What's so special about Macs?

[Mr. SmartyPants]

another thing! No spyware. Sure there are dangerous stuff, but no spyware

[Fsiphskilm]

The thing is

[shooraijin]

Well, at the very least, Apple would have the same corporate complacency I accuse Microsoft of.

I think people are attuned to the possibility of an OS X virus or worm, but in the absence of one, no one is going to go running out into the street screaming the sky is falling, either.

[Arnobius]

Macs do have their disadvantages though

[mechana2015]

most mac users arn't gamers or if they are (like me) they're console gamers. (Go's to play Call of Duty on Mac...)

[Mr. SmartyPants]

thats why i have a decent pc and a mac

[LorentzForce]

Note: Macs can run games as well, just not all of them. Most (if not all) Blizzard-made games have Mac ports, as well as lots of other games which are ported.

If you're not a heavy gamer (heavy gamer meaning you get a new game every week) then this wouldn't matter at all.

[Arnobius]

Didn't expect that comic to bring out the wrath of mac users there...
Personally, I doubt us Windows users would even notice Macs (or Linux) if it wasn't for all the missionaries out there saying how much better things are than in Windows.
Personally, I have no animosity with Apple over the Mac.

...just don't get me started on the iPod

[Arnobius]

Well, at the very least, Apple would have the same corporate complacency I accuse Microsoft of.

Picked up the iPod Shuffle at the reccomend of some people I know. From this experience, I will NEVER AGAIN buy an Apple product. It took about 2 hours to UNDO the damage their iPod software did to my computer and get it back to working as it did before I tried to use it.

People talk about how well Apple software works, but this was done as badly as a fly-by-night online software company. Meanwhile, if you buy a program made by MS, it works.

Well, I'm off to the store to return this piece of garbage now...

[mechana2015]

Explain your positiion please. I-tunes is the only software required for that and I've never heard of it doing anything to someones computer.

[shooraijin]

(FWIW, I never use iTunes -- I either use my own player program, or MacAmp.)

[Arnobius]

Explain your positiion please. I-tunes is the only software required for that and I've never heard of it doing anything to someones computer.

Server crashed when doing my original response, so I have to redo the stupid thing with less detail.

First off, the iPod shuffle comes with software that you have to install (on Windows at least, though the card said Mac as well) so iTunes will recognize the player. Otherwise, it's just seen as a USB drive and you can't copy anything from iTunes.

This program managed to jam up portions of the OS telling the CD drive to open when told. It made iTunes run very erratically, sometimes not opening for literally 2-3 minutes (I thought the program had been corrupted). It took a rollback, an uninstall of iTunes, a session with System Mechanic to eliminate all loose registry threads and then a fresh install of iTunes minus the program included with the iPod to get the computer back to normal again.

Now the unit itself was very nice and from the few songs I was able to install before the modified software started crashing sounded very nice. The price ($149) was good for the size (1GB). Unfortunately, the program was clearly done poorly, so even after running all the programs to make sure the registry lined up and the hard drive was optimized, iTunes was corrupted all the way down to the registry.

It's a rare Win program that screws things up like that. Most (especially non-game) software works as needed, but this was badly done.

At least Best Buy gave me no hassle in makng the return...

[shooraijin]

No offense, but I would expect lots more laughing-slash-cursing at Apple in the Windows rags if iTunes really were that intrinsically screwed up.

Not that I defend iTunes, since I don't like the fact that it takes over all music-playing duties even on the Mac (I prefer my choice of player programs, spank you very much).

[Arnobius]

NOT iTunes. The program that came with the iPod. There is a difference.

Of course I'm in the minority of PC users, using the Athlon instead of the Pentium, so it could be that it doesn't work well for mine (which happens rarely, but does happen).

Oh well, like I said, I got my money back, so that's fine. But the upshot of it all is I won't trust an Apple program on my computer anymore after this

(iTunes is not a problem in itself because it came pre-installed, so there are no bugs to work out)

(and iTunes is mildly annoying with trying to take over all player duties, but is not that hard to modify back. Now Quicktime on the other hand is really annoying because there are a lot of things to look for)

[mechana2015]

NOT iTunes. The program that came with the iPod. There is a difference.

I wasn't aware that there was a second program...

[shooraijin]

Is it a separate sync daemon?

[Arnobius]

This is something that came with the iPod Shuffle (and btw, let me specify that this is a 1gb flash memory version that came out last month and not the 20gb hard drive iPod), which was needed (according to the instructions) to transfer music over to the iPod from the computer (maybe "sync" is the correct word). This thing was USB 2.0 only. WHo knows, maybe with a firewire connection, maybe things would run more smoothly, or maybe it's a problem with the new version (I know some relatives able to download some stuff directly to the original iPod using only WMP).

ANyhow, I was ticked off enough to rant on line yesterday. Today, I'd probably be more charatible and say I was disappointed by the quality of the software, and the harm it *did* cause makes me want to avoid apple based programs in the future to avoid similar problems...

[shooraijin]

Was it a separate program you had to kick off to do the sync, or was it something running in the background?

[Arnobius]

Was it a separate program you had to kick off to do the sync, or was it something running in the background?

Well, as I understand it, it was an add-on for iTunes. With it installed, iTunes knew I had an iPod attached. Without it, iTunes could not put music onto the player and the computer just thought this was a USB drive.

Unfortunately, due to whatever reason (see, I can be rational when I'm no longer ticked off ), this program really affected the computer performance, putting a drag on some programs and *really* affecting iTunes after the first use, so I would try to start the program and nothing would happen and it would suddenly start up minutes later. I tried all the usual things like running the registry cleaner and defragging the hard drive to improve performance, but it really ran in a manner that I'd consider unacceptable. I think the last straw for me was that for whatever reason, it hijacked my DVD-ROM drive, refusing to eject the disc, whatever the method. This problem lasted until I completely uninstalled iTunes and reinstalled it.

Like I said earlier this is the recently released iPod Shuffle and not the tried and tested hard drive iPod, so I acknowledge it may have just been a bug in the program...

...however, after having been recently subjected to a lot of "Apple is wonderful" stuff here, I just really had to rant about it.

[shooraijin]

Yes, but we're asking what's so special about Macs.

My opinion on iPods is that they're neat, but for me not all that useful. I'd rather just burn a CD and take that with me if I need a custom music mix, and if I really do need an MP3 player, my Palm Zire 72 has enough memory on the SD card to hold a couple hours worth of whatever I wanted to veg on.

I'm gratified that Apple is making bank on the iPod craze, although I also point out in all seriousness that the fact I love Macs doesn't necessarily mean I like Apple -- like any other corporation, they've made their share of foul-ups and done some actions I rather despised. I just like their computers.

[Arnobius]

Fair enough. I'm beginning to suspect that a lot of the debate boils down to: Mac users like Macs, PC users like PCs, most hate crossing over to the other platform and think it would be better if the Mac/PC worked more like a PC/Mac

[shooraijin]

[quote="AnimeHeretic"]Fair enough. I'm beginning to suspect that a lot of the debate boils down to: Mac users like Macs, PC users like PCs, most hate crossing over to the other platform and think it would be better if the Mac/PC worked more like a PC/Mac ]

I think that's probably about the sum of it.