The downsides of buying a new Mac

I can't say with Win 10, never tried it. Win 7, I personally thought was the best OS ever until I got a iMac. I say let's wait a few years and see what Microsoft has up it's sleeves about Win 10 (subscriptions). We all know that's coming. Remember both sides are greedy.

 

Unfortunately you're making the mistake of putting things in terms of Mac vs Windows when it's in fact Mac vs PC.
And when it comes to iMacs it's all-in-ones vs traditional desktops.

And when you put things in their proper context there's no objective reason to buy Apple's toys (yes, I'm being derogatory).
As to subjective buying... well, iMacs look the part, and that's about it.

 

When I made the car analogy I was thinking more about the general difference between a Ferrari and a Vauxhall, rather than the speed they can achieve. There are far more Vauxhalls on the road than Ferraris. I still can't find a downside to buying a Mac.

 

I have no real reply to this statement. Updates on anything are important. For me, they are usually a minor inconvenience while I am using a computer. I can't imagine why anyone would look forward to them.

 

That's the great thing about being Microsoft free; I don't have to worry about MS and its nefarious plans anymore.

 

I'm not going to bash Macs, as much as I hate macOS, because what OS is best, is nothing more than a personal choice. But for me, Windows 10 is fast (on an eight year old CPU), very stable and without doing much to secure my computer, I never get infected.

For a while on my main computer, it sometimes would freeze rather than going to sleep. But it's working fine now and that is the only issue or note that I've had on this computer, since doing a clean install of Windows 10.

 

Haven't read whole of the topic, but I agree that I don't have any problems with Win 8. I wanted to buy a Mac desktop and laptop, but prices are ridiculous, I refuse to get ripped off. With PC's you get a better CPU, GPU and bigger SSD, plus I can even play my favorite video games on Windows. I would be insane to switch to a Mac.

 

when you are rich , it doesn't matter anymore, rich people buy luxury stuff and eat in expensive restaurants because they can afford what the "masses" can't.
Buying expensive thing isn't because they like to waste money, but because it shows an higher social status and some people are very receptive to that.
Showing off an 2000$ Iphone is more impressing than showing off a flip phone...

 

That's the thing, I can afford a lot of things, but I don't like being ripped off, no matter if I was a millionaire, which I'm not. For example, housing prices in Holland are getting ridiculous. You shouldn't have to pay 300.000 euro for a 90m2 apartment. There are also certain premium ice cream brands that I refuse to buy. A product (no matter what) must be fairly priced.

 

You don’t necessarily have to be rich to afford a Mac. I’m certainly not wealthy, but I needed to replace my desktop computer with another desktop. My custom built box ran Win 7 for a number of years and I even re-built it a few times. I liked Win 7 and I expected to be able to run it until it was unsupported. It’s not that I hate Microsoft, but the reality is that they’ve seriously disappointed and annoyed me with many of their recent actions and policies.

I’m not going to blame the weenies, beanies, borkies or whatever. I’m certainly not going to attack the MS user base and describe them in derogatory terms. It’s pretty pointless and fruitless attacking or hating anything. I don’t even hate Win 10, I just don’t want to run it. I looked at and considered a variety of alternatives and in the end the iMac I bought fulfilled everything I needed or required. It was more powerful than my old machine, it took up less space, the smaller keyboard was easier for me to use (I’m physically paralysed in the right arm and hand), it's lighter and easier for me to physically manipulate. Furthermore its monitor size is actually slightly larger than my old monitor but that isn’t a problem or disadvantage for me. For the same money I very probably could have bought a regular computer that was more powerful, but my old box was more than ample for what I wanted or required.

At the end of the day, after much deliberation and consideration, I bought the iMac. Just the security improvement was worth it and not having to run an AV makes it all worthwhile. For me, it is all upside.

 

I'm not rich. I don't own an iPhone. I'm still using a flip phone. But I do own an iMac now.

I have to chuckle at this whole thread. I go on many Mac forums and 90% to 95% of the members over there wouldn't own or want anything to do with Microsoft. It's taboo to them. Now on Wilders here where it's 90% to 95% Microsoft it's the other way around where a Mac is taboo.
To me I have the best of both worlds, Win 7 and macOS Mojave.
Like it's always said "To Each His Own"

 

I have an old BlackBerry ... a flip phone would be an upgrade lol.

 

@ProTruckDriver talking about Chromebook is even worse "booo evil Google... Booo.. .privacy invasion... Booo... Data mining..."

@Daveski17 lol this thing still functioning?

Personally i have 4 laptops (2 win10, 2 Linux MX) 3 smartphones (2 android, 1 win10 mobile) and 2 smartwatches

Next week, i will buy a 10inch tablet, reading E-books on my phones even if they are 6+inches is lame.

Common things between all those devices? I am picky over the hardware spec/price ratio.

 

If you have the spare time and resources at some point I recommend giving Mint a test spin. I am currently running it on a server at work right now that would not boot with Ubuntu installed. Plus, it will run on a Mac or a PC.

 

Just about lol.

 

I might try it one day. I ran LXLE for a while on an old laptop that originally ran Vista.

http://www.lxle.net/

 

What are you talking about?

 

Taboos. Mention Google, then you have 20 dudes posting how bad it is.

 

Heh...hate to be "that guy" but when someone mentions Google these days to me, three things pop into my mind:
Project Maven, Dragonfly, and the way Google still keeps tracking Android users location even when explicitly told not to.

Long gone the days "don't be evil". Still, many grunt workers in Silicon Valley think they are changing world for better.

 

In some ways, they are. DoH, HTTP 2.0, etc are all being pushed by Google through Chrome since the internet world these days is so centered around Google.

 

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/defragging-and-defraggler.414706/

This is just one more for the iMac. It does its own House Cleaning by itself always running faster and snappier. Doesn't need any outside help on this.

Okay, I'll give you a downside for a iMac. "System Restore" The iMac does not have it. You have to use one of your back up's to do a system restore on an iMac. It needs some outside help, Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper which are both bootable.

 

I don't really want to wade into the OS debates or the evil company commentary too much, but I will make a couple of points:

• If people willingly pay for a product in an arm's length market transaction and if the purchaser feels they're satisfied for the money spent, then the selling company isn't "evil" or any more "greedy" than any other corporation in a capitalist market. (If you want to see greedy check out the HBO documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley regarding Theranos and their largely fictitious blood lab in a box. People's medical results were being toyed with to promote a product and business that essentially didn't exist. I just watched it last night.)
• Less than 10% of Apple's Net Sales for 2018 ( https://s22.q4cdn.com/396847794/files/doc_financials/quarterly/2018/Q4/Net-Sales-By-Category-Qtrly-FY18.pdf ) came from the sale of Mac products. Apple is primarily a phone company nowadays (~63% of revenue), and a services (app store, music store, AppleTV, etc) company secondarily (~14% of revenue).
• No one generally cares what OS another person uses or prefers. It is a personal preference. That being said, I daily use both Windows 10 (work) and macOS 10.14 (home/personal). I definitely prefer macOS after having used both operating system lines for over 25 years. I can get more done faster on a Mac than I can on Windows. But that's me, and that's my experience. Someone new to the OS likely wouldn't share the same opinion. A lot of it comes down to knowledge and habits. Each OS is different so they clearly involve different knowledge sets and work habits. Many people that argue against a given OS do so out of place of ignorance when they say things like "you can't easily do X on the other OS."

No, what I really wanted to comment about was this stupid article that started this entire discussion. The ZDNet guy had a 2013 Apple MacBook Pro which he voluntarily chose to replace with a brand new MacBook Pro. He made the purchase. He knew what he was getting since he had the prior product. It's not like he was forced to change hardware brands or operating systems against his will for work or something. He just wants to vent that it was: (1) expensive, (2) limited selection, and (3) migration was problematic. That's largely it. Points (1) and (2) come with the territory, and have been debated for decades. Obviously, the Windows PC ecosystem is going to provide far more choice than Apple's walled garden, and most likely cheaper due to the fact that you have, say, 20 different vendors willing to step up and supply any given PC component you want for your PC build... whereas with Apple they have made that decision for the buyer.

As for point (3) regarding migrations. I almost never utilize such tools or methods when I start with a new computer, either Mac or PC. I almost always start with a clean build. Yes, it means some leg-work in re-installing apps and moving data files over. But it's provably clean, and I know what state my computer, apps, and data files are in... as almost everything was done as a conscious choice. Cruft just builds up in older OS installations. (Old apps, old settings, old / incompatible hardware drivers for devices you no longer use, etc. I will say, that my personal experience is that Windows is worse about generating cruft than macOS.)

 

Well said Alec. I totally agree that as long as people freely pay the prize the company asks, no one is evil. No one forces anyone to buy a Mac and everyone is free to chose, even if you dont want to pay anything for an OS. I have used Windows and Linux since the 90s. Never even looked at a Mac, until a couple of weeks ago when I decided I wanted to try it. I chose to pay the prize they asked, fully aware of that the (cheapest but yet expencive) iMac 27 couldnt par with the specs I have on my Linux/windows computer that I built my self, and it is two years old already. Sure, I cant play all the games I can play on Windows and Linux (Linux thanks to proton) but for everything else Mac is worth the prize. I wanted to pay for the esthetics mainly plus it is a whole new world in computers for me, no evil company forced me to do that.

 

Myer to stop selling Apple products
Declares them "unprofitable"
March 23, 2019
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/myer-to-stop-selling-apple-products-522851

 

As a recent switcher to Apple I have not found them to be less intuitive or finicky but I have found my Windows machines to be that. I think the total cost of ownership evens out over time at on high end desktops. I also haven't has to install any additional programs on my iMac, and I surely would have on my former windows machines. But to each his own.