thats funny I have all my PCs up and running and on the internet 24/7 and I have no virus or spyware problems. Also, NAV is 30 dollars OEM and spysweeper is 19.95 OEM, so I don't see where you get this few hundred dollars from. If you are building a new system you can add the OEM packages. I also run a securely setup cisco router (yeah i got a cisco router...) which really does not let many threats into my network reguardless of what OS I am running. So, really when it comes to security the OS only sets up the basic grounds for security and the rest of it is up to the user to define what can enter network traffic, be downloaded, etc. If you know how to run a computer, yours will barely ever crash. Been running win xp on a unit since the release in 2002, not a single crash on it yet, nor a single virus.

How about the forced upgrades apple does to its clients? Don't have a DVD drive, well too bad tiger is going to need it. Oh you want OS 9 support for your older mac, well too bad not gonna happen. Even though I don't like windows 98, microsoft still supports it. Then you want to upgrade your OS, well now you will have to upgrade ALL of you applications. That adobe suite you just got last year on your OS 9 rig, yeah its not gonna run in OS X, so you will need to replace it. On the linux and windows side of things, you can actually use older apps in the OS; and if you wish to purchase the newest app out there, you usually don't have to be running the newest OS, like you do with a lot of apple products. I had a whole graphic design firm that wanted to run OS 9 and photoshop CS, and they couldn't. They were not ready to migrate to OS X at the time, and were forced to purchase a few newer servers to run it. The artists were happy because they got a ton of new stuff, but the buisness side wasn't.

Oh wow my 13 month old mac has a bad mother board which costs 900 dollars to replace? Then you have to pay someone to come on site or drag it to the nearest AASP, which when comes to offical service centers and support apple has less of it out there, and no one has the parts on hand because they are too expensive to stock. Lets see about down time compare to a PC, where your IT guy can go to any local computer shop and pick up parts for it that day. Apple computers do not have that luxury. Then the part ends up being back ordered and you have to wait 6 weeks for it. This has happened to me many times with apple computers. The back order part is honestly not that common, but has happened several times in the past, and its mostly with their all in one units (imacs and emacs).


Now, the plus side of having a mac, is there are no viruses out there, spyware and trojans are a huge minimum compared to a windows envrioment. I think apple only has around a 9% market share (last I checked back in feburary or march) so they are way less used than the PC. Now if you break down the OSes windows is used the most, therefore hackers target it the most. I gurantee once apple reaches a fair share in the market (if they ever do) then this will be a non-issue because hackers will write exploits for the apple on a regular basis. Until that happens though, that will be a plus for macintosh users. Also, I really like how the user is set up in the mac os x enviroment. I set up all my os x boxes so that all the data that the user will save and configure will all go to their users folder, then I have them back up their users folder over a network share. This is pretty easy and most poeple catch on to this fairly quickly. So, OS X is easier to get around in, in some respects, but its simplicity also makes in unappealing to me at times. Its a duality thing, but I will give the plus side more points over the negative in that situation. My experiences with keeping users data easily organized have been the best with OS X so far, and I will tip my hat to them for that. However, that IMO, does not make them superior to the rest of the computer world.

I don't have time to cover every point you brought up, so I'll just cover the above.
First, just because you've managed to get yourself a Cisco router and build yourself a fortress around your PC, you shouldn't expect that most people can. Obviously, they can't. Most are going to pay the $70 for NAV and probably more than that for other "solutions." By the way, that cost is just for the first year, so you have to multiply it by the number of years you expect to own the system, minus some discount for renewal if you can get it.

Forced upgrades? Hmmm, what's happening with NT? Want to run OS 9 Apps? Most will run fine in Classic. What do you do if you want to run Windows 3.1 or 95 apps? Run them in NT? :D Yes, I know you can't. I just couldn't resist the sarcasm.

The last one I find particularly amusing. I can't remember ever seeing a PC user get his computer back in the same week, let alone the same day! I've seen IT guys take a PC away and not even look at it for months. They get away with that because the user's expectations are so low.

Used PC's from 1994 - 2000. Bought a blue iMac (450 MHz G3 / DVD) in 2000. Can't use a PC since. Have bought 9 macs in the last 5 yrs.

That was my whole point. Security is depended upon the users, not the OS or the hardware. You can have the top of the line PC/Mac, top of the line networking routers and switches, and if you don't configure it properly, its pretty much worthless.

This goes with any system configuration. Also NAV for the PC retails 49.99, I sell both the OEM and the retail boxed version for my clients. PCs are getting cheaper and cheaper and the macintosh is still staying at a higher price. I have built very powerful machines for both mac and PC clients. The highest end PC I built was around $9,000, and the highest end mac was around $13,000.00.

The PC had dual athlon mps in it. 5 Gigs of ram, two high end video cards (I thinkthey were O2, or maybe some higher end matrox - can't remember) Raid 0 +1 SATA 10k RPM, Adobe suite software, Dual 30" sony LCDs.

The mac I built was Dual G5 2.5, 6 gigs of ram, one extra 200 gig HD, 2 30" cinema displays, final cut pro, and adobe suite, and one of those top end DDL Nvidia video cards (6800 I believe).

Both systems were built by the same client as demo machines for their audio/video buisness. Also, they had to spend some money before the new year for tax reasons, so they had me build both machines. I built the PC completely OEM, and the G5 I built through our sales side. Both machines were awesomely fast, and both were definately top end. Both performed about equal. The PC I was able to get a 0+1 SATA raid in it, two video cards (both had SLI which is DDL on a mac) and it was still several thousand dollars cheaper. Now, I didn't add the cost of video toaster on to the PC, because that company already owned several licsences for it.

I know that some studios do use Macs for their audio/video stuff but its still an overall 9% market share. I like working with mac clients who want to manage a small lab with ease and manage all their data their designers do with ease. Mac OS X is ideal for that. Its easy to have them just keep up to date back ups of their user folders on a network share. If I get them into retrospect its even easier with automated back ups. Also, I think that disk warrior is one of the best disk utilities out there over any 3rd party utility for any OS.

My opinion is, if Apple ever wants like a 50% market share they are going to have to change a lot of things, and I don't see them doing so. Mainly how they do business, and the design of their machines should get some tweaking. Mainly the plastic snap parts and the fact that some of their laptops have like 80+ screws to get to the hard drive, which is ridiculous. They should also come to use some standardized parts. Things like optical drives, RAM, powersupplies, etc should just be standard and be available to pick up at any local computer hardware store. The mac os x should have native support for all those optical drives out on the market. I can get a dual layer 16x DVDRW drive for like 50 dollars for a PC. It would never work in a mac but it will work in a PC no problem, windows and linux, doesn't matter it works in both. I want apples to get out into the mainstream market. There are not many certified apple technicians (my company only has two, and I am one of them) out there compared to PC techs/admins/IT guys. If the macintosh gets big and out in the market, then I have a better career opportunity, since I already support both types of machines/users. Also, there are things that I really like about OS X, that I think windows should implement as well. If apple had a bigger market share you would see probaby more competition between the OSes, and then you would see them offer similiar features/structures. Basically, what I am saying is, I want apple to change how they do buisness so they can get a bigger market share. I by no means hate apple computers, I am just not an elitist. I also by no means want a one sided market share. More competition would be better for lots of reasons.

Also to clarify something to cwtnospam win95 apps will run on win xp, if it will not run natively you can run it in windows compatability mode, which generally works fine. My comment about forced upgrades was how if you wanted to run photoshop CS per se, you could only run it in OS X. So, if you had lets say, a design lab of macs running OS 9, you then were forced to upgrade all of them to OS X to run the newest apps. Where on a PC if you ran win2k, you were not forced to upgrade to XP to run PS CS. I don't expect people to be able to do the things I do, thats why I have my job, and thats why I get paid. To do the things others don't want to mess with, or don't understand it.

You can agree with me, or agree to disagree with me at this point, I no longer really care.

I see, so you're comparing the cost of parts to build it yourself to the cost of a complete system ready to run out of the box with loads of great software. Good comparison.

It's the old ignore the total cost of ownership and only look at the cost of the box ploy. :D
tlarkin, When CAlvarez and I agree on something, it's time you rethink your position. ;) Not that we care if you disagree, either. :eek:

I believe that would be a first, no?

When you talk about price, you have to consider the cost of time. For you as an end user, you may find it acceptable, and even enjoyable to research and build your own system. That's all fine. It's how I started in this business 20-some years ago. I have no patience for it any more, it's no longer fun to build computers, and I can bill a LOT more than the price difference for a ready-to-run computer. A computer is a tool to let me make money designing and installing networks and servers. If I was in construction I probably wouldn't forge my own hammers and nails either.

My clients can spend money for a tech to build and support machines, or they can buy ready to run machines. All of them find that the latter is cheaper in the long run, whether they are Macs or Wintels. I could make more money building machines, and I do build some servers (different cost/benefit), but it would be unethical to take their money for something that has a poor ROI.

I never thought I'd live to see the day. :D

Long strange trip
 

We've had Macs since the original all-in-one box. OK, not the ORIGINAL Mac, but ever since the SE.

Mac Lifer
 

We never owned a PC. We now have a G4 and a G3 (beige). The G3 is used by my 5 year old granddaughter. I think we will continue to use Macs for a long time.

Cliff

Well, I've been quite busy, but we now have over 600 votes!

Sorry for the delay..

After 603 votes (!):

01) 279v (46.27%) I'm a Mac "Lifer"..
02) 97v (16.09%) I switched during Panther's lifetime..
03) 69v (11.44%) I switched during Jaguar's lifetime..
04) 61v (10.12%) I've been a Mac user for more than 5 years..
05) 33v (05.47%) I switched prior to Aug 2002..
06) 23v (03.81%) I plan on switching sometime in the near future..
07) 21v (03.48%) I just switched for Tiger..
08) 10v (01.66%) I just switched for the Mac Mini..
09) 07v (01.16%) The obligatory "Other"..
10) 03v (00.50%) I'm putting all my eggs in the Longhorn basket..

Interesting trend.. the Mac Mini is doing far less for Apple (encouraging switching) then I thought it would. Tiger is doing much more then I thought it would. And it seems like most "Switchers" got fed up with Windows in the Panther life time. Quite interesting.

Thanks for voting all!

All true - but only for those people who responded to this poll. The people that elect to answer a voluntary poll are often quite different from the general population - hence the reason why opinion polls are usually conducted via random telephone number lists. And of course the readers of MacOSXHints forums are already a select group.

You're (incorrectly) assuming that this is the only forum where people are encouraged to vote in this poll. ;)

However, it will take awhile before many of the general non-geeky people who have just bought minis will make it to any forum.

Yes - especially if your definition of "awhile" includes "infinitely long" - most people with Macs (or indeed any other computer) never read (let alone participate in) any forum.
They don't google for help (if something goes wrong) either. What do they do?
They ask their "computer expert" friend. Or they take it to the shop. Or they just give up.
The people on these forums are, by and large, those "computer experts" that the other 90% (or is it 99% ?) of the population refers to when needed.

Oh, Hayne. You're so wrong, my friend.

I, for one, am a long way off being an expert. I am here usually to shamelessly ask dumb questions to those of you who know their stuff so much better than me. :D

No - you didn't understand what I said. I put quotation marks around "computer expert" to indicate that that was how these people are seen by the majority of the population.

I.e. I am asserting that by knowing enough to come to a site such as this to ask questions makes you much more expert than most of the population.
Most of the computer using population is somewhat unclear on the difference between the operating system and applications running under that operating system. They just know "I click here... and type there...". Note that I'm not intending to denigrate such people (the majority) - I'm just trying to state what the reality is.

I.e. I don't think the situation portrayed in this deliberately exaggerated sketch is so far off the mark:
http://www.deadtroll.com/video/helldeskcable.html

Hayne is absolutely correct--those who can figure out how to find an answer are by definition "consultants." It amazes me that finding the answer to most anything is so easy, yet so few people are inclined or able to go do it. It keeps me in business though, so I'm happy about it.

If you are here, you are already above the vast majority of the public in your ability to find answers. I guarantee you can find info right here that nobody in an Apple store knows. Anecdote: I was in my local store with a problem (turned out to be an OS bug), and the "Genius" did two things... Checked Apple's knowledgebase, and then came here to search!

My top client also happens to be a market research company. I've learned a lot about surveying people. This survey is fun, but uselessly invalid as a measure of the general population.

Kent Brockman: "Now, here are some results from our phone in poll. 95% of the people think Homer Simpson is guilty. Of course, this is just a television poll which is not legally binding. Unless proposition 304 passes, and we all pray it will."

Stability was the fact that sold me. I have almost totally switched, but still own a PC at home and use one at the office -- reluctantly, increasingly reluctantly.

As I joined an office that had one Mac user, and as he and I collaborated, I learned about Macs via OS 9. Unimpressed with its instability, but I liked the user experience in general.

When OSX came out, I had a chance to use his Macs and do some reading up on OSX. Stability was mentioned over and over. I tried it. We beat our Macs hard -- capturing and editing lots of video and sound, writing and transferring huge files -- and since the Jaguar days, I became convinced, from my own personal experience, that OSX would satisfy me more than Windows systems ever had.

Still convinced. Stability and reliability are what drew me to the Mac and made me a fan. I used to be a Mac hater, even -- now I can't shut up about how great Apple computers are.

I for one would like to welcome our new overlords!


When mac os x first came out I sat here at work and loaded it on my G4 (I actually had the beta) and played with it every time we were slow or I had a minute. I had a somewhat small background knowledge of linux. I think back now to OS X 10.0 and compare it to 10.4 and laugh. It has changed a lot.

Still, I would like to see apple change how it does business, then I might lean more towards the mac side.

If they started emulating Microsoft's business practices, I'd switch to Linux.
:eek:

who said they should emulate microsoft. Even though you may hate microsfot they are way far beyond apple in the business world. They have more third party support, more international support, more developers, and more options for people to go with.

If apple happened to get big, it would force more competition on the big wigs such as microsoft. Which IMO, would be good for the economy and for the technology industry to have a little more competition. It would perhaps maybe force all the companies out there to really make good products.

I mean, apple now has patches right after they release their OS, just like microsoft does. Its not much longer before they do turn into something sort of like microsoft, especially how they are charging for all their upgrades.

and creating a great music store that works with only one mp3 player...c'mon. Apple or MicroSoft, whoever has 90% of the market, will act like the 800 lb gorilla. Let's not forget that both Jobs and Gates are marketing masters...not open source pioneers or technical sages.

i started using macs back in 5th grade they were old box style powermac with the display built in. I owned PCs at home for a while then just got sick of em and finally made the switch to mac when jaguar came out and every since then i will never go back to the wintel world.

Surprising isn't it then, that with all that "support" and developers, the "options" people can go with still suck. You would think that being so "far beyond apple in the business world" would translate into a much better product, but it obviously hasn't.

Bigger isn't necessarily better. In business, bigger usually means better for the business. In the long run it rarely means better for the customer. I know I get much better service from mom and pop shops than I ever do from larger corporations, including Apple. That of course is especially true of Microsoft.

I don't intend to defend Apple's business practices as worrying about Apple's business and their business practices is somewhat like following the Chicago Cubs. I've long ago wearied of that and no one can make me worry about it anymore. ;)

For that matter, who cares if Apple gets big or not? OS X works very nicely for me, and its development did not depend upon Apple being big. They'll probably screw up and lose the advantage they have with the iPod too. I have more control over the results of local, state and federal elections (with one vote out of thousands or millions). I can't control certain things and so I won't bother with them.

However, I don't find fault with charging for those upgrades as so much happened between them (much of it under the hood). OS X went from a fetus to a infant to a toddler to a teenager to a young adult all in 4 years. Because of this, those upgrades leapt over a lot of ground (if you include under-the-hood improvements). I bought licenses to 10.2, 3, and 4 instead of riding on the 10.1 that came with my computer because I could always appreciate the advances.

PS: The cuteness of the hardware is lost on me, but I sure appreciate their software. I prefer OS X to Windows XP because OS X lets me do what I want to do without intrusions from wizards and in a clean, intuitive, and thoughtful way. Frequently there will be that little extra something that will show up while I'm using my computer that is akin to that little extra personal touch your Mother secretly tucked into your luggage as you left for college and you find later---it makes you appreciate the cleverness and the thoughtfullness of the software engineers at Apple. I'm not going to say that OS X does everything perfectly, or that I hate Windows because neither would be true; I just appreciate one much more than the other. Life is seldom about having everything perfectly in order, but is about how you manage the imperfections that come along. For everyone to go back and forth acting like item A should be perfect and here is why it isn't and item B should be perfect and here is why it isn't, is just silly (and at some point, annoying). I just want to enjoy using my computer and to drop in at these forums and discuss its use with people.

There is no fact in this statement only opinion.