Alright Macheads, lets talk real deal here

[NJDevils]

Man, this is a sad forum for name calling. But I really want to know what the mac crowd here thinks.

I've been a Mac user since 99. And its true, MacOS, though it had a lovely interface, was a pain in the ass to use, and it crashed, most horribly, all the time. Tradeoff, it was damned fast. Faster than any other operating system, because it didn't have the bells and whistles.

OSX was a boon for me. But I have found that it crashes from time to time (very rarely though, I have no mystery crashes). Mostly when I'm using a Java application (SWT based mostly), and when i am playing back a wonky video file that seems to lock up everything. If you have a second machine on the network that can ssh into your OSX box, you can kill the app and get it working, but from the machine itself, its gone.

Compare this to Windows? Win95, 98, and NT were real bad, depending on what hardware you ran. Win2k on the other hand was decent, and XP is mostly stable (though its godawful interface is a step backwards). I use windows on a daily basis at work, and considering the plethora of hardware it has to run on, it does a decent job. You also have to give some credit to Intel and the others for putting together better hardware.

Linux? Well, some of us like to tinker. I really do not want to come home to wrestle with yet another machine. Many a times i've had my mandrake install kill itself on an X upgrade (mysteriously murdered? wtf?). Its got a way to go, and I'd rather have a company behind the OS to go and fight for it (Apple, Microsoft, Sun, etc...).

In the end, OSX and the Mac have been good to me. I know Apple locks us in, and we overpay (until recently, now Apple has been aggressively pricing). But it really does live up to its name, everything just works. I've plugged in my dv camera, usb camera, firewire drives, installed various apps, and done my own development, and it just works.

My opinion, I've sacrificed speed and flexibility for convenience, and I'm satisfied (I own a 1Ghz Albook).

What are other mac user experiences?

[hm_murdock]

my experience is iBooks suck ass. I want a Powerbook G3 but people are way too proud of em ($400 for an old ass machine like that? COME ON!)

Apple's stuff isn't what it used to be, that's for sure.

[Chaplin]

I LOVE my iBook, it works great. Although I have had it lock up on me when running garageband but only like once every eliptical allighning of the planets.

[xyle_one]

I had an old tangerine iBook and it was great. I only wish I put a bigger harddrive it it. lol. yeah right. Ever tried to do that?

[hm_murdock]

you can't

[xyle_one]

Yes you can.

[Paladin9]

If you know how to open the case without breaking it.

[jjoonathan]

im on a tangerine g3  

[Kay4u]

I'm on an orginal 12" powerbook with a 60GB Hard Drive & 640MB ram, i've hardly had anything go wrong

[Pinkster]

Well, I started with Mac back in 1999 as well, I was in a Art Class and they had a Apple Mac G3 Running OS 9m and I hated it, Thought it was Ugly looking and Slow and crashed alot, now forward a year, 2000 My friend has G3 Running OS X, it was AWSOME!!! it was pretty, fast and everything inbetween and it was only a 500Mhz Processor and 256MB RAM, man thats crazy! in 2002 I bought myself a PowerMac G4, Dual 1.25Ghz G4 and I loaded OS X as well, OH MY LORD! FAST!, I had it for 2 years now and the longest I had it running was about 4 months straight, never once shutting off and never once a single flicker or slight imlication of a crash, yes, some programs do screw up sometimes, but nothing big, I updated the system, it has 2GB RAM, Radeon 9800 Video Card and 4 Maxtor Plus II Harddrives, its a dream machine, I love Apple, I have not one bad comment, only that OS 9 and below was horrid and the systems are expensive, but worth it, but OS X makes it up, big time! I also have a 900Mhz iBook and it runs incredible as well, but soon I'm going all out and I'm purchasing a G5, but not intell the Dual 3Ghz comes in effect, whenever that is...

[bedouin]

I purchased my first Mac in 2002 -- a Quicksilver 2002.  It's honestly the only computer I've ever owned that I have absolutely no complaints about.  It's been updated from 10.1 > 10.2 > 10.3 without a clean install, and runs just as fast (perhaps faster, because of QE) than the day I bought it.

A year later I bought a 12" 800mhz G3 iBook.  It suffered from one logic board failure, but has been fine ever since.  The battery life is great (sometimes close to 6 hours), and the size is perfect.  I haven't found anything comparable to Apple's laptop offerings in the PC world, especially in the 12" form.  The x86 laptops I did like made no mention of Linux support, and I refuse to run another Microsoft OS in my life.

My dad is the owner of a 1ghz eMac, and it's been completely trouble free.  I've been a computer user since 1985, when I received a c64 and I was PC user from probably '88-2002.  As far as a desktop OS, there's nothing comparable to OS X.

The only OS I ever used comparable to OS X was BeOS.  If Be was still adequately supported I'd probably still be using it.

I've kernel paniced OS X a couple times, but both times it was my fault.  I don't know that I've had a Windows install last more than 6 months without going awry.  As long as Steve Jobs keeps doing his magic, I'll be a loyal Apple customer.

Oh, and BTW: Microsoft could make the best OS in the world; I would never support them.  It's a moral issue to me.  They want to control every computer in the world, eliminate open standards, and subsequently control the exchange of information itself.  Whether you install a pirated copy of Windows or not, by running their OS, or helping other people use it, you're just perpetuating a dictatorship.

[Claris]

quote:Originally posted by JimmyJames: GenSTEP Founder:
you can't

You sure can. Watched my old man do it to a friend's 'book.

[hybridhedgehog]

i have a g3 ibook running in OS9 right now and i am NOT having any problems!ive had an OS9 application crash, but it didnt bring the whole system down like in windows!now for X, by far the greatest OS ever! i NEVER have problems, i have NO complaints about it, its just perfect!hell, with every new OS, thing just get faster! in windows everything just getss even slower!

[Refalm]

quote:bedouin: The only OS I ever used comparable to OS X was BeOS.  If Be was still adequately supported I'd probably still be using it.

Have you tried BeOS Max? It's BeOS Personal with modern drivers, DivX plugins, Heretic, Doom, etc.
Install it if you haven't, it's really awesome  

[bedouin]

quote:Originally posted by Refalm:
Have you tried BeOS Max?

I looked at it once or twice, but never installed it.  I actually purchased r4.5.2, r5 Pro, and even the BeOS Bible.  If there was an underdog I ever wanted to win, BeOS was it.

Ever attempted running BeOS Max in VirtualPC?  I'm pretty much all Mac now, so that'd be the easiest method for me to check it out.  I'm more interested in seeing how the OpenBeOS project (now Haiku) progresses over the years.  

After seeing BeOS fail I realized what Amiga folks must have felt like.  Superior product in nearly every way destined for failure.  Net+ was an insanely functional browser (for its time), and weighed in at like what -- 1.3mb?   Boot times at 5-10 seconds on a 266mhz machine; 10 mp3s playing on that same box with no stuttering . . . etc.

With that said though, I think Apple probably made the right decision by going with NeXT instead of BeOS.  I'm not so sure OS X would have all the geek notoriety it current enjoys if it weren't possible to compile so much OSS stuff on it.  Not to mention Be had no multiuser support, making it pretty much worthless as a server OS.