Sample section: Mac vs PC, which one to buy?
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I just finished this section. It’s part of the Technologies section and gets into the whole, “what should I buy a Mac or PC?”. As you will read I am suggesting a PC. Yes, I know the Intel-based Macs can run Windows and most major applications have Mac versions. So I’d like some feedback on this section. What do you think? Am I on the mark? Don’t be shy. Leave a comment, or three.
When you’re buying that computer the next thing you need to decide is whether to buy a Mac or a PC. Before I get to my recommendation, I need to tell you about my computing history and I think you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
My first computer was an Apple IIe. My parents bought it my freshman year in high school. Right after, by the way, I typed my first and last term paper on a typewriter (I got a D because I misspelled “society” wrong every time, see Mrs. Miles I got a lot better). Since then I’ve had mostly Macs. I had a Mac all through college, grad school, and my first jobs. Yes, I knew about PCs and started to work with them in grad school, but I still loved my Mac. When I got into pharma I was a hard-core Mac person. I even had a desktop background that read “You can take my Mac when you pry my cold dead hands from my mouse.”. I started to discover then, though, that going against the flow was not a good thing. I had to have two computers in my office because Macs were only begrudgingly allowed on the network and the corporate e-mail was MS Exchange. Sure I did my best to show how much better and cooler I was, but I should have seen it was a losing battle. I lost the battle when I moved to Canada. That branch of the company was very anti-Mac. I still had a Mac and a PC, but I used the Mac less and less. When I started out on my own, I had to choose, like you, which to buy. I chose PC. It was cheaper and I had learned that it was a lot easier to go with the flow. Work with what everyone else had than try to fight it.
My advice then, PC. Yikes, I know. This is assuming you have a choice, most big companies aren’t going to give you one. You use what they use. Period. End of discussion. However, things have gotten a little more complicated here in the Summer of 2006. Apple is now using the same kind of chips that PCs use and people are starting (and Apple is encouraging this) to load Windows on their Mac with the Mac operating system. Hmm, so I can have a Mac and a PC in one computer. Why not that? Well right now it’s only been a few months since this sea-change has occurred and the jury is still out on how well this is going to work for people beyond advanced users.
In the end, it is going to come down to what you like to work on and what you do. If you just e-mail documents to people, use blogs and RSS for information, and your collaboration systems are web-based, this might just be a non-issue. I do love the way the Mac laptops look (MacBooks). The features are cool and Mac OS X is stable and powerful. Macs have a lot going for them, except that most business people don’t use them. So think about what you do, how you do it, and who you have to work with, then decide. Don’t be afraid to buy your friendly neighborhood geek a beer (maybe a burger too, because we don’t get out much) and ask what they think. Remember this is going to be the primary tool in your workday besides the phone, so don’t rush the decision.
Tags: Daddy Wears Slippers to Work, telework, telecommute, work at home, work from home
July 26th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
I think your recomendation is a good one.
Back in the day, the first computer I was exposed to was an Apple II, and if I remember correctly, it didn’t even come with a disk drive — we used a cassette recorder. Then we added a 5 1/4 floppy disc drive (back when the discs really were floppy — a magnetic disc in a cardboard sleeve), and we were realy cool when we added a second disc drive (again, if my memory serves me, the computer didn’t have a hard drive).
As a snotty kid in junior high school, I turned my nose up at Mr. Edwards, the math teacher who was trying to introduce his class to computing with a Tandy (later RadioShack) TRS-80.
But I digress. The PC is the better recomendation if you want to be in sync with the vast majority of the rest of the world. If you want to be idiosycratic, go with Mac, but never complain if you feel out of step — remember, that’s why you chose the Mac.
July 26th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Thanks Jim. Yep my first Apple IIe had the brand new dual 5 1/4 side-by-side floppy drive and later even a colour monitor! In fact for the Wordpressor that my Dad bought he had to put in a card and replace keys to allow for a brand new concept … keyboard commands.
In college, I thought I was hot sh*t because my Mac SE had a whopping 20 meg HD.
Yes that out-of-syncness is becoming a little less of an issue in the Web 2.0 world, but I know that there are a ton of cool site and tools that only work in IE and Safari is a minor after thought.
And then when you factor in the tremendous cost difference, well I think the budget conscious person is going to see the bottom line as the determining factor.
July 27th, 2006 at 11:16 am
First this has to be said: Designing for IE only is poor design. It’s like building furniture that can only go in a house with no locks on the doors. Using proprietary web software is poor form.
I’m a Mac guy, and here’s how I advise people…
If computers scare you, then go with what you know, and that’s probably a PC. There are enough differences between OSX and Windows that the skittish user will be thrown.
If you’re comfortable with computers and you just want something that works, then get a Mac. The bundled apps (iLife, Mail, etc.) work very well together. OSX is stable and secure. Apple does a great job of considering the details that makes everything just a little nicer, a little easier. The price premium (”Tremendous” is an overstatement.) is worth it.
If you want to tweak and mod your computer, get a PC. You’ll be happier shopping among the hundreds of parts suppliers to find that perfect configuration.
July 27th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Great points Cory. I agree, designing for just IE is a poor choice, and it is better, but as Microsoft has recently shown, there are still problems out there for non-IE, non-PC users.
Maybe someday the decision won’t be this hard. Maybe we’ll get to a point where it really does become which one do you like the best and has the features you want.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
[…] NYT had an article about the Mac or PC question (via TMC Net). I think the NYT article was more than a little biased towards the Mac side of the […]