A Month with a Mac: A Die-Hard PC User's Perspective
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 8, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
The Basics
I had used Macs in the past, mostly at schools, and boy, did I ever hate the experience. I would always feel completely lost when using them and I would grow increasingly more frustrated as the machines were always slow, would crash often and for the life of me, I could never right click on anything. Going into this experiment, I knew that if I was going to give the platform a good chance, I needed to get the fastest system that Apple had to offer. At the time, this was a dual 2GHz G5 system configured as follows:Dual 2GHz 0.13-micron G5 CPUs
512MB CAS3 DDR400 SDRAM
160GB SATA HDD
ATI Radeon 9600 (64MB)
The MSRP on the system when I bought it was $2999 ($2699 with a student discount). Since then, it has dropped to $2499 ($2299 with a student discount) with the dual 2.5GHz system taking its place at the $2999 pricepoint. Needless to say, at almost $3000, the G5 was one expensive system considering its specs. Many will attempt to justify the price of the G5 by comparing it to a workstation class PC, such as a dual Opteron or Xeon and then saying that the price differential isn't all that much - after all, it's not abnormal to spend $3000 on a workstation right? While that is true, generally speaking, a $3000 workstation will buy you much more than what Apple's top of the line G5 gives you from a hardware perspective.
The first thing I quickly realized was that justifying Apple's pricing wasn't something to do - just bite the bullet and try the experiment. It's all about supply and demand, Apple has around 2% of the computing market. Compare that to the rest of the pie that x86 makers get to share and you can quickly see why the economies of scale don't play in Apple's favor. If you look at the brief spec list above, however, you'll see that the memory, hard drive and video card are fairly mass produced components, but then you have to take into account that the chassis, processors, motherboard, power supplies and basically every other component in the system are not. Then, keep in mind that the video card has to be specially made for Apple and the memory is also the slowest DDR400 that you can find on the market today, so even the mass produced components aren't all that mass produced. The system is expensive; you can get much more PC for the same price, but the point of this experiment wasn't to discover what we already knew.
Ordering such an expensive system is a dangerously easy process through Apple's website (it's also dangerously easy to get a student discount. I was still in school when the order was placed, but it seems like Apple doesn't really require any proof one way or another). I ordered the system pretty much stock from Apple; I was going to do any and all upgrades on my own. Once your order is shipped, there's a 10% restocking fee if the box is opened should you decide to return it; it's not an unusual policy, but definitely not the most customer-friendly one.
Setup was a breeze, but so is any computer setup these days. There is a bit less cable clutter with a Mac, but it's nothing too significant, especially if you are using anything other than an iMac. Of course, all of the cables that come with the machine are white, which made using the millions of black power cables that I had laying around somehow "wrong". I had a setup of two Cinema Displays that I was going to be using with the G5, and since they were older displays, they both featured ADC connectors instead of the normal DVI connectors that I was used to. ADC is an interesting standard developed by Apple that basically allows power, USB and the video signal to be carried off of a single cable. The ADC interface cuts down significantly on cable clutter, since three cables are now merged into one; unfortunately, there is only a single ADC port on the video card, meaning that I had to use an ADC to DVI adaptor for the second display. The ADC to DVI adaptor is pretty expensive (around $150) as it has to provide an external power supply to power the monitor and USB ports. Apple has fixed this issue with the latest revision of their Cinema Displays, which are now all DVI. Unfortunately, you lose the cable clutter benefits with the new displays, since they abandon ADC.
The rest of the hardware is pretty simple, a stylish USB keyboard and the dreaded one-button mouse. Apple's mentality behind the one-button mouse is that it is less confusing to their users than two-button mice; rumor has it that John Carmack once asked Steve Jobs what would happen if they put more than one key on a keyboard in response to Apple's reasons for sticking with a single button mouse. Regardless of why they do it, for a power user, and especially for a Windows user, there was no way I was going to survive with a one-button mouse. Luckily, the mouse is USB and just about any PC compatible USB mouse will work on the platform. The same applies to the one-button Apple mouse, if you were wondering; it works just fine under Windows. I didn't bother hooking up Apple's mouse - I went straight for my optical Intellimouse. I had already met and hated the Apple mouse, so there was no reason to re-open old wounds if I was to remain as objective as possible.
The USB cables on the mouse and keyboard are purposefully short; they are meant to be plugged into your monitor - not the actual computer itself - in order to reduce cable clutter.
The system came with a recovery CD and some other manuals and booklets that I quickly cast aside; just because I'm using a Mac doesn't mean that I have to change my habits on reading manuals!
Unlike the older Macs that I remembered, you couldn't turn on the G5 using the keyboard - there was no keyboard power-on switch (which isn't a bad thing, as I remember turning friends' computers off all the time in the Mac labs). Touching the power button on either the Cinema Display or on the actual computer itself would turn on the system.
The classic Mac sound made its entrance as the system booted up. After filling out a couple of screens of information, I was dropped into Mac OS X - my new home away from home.
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victorpanlilio - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
Correction: In my post (#104) I listed "Bruce Forno" -- it should read "Richard Forno" in case people wish to verify in Googlevictorpanlilio - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
WaltC wrote: "as far as "going and learning" about the Mac is concerned, I know all I care to know" -- which can be another way of saying, "I prefer to wallow in my current abysmal state of ignorance". OK Walt, I'll tweak your nose a bit -- the people listed below prefer MacOS X over WinXP:Tim Berners-Lee -- invented the web
James Gosling -- invented Java (used to build his own PCs)
Tim Bray -- co-invented XML
Bruce Forno -- past CISO*, Network Solutions
Bruce Schneier -- CTO**, Counterpane
Richard Clarke -- past CISO, US Govt
Bill Joy -- co-founder and past CTO, Sun Microsystems
Tim O'Reilly -- CEO, O'Reilly and Associates
You can easily confirm the above through Google.
*CISO = Chief Information Security Officer
**CTO = Chief Technology Officer
Bill Gates' own home PCs were recently hit with malware:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5393208.html
Hmmm...
If the Chief Software Architect of Microsoft can't even maintain the security on his own personal machines, what can we expect of people who are running IE on pre-SP2 WinXP?
At home, I have a Dell PowerEdge server I use for testing Win2K3 Enterprise, but I run OS X 10.3.5 on an 800MHz iBook G4 and a 4-yr old G4/400; the small company I currently work for runs Win2K3 and OpenBSD, and we're testing MacOS X Server 10.3.
Try to be more open-minded and curious about things you don't know much about. Young children evince this quality in spades, until arrogant adults ruin it for them. Whatever shortcomings or gaps Anand's article may have, so long as he wishes to continue educating himself, he is to be commended. If the subsequent discussions in this forum could proceed in a spirit of learning rather than descend into declarations of omniscience, we might all benefit from the interchange. Tim Berners-Lee envisions the web as a place where learning can take place for everyone. It'd be great, I think, if we took him up on it.
ocelotwreak - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
Dear Anand Lal Shimpi,Just wanted to send some kudos to you for a very well written and objective review of the state-of-the-Mac. I am a long time Mac user (as well as Windows, Linux, Solaris, Irix, MVS, and others for over 35 years), and have to admit I love the Mac. I use a 17" PowerBook for everything from writing huge Office documents to editing video using Final Cut Pro.
You did an excellent job of pointing out the good with the warts. I concur with your dislikes, although I use MS Office on the Mac almost exclusively because I can get more done faster on the Mac than I can using Office on XP. I write 1000 page reports for a living, and I would shoot myself trying to get it done using Office on XP, which in comparison I find to be a totally psychotic experience!
I concur that Mail is the weakest OS-X application, and also suffer the most crashes there, usually importing big Word attachments to emails. You missed the "fast user switching" option on Exposé, which is a real jaw-dropper the first time you show it to Windows (and Mac) folk. Also, try click-drag an image off your web page, Function F9 to tile all the windows, hover the dragged image over the window you want to go to, watch it automatically zoom to foreground, and then drop it into the now active app where you want it to end up, is another stunning productivity accelerator. (That requires more complexity to describe it than to just intuitively do it!)
Keep up the good work! Regards,
-Walter Cooke
brichpmr - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
I admin XP all day long, #99, and I can tell you that context menu functions on OSX are easily the equal of XP. Aside from that, I generally replace whatever mouse comes with the PC too..By the way, a very nice shareware app on OSX, Fruit Menu, offers a large number of additional configurable context options for the right mouse button...check this kind of stuff out...it's very cool.
WaltC - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
#100....Heh...;) Thank you for commenting on my ignorance, but it appears to me you completely missed the point I was making about the one button mouse.First, the point was the same one Anand made, that what ships from Apple is not "the Microsoft 5-button Intellimouse optical" mouse, but a one-button mouse, instead.
Second, thanks for educating me in that just like in WinXP, the "right mouse button" under OS X brings up a context menu of choices. So, apparently what you are saying is that OS X is exactly the same as WinXP in that regard, which I certainly did not know...;) Thank you for this information. My point was only that Anand did not specify in his article what it was that pressing the right mouse button under OS X did. Thank you for filling in that info...;) Was I also wrong in thinking that OS X provides a keypress & mouse button combo to bring up the OS X context menu you have assured me exists?
Heh....;) Seriously, as far as "going and learning" about the Mac is concerned, I know all I care to know. But thanks anyway for the suggestion!
brichpmr - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
#99, your post confirms that you need to go get educated about Macs...the sheer ignorance is staggering. Just one example....the Microsoft 5-button Intellimouse optical I use on Mac and PC platforms has the same functionality on both. Go learn, then come back...WaltC - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
(Clipped from my comments in another forum)If you ask me, the article boils down to Anand desperately trying to rationalize his $3k 2GHz G5 purchase so that he can avoid hitting himself over the head with a baseball bat while cursing his own stupidity and asking himself "What was I thinking?"...;)
Salient points to me were these:
*While he mentions replacing the one-button mouse that Apple has locked itself into on the grounds that Steve Jobs is convinced Mac users are too challenged mentally to cope with the prospect of plural mouse buttons, he never actually makes any mention of what benefit, if any, he got from using a mouse with more than one button under OS X--not surprising, since OS X is written to support the standard shipping Mac hardware configuration. But as Anand most clearly specified a preference for keyboard controls anyway, it's a bit of a wonder to me why he bothered to replace the mouse at all. I think I read something awhile back about being able to use a key press plus the mono mouse button to duplicate the function of the second mouse button under OS X, but Anand doesn't bother to tell us what that function might be under OS X, unfortunately, if he knows, of course.
*Talks about "replacing things" like the shipping ram and the 3d-card in his $3k G5 Mac, but doesn't bother to add the increased costs into the $3k price he repeats constantly throughout, nor does he tell us how much his two Cinema monitors added to the price (unless I missed that.)
Adding in these costs would--what?--double the $3k price he mentions? What really mystifies me about the way the article is written is what might've prompted Anand to think that a 64mb, 4-pixel-per-clock 3d-card and 256mbs of ram per cpu would have been sufficient in the first place. I mean, if he had stated that he was unable to purchase the Mac from Apple direct with any greater hardware specs than what he got, then fine. But he doesn't say anything like that as I recall. Obviously he would not be content with those specs in his x86 box, so why would he be surprised they weren't enough for his G5 box?
That is one of my pet peeves with this "impression" article as Anand has written it--he constantly states "$3k" throughout when the true cost of the system he's running is far, far higher. Like I say, though, it's probably just a part of his subconscious rationalization as to not wanting to face what his Mac G5 system *really* cost him...;)
*He talks consistently about the "8GB" limit to memory in the G5 box, but *unless I am mistaken* that's a bit misleading as the limit is actually 4GBs--for each cpu--so with 8 gigs installed the actual limit is still 4GBs.
*Would have been nice to see him examine his other shipping hardware config, apart from this barebones description:
Dual 2GHz 0.13-micron G5 CPUs
512MB CAS3 DDR400 SDRAM
160GB SATA HDD
ATI Radeon 9600 (64MB)
...as to things like HD brand & performance, the brand of SATA controller on the motherboard, etc. He doesn't seem to want to get anymore specific about component identification and subsystem performance than Apple itself wants to get, and I have to say that bothers me.
*The last point he makes is pretty much a clincher for me, though, in that he's honest about the G5 box simply not being able to take the place of his x86 box on several levels. So now, in addition to adding more ram per cpu and a decent middle of the road 3d card, along with his preference for twin Cinema displays, we also have to add the cost of a decent x86 box into the mix--and so we're actually talking maybe 2.5x the original $3k price Anand keeps repeating through the article (even though his system is now around $2400, the $3k range being reserved for Apple's so far no-show 2.5GHz G5 boxes--at least "no-show" from what I've read recently.)
*A very minor point, certainly, but Anand should know that M$ is constantly criticized for building in too much functionality into its OS's, on the grounds that M$ is doing so to run other software companies out of business (a criticism I do not personally agree with.) Yet, when Apple does things like build in a whole lot of functionality into its OS, including its own browser, why it's just a "cool, wonderful thing"...;) In fairness to Apple, though, Apple has to do it since the platform cannot support enough independent developers to do it, unlike is the case for M$. Still, the double standard there is always amusing to read...;)
*Last minor nitpick. I can tell Anand has been deeply engrossed within the online Mac community's propaganda mill, simply because he keeps talking about "DOS" and difficulties with x86 peripherals and drivers circa 1995 and earlier. I've had some experience myself with the Mac online community and know that many of them are locked into a perpetual loop which pretends that all that is x86-Windows is no different now than it was in 1995. These people frequently get stuck in delusionary time warps in which the only thing that has changed in the last decade is Apple, and its a bit sad to see that some of that prejudice is rubbing off on Anand--who, frankly, should know better than to allow it to influence him in the slightest--primarily because such assumptions about x86 hardware and software simply are not true.
In summary, I agree with Anand's opening statements as to how "hard" it was for him to write this article, as for someone in his position as a medium-profile, computer-hardware Internet pundit, it must be really embarrassing to admit he got snookered by Apple's marketing claims to the extent that he actually shelled out $3k+ of his personal pocket money just to discover what he should already have known, that buying a Mac wasn't at all going to allow him to retire his x86-Windows box, for a number of compelling reasons. An expensive lesson to learn, certainly. I hope he'll do another article later called "After 6 months with a Mac," as I wouldn't be surprised to learn he'd sold it or donated it to charity by then...;)
gankaku - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
#96 "I think that applies to servers too you know. If dmr9748 can spend peanuts to run a Linux server on 400MHz processors with 512MB memory to do what he needs done why does he even need to consider a Xeon or G5 Xserve?"Of course that's true. But the argument cuts both ways. Some time ago, I ran a web and mail server off a used iMac (400 MHz, with 320 MB RAM) that easily saturated a partial T1. The iMac cost about $600 Canadian. I took the server down awhile ago, but the iMac still chugs along happily, folding proteins for the betterment of humanity. :-)
saszmidt - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
Good article! Thanks!One point though. You have interesting ideas of what constitutes reliable uptime. Several months is not a good value, though better than weeks. The only reason any unice box should go down is due to hardware failure. I don't care how many years later, it should still run.
Anything else is a poorly built machine.
Getting better uptime with XP than Linux just shows you either had poor hardware or did not know how to build a proper Linux server.
Linux servers I build never crash. True, you can have some app that eats up all memory and eventually it will die. But that's not O/S related, that's just poorly written s/w. Linux deals with crashing apps much better than windows does any time of the day.
Only getting a Linux box to run for months is indicative of not knowing your stuff. I.e. you did not put the same amount of effort into learning about it as you did with a windows box.
You have s/w under Linux which will check for memory leaks, so that's not a valid excuse.
http://www.thefreecountry.com/sourcecode/debugging...
Too many goofy windows admins try to build Linux boxes and then say goofy things like "pretty reliable - it ran for several months". Only because thats a WINDOWS standard.
kitsura - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
I think you're missing the point its not a direct price to performance comparison."I would rather blows 1 dollar on ebay to get a Tandy 1000 with word perfect 1.5 before I spend 2400 dollars on a machine that does exactly the same thing with the processing power to do more but is limitted by its impact on the computer market."
I think that applies to servers too you know. If dmr9748 can spend peanuts to run a Linux server on 400MHz processors with 512MB memory to do what he needs done why does he even need to consider a Xeon or G5 Xserve?