[Macworld]

Post your comments for Microsoft ads continue to defy logic here

[StarWarsEpisode7]

Yeah, you have to pay for anti-virus protection (despite the fact you can get some free) but what about the fact that Apple charges for Service Packs (usually under the name of a new cat)? $130 for a few new features? Hahaha Apple you are cute.
And Apple has a high rate of failures too. I experience the beach ball more than any Vista problems despite the fact my iMac has superior specs to my Dell.
Windows is the best ever.

[lwdesign]

Oh Jim, it's so nice to see Macworld editors chiming in on this subject. What really astounds me is that Microsoft actually signed off on these ads from their advertising agency! Didn't ANYONE at Microsoft see that both of these people went for a Mac first, and then were bummed at the price. The agency should be shot for putting together such a flimsy set of ads that are obviously contrived and scripted, no matter how they're made out to be real man-in-the-street people. Another major point is that Microsoft had to PAY these people to get a computer!
I'm announcing my availability to appear in one of these ads. I'll take Microsoft's money, then carefully study the operating systems for simplicity and usability, then add some money to what they give me, and buy a Mac. Rats! That will probably eliminate me from appearing in the commercials. Microsoft won't want me to actually talk about the OS.
What is never mentioned, and is the reason I use Macs, even though I have several PCs, and even have XP installed on my MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Pro--is that working on Windows is always stressful and worrisome. Is my virus software up to date? Is it really fixing all the malware, spyware, viruses and trojans that flock to Windows like kids to the beach on Spring Break? What are these dll errors? Why is everything so slow all of a sudden? etc., etc....
It's just too stressful. The Mac, on the other hand is serenely peaceful and just works. Yes, there can be problems, but a quick visit to the local Apple Store or a call to Tech Support usually handles the problem speedily, and in English.

[kms007]

Service Packs don't include new features. When Apple charges for a new OS update, they are entitled to charge for it. You don't have to upgrade if you don't want to.
Apple's not perfect, but I've been very happy with mine. If your Mac is so problematic, you can always ship it to me.

[Motivated]

The divide here is simple to see. Apple upcharges for it's hardware to fund OS development. Apple's response to the assertion that their computers are expensive is almost purely to tout the OS. Running OSX on a PC would be the least expensive way to go. We can run Windows on a Mac, why not OSX on a PC?

I think if Apple charged accurately for a 15"MBP I bet they would be $1400, not $2000. But if they charged accurately for the OS, it would be $500, not $130.

But at the end of the day, there is no doubt that Macs are a good deal because they allow us to do impressive stuff so easily. On the PC it's all possible, but just a pain.

[mdawson]

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lwdesign wrote:

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Yes, there can be problems, but a quick visit to the local Apple Store or a call to Tech Support usually handles the problem speedily, and in English.

And that is if the need to go to the tech support level arises. I work in an office full of technical people that know their way around a computer, yet from time to time there are issues that arise that take an absurd amount of time to resolve, if it get resolved at all. Our IT guys are none too keen on Vista, either. Several people in the office still run XP by choice given the experience of others using Vista. My machine has Vista and I admit it is stable?of course I do not put a bunch of downloaded crap on my machine?but Vista?s user interface is just another step in Microsoft?s continued penchant for making sure that their software gets in your way. I feel even less productive in Vista than I did in XP.

No wonder Microsoft has chosen to behave like an OEM instead of pushing their operating system that, lo and behold, can be installed on a Mac.

[cms09]

Let's also not forget the durability of the Apple OS. My daughter is still plugging away at a iMac I purchased about five years ago and it still runs pretty quickly. I have't had a PC that ever did that. Expect for one of my old DOS machines and I am not pulling any of those out of the closet.

[mdawson]

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Motivated wrote:

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The divide here is simple to see. Apple upcharges for it's hardware to fund OS development. Apple's response to the assertion that their computers are expensive is almost purely to tout the OS. Running OSX on a PC would be the least expensive way to go. We can run Windows on a Mac, why not OSX on a PC?

You answered your own question in the first part of the above paragraph. Apple is a hardware company. Apple is in fact near exclusively the only PC OEM that does any research and development, let alone operating system development. For a hardware company to offer the operating system that they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars and 25+ years developing and maintaining to set their hardware apart from the competition to the competition is the height of stupidity.

Apple is not Microsoft and the lion?s share of Apple?s profits do not come from software sales.

[ChrisLJ]

StarWarsEpisode7 said:
"Windows is the best ever."
Remember this?
May 6, 2005 2:44 AM
Can I get my iPod library back to iTunes?
Sorry if this has been asked before... BUT I got so much spyware and viruses on my Windows PC that I had to do a System Recovery. But by doing so I erased by whole iTunes library. HOWEVER I still have this library on my iPod can someone tell me how can I get it back into iTunes? THANKS!!!

[Rhywun]

My 3-year-old iMac, maintained solely by me, functions almost like new. It's a little slower with Leopard but still totally bearable. The same can not be said for the 3 PC's I have had at work, a new one every year, each supported by a battalion of IT Support people, and each one manifesting some unusual new problem that IT Support has no clue how to solve. But I've found that as long as you throw enough memory at it, it's possible to muddle through a day of work on Windows. Just not very pleasant.

[Xaqtly]

Yes, MS's service packs are free. So are Apple's service packs, which use the numbering scheme 10.x.x. The only upgrades Apple charges for are the ones that go up a full point, like 10.x. Those are major operating system upgrades, not service packs. You may have noticed that Microsoft does actually charge for their operating system upgrades too, the main difference is that Apple comes out with them more often.

But please, go ahead and try to point out how faster progress is bad. Let me guess, you're still on XP, right? Haha.

[mdawson]

That is hilarious, but not surprising. I also find it ironic how this person can come on here with the vast majority of his posts being trash talk about Macs. Then he attacks anyone that counters his fiction, yet he then initiates threads asking us for help. I can only guess that the people that have responded to his inquiries are unaware of his shenanigans elsewhere on these boards.

[bebopredux]

I can't count how many times I've heard relatives, friends, business associates, etc; tell me that their Windows PC "is in the shop, or, just got fixed". How many mom and pop "PC Repair" shops have been spawned by Microsoft's bloated and flawed OS? Gee, we have "Finally Fast!" (which amazingly shows a couple of Macs) that allows idiots to simply let some service into their PC and do whatever they want. We have "Geek Squad" that hoses the elderly by "fixing" their PC. On and on and on it goes.
How may Mac-spawned shops are there? Let's talk to Lauren and Giampolo in 6 months when their once fairly fast PC is suddenly sluggish and infected with adware/malware/spyware/trojans. Because sure enough, they WILL be infected despite their best efforts and $$ spent on additional "must have" programs/apps. Let's also discuss the recent viruses going around on Facebook and other sites that Linux and Apple users don't seem to get on their machines. How may here get those annoying email forwards from Aunt Ethel warning us of the next big virus?
Hey, been there, done that with regards to PC's and Windows. Why anyone puts up with this crap is beyond me. They evidently feel this is what you must endure to use a computer. How sad.

[BoxOfSnoo]

I know PCs and Windows extremely well. I chose Mac deliberately, and not because they're cooler. It's because I was tired of wrangling the computer before I could do anything with it.
I love how in these (software company) commercials they are so happy with a computer still in the box. Work with the software for a month and then we'll compare.