What A Difference Eight Years Can Make

I switched to an Apple about 2 years ago. I bought a 17" PowerBook and I have not looked back since. I made the switched for several reasons. The biggest one was for OS X. I needed an OS that could handle running my company, take me through an Executive MBA program, and handle everything I threw at it. I looked a Sony, Dell and IBM and honestly for the money I thought it would be better to buy a computer from a company that makes the hardware and software. Granted if I ever had to go back to a Windows laptop I would buy an IBM hands down, but the quality and reliability of my PowerBook has not failed me.

If you had asked me 8 years ago about buying an Apple I would have said no way.

I and my father are very happy with our Apple stock we got in 97...

Jobs had just returned, Apple had just acquired Next... Apple's stock was at $14/share.

It has split twice (2 for 1) and even after the splits is at $59.95 today...

Nope, very very happy. Wouldn't touch Dell PCs or Stock with a 10' pole.

...interesting...going back to 1997 ( roughly 8 years ), it would have been better to own AAPL rather than DELL.

AAPL went from about $4 adjusted to roughly $60 today, while DELL went from about $4 adjusted to roughly $30 today.

Give me the AAPL...

Actually, since that time (Oct '97), Dell is up less than 2.5X and Apple is up more than 10X.

i still remember like it was yesterday. A friend of mind asked me take a look at her Apple which she think it was broken. At that time, i was using windows. When i look at her computer and notice it was a mac, i said that i can't fix it for you. I know nothing about a mac. Then i feel so pity for her.. and Apple as a company is dying. Back then.. Steve Jobs have not come back to Apple, yet. Couple years later in 1999.. i bought my first Powerbook (pismo) and i told my self .. i will never be a PC user again. Today... i still a mac fan and will continue to be... now I think pity for those who still use PCs.. why you are still bother to use those when you have much better things to use.

I worked at Apple before, during, and shortly after Steve Jobs turned it around. Ater the 2nd iMac, I left and worked at Dell. I will always be a Mac user and knowing what I know, will always recognize Apple to be far better and Steve Jobs much smarter than Dell.

Why bother with a PC? Easy, some people actually like to play games with thier computer. Ya, Macs do have some games, most of the time ported from the PC 6 months after the PC release but even those are far and few.

I can't say I hate Macs, I am running the X86 OSX on a $300 PC that runs faster than any single CPU G5. I support 500+ Macs and 1300+ PCs for my company. But that is only 1 of the 11 PCs I have in the home, the other 10 are Windows or Linux boxes. It's the price of the Mac hardware that gets to me. Why can I spend $300 on PC hardware and run OSX faster than a $5000 G5? Hmmmmmm???

I made the switch 4 years ago, I was desperate to get computer that could be depended on. At this point I have an army of Mac’s, never been more happy.

Yes, I remember the magazines on the newsstands in late 1996 and early 1997 --- as the stock market in general was going up up up -- dow 5000, no wait, dow 6000! Dow 7000, Dow 8000!!!!! the same magazines said "Poor Apple" "End of Apple" "Death throes of Apple"

this is after NeXT had gone out of hardware business, and they were also having some trouble selling OpenSTEP 4.2 for $2000 a copy.

I bought an ibook almost 2 1/2 years ago. I wasn't sure if I would use it very often, so I did not buy a powerbook. I now use the ibook over 80% of the time, instead of my much more powerful desktop (windows based) machine. Now I'm waiting for the ibook to die so I can upgrade to a new 17" Powerbook, but it won't die. I just wish I had opted for a powerbook from the beginning.

I remember going with my father to his investment banker's office in the early 90's. The PowerPC has just come out. The stock was trading around $12 and the investment advisor said Apple was dead. While things looked bleak, I felt that even if it got bought out and cut up, it had so many great things going on, it would be worth it. I told my father to invest in it, but he wouldn't be swayed by me. Oh well.

My last Apple was an Apple ][+ and I never switched to a Mac because they were completely closed. Since then I never found the Apple computers particularly attractive. Candies are for children.

i just got my first apple. g3 800 off ebay, $500 -- it still kicks ass (and i'm not going back)

I still don't understand how people consider Macs to be more expensive... when you look at the total cost of ownership I believe they are much less expensive.

IT managers and corporations are so worried about next quarter that they buy cheap hardware not stopping to consider all the expense of training, maintenance, hardware integration, and viruses.

In addition, if I'm going to ask someone to spend 8 hours a day in front of a computer why not show them a little respect and have it not be piece of junk. (Same goes for chairs...)

And if you want to play games get a game console...

Only reason I would eer buy an apple would be to put linux on it, oh wait, they are going to intel....

The reason people don't get macs is that they use such a closed operating system. It ranges from difficult to impossible to get at the settings that are truly core settings without aunhealthy amounts of knowledge about the system. They may look pretty, but they run pretty much nothing and are hardly powerful.

People don't get games consoles because anyone who has even pretended to be playing a PC game can see they are generally superior. Free online, better graphics, more games, backwards combaitibility for everything.....

dany says about Apples, "Candies are for children."

What is Windows then? I call it crap. You're welcome to eat as much of that as you like. I'll stick with my Apple "candy". The only time I even go near a Windows box is to test my sites on MicroSoft's horrible nightmare of a non-standards compliant web browser, IE. They're now about 7 years behind implementing CSS2. You are sheep!

I became totally committed to the Macintosh after I realized that I was spending 95% of my time fixing my PC, while my mac just hummed along.

Sure you can by a PC cheaper, and you get exactly what you pay for.

"The reason people don't get macs is that they use such a closed operating system. It ranges from difficult to impossible to get at the settings that are truly core settings without aunhealthy amounts of knowledge about the system. They may look pretty, but they run pretty much nothing and are hardly powerful"

Honestly you have no fracking clue what you are talking about. Maybe that was the case for OS 9 and down, but definitely not the case for OS X. It is build on BSD, so a little knowledge of BSD and you can go a long long way on a Mac.

At least I got the enjoyment of copy pasting your dumb statement in an email and forwarding it to all my friends

You people talk about "oh how pc's suck and macs dont, I love mac's, but I built my pc several years ago, and havent had one seconds problem with, if you know what your doing, IBM based pc's are very reliable, not to mention less expensive, unless the mac hardware gets cheaper I am not buying a mac, my pc works fine and always has, not to mention the gaming factor.

It’s funny how people say that Mac's are not overpriced. Any clearly thinking intellectual human being can comprehend the fact that Apple charges more for their hardware. Do you know why this is? Because they CONTROL their hardware. PC hardware has a market and therefore competition that continually makes companies strive for their piece of the consumer pie. A great example of this is the AMD vs. Intel war. Intel was the domination pc chip manufacturer leading up to about 1 years ago when AMD released their new line of chips, and ever since then, AMD has been continually gaining market share. Once Apple gets into the x64 market, they will see that their little hardware heist come to an end. Apple will soon see that people who want to use OS X will not buy Mac hardware, and instead, buy “PC” hardware and install OS X onto that.

But then again Apple could always fall back on their iPod sales.

Ten years ago, I started repairing PCs because they fascinated me. I did house calls, hardware support and software support, including regular tutoring. Windows was all too familiar by 2000, when I switched to Linux, hoping that it would provide the kind of flexibility I wanted. It waned me from games, but I still wanted more. I grew up as an artist-turned-engineer and Linux was lacking in the graphics department. The computer box was ugly (and no amount of LEDs will change the ugly look of cheap hardware). The computer was a tool. The acronym "PC" was an oxymoron. I bought a Mac and it was beautiful. And it was personal. And for the first time, I didn't care about where the configuration files were, because it all just worked right from Day 1. 5 years later, and I work in Apple Hardware Engineering. We make stuff that we love to use and we can only hope that others feel the same. And yeah it's expensive because we all feel that designers are typically underpaid and shareholders shafted. But not here. I switched to the Mac because it's personal.

It’s funny how people say that Mac's are not overpriced. Any clearly thinking intellectual human being can comprehend the fact that Apple charges more for their hardware. Do you know why this is? Because they CONTROL their hardware. PC hardware has a market and therefore competition that continually makes companies strive for their piece of the consumer pie. A great example of this is the AMD vs. Intel war. Intel was the domination pc chip manufacturer leading up to about 1 years ago when AMD released their new line of chips, and ever since then, AMD has been continually gaining market share. Once Apple gets into the x64 market, they will see that their little hardware heist come to an end. Apple will soon see that people who want to use OS X will not buy Mac hardware, and instead, buy “PC” hardware and install OS X onto that.

But then again Apple could always fall back on their iPod sales.

Well, here's the problem. Mac OS X, and in fact the entire Apple experience, is intuitive for a *certain kind of person*. Artists, fashion mavens, leftists, and other creative personalities can sit down with a 12-inch PowerBook and comprehend its sensitive, tasteful aesthetic. It's a rare instinct, this appreciation for beauty and truth; accountants and other such pencil-pushers haven't a prayer.

In summary, unattractive squares should stick to Linux and Windows. Macs are for different thinkers: http://img330.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=53424c4xi.jpg

anonymous coward said:

Why can I spend $300 on PC hardware and run OSX faster than a $5000 G5? Hmmmmmm???

because that is illegal. everything illegal is cheaper. why don't you just steal a mac and save yourself $300?

If i remember correctly, at that time Dell's online store was run off of webobjects, which became an apple product.

Well although I much prefer Apple's business style I should point out that Since Oct '97 Dell's value is about 20x while Apples is closer to 5x

Check out the charts yourself at bigcharts.com. Apple has been the better buy for the last 5 years but not since '97.

Apple has repeatedly stated that they won't be selling OS X as a standalone OS. So people who choose to use OS X on "PC hardware" will be doing so illegally.

Once OS X for x86 CPUs has been finished, Apple will continue to sell "it just works" to the same people who have been buying it along. If you don't want to pay the premium for Apple's hardware, then don't. Use Windows, and spend that extra money on virus/spyware removal software, registry cleaners, etc. Not sure how you'll make up for all the lost productivity, but that's for you to figure out. Have fun!

PS - look around at the people who bash Macs- they aren't Mac users. Look around at the people who bash Windows- it's *everybody*, including their own users. Connect the dots.

I have a iMac, the one with the cute little base and the swivel screen sticking out of it and I LOVE it! It's the best looking lamp I've ever bought.

But you're saying that it's also a computer? Hmmm. Well I've looked at it and I very much doubt that...

If something is "overpriced," it means you got less than what you paid for.

To me, that means all PCs – regardless of cost – are overpriced and every Mac is a steal.

From 1991 - "DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use wordwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form." (NY Times, Nov 26, 1991)

"Since then I never found the Apple computers particularly attractive. Candies are for children."

If you had a sense of style you would see which OS has the color scheme of a Fisher Price toy and which one is smoothly integrated (and all around better to look at).

I built my desktop for $300 and i'm pretty sure it will eat a $500 g3 (btw I have not put another dime into it). We use Macs at school and anything less than the 1.25GHz eMacs are a pain to work on. Windows "problems" are actually user problems. I take care of my machines and have never had a problem. Our Macs at school crash more often than mine.

As far as Macs being personable, I hope your personality, or needs for that matter, don't change other wise you'll need to buy a whole new machine.

Although in the past I have hated Macs with a passion, I do respect them now. Even after using them for many years now I still find them a nuisance to work on. I am constantly minimizing windows to find the one I need rather than clicking the appropriate tab on my task bar. Apple+tab doesn't help either.

"You people talk about "oh how pc's suck and macs dont, I love mac's, but I built my pc several years ago, and havent had one seconds problem with, if you know what your doing, IBM based pc's are very reliable"

THAT is the difference. If you really, truly know what you're doing, you can build and own a problem-free PC.

Mac users don't have to learn so much to keep their computers running, so even the noobs can be happy. Those that know what they're doing (I put myself into that category) can spend their time making their computers do MORE instead of making them do what they're supposed to.

Ok, Macs are pretty great, and I'll admit, OSX outranks XP (and by the looks of it, Vista), but, honestly, give KDE another couple of years, and nobody will EVER need to pay for an OS again (yes, I know KDE is a GUI). When this happens, what hardware would you buy? Does anyone actually BUY Mac hardware because it is "pretty"? C'mon, be really sophisticated and purchase a painting. Anyway...

Macs--->Need to become competative with PC pricing or offer something of need that is unavailable elsewhere (...ok, this is the cue for macgroupies to quote me and go on and on about what mac offers that everyone needs, and "no PC user can understand")

PCs---->Don't EVER buy a brand-name PC. Save your money for more memory! Idiots! Who'd ever buy a Dell? Build it yourself, or hire someone to.

...and what's the deal with Speak & Spells? It reads the word ... You spell it... What is up with that?!?!?

There is no point to the argument of the Mac Vs. Windows/Linux debate because it becomes a mud slinging contest everytime.

I worked in It for three years and the one thing I tired of was having to constantly fix Windows based PCs and replace cheap hardware that had failed. I became sick of it. The one thing I can add is this. Having used Evrything from Win 3.1x to XP Pro, over eight distrobutions of Linux, Solaris, and Mac I have found that my Windows based machines required enormous amounts of extra software and maintenance to keep them running at normal speed. With my Mac I just use it like a computer illiterate user and nothing goes wrong with it. I have no maintenance software and it runs perfectly. Its the one computer around my house I don't have to fix on a regular basis. The one thing I notice in most of these posts is that a majority of the people who post here are either in the IT industry or have a substantial amount of knowledge regarding hardware and software. Show me an average consumer that can build a PC and install a OS without any support. Very fiew can. Also the idea that the general user can use Linux is absurd. Incompatibility with common standards and difficult software istallations make this impossible for the general user.

And this elitist view that if you know what you are doing you will not have any problems with a Windows based machine. This is true, but not every consumer is a IT professional or has their nose stuck in manuals for 4 hours a day, and even then an IT professional still has to go through a tremendous amount of configuration in order to make the system stable and secure while on the internet. A consumer wants a product that works out of the box with minimal skill required. (Linux and Windows fan boys this applies to you.) If users had the time to learn all the things required to maintain a Windows system, their would not be any tech support jobs in this world.

Before you talk about this is cheaper and mine works fine, remember that you are not the average consumer. Most don't know as much and the validity of your claims is only supported by the fact that you know more about your computer than the average person.

People really should quit whining about how Apple has "proprietary" hardware (mainly because that's flat out wrong). Apple was the first to put USB into the mainstream. They've used SCSI and IDE for quite some time, and despite what some 12-year-old might post, there are very powerful -- far more powerful than what you might find on a Dell -- video cards made for the Mac. And, yes, there are games for the Mac. Take Halo for instance.

If you're whining about "proprietary" hardware, odds are you're a sore-loser investor who wants a piece of Apple's software, hardware, or music market. Learn to deal with your mistakes.

I own both a Dell and a Mac. I've owned computers since the Commodore 64. I've built several from parts. My paycheck depends on computers. My daughters next computer will be a Mac, so will my sons. The Dell is seldom used, and will soon be going on ebay and we will never have to deal with Dells awful customer service again. I'm sure there are several people with similar stories. The odd thing is that it seems, at least in my social circle, it is only the less tech savy that are still trudging along on pc's, used to be the other way around.

I've had a MacMini since they came out, and just bought a PowerBook 15" for work. Granted, the PowerBook was pretty expensive, but you definitely get what you pay for: Mobility Radeon 9700 w/128 MB, 1 GB memory, 100GB 7200 RPM hard drive (yes, 7200; not 4200 or 5400), 4 hours battery life (Apple claims 5.5, but realistically I get more like 4 hours), Bluetooth (no plugging in a stupid USB receiver for a wireless mouse, and wireless syncing with my phone).

Know what happens when you plug the PowerBook into an external monitor? It automatically figures out the resolution of the monitor and goes dual screen; no mucking about in display settings. Same thing for a TV. Want to mirror your display? Just select "Mirror" from the display menu. And when you unplug it? Everything goes back to normal.

I also never reboot my PowerBook. Just shut the lid and forget about it. When you want to work on it, open the lid again. Always works (my old Windows laptop crashed half the time when I tried this stunt).

Working at home at night in front of the TV? Keyboard lights up so you can see what you're doing. And unlike my old 17" Windows laptop, I can actually carry this thing around in my bag without breaking my back.

Don't even get me started with Expose, Dashboard, and having UNIX under the hood with Photoshop sitting on top.

All I can say is you get what you pay for. I'll never by another Windows laptop again.

I bought a Mac Mini about a month ago, just to see what Mac's are all about. I set it up on my desk along side my PC, with its own monitor, keyboard and mouse. It's a little different to use, I keep finding myself trying to tinker with it, but there is nothing to tinker with. So far I only use it for web surfing. I guess I would need to spend $3000+ and buy a G5 with all the mac software etc.. to really make it useful.

Steve Jobs understands that in the computer game it is not how you start but how you finish. Dell, Gateway, IBM, Sony, I don't care which one you have, there is a huge chain attached to your neck. Microsoft! If Bill does not innovate, who cares what parts you have inside? Microsoft has to run on the box and every part in those PC's can be purchased off the self. What separates Mac from everyone else is that Steve Jobs owns both and when he makes a new piece of technology and puts it into the computer, he has the advantage. I know, the Kernel is UNIX and thank goodness, but in a world where your competition can purchase what you have and package it better (DELL) than you can, it is what is inside that matters in today's market place, not the complete deal as it did in the past.

Therefore, DELL and IBM are stuck with Bill for while. That is unless they decide to jump ship and try Linus for a bit. Regardless, Jobs has control over all the pieces. It is for that reason that his applications developed in India, his hardware manufactured in Indonesia are designed in California. He can build and innovate an no one can have his toys and put them into theirs. Sorry Mike, but what you have is a distribution chain to set you apart, not the hardware. Mike, I wrote this on my Mac, after dumping your virus-laden piece of trash. I know, that is not your fault, that belongs to Bill but it is the company you keep that I can't stomach, and the only thing you got over the others is your build as you go model, not a better box.

Hahaha, I love reading windows vs mac blogs they always manage to crack me up. This one started off so nice as well. Windows users get so tied up in knots over stuff they have no experience over. Man I'm glad those days are gone for me. The next computer I get I am gonna treat myself an build it myself, the theory being duel run OSX and Vista at once. But anyway, Microsoft do own part of apple and I doubt apple with all their power are capable of taking on that market just yet, however it seems clear to me that they are on course for a head on battle with dell in the near future... Think this is impossible, just look at the iPod culture and how quick that caught on. People want what they want, you just have to make them want it. Generation X is old, Global teens are coming in to their prime... Watch out Dell here we come!

I ran Windows as a reluctant necessity and dual-booted UNIX on my laptop, etc, for the better part of a decade.

When Mac OS X came out I upgraded my daughter's discarded iMac and loaded it on there and I found it to be so much more reliable than Windows that I bought a Powerbook in November of 2002.

Now we've switched our entire company over to Apple desktops and laptops, and when I read about the latest worm that installs over instant messaging I just breath a sigh of relief at how imprevious our systems have been to such nastiness.

Sure the hardware costs more, but if you value your time at anything about a couple dollars an hour, that difference is quickly made up for by all the time you spend not trying to clean machines of spyware, etc. Plus the Apple will surprise you, you'll be like, wow, I can't believe that worked -- like you can install a printer driver from a print dialog -- try that on Windows.

And I've got UNIX in there, too, without booting into a different partition -- I can open a terminal window on my Mac and have grep, ls, pwd, find, Tcl, who, uptime, bash, even Apache and PostgreSQL. I can develop our company's products on my laptop and move them onto the PC-based appliances that we sell, all via source control with CVS.

Apple just doesn't care about gamers. They have consistantly thumbed their noses at us. I guess they think they are too good and don't want to spend any money on us. Well the feeling is mutual. Apple won't get any of my money until they come out of the stone-age and realize that games are played by the majority of us younger users. Apple just doesn't get it. They never have.

For the nitwit who said his $300.00 PC runs faster than any single G5...

err, yeah, riiiiggggghhhhtttttttt

Look at it this way. Does Windows come bundled with any DVD burning software in a boxed distro? Not that I'm aware of. How about firewall protection out of the box? Not until recently.

Basic movie editing software that works and looks good? Free with a new Apple computer.

When you add it all together, you get much more on a working, low-end Apple for the same price you'd pay to add upgrades and software on a low-end Dell computer.

The only reason I waste my time with Microsoft products on my Apple is because I have to be compatible with windows users. What a waste of time.

Microsoft itself has claimed that their Office product is better on the Mac than it is on Windows.

And the user interface is a lot easier to use that Windows is.

I disagree. Apple computers may appear overpriced at first glance, but their overall price is significantly lower. Do the math... let's take an iMac G5 for example. Not a penny spent over $1299 (if bought online). Now, let's look at a PC platform. Let's take a decent HP microtower PC ($600) tack on a nice LCD ($600), keyboard ($20), mouse ($20), cable modem ($70), and wireless router ($80). That's a total of $1390, with sales tax is $1401.20. Even though Apple seems to have a more expensive market, their overall price is lower. Not to mention that Macs need barely any effort to maintain, and you're just dumping money into a toilet to keep your PC spyware and virus-free. I understand with some PCs this is not the case (I am a dual-platform [mac and windows] user), but it applies to most. Plus, mac hardware and software is bundled. You get everything (except for wireless router) included in a mac. Macintosh is also easier to upgrade, automatically alerting you to updates that can be installed. Sometimes, you literally need an IT guy and a book entitled "Upgrading Windows for Dummies" to bring a PC to current level.

I don't touch any machine without kde on it. What the heck difference does mac vs. pc make if you're smart enough to avoid windows?

Yes if you want ill-fitting software (Windows) on ill-fitting hardware (generic-IBM-PC compatibles) you can go down the usual WinTel path but if you have standards, dislike insecurity and badly designed and inconsistent interfaces you are much better off following the Mac OS X / PowerMac path.

Of course I can program on any computer if I need to, but if I have a choice I would prefer the OS X development environment since it is based on Unix (near enough for easy porting) and allows easy extensibility. Heck, I can even run Windows on it
if I feel the need ... the latter should be much easier/faster in future on the Mac-Intel platforms. That will be crunch time for Dell et al. as OS X is not likely to port easily to generic-IBM-PC's!

I work in a PC office. No one believes my iBook was designed for two stories to concrete, but my brother has seen the results as consultant for State University NY All these guys sneer at my "expensive" iBook while their Dells break, crash and new Dells come in the door. My Mac keeps humming as they all buy iPods.

"Regardless, Jobs has control over all the pieces. It is for that reason that his applications developed in India,"

Er, false. His applications are developed in California.

To those that are addicted, KDE runs just fine under Mac OS X. check out Fink on sourceforge.

Reading all these excuses for PCs is kind of entertaining in a really irritating way. ...mostly people lying and exaggerating to prove a point. ...actually it's usually just the PC fanboys who need to do that.

I've had a G4 since 1999, and it still performs rather well as a mediacenter for my family room. stable as a rock, etc. i've had my share of PCs, and they're good for videogames etc. but when it really comes down to doing anything worthwhile at all, there's nothing like OS X. you'll really never know how great it is until you're using it. PC kids: make whatever assumptions you want to; you're only hurting yourself. someday you'll know the pleasure of a computer that doesn't suck, but i guarantee it wont come from MS. :)

Hey Drewlander, why would you put linux on a Mac? OS X is a unix based operating system. I'll take that anyday of linux.

Ask Bill Joy what version of UNIX he runs - OSX. His take on Linux? Why bother redoing what was done before? It's a great learning experience, but it's already been done before.

Someone has a $300 OS-X PC faster than $5000 G5, eh? A typical $5000 G5 has 4x2.5ghz processors, 4 gigs of RAM, and a terabyte of storage. I'd like to know where they buy their parts. ;-)

Apple knew and admitted that the Mac OS was flawed, and they did something about it! Which meaned trashing it and starting over from scratch!

MS knows it's OS is flawed and they refuse to do anything about it. Windows XP is just a pretty shell installed over Windows 3.1!

I run both a Mac Mini, and 2 self-built PCs running WinXP, and a laptop playing around with Linux. The PCs are basically entertainment, the Mac is for production work.

Also to the Linux crowd...Truthfully it is still too hard, but it is getting there. Also good job about getting the word out...I just saw a Linux magazine at a Kroger store!

I'm wondering what chart you're looking at, because when I set the chart at Google Finance to show me AAPL vs DELL for the last 8 years, I get AAPL up 902%, and DELL down 18%. Dell peaked in 2000.
-jcr