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 - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
Chris North wrote in #164: I believe that the real high cost of the Mac is found in the need to buy expensive softwareWell, it depends on what you need to do. AutoCAD (PC-only) is C$4700, which is not exactly what I would call inexpensive. Its Mac counterpart, PowerCADD 6, while not equivalent feature-for-feature, costs much less (C$1300). MacOS X comes bundled with XCode, a complete dev environment. How much does Visual Studio .NET cost? Paint Shop Pro may indeed offer "better bang for the buck" -- but the Gimp is free, even better, yet Photoshop is the most widely used professional image editing app in the world, not counting the pirated copies floating around. Having said that...
One of my concerns with the direction Apple is taking has to do with the upgradability of their high-end machines. PowerMac G5 towers can only hold two SATA drives without resorting to 3rd party solutions to cram more drives in. PC workstations often have room for 3 or 4 internal hard drives. The much-maligned PowerMac G4 towers could hold four drives (although the earlier models required an add-on ATA controller in a PCI slot). I also don't see how G5 processors can be upgraded, since they are so tightly integrated with the cooling system. On G4 towers, CPU upgrades involve just replacing the processor daughtercard. OTOH, MacOS X seems to get faster with every release, unlike a certain other operating system we all know and love... ;-)
This week, Bill Gates will announce Windows XP Reloaded.
I wonder if it will be immune to spyware...
chrisnorth - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
As a long time Mac user, I thought that this was a reasonably fair and unbiased article. Anyone who thinks that one computer platform is the be-all and end-all is nuts. I tend to prefer Macs, but Anand was right in many of his observations. Macs ARE more expansive without a doubt and his observation that it's the little apps that make the difference is dead on! Yeah, I can get Office and Dreamweaver, Photoshop and GoLive on the Mac, but what I really want is Jasc's Paintshop Pro, and EditPlus because they offer a better bang for the buck. I'm stuck with more expensive options. The one Mac app that really illustrates this better than any other is BBEdit. In my opinion, the $30.00 EditPlus on the PC is better, but it isn't available, so I've got to fork out an obscene $179.00 for the same functionality from BBEdit.Now there are loads of shareware apps being made for OS X. Some are really great, but many are crap. I believe that the real high cost of the Mac is found in the need to buy expensive software. The lack of a practicla upgrade path is another expense. Mac users will tell you that their machines last longer and my long lived Macs support this, but it sure would be nice to buy a new motherboard and processor for $500.00 instead of a new machine for $2500.00.
Ultimately, I love Macs and use mine all the time, while the PC sits unused in the basement. But to dismiss real problems with the platform is like sticking your head in the sand. Great article Anand!
victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
Dennis Travis wrote in #161: If you read carefully he really likes it and OSX also and is still using it daily for a lot of his workWell, that's true, but for some reason, this bothers many people who want to find some reason -- any reason, really -- to not evaluate the Mac as a potential part of their learning experience. Gamers, for example. This is curious, to say the least, especially considering that the platform Microsoft is using to develop for the nex-gen XBox is the G5, not an AMD or Intel box. One would think that, if nothing else, curiosity might persuade some folks to check the Mac out on that basis alone.
ceneone - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
I'm commenting with respect to web browsers and speed. I sincerely must disagree. I've used a number of browsers with my Mac PowerBook G4. Even with only a 400MHz model, but with DSL 6.0Mbps. IE was one of the slowest browser in the speed catergory of AOL. For the most of the time Safari or Firefox clocked over 3.0Mbps, with Safari clocking 3.7Mbps, each rendering the fast webpages. Then Omniweb 4.5/5.0, Camino, Mozilla/Netscape 7.0, IE, Opera 7.54 for Mac and finally AOL around 700+ kbps.Dennis Travis - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
I can believe people are still trying to say what Anand said. All Anands Mac article is was "A Month with the Mac". It was not a test, benchmark, it was his hands on with the G5 for a month. If you read carefully he really likes it and OSX also and is still using it daily for a lot of his work. The article was nothing else but that. I wish people would read.Going to read the Star Wars article now! Thanks Victor for the URL!!!
victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
FinalFantasy also wrote: "for people like myself and 100,000 other people, the Mac is useless"Only 100,000 other people? There are more than 100,000 AutoCAD users in the world, my friend. But just so I can more clearly understand what you're trying to get at, let's suppose that, as you say, most "basic" computer users just "want to play games, surf the net, use M$ Office, and listen to music" -- then for 3 out of 4 of those categories (not games), even the eMac would suffice. For that matter, so would a half-decent whitebox Celeron. The difference is that the Windows PC, while cheaper, would be vulnerable to malware that the eMac would just shrug off. And so your "basic" user finds out that surfing the Net is not exactly a pleasant experience anymore:
http://tinyurl.com/5nge8
"In June, Philippe Ombredanne, a systems administrator and programmer from Menlo Park, Calif., bought a new computer. He said he was feeling lazy so he put off installing security software for a day. When he woke up, the computer was infected with one virus and about 30 spyware or adware programs, forcing him to erase data and programs from his hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch. "A vanilla computer with no protection has no chance on the Internet anymore," he said."
Unless that computer happens to be a Mac running OS X. :-)
victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
FinalFantasy wrote: they will want to play games, surf the net, use M$ Office, and listen to music*chuckle*
Let's just tackle two of your points, Office and surfing.
Office:
Highly critical' security flaw found in Office
http://tinyurl.com/4lp2e
A vulnerability has been found in a Microsoft's popular Office Suite - MS Word in particular - that could give a malicious third party control of your machine...
There is currently NO PATCH for the above vulnerability -- on Windows. The Mac version of Office (2004) is not affected by it. You did know there is a version of Office for the Mac, and that in some ways it's better than its counterpart on Windows?
Surfing the net:
Computer Users Face New Scourge
http://tinyurl.com/5nge8
Excerpt:
Experts estimate that tens of thousands of spyware and adware programs circulate on the Internet. For now, the problem of such unauthorized software almost exclusively affects Microsoft Windows users. It's by far the most popular operating system and the same features that make it so versatile also make it easier for intruders to secretly run programs on it.
Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates in a speech to Silicon Valley technologists this month, said that while he's never had a virus infect his computer, he's been surprised to find many spyware and adware programs that he never authorized on it. He said he has directed the company to launch a new project to create a "cure."
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You also wrote: "For every John D. Lowry that uses a Mac platform for "some" project...there are 100,000 people using a PC."
Sure. Your statement is just a variation on "Eat at Joe's Diner -- A Million Flies Can't Be Wrong"
Your unassailable logic is impressive. :-D
FinalFantasy - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
victorpanlilioHehe...you caught me with my pants down man. I really don't have time to pull up links, quotes, reference etc. As far as you Mac facts go (e.g. for use on restoring the Star Wars triology) you've got me beat.
But my Ace card is that Anand was writing this article to appeal to everyday PC users/gamers. For John D. Lowry, the Mac platform he used is phenominal, but for people like myself and 100,000 other people, the Mac is useless. The PC can perform 100% of the task I want to perform where as the Mac will only perform about 20-30% of the operations I want to perform. Not everyone is going to need a computer that can digitally restore the Star Wars triology or other projects of that magnitude. 80% of "basic" PC buyers (counted for people/corp buying PCs not the quantity of PCs sold) they will want to play games, surf the net, use M$ Office, and listen to music. The PC has the Mac beat on games, M$ Office (compatibility and ease of use) and the PC wins in 2 of the 4 categories, the Mac wins 1 and they tie in 1.
Remember...not everyone is going to need a Mac to digitally restore a Star Wars Triology ...hehe...most people just need it to play games and be compatible with M$ products, as M$ products are basically the standard around the world.
For every John D. Lowry that uses a Mac platform for "some" project...there are 100,000 people using a PC.
victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
FinalFantasy also wrote: The only way I see a Mac being useful, is if they were a cheaper alternative to a PC instead of being a more expensive computer that is sold by name/brandPlease share your amazing insight with John D. Lowry, whose firm restored the Star Wars trilogy recently released on DVD:
http://www.apple.com/pro/film/lowry/starwars/lowry...
Quote:
To clean the films Lowry pushed high-definition scans of the original negatives provided by LucasFilm through his proprietary software running on 600 dual-processor Power Mac G5 computers, each with Mac OS X, 4 gigs of RAM and connected via gigabit Ethernet to a 378-terabyte storage array.
“We find that Macs hold up incredibly well, much better than PCs,” he says. “We put them in their own room with their own air-conditioning, as they generate a fair bit of heat.”
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Hmm.. I guess he doesn't worry about malware attacks, either.
victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
FinalFantasy wrote: Macs are expensive computers that people pay money for cus it's a "Mac", like people buying a "Dell" or an "HP". Mac does a good job at making people waste money.Hmm, as someone who used to work for IBM, DEC, Compaq, and Fujitsu, I take exception to the idea that buying from a Tier 1 PC vendor is a waste of money. When you deploy 1500-2500 PCs in a large corporation, you first test your in-house apps on sample configs from the vendor, to see if there are any gotchas. Vendor commits to keeping the config the same, so that from start to finish of the deploy, your disk images work. This stability is very important to large corporations, because it saves money. People who have never worked on large-scale PC deployments fail to recognize the importance of these considerations. Apple is now beginning to address deployment and asset management issues in large enterprises with utilities such as Apple Remote Desktop 2.0, but it still has a ways to go -- ACLs would be really nice to have in MacOS X Server 10.3.5, as well as OS-level file locking.