Apple going downhill?

[Vonhelmet]

Leopard was very well received. Vista was a train wreck.

Epic troll.

 

[Fillado]

Leopard was very well received. Vista was a train wreck.

Epic troll.

In public opinion it was a train wreck. Having, you know, used it (SP1+) it was actually very good. Not as good as Leopard but still good.

Bootm line facts.

iPhone took over teh Smartphone market..as in literall they now own it...

You were talking of la la land?

 

[bigredshark]

you can quote random statistics if you want, here's one, apple are most profitable mobile phone maker full stop, after three years in the market...

 

[panda_uk]

I've been using macs for nearly 10 years and I think they have started to go downhill and way too expensive for what essentially is just an operating system now. I love their ethos and standards but I think it has dropped in the past few years. I'm in the process of moving over to pc's so I can build and upgrade the pc when I need to and its not limited the amount of upgrades.

 

[MagicBoy]

Remember that PCs have more than one mouse button

 

[panda_uk]

ho ho yeah, though I have an mx518 and a tablet and pen I'll try and muddle through

 

[mr.sly]

Remember that PCs have more than one mouse button

lol, buttons are so 1980s. Its all about multi-touch surfaces baby!

 

[cu3ed]

In public opinion it was a train wreck. Having, you know, used it (SP1+) it was actually very good. Not as good as Leopard but still good.

You were talking of la la land?

Ahh thats a good one from Wikipedia isnt it?...yea....shame its not accurate, as the iPhone share was over 19% and eating quickly into the Berry market, so when I say owning the marlet I mean they are owning it and they aint got nuthin to ansewer the take over.

 

[Alex_L]

you'd expect that the incumbents in the smartphone industry would have the majority of market share, rarely does any company go from 0 to market leader overnight.

Considering Apples managed to get to 13.7% in about 2.5 years when they aren't truly global yet and have pretty restricted distribution in most countries and where it is available its a premium product is pretty phenomenal in my opinion

 

[James J]

The iPhone was only limited to O2 for ages as well, its now unlocked to work on all networks. The sales of it now are gonna rocket

 

[Arachnae]

Why would you compare an overpriced desktop to the more overpriced mac just because they're similar spec?

If you can build an i7 homebrew system for the same why not use that to compare to it? better performance for the same price.. its a no brainer really.

I'm trying to look at it all objectively, but i'm struggling to justify the extra money.

I have an iphone, and I will admit I like it a lot.. they have made a good product there. But at the same time there are also plenty of other handsets out there, and of course not everyone wants a smartphone. So to say apple has a huge grasp on the market is skewing the numbers a hell of a lot.. just like when apple announced they had 21 million people using mac osx. Technically it is true since iphone os is a type of mac os... but it's hardly a genuine representation.

 

[mr.sly]

Because you're comparing apples and oranges.

With the home-brew machine you're building in your head you won't be choosing parts that are the same as what you'll get in a Mac Pro. The case is probably a generic £40 case, nowhere near the same build quality as a Mac Pro or as easy to upgrade your parts. Will your home-brew machine come with the same Environmental Status Report? Did you include one of the best keyboards ever made with your machine?

Then include the Apple support you receive for your money, if anything does go wrong. You won't be including the money spent on building a quality machine, so you only have to plug-in the power and the monitor and you're up and running. So not only time saved but hassle free. While I'm enjoying time with family and friends you'll be attaching fans, finding the latest drivers for your hardware and maybe finding out parts aren't compatible with each other.

There's plenty of other reasons, but there's no point comparing the two because as I said it's apples and oranges.

 

[Arachnae]

Of course you won't be using the same parts.. but my pc is of high quality parts, including the case and the cooling. This is overclockers.co.uk, not some ****ty dell job.

The difference between apple support and sending off any other broken part for warranty? I have to diagnose which part it is.

I think perhaps you have had a bad experience with a self build.. but tbh I'm not sure you are doing anything but attacking one preference over another. It took me under an hour to build my pc including routing the cables for an efficient flow. If I hadn't bothered it's a 40 min job max..
Let's face it... what you are essentially saying now, is that an apple is a better choice than a self-build of better spec because you can use it out of the box?

 

[LordSplodge]

not some ****ty Dell job.

Actually Dell make some very good Workstations that cost as much as a Mac Pro.

Dell don't just make entry level consumer machines, you know?

 

[Vonhelmet]

VIRUSES. Not virii, and not yet anyway. It will happen.

It might, but it's less likely as OS X has a more sensible approach to security in terms of non-admin user accounts and no-exec by default. Or, if you believe the market share argument, the platform is less targetable due to being smaller, and I kinda hope it stays that way.

You paid twice as much when free Avast and Spybot would've solved those problems.

Sometimes it's nice not to have to worry about these things at all.

And taking a little time to investigate compatibility and known hardware combinations (also free) would've solved the other.

Sometimes it's nice not to have to worry about these things at all. Again.

And worrying about Windows? I couldn't tell you the last time I've worried about anything to do with Windows. Whereas almost every time my mac boots I get pangs in my stomach.. I've seen the boot folder ???, blank screen, grey screens and spinning wheel of death more times that I want to remember!

Meh. I could say the same thing for Windows, and I'd hazard that I'd be able to find more proportionately more people wound up by Windows crashing and playing silly buggers than for OS X doing the same.

Just playing devil's advocate here....

Either way, I'm convined they're going downhill. I haven't had one that works 100% yet in the last 3 yrs.

I think it's fair to say that you're the exception.

 

[mr.sly]

Of course you won't be using the same parts.. but my pc is of high quality parts, including the case and the cooling. This is overclockers.co.uk, not some ****ty dell job.

The difference between apple support and sending off any other broken part for warranty? I have to diagnose which part it is.

I think perhaps you have had a bad experience with a self build.. but tbh I'm not sure you are doing anything but attacking one preference over another. It took me under an hour to build my pc including routing the cables for an efficient flow. If I hadn't bothered it's a 40 min job max..
Let's face it... what you are essentially saying now, is that an apple is a better choice than a self-build of better spec because you can use it out of the box?

I never side either was better, both have their pros and cons. I've had no problems with self-builds, just problems and annoyances with Windows which finally made me switch.

The point is you can't compare the price because they're different and when you think about everything you get with Apple products, not just compare the CPU speed and the amount of RAM you get they're not overpriced.

There's more to Apple support than having their support staff diagnose the problem. If a part breaks in yours, you have to diagnose your machine, find the part that's broken, take it out, box it up, contact support to get an RMA number, pay to send it off, wait for them to test the part and decide if it can be replaced under warranty, then wait for the part to arrive and re-fit it. Whereas you can take an Apple product to the store and depending on how broken the product is get it fixed the same day. Minimising down time, and considering they're aimed at creative professionals, it could have saved them losing work, money and reputation.

But if you really want to compare your self build with a Mac Pro (bare in mind its likely to be refreshed in the next couple of months). Why don't you post your complete rig, cables, fans, case and everything else you have in there with some benchmarks. Then we'll at least be able to do a more even comparison.

 

[Fillado]

If we setup a poll saying who had a trouble free mac experience then everything would show abit more clearly.

2Ghz Core Duo MacBook:

Palmrest discolouration - replaced in 30mins at an Apple Store

Random Rebooting (apparently due to a badly placed wire around the heatsink on all first-run MacBooks causing a short circuit) - fixed via a Firmware update.

Battery lasting about 20mins (with minimal surfing on WiFi) despite it only having about 200ish charge cycles - bought a new one which is still above its initial charge capacity according to Coconut Battery.

A pin on the MagSafe connector has lost its springyness. As far as I can tell all this does is cause the light to go out but still gives power to the laptop - unplugging and plugging back in seems to fix it when this occurs.


It hasn't been trouble free. But the support in the Apple Store has been excellent and that as far as the "functional hardware" is concerned it has lasted almost 3.5 years. Which is far more than a store-bought PC and a self build has lasted...

 

[Arachnae]

Maybe you have bought expensive parts, but you DONT have Workstation level PSU, Motherboard, CPU or memory.

As I said, I have the experience of both.

As for building a PC in under an hour, LOL. Its an hour to build, then maybe a day to install windows, find drivers, fix problems.

I had none of that with my Macbook Pro and one with my Mac Pro, although it was quite a large one.

Self builds *are* more hassle than a mac out of the box. There is *NO* debate about this. People get dud macs but then they only post because they are dud.

If we setup a poll saying who had a trouble free mac experience then everything would show abit more clearly.

so what you're saying, is that a day less of use is not worth the monumental performance gain? You don't half talk rubbish.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

so what you're saying, is that a day less of use is not worth the monumental performance gain? You don't half talk rubbish.

Horses for courses.

If you want a workstation, don't compare it to a self build PC. Regardless of performance.

 

["andy"]

so what you're saying, is that a day less of use is not worth the monumental performance gain? You don't half talk rubbish.

especially when he knows how to do all the stuff anyway

i dont see how installing drivers to a new pc can take more than 30mins. even windows only takes about 40mins to install thesedays