Microsoft: Not Cool at Any Price
7:51 am, April 26th, 2009, Leigh McMullen
Number Seven Hundred and Thirty Six on the list of things that really torque me off are people who intentionally and knowingly mislead folks for fun and profit. And to this list of Mortgage Brokers, Right Wing Talk Radio Hosts, and Tobacco Lobbyists, we can now add Roger L. Kay president of Endpoint Technology Associates (aside — people who are ‘president’ of companies employing 50 or less people, are number 977 on the list of things that annoy the crap out of me.)
El Presidente Roger authored a white paper at the behest of Microsoft titled: “What Price Cool” which serves to illuminate us all as to how we all have been paying some imaginary “Hidden Apple Tax” all these years.
Of course, a younger man might shrug this drivel off, yet as I grow older I find my patience for such things eroding. While I’m not quite at the yelling at kids to get off my lawn stage, I am quite crotchety enough to spend my Saturday night debunking this garbage.
Follow me after the jump where we reveal the obviousness with which Le President Kay sold his credibility.
–Note: I am intentionally not embedding a lot the original graphs, though garbage it is still copyright The Rog. I’ve linked to the original, I would urge you to check it out to verify my facts–OVERVIEW
Normally, I don’t like to criticize writing style, but the folksy down-home voice that The Prez chose to write in has a charm that is wholly inappropriate for a “white paper”. It simply reeks of Redmond’s marketing department, who never fail to seize an opportunity to remind us how dumb and simple we all are by talking down to us. I can only hope that Mon Capitan Kay deliberately chose to write this way as some kind of purloined letter, perhaps begging us: “Help me! Bill Gates has a stack of money pointed at my head.”
Regardless of his reasoning, the preamble of the paper is simple: we are stupid Mac-Cultists, who buy only because of the cache’ of our brand and the hypnotic will of Steve Jobs. No mention of the utter lack of viruses in the wild, the consistently better user experience ratings, the best post sales service in the industry –not even a tip of the hat for having better sales per square foot than Cartier. Even a pretend analyst would have done that to at least to not shill so obviously.
Following this for a few paragraphs Kay does try to at least sound like an analyst, using words like “Normalized Purchase Cost” and ascribing Apple’s success to the riches of the bubble and her impending doom on the bad economy.
In short utterly failing to recognize that premium brands don’t suffer the same wild swings as commodity players. Don’t believe me? 2008 was Ferrari’s best sales year ever. Don’t trust me on that –Google it.
On to Debunking
MODEL FOR MODEL COMPARISONS
The first bit of debunking is relatively simple. There is only one Apple. Everybody and their illiterate cousin makes PC’s. Of course for any given Apple configuration you’ll be able to find a PC configuration that is similar in specifications and is less expensive.
This is essentially the argument that a PC is the sum of its parts. It’s not a bad argument, it’s one that made Michael Dell a billionaire –until he decided he wanted to try and take on HP and IBM in the server market, and then even his tune changed.
Using a car metaphor, General Motors makes both Chevy and Cadillac. You take apart a Cadillac, you’ll find 85% or more of it are parts used also on Chevy –hat makes them the same, right?
Of course not.
Back to computers: Does the Dell XPS M1530 Laptop that Le Grande Generale Rico Kay have a keyboard that lights up when it gets dark? A screen that adjusts brightness and contrast based on current lighting conditions? I’ll bet ya damn sure it doesn’t have an Accelerometer! To some these may be minor things. But how about Apple’s big differentiator, post-sales service?
Does HP offer in store support, migration assistance and training? Not just in a few big cities but even in places like Des Moines? They don’t, not at any price.
I think he’s comparing Lexus’ and mail order Yugos.
His big argument in favor of the alternative: It has HDMI. Which would be awesome, except I watch streaming TV on my laptop, I don’t watch laptop on my TV.
While his laptop comparisons were simple spin, unforgivably fraudulent are his comparisons of Desktops. Quoting Sir Roger:
At the high end, the gap is particularly wide. A Mac Pro fetches $2,500 while a comparable HP m9600t goes for only $1,050. The Mac has a 2.66GHz quad core Xeon, and the HP a quad core Intel Core i7, but the HP has one-third more memory, and a bigger drive. The HP also has HDMI and a 15-n-1 media reader.
Wow, that card reader must’a really dazzled the Marquis De Key because in this instance he didn’t even bother to do a “parts for parts”comparison, he just went for outright deception. The Mac Pro isn’t some crappy little desktop housed in a plastic case for suburbanite kids to spill pop into. It’s a professional WORKSTATION. It uses server grade processors, server grade memory, server grade motherboard and cooling systems, it has built a built in RAID controller, it completely quiet, the list goes on.
The HP in question isn’t even a particularly good video gaming machine. Lets see what an HP made of similar components would cost shall we?
HP Z600 with Intel Xeon Quad Core 2.53 Ghz, 3 GB of RAM 500 GB hard driv, 16x Lightscribe DVD burner –NO VIDEO CARD. MSRP: $2759.00
Well golly, that’s slower, and more expensive than the Mac and you have to run windows on it!
This was of course the most egregious example of machine comparisons. Most of the time El Jeffe chose to just slightly spin the story. For example in evaluating the iMac versus the Dell, he equated the 2 machines as being “comparable“--in spite of the Mac being 33% faster!
Oh the Accessories- My God the Accessories!!!
Now where Prime Minister Kay comes completely unhinged is when it comes to accessories. Apparently someone in Redmond mentioned to him that Macs Just Run Out of the Box. So he spends several paragraphs trying to debunk this.
In a section titled: “Additional Costs to Achieve Full Operation” His Excellency proclaims that you have to have a Sony BluRay Player, a 1 Terabyte Western Digital External Hard Drive and an Airport Extreme to make your Mac work.
Apparently the thing is a paperweight otherwise. Who knew?
The Reverend Dr. Roger Kay then produces a list similar components to upgrade his theoretical PC setup (which I guess doesn’t work either). With more snark than I’ve heretofore seen from the Good Doctor, he points out that while the price difference between the two lists is only $30.00, that thirty dollars is important to uncool people.
Here’s a salacious tit-bit for all you cool cats out there: The cheaper hardware that The Reverend listed, All work just fine on the Macintosh.
Buy what you want, It will work. No worries.
After this, Senator Roger L Kay, esquire then just starts lying for no good reason except he’s being paid by Microsoft. In a section titled “Opportunity costs”he tries to say that if you use an Apple you deny yourself access to cool new technology such as:
- Blu-Ray –Now why did he spend all that time telling me how expensive it would be to add if I couldn’t add it?
- eSata — All Macs are all SATA all the time, eSata is just a card away
- TV Tuners –Seriously? I only mention this because it’s the second time he’s brought it up, apparently it’s a big deal to the His Honor, but I’ve gotten my TV over cable since the 1980’s and since the 1990’s even that’s being supplanted by this thing called the Internet. Check it out Rog. One thing is for sure, I am absolutely not walking around the friggin airport with a set of rabbit ear antenna on my laptop.
All of this is forgetting for a moment that Apple was the first to bring you a Graphical User Interface, Firewire, Wireless networking, and continues to innovate things like multi touch, face recognition, streaming media –LOOK ROGER –NO RABBIT EARS!
In the ‘Where are We Going‘ section Viscount Kay lays down the optimism for the Windows users out there. It’s not about what you can do NOW –it’s about the FUTURE: Yes we suck right now he admits, but Windows 7 will be better, the whole I’m a Mac and you’re a PC thing will “have faded to a faint echo” because Windows 7 will fix the constant crashing, and boot right up, and it will make the machines it runs on prettier by osmosis, and the benchmarks will be awesome — shall we benchmark? C’mon Lets Benchmark!!!
Yes, lets. I’ll start now, with my working copy of OS X, and you can start whenever your vaporware Windows 7 ships. Let’s measure who has the highest productivity.
After this point I can honestly say that Generalissimo Roggey Kay just looses his frikin mind. He devolves into this faux anecdotal saga of Sally, Jack, Ted and Tina Bancroft, who are either a wealthy Dallas oil family or San Francisco sex workers –I couldn’t figure that out– but whatever, apparently they need a computer.
And now Jack, crack whore or oil baron that he may be, is really good with numbers and he worked out that if the family chooses to keep their ‘investment’ in PC’s never buying any software for them, and not ever upgrade either software or hardware, over five years it would be cheaper than changing everything over to the Mac.
Duh?
Let me clue you into a secret “Jack“, we here in the cult, don’t really want you on our side. The proliferation of iPhones into the hands of Toothless Appalachian Hillbillies has reaffirmed to me at least that if anything we need to make these goddamned computers even more expensive. We need to get Jon Ive to design a Mac made out of virgin tears, and first kisses, for the explicit purposes of keeping it out the hands of the unwashed masses.
So Roger, go on, enjoy your “open eco system”, enjoy your constant crashes, and malware -and enjoy your wait for the version of windows that finally fixes all this– but please don’t ever buy a Mac, the idea of that might force me to switch to Linux.
Posted by Leigh McMullen in Humor, News, Top stories | Comment on this article
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That just made my day.
Andrew, on April 26th, 2009 at 8:07 am
I think the piece would have been much better without the sarcastic tone and the ad hominems. You make many good points, but there’s honestly no need to be so snarky. The facts will speak for themselves, so just point them out and the reader will be able to see how truly pathetic Mr. Kay’s article is.
Scott, on April 26th, 2009 at 8:26 am
There are several TV Tuners available for the Mac as well, though it is easier to find bargain basement cheap ones for PC.
Darcy McGee, on April 26th, 2009 at 8:59 am
This is an excellent piece of writing Leigh!
It’s really a shame what Microsoft is trying here.
My opinion about the “higher” costs of Macs (even it’s not really higher) is this equation:
Me + Windows = totally unhappy and less productive
Me + Mac =
So even if there’s a “hidden Apple tax” I would be super happy to pay it!
The time I was looking for a new notebook in 2007 I came down to a Sony for 2.300 Euro or a Macbook Pro for 2500 Euro…. So the price for comparable PCs and Macs are most likely the same.
And now, after 2 years being a Mac User, I am happy I chose the Macbook!
Jens, on April 26th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Thank you, Leigh. I, like you, prefer that those who truly appreciate the Mac support it; and those who don’t, enjoy your PC. I am not fond of the low expectations, whining, and just plain old lies from those who don’t get it. And I dont like what they bring to the Mac platform.
arw, on April 26th, 2009 at 9:07 am
yeah I luv that report. he doesn’t address the issue of longevity (I am typing this on an 8 year old Mac G4 which is slow but still working for my needs) , certified service, trials v full software etc. and don’t get me started on the whole AppleCare v Best Buy stuff.
Scott, on April 26th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Yes, he is lying. Yes, he was very well paid by Microsoft ($20,000 was offered to someone else who turned them down). The Apple tax on EQUIVALENT computers actually boils down to +/- a couple of hundred dollars. Most Mac users would pay much more.
The childish way you wrote the piece takes a lot away from it’s message.
Al, on April 26th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Hear, hear! Well said that man.
ximon, on April 26th, 2009 at 9:42 am
It’s interesting you are the only person touch on it. When I price out a Dell XPS with a 13 inch screen, I’m within about $200.00 of a Macbook with the 13 inch screen.
Most Windows computers are made to hit a cheaper price point and don’t have the same quality components. And that new Dell Adamo forget about it. They should be cheaper they are made to be!
Mark, on April 26th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Frikin Hilarious… I do enjoy a good rant. Thanks (-:
alia k, on April 26th, 2009 at 10:03 am
This article’s so funny… paragraph after paragraph attempting to justify a ridiculous price for a piece of hardware.
freddy gee, on April 26th, 2009 at 11:12 am
President is a technical term in corporate law. They don’t have any choice, as it is the correct term even if the corporation only has two employee-shareholders, in which case one would be president and the other the secretary (which also doesn’t mean secretary in the common sense).
JW, on April 26th, 2009 at 11:32 am
I recently made a switch to mac but I gotta say that you are TOO obsessed with apple. (i know this is a apple blog but whatever) I gotta agree with MS ads.. you gotta be super cool to have a mac. you can do the same and more with a pc than a mac. Especially with the upcoming Windows 7 ( i have to say that it’s similar to os x) but that’s awesome!!! oh and btw every mac now needs an anti-virus!! there’s a virus that it’s like cornflicker that’s affecting macs.. soon in a few years mac is gonna be like windows full of viruses!
Andy, on April 26th, 2009 at 11:34 am
LULZ =D
Ryan, on April 26th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Thanks all for the kind comments. To be clear I posted this in Humor because it’s intended to be a sarcastic rant and not a personal attack on Mister Kay. Of course if you post ridiculous slander about my beloved Mac, I will make fun of you until you cry.
—–
RE “President” as a technical term: a C or S corp with more than 1 principal does have to have a “president” in a legal sense. LLC’s can have Managing Partner. Regardless of the legal status of one’s officership in a public or private corporation, the title you go by says a lot about you.
Leigh McMullen, on April 26th, 2009 at 11:59 am
@Andy: What on EARTH is a ‘cornflicker’? Sounds like breakfast.
To those who are criticizing the ‘childish’ way this is written, I’d agree if this wasn’t (obviously) done in a jocular manner.
Meyers, on April 26th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
This is awesome. lol..
Nics, on April 26th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Amen
ardaz, on April 26th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
ROTFLOL!
“He dicho!”
Well said, Leigh!
Hilarious… supreme…
Viva La Mac! Viva la satisfaction of having a computer that JUST WORKS!
Matias, on April 26th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I agree with your statement that the mac is not simply the sum of it’s part. And that’s exactly where this not-so-hidden tax comes from. It’s for the little things that mean so much to some people. However, not everyone is willing to pay for it, or can afford it. I can survive without it, although I admit that is sounds awesome. Let just not kid ourselves saying that it’s not a tax.
To go back to the car metaphor, if you compare a Cadillac with a BMW of equivalent class, it’s a fair match. But for the same amount of cash, some people might settle for the Chevy and use the extra money on other stuff.
Amir, on April 26th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
hahah! This was just hilarious.
I’m kind of sick to death of both the ridiculous MS ads and the flame war they’ve started, but this little bit of comedy was really fun.
Gene, on April 26th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I love how the author of the MS article keeps bundling in about $500 worth of software onto the Mac purchase, but not onto the Windows purchase. Clearly, he only needs Quicken, Office, etc if he’s on a Mac.
Kevin C, on April 26th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Kay’s “white paper” was written for the brain-washed PC users, to justify their choice. Just look at some of the comments. It doesn’t matter if you point out the logical fallacies in Kay’s paper, it only matters that PC users can feel better about themselves, because it’s on the internet, it must be true!
KenC, on April 26th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
I too am getting tired of hearing about the Apple tax especially since no one seems to talk about the Office tax that Microsoft levees on each and every “productivity” suite that they sell. If Apple wanted too it could point out that Bento plus iWork cost $160 while Office 2008 is over three times that amount for a product that in my opinion inferior. Microsoft levees this tax on millions of office users creating its largest cash cow and no one wants to talk about that.
So if your PC buddy wants to talk about the Apple tax you can bring up the Microsoft extortion on Office that makes any potential Apple tax look like the cost of that new MacBook compared to the federal budget. One of those numbers is a heck of a lot bigger!
Shawen
Shawen Donnellan, on April 26th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Snore …
Who gives a shit, really ….
The consumer will buy what he likes …
How many consumers will have read that white paper anyway ?
For @#$% sake, go back to work and stop bitching …
Consumer, on April 26th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Awesome.
Though Apple electronics are superior in quality to just about any other piece of electronic equipment, what I value most is that its all supported by Apple! If for some god forsaken reason I have a problem I make one call and in minutes it is fixed. No blaming this or that component, no foolish minimum wage know nothing non-english speaking tech support, no hold, no call this number, no ‘this might work’ : just a solution to my problem. If any one were to ever make a case for ‘Apple tax’, well, frankly, the services provided are worth any (though it has been made clear there is none) extra cost.
Braxton Bragg, on April 26th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Andy, Amir,
Your tone sounds a lot alike. Could you both be the same person? It looks like you’re a windows guy trying to hide the fact, then blowing it all by instead of making the usual windows user gaffe of calling a Mac a “MAC”, you have instead decided to go all the way the other way, calling it a “mac”. Now go eat some corn flakes, er cornflicker or whatever it the worry of the week in the windows world.
Guish Vadoo, on April 26th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
kay’s credibility reaches its ENDPOINT… ;D
winne, on April 27th, 2009 at 12:32 am
welcome to three weeks ago.
bas, on April 27th, 2009 at 12:32 am
Lol, that rant made my long-night-of-studying-and-dealing-with-hail much happier! I do think it was a bit too snarkey, but then, that’s the point!
While I admit that windows does have a bit more compatibility with the more specialized hardware out there – at least the bargain basement hardware – the fact is that Macs just do work. Heck, I’ve tossed a couple of “PC Only” USB 2 PCI cards into a 10 year old G4 and they work perfectly. Hard drives? No prob. RAM? No big deal. No-name DVD drives? Work like a charm. Printers, wifi routers, and USB cameras? Almost zero-setup required. You may not always get the advanced features of hardware without the windows driver, but it always seems to work. (Ironically, I’ve found that the Xbox 360 video camera and USB controller work perfectly in OS X – better, at times, than on our fast Dell desktop!)
As for “computers being the sum of their parts” – it all comes down to how good the parts are, I suppose. As I said, I’m using a 10 year old G4, with Tiger, and it works great. With a USB 2 card, DVD burner (as opposed to a DVD ROM drive), and a bigger hard drive, it runs just as well as any random PC I’ve used. Indeed, with the exception of video and photo viewing/editing, it’s just as fast as most modern computers – and this is mostly because it does not support Quartz Extreme. Still, it runs well, even without a fully supported graphics card – nice. (16 MB VRAM is such a bummer)
Macs are great for those “work things” too – despite what the Get A Mac ads may suggest. Indeed, with the exception of a few special apps (say, ESRI ArcInfo, annoyingly), most have Mac versions. Plus, I’ve found Office ‘04 to be more stable on my Macs – any of them – G3, G4 or Intel; Leopard, Tiger, or Panther; 384 MB Ram or 4 GB; whatever – to be more stable and sometimes faster than on my school’s state-of-the-art PCs – for example, excell on XP crashes whenever I attempt to print or “Save as”…
Sadly, it seems Microsoft is unable compete effectively with OS X on a fair battlefield, so they rely on strawman arguments and stereotyping to sell PCs – after all, the more they attack the core of Apple’s features (say, useability, stability), the more it draws peoples attention to the “alternatives”… As you mentioned in your rant, it’s sadly very much like the folks down in Washington… It’s too bad, Microsoft can put out some good products – say, Xbox live – but they just can’t seem to fix windows. So they spend millions on an ad campaign instead… IMO, they need to take a risk and rebuild from the ground up – like Apple scrapped “Classic OS” for OS X in the late 90s – if they want to stop losing so many customers.
weatherguy, on April 27th, 2009 at 12:54 am
great read,
now to think of a way to make macs better value for money and more expensive…
kev, on April 27th, 2009 at 3:27 am
In fairness, I could see that a long-term Windows user might find the mac OS left-handed and backwards, and some folks can’t transpose well, they’re the reason DOT stuck us with left-hand shift only motorcycles. Time for M$ to finally build something that works well, windows people are too easy to mock, it isn’t even sporting!
Tim, on April 27th, 2009 at 5:55 am
What do these analysts want from us? Enjoy your dead-end pc platform and all vaporware which out there and please leave us alone.
Dennis Kovalev, on April 27th, 2009 at 5:56 am
I use both Macs and PCs (I have an Apple WiFi network and a PC WiFi network) – and I just wrote an amusing comment here that compared and contrasted the products and experiences yet hysterically my Mac just ate the comment. Several paragraphs down the drain, thank you Steve whomever.
Speaking of viruses (and you were) My MacBook has been demanding my Yahoo password every 15 minutes for 2 days now.
I once had the coolest gadget in the Chicago Apple store, a Fujitsu tablet PC used for trading (it has a great accelerometer), every alleged Genius at the Genius Bar wanted to check it out.
I can’t text photos on my iPhone, yet.
Speaking of the Genius Bar I had to go there 4 times to get warranty work done on a MacBook, four times I had to tell the Genius people exactly what was broken before they could even figure it out, I had to return once again for them to actually fix the problem.
My Time Capsule has better WiFi coverage than my D-Link however it lacks control the over the ports that I want while running trading software, thus the two networks.
Macs do not exist in some rarified world lacking problems, they just have different problems and btw, I once saw the Mac Guy in person (his girlfriend, an actress visited the CBOT) and the guy struck me as being just about as hip as the next tourist, and unlike his girlfriend the kid was intimidated by the trading pits, he reminded of the PC Guy – in hipper clothing.
EL Rider, on April 27th, 2009 at 6:06 am
Nice rant.
daniel, on April 27th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Hmm, the fact that you’re jumping on El Presidente’s train to defend the Mac proves one thing: Leigh is just another immature blogger lining up with all the fan boys who do not let pass any chance to trash [enter you most hated OS here] instead of getting a life. That’s sad.
Whatever people use, they may have reasons for that. Some will strive for something more suitable, others just don’t care. And then, there are fan boys…
Steve, on April 27th, 2009 at 8:21 am
I thought “fan boy” was spelled Fanboi?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fanboi
Not to pick-nits but if you’re going to insult me, at least be accurate.
Leigh McMullen, on April 27th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Hey, Rush Limbaugh is the reason I bought a Mac in 1994. Most conservative talk show hosts probably use a mac.
BigD, on April 27th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I’ve read your blog for quite some time but this is the first time I’ve been moved to comment. This article was deliciously mean but accurate .Also I have to compliment you on the many creative variations on the guy’s name.
Bye the way, I have never owned a Mac but I plan to remedy that as soon as I can. Besides the general excellence of Macs, I have found the Apple Store’s staff to be courteous and knowlegeable (I have an iPod nano) which is another reason why I’m going to switch.
Janice
Janice, on April 27th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
To you list, you should add Left Wing Politicians, right after Right Wing Talk-Radio Hosts….
Bill Coleman, on April 28th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Eh, since when did apple machines stop being PCs?
Jan, on April 29th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I have always had PCs. My wife needed a new PC so we looked into the MAC we really liked what we saw and got the 24″ iMAC. SInce she needs to use MS office for work we got Parallels. Along with a 1TB time capsual. Setup ws stump stupid simple! THe netowk with printer in the USB fired up right away! THe damn thing even asked if I would like to network my pc! When we had questins the Apple help was far and away the finest I have ever delt with. They were on the phone with me for an hour working out a driver issue on my second printer (not and Apple issue). Parallels VMs XP so smoothly my wife looses trackof where she is. THe performance is outstanding with XP running VM. We are so pleased I am replacing my PC with a MacBook! You can say the MAC is more expensive, but for the OSX, support and ease of day to day use it is well worth the price to me.
CodeMokey, on April 30th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Couple of years back I bought my first Mac – a 13″ Macbook. I was the first in my entire circle to entertain the notion of switching to the other side and I got a lot of advise about how I’ll have compatibility issues, I’ll not get support (I’m from India, where Apple is a fairly new entrant).
But I loved the snapshots of the Tiger, and of course the sheer beauty of the machine. I took the plunge.
And I have no regrets. To all PC users, you guys are just scared of change.
Believe me, it absolutely worth it. I can’t imagine ever having to switch back to a PC.
Mansi, on May 2nd, 2009 at 2:34 am
Great article on this and use of comparison between real life things and computers. (… Yes, computers *are* kind of real life, but you get what I mean. ;D)
Fyre Vortex, on May 5th, 2009 at 5:58 am
It’s enough to brainwash window’s users into thinking they are as cool as mac users, but Kay is trying to brainwash mac users into thinking they are cooler than windows users, then tries to make them feel guilty about it. I wrote about it here. http://d3blather.blogspot.com/2009/04/apple-tax-nonsense-taken-to.html
dthree, on May 5th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
That’s a white paper the same way Charmin is a white paper, my kid could do better work on an essay. If Microsoft is paying good money for that level of writing, where can I get some? Especially as he is actually taking sniper shots at his client, check this out….
“this gap will likely close up when Microsoft introduces Windows 7 late this year.”
Is that privileged information, or just based on the fact that MS ships everything late?
Gideon Keane, on May 5th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
I /am/ a PC. But I really loved this article. I use my PC as a tool and thats all. If and when I have to use a mac I will. Til then I shall continue to reap the financial rewards brought about by the imperfections and gaps created by whatever system I am working.
Keep the sarcasm and the perspective. I loved this piece.
I'm a PC, on May 7th, 2009 at 6:39 am
I love MACs, but I hate Apple.
Viva Hackintosh!!!
I hope Psystar win so any one in the world can have MAC OS X legally!!!
Anonymous, on May 7th, 2009 at 7:09 am
This piece is written with Passion , anger, and love for Apple…
I personally loved it, it is written very well, and it makes a lot of sense
I was studying Microsoft engineering, i was struggling on get to understand the architecture of their OSs, but…
Today Thanks to Apple i am an Apple qualified technician…
Two worldwide certificates, in only two years of studies…
Switch to Mac and you will never look Back
Max, on May 8th, 2009 at 6:23 am
I needed to buy a computer and everyone sold me on Apple. However after reading this article I’ve realized that I too am going to Best Buy to pick up a top of the line PC. You people sit around pissed at the world because they don’t want to be like you. Well, I don’t either. I like to get my work done and then go out and play in the 3 dimensional world. You people dream of getting into a 3-way circle jerk with Steve Jobs and the Woz. You’re losers with over priced computers!!! You freaks kiss your Steve Jobs pin-up at night and probably have Apple logo stickers on your cars. I pity all of you who buy into this garbage. Its a computer. You bang on the keys to get your job done then you put the damn thing away. I hate to break this to all of you but thats all your precious Apple computers were ever meant to be. Also, Steve Jobs wouldn’t take the time to piss on any of you if you were dying of thirst right in front of him. If buying a particular brand of computer means you’re in this “Cult”, then how sad must you be to actually buy it? Its not an “Apple Tax”, according to you guys its your “Membership Fee”. LOL, well good luck suckers!
jake, on May 8th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
lol, apple’s motto for years was ‘Think Different’, really it should be ‘Think Rationale’…
The Macintosh outperforms on every scientific test for performance regardless of what multivendor/OEM PC you use out there, because apple controls everything. Take Snow Leopard for Instance… Software has been produced to use the graphics card as a processor, impossible for any standalone OS to produce to work well at all on more than 1 model of machine.
iWW
./Stackoverflow.h
iWW, on May 9th, 2009 at 4:37 am
Maybe it’s just me, but the cost of Mac vs. PC seems like the “cost of living” comparisons for cities. Yes, it costs much less to live in Podunk, Nebraska- but do you really want to live there?
(FYI- I’ve never been to Nebraska, it may be quite nice but to illustrate the idea I had to name some state…)
Rich, on May 9th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Lawl.
Well, have fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWqHPjB_32M
Hahaha ha haha ha!
Sabi, on May 11th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
i hate this website. the bias ruins all of the articles, atleast be realistic.
Doug C, on May 11th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
@ Doug C: uh… unlike fox news we don’t even try to mask our real agenda behind maketing slogans. The name of the site is Cult-Of-Mac… what side of the argument do you THINK we’re going to come down on.
@ Jake: As a high-priest in this here cult, you are hereby excommunicated. You may not own any kind of Macintosh, neither now nor in the future. Infact I’m thinking you need to turn in your iPod as well… enjoy you Zune sucker.
Leigh McMullen, on May 12th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Well the thing is you can argue with them all day and they will never understand and neither will they produce a product with the fit and finish of the Mac. If they do (take the adamo) well it lands up costing just as much. When you have cheaper products its not a surprise that your end laptop would be cheap.
And then there is the issue of software. Yes OS X will be more stable and less penetrable than windows because of the Unix platform and the lack of drivers required.
Yes windows 7 may be a good step forward but all thats short lived as snow leopard is on the way. Faster, lighter and stronger than over !!!
Parikshith Kumar, on May 12th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
you guys are funny. it’s the same damn hardare, and you’re splitting hairs over software. Who gives a flying fart whether either OS is better then the other. I can successfully crash an XP machine just as fast as I can crash a Mac.
My only bitch about Mac OS is that it is proprietary software. The fact that mac only allows it to run on their dongled hardware is bullshit. The ought release it so any tom dick and harry can run it over or on their dual boot machine, instead of having to rush out and blow 2000.00 on a system when they already have one.
/rant
btw.. i started on mac back in the 030 days, and switched to pc in the early ppc days. As a whole, I find MS’s platform to be slightly more dev friendly, however, they do make a damn nice phone/ipod. I sincerely would like Microsoft and Apple to team up and make a hybrid Os, which can be themed like either/or and can run software from both. Maybe like win7 does when it runs XP apps in compatability mode or when os 10 ran apps in 0S9 mode
Terrence, on May 14th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Alright listen buddy: I really liked where you were going with this article for a while considering I – as a former lifelong PC user who knew his way around them and their Windows souls pretty damn well while I was succumbing to the conditions that will most likely be responsible for the heart failure I’ll probably someday experience – hate Microsoft and its idiot-targeting deception marketing enough for me and the next six to ten people. (How’s that for a run-on sentence?)
But what I – by no means a professional writer – don’t get and refuse to accept, is how people (like yourself, though you’re not as bad as many) who write, and write, and write, all day and all night – and even make money from it – don’t understand standard literary English.
YOU NEVER – and it doesn’t matter if it’s a pronoun, an abbreviation, or even just a bunch of lowercase consonants jumbled together – USE AN APOSTROPHE TO DENOTE A PLURAL.
I’m sorry, but “Lexus’ ” (deliberate space before quotation mark for clarity)?? I let “PC’s” slide because that’s unfortunately everywhere, and I, too, am not at the “yelling at kids to get off my lawn” stage of impatience. But come on man, look how long this comment is now. I didn’t want to have to write this. It’s been like 7 minutes since it pissed me off. I should be studying – that’s right, I’m still in school.
It’s Lexuses. It doesn’t matter that it’s a name. iPod Touches. Name something the Ridiculous and you have Ridiculouses, not Ridiculous’. COME ON.
Fred Mulligan, on May 14th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
There is a (dying) tradition in English to avoid adding an s to a word that ends in s. You are correct to say that you ought not use the apostrophe method for plurals (this is for possessives, typically), but you also wouldn’t traditionally say Lexuses, either, because, well, it’s awkward.
Historically, the solution is to use Greek or Latin endings in place of the Middle English originated -es ending. This is especially useful when the word in question has classical origins. In this case, then, you would say Lexi instead of Lexuses.
Rico, on May 17th, 2009 at 4:46 pm