15th November 2006, 12:58 PM
Quote:I agree the one-button mice were terrible, but they have been shipping with multi-button mice for a while now. As for the iMac, it is really meant for a different market than the computer user who upgrades their system every few years. If someone has very little computer knowledge they can get an iMac cheaply and forget about it. It's still a quality product, though, as we have an iMac in the family that's going on 6 years old now.
They still have fewer buttons though; PCs have been shipping with three-button (clickable mousewheel) mice for a long time now, while Mac mousewheels aren't buttons. And yes, the iMac was for people who don't like computers, but I wouldn't say that that doesn't mean it shouldn't be criticized for its problems...
Quote:Macs have never been much more expensive than PCs when you compare system to system, but this myth propagates because there are no bargain-basement Macs, and you can't really build your own Mac out of random parts like you can with PCs. Macs nowadays are no more expensive than PCs if you compare their features.
I find this very hard to believe... but even so, you say it yourself: since you cannot make a Mac yourself and must buy one from Apple, prices ARE higher. PCs, unlike macs, are an open platform (and that's a good thing). :)
Quote:I can't argue the games thing because it's true, and one of the drawbacks of owning a Mac. The next version of the Mac OS had pretty solid Windows emulation, though, so playing games meant for PCs will be pretty easy in the future. (Technically it's not emulation, but I won't get into the specifics.)
Is that actually fast enough for gaming though? The "Windows in a Mac" thing...
Quote:I know you don't want to have that old debate again, and I'm not going to convince you that OS X is better than Windows since it's a matter of opinion, but now that I use PCs everyday at work it has convinced me that the Mac OS is better. The most recent frustration I had was trying to take a screenshot in Windows. I wanted just a portion of the screen, which in the Mac OS can be done by pressing a key combination and then dragging the cursor over the section of the screen you want. In Windows I have to press Alt-Print Screen to take a picture of the window and then paste the picture into Microsoft Word so I can crop the section I want. Then I can save it in the format I want it. That's just one example of how something that is simple to do on a Mac takes extra steps on a PC.
Hmm... hit key combo and then select part of screen, or hit key and then paste into image editor and select (cut out) part of screen (and resave)... doesn't seem THAT much more complex...
... wait, using Word as an image editor? Huh? Even MS Paint is better at that!