[Singh]

I just arrived at my uncle's house to discover that the good old windows 2k that I had installed had been removed....only to be replaced by..



A FRICKIN MACTINTOSH!!!


My uncle has unleashed an evil unlike any other, with a strange box with an apple symbol on it now lying in front of the PC and connected to teh computer below, probably sucking all the evil life force out of it. Its sitting there and denying me the ability to play any good games out of it's sheer spite for compatibility, and the desktop is unlike anything I have seen - producing a horrible sense of chaos to teh enire thing which I am unable to understand.


God help me from this evil thing!

[WMCoolmon]

Don't worry, Freespace 2 has been ported to the Macintosh.

Or you can install Linux, and then Cedega, and then Windows games.

Just be glad he didn't buy an iPod Shuffle.

[n00by]

Hey,  don't you bash those Apples...Macs are cool....if you intend to work with them (although there ARE games availiable for the Mac). My father's PowerBook never crashed since he bought it....I want to see a Win2k machine achieve THAT;7. And the user interface of the Mac is better than the Window$ one IMHO....

....the Shuffle isn't that bad, either....

Oh...and...I like chaos..:devil:

[Ransom]

The Mac OS is infinitely better for work. It just sucks at games. Though, it does have Clan Lord/Arindal (which are being ported to Windows now anyway) and Project Magellan, which has some of the most addictive music I've heard.

I personally can't figure out why people have so many problems working operating systems they're not used to. I'd only ever used a mac until I was about 13 or something when I got my first PC, and had no trouble picking up Windows. The desktop of both OSes is practically identical anyway, except Mac's start menu is at the top and the HD icon is on the opposite side of the screen.

[vyper]

Yes, it's great for work unless you're trying to compile Win32 applications for mass distribution.

[Carl]

Macs are some kind of infernal machines from the neitherworld, luring people in with pretty colors and transparent cases, then devouring them, leaving only their shadow.

[aldo_14]

I have now seen mac games being sold on the high street, which is a bit of a first in my experience - albeit they're at least a pav* more than the PC equivalent.


*pav=pavarotti=tenor=tenner=£10

[Flipside]

Theres loads of games for Macintosh...

Quake 2....
Warchraft 3....
...
Photoshop....

errr...

[Kamikaze]

I'll take Mac OS over Windows any day. Admittedly, I'm biased since I never had a Windows machine until I was 11 or so.

[StratComm]

It's the shortcut commands (or the lack thereof) that I find most annoying, not the admittedly polished graphical interface.  By default, keyboard control is off on the new OS.  I use the keyboard all the time, and not being able to use it to navigate a simple window when I want to just irks me.  And the fact that Macs have never even paid lip service to the concept of backwards compatability is another annoyance.  They're generally solid machines (I've actually seen a Mac crash on more than one occasion, and believe me, it's not pretty) but they are overpriced for a piece of hardware that doesn't interact with the rest of the computing world well.

[Ransom]

Originally posted by vyper
Yes, it's great for work unless you're trying to compile Win32 applications for mass distribution.

Can you compile Mac applications with Windows?

As far as games go, Mac does generally get the more popular ones ported 6 or 12 months after it was released on everything else and the sequel's already been announced (this did actually happen with Battlefield 1942). But hey, the entire Myst series supports it out of the box, so it can't be that bad.

[mitac]

The only company I know of that releases their games for Mac and PC at the same time is Blizzard. They did so at least since D2. WoW works on Macintoshs, what else do you need?

[redmenace]

[Galemp]

If you want to play all the latest games with top-notch graphics and reliability, then buy a friggin console. If you want to actually use your computer then get a Mac.

I am so friggin tired of how every time I minimize something, Windows takes ten minutes to redraw everything on the desktop. I'm also tired of having to take care of people who blitely run AIM, KaZaA, and other evil software whose computers are infested with viruses, adware, and spyware slowing their system to a crawl.

And don't talk to me about Linux. Yes, it's fantastic, but it's not new-user friendly and none of the software titles I use are available on it.

Next computer I get (2-3 years) is gonna be a top-of-the-line Mac.

[Swamp_Thing]

The only Mac i like is a Mac Gyver.

[Clave]

I'm also sick of people saying the same old things...

1.  'Macs are expensive' - Yes they cost more but in terms of the overall price you pay during the life of your computer, they actually work out cheaper.

2.  'There are no Mac games' - Wrong again! there are thousands of games - Doom 3, WoW, CoD, Quake 3, Sims, blah, blah, it may be nowhere near the number on PC, but usually only the best get ported/cross-platformed anyway, and they are usually bug-free...

2a.  I have an XBox and PS2 as well, so

3.  Viruses - I don't even have antivirus software installed....

4.  Spyware - what's that?

5.  Windows Service Packs - don't make me laugh, OSX gets regular updates which pretty much work, without the pages of 'this may cause problems' crap that you get from MS.  And when there is a major upgrade - like the upcoming 10.4 'Tiger' you pay a reasonable amount for it....

6.  Working - Less downtime = more productivity, that's a simple message for business.

7.  'Macs are not compatible' Another bit bull****, I use Office - 100% compatible with your version, Photoshop - again 100% Vectorworks (CAD) dual versions on the install CD, Firefox and IE browsers, GoLive, Illustrator, Imageready, Acrobat, Lightwave, Freehand, Quicktime and Windows Media Player, as well as iRC, ICQ, YIM, and other misc crap.

True you can't directly use Win programs without an emulator, but there's nothing I really need to do that would require that...

8.  Keyboard shortcuts? wtf? there are more shortcuts and cool tricks with the keyboard than you can possibly remember.

9.  Features - The Dock, it's just so much more than a program launcher, you can drag anything down there, programs, games, files, films, your whole HD and instantly retrieve it.  If for instance you are playing a movie and minimise it to The Dock, you will see a tiny window of the movie playing down there which enlarges as the mouse moves over it.  Titles are also retained, I can minimise this window and moving the mouse along pops up the title 'Hard Light Productions Forums - Hard Light' (In slick shaded text) In all, it's about the most easy and intuitive interface ever designed... and it can be placed left, right, or bottom of the screen.

Other cool stuff? there's loads, but the one I use most at work is the ability to create PDF files from anything it's soo easy - click 'Print' click 'Save as PDF' and you're done.  That feature alone has probably saved thousands where I work..

10.  Stability - It's very rare to have an issue, but the System will protect itself, say for instance you have a large Photoshop file which causes Photoshop itself to crash or hang, you can 'Force Quit' which shuts down Photoshop and leaves everything else unaffected, and you go on working with no problem.

11. Hardware - Macs use standard SATA drives, standard RAM, pretty much any USB device you can name, most printers, you can get gamepads, joysticks, tablets, external drives etc. etc. oh and iPods also the build quality of he case is the best, I mean solid aluminium panels, clean design internally (no cable clutter) and there are USB + Firewire ports on the front! who'd have thought?

Anyhoo, I starting to get too evangilistic now, so I'll STFU, but leave you with this; it's getting near to my 19th straight year of using Macs, and one hardware failure, yes one...

[aldo_14]

I have nothing against macs myself, I just don't see a particularly compelling reason to buy one.  Given that I don't spend money on anything other than games (and games are pricier on macs based on what I've seen on the high street - totally unfair on the purchaser but it's true), and that I can handle the various foibles of PC-dom, I don't want to spend the money on a mac.

That and AFAIK you can't get 3ds max for it..... there are as many reason to not buy a mac as there are to buy one; it's all a matter of perspective.  I ****ing hate these stupid 'my dicks bigger than yours' arguements about consoles, games, types of computer, processors, graphics cards, joysticks.........

[vyper]

Originally posted by Ransom Arceihn

Can you compile Mac applications with Windows?

As far as games go, Mac does generally get the more popular ones ported 6 or 12 months after it was released on everything else and the sequel's already been announced (this did actually happen with Battlefield 1942). But hey, the entire Myst series supports it out of the box, so it can't be that bad.

No, but since more home users have Windows  (or so we're told) it doesn't matter too much.

[Clave]

Originally posted by aldo_14
I have nothing against macs myself, I just don't see a particularly compelling reason to buy one.  Given that I don't spend money on anything other than games (and games are pricier on macs based on what I've seen on the high street - totally unfair on the purchaser but it's true), and that I can handle the various foibles of PC-dom, I don't want to spend the money on a mac.

That and AFAIK you can't get 3ds max for it..... there are as many reason to not buy a max as there are to buy one; it's all a matter of perspective.  I ****ing hate these stupid 'my dicks bigger than yours' arguements about consoles, games, types of computer, processors, graphics cards, joysticks.........

Agreed, and yeah, the 3DS Max thing really sucks - they could sell many thousands more copies if they bothered with a Mac version.  In the meantime Lightwave is picking up the business....

[WMCoolmon]

The only hardware failure I can remember is the MP3+5.1 card I bought that turned out to be completely incompatible with my motherboard, and two hard drive failures in the day that 200 MB was a helluva lot. (After a PSU replacement, no more problems)

I don't have any problems with excessive crashing in Windows, and (as someone pointed out), the lack of compatibility with macs is a serious drawback. In fact, the biggest problem I've noticed is slowdowns - probably from installing dozens to hundreds of tiny apps on my current setup that I would never have been able to even use on a Mac.

I'd also have to buy a replacement mouse if I wanted the same level of functionality as my current one.

I wouldn't mind having a mac, but by buying one I'd also commit myself to a very cultish portion of the computer world (ie a crapload of stuff wouldn't work on them.) And if I use Linux, then I might as well buy a PC for much less.

I'd much rather spend my money on an iPod + someone to develop musepack for ipodlinux, or upgrade my computer, rather than replace it with a mac. It's rare that I upgrade computers without using *any* components from my previous ones, too.