Opteron said:
I think what you meant to say was "release a new computer + for each line, being PMs, PBs, iMs and iBs
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I think what you meant to say was "release a new computer + for each line, being PMs, PBs, iMs and iBs
Michael Vance....
I can identify with that ... I've been on the marktet for a new PB since Apple brought out the last G4 revision. I have even seriously considered buying a Vaio or something similar but so far have resisted. How much longer ? Yet another G4 revision would not (sorry) be an option. In the mean time I'm getting more and more frustrated. I can't understand why Apple forces a frustrated/satisfied/frustrated/satisfied/.. cycle on it's (longstanding) customers.
I wish Steve J. would just stop hyping everybody up before he is absolutely sure that processor X or graphic card Y is deliverable in a reasonable time frame and that _ALL_ potential problems are sorted out. All this from a end-user perspective. Imagine what it's like to be dependant on Apple as a reseller ?
I can identify with that ... I've been on the marktet for a new PB since Apple brought out the last G4 revision. I have even seriously considered buying a Vaio or something similar but so far have resisted. How much longer ? Yet another G4 revision would not (sorry) be an option. In the mean time I'm getting more and more frustrated. I can't understand why Apple forces a frustrated/satisfied/frustrated/satisfied/.. cycle on it's (longstanding) customers.
I wish Steve J. would just stop hyping everybody up before he is absolutely sure that processor X or graphic card Y is deliverable in a reasonable time frame and that _ALL_ potential problems are sorted out. All this from a end-user perspective. Imagine what it's like to be dependant on Apple as a reseller ?
The frustrations and difficulties of running a high quality Apple dealership may be one reason few of these exist any longer, and Apple chose the path of the "Apple Store.spinko said:
It's pretty hard to complain about amateurish sales and support among resellers when your only source for hardware is sometimes just as amateurish. Any the lingering rumors of Apples's death during the lean years surely didn't help these independent maintain their professionalism.
While many here maintain that Mac's are just fine with the G4's and that others are just whiners, the huge hole in their product line beween the eMac and the G5 towers is glaring.
And for those who've talked earlier in this thread about making iMacs with a "detachable" LCD, this already exists and doesn't need to be invented anew by Apple. It's called an external monitor!
Something must be coming...
I was just over on the Apple Store website specials page and tried to order a refurb dual 1.8 G5 when I noticed the est. ship time was 30+ business days!
This lends to my theory that if updates are coming on the 23rd and the line up is what the french site dictated that the new processors are all going to be the same 970FX G5's that are in the XServs. This makes sense to me because the faster models with the new 970FX would run cooler than the current ones and the cases wouldn't have to be redesigned for better airflow.
If the specs on the French site are correct, I think the pricing will go as follows:
1.8 dual = $1999
2.2 dual = $2499
2.4 dual = $2999
Although I think that the 1.8 will be a single priced at $1799 just like the 1.6 is now.
-db
Oh and in my previous post in this thread I misspelled "idoit" on purpose, I can't believe you guys misread my intentions on this one.
I was just over on the Apple Store website specials page and tried to order a refurb dual 1.8 G5 when I noticed the est. ship time was 30+ business days!
This lends to my theory that if updates are coming on the 23rd and the line up is what the french site dictated that the new processors are all going to be the same 970FX G5's that are in the XServs. This makes sense to me because the faster models with the new 970FX would run cooler than the current ones and the cases wouldn't have to be redesigned for better airflow.
If the specs on the French site are correct, I think the pricing will go as follows:
1.8 dual = $1999
2.2 dual = $2499
2.4 dual = $2999
Although I think that the 1.8 will be a single priced at $1799 just like the 1.6 is now.
-db
Oh and in my previous post in this thread I misspelled "idoit" on purpose, I can't believe you guys misread my intentions on this one.
CalfCanuck said:
I just had to post this here.. it's from http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38976
And for those who've talked earlier in this thread about making iMacs with a "detachable" LCD, this already exists and doesn't need to be invented anew by Apple. It's called an external monitor! [/QUOTE]
This isn't the same thing at all. An LCD display that detatched from the imac base (and could possible be used seperately with PPC and power supply etc) would take up far less desk space than an external monitor, have less cables and maintain all the adjustability that the current imac displays enjoy. Plus the option of buying a headless imac would add more choice to those of limited budget who already owned a monitor. (rolls eyes)
It's not gonna happen anyway.
[/QUOTE]This isn't the same thing at all. An LCD display that detatched from the imac base (and could possible be used seperately with PPC and power supply etc) would take up far less desk space than an external monitor, have less cables and maintain all the adjustability that the current imac displays enjoy. Plus the option of buying a headless imac would add more choice to those of limited budget who already owned a monitor. (rolls eyes)
It's not gonna happen anyway.
I agree totally.CalfCanuck said:
If a new graphics chip comes out it should be used... Naturally, if your iMacs (for example) get bumped up, they need to still sell their existing (older) iMacs. If Apple was to slowly reduce the price on machines as they aged, then you wouldn't have the problems of no-one buying 6 month old stuff.
In my mind, right now the PowerMac G5s SHOULD be cheaper than they were on release (technology gets cheaper over time). IF apple planned to make it's Dual-2Ghz the low end in April, then the current Dual-2Ghz should be dropping towards the price of the upcoming dual-2Ghz. It'd make life a lot easier, and people wouldn't feel the need to hangout that extra time before purchasing.
Epiphany!
Although this may not be a SURE indicator of imminent updates, I will let you all decide reference the following:
I finally decided to put in my order for a Dual 1.8 gHz G5, and when I called the Apple Store, the rep advised me that he would be giving me a $250 discount on my G5. The rep offered this discount without me asking, or me inquiring about any imminent updates on the G5 product-line.
I have never called in an order to Apple, but it would seem to me that an update to the current product-scheme MIGHT be imminent, given the rep's offer to give me a discount on my G5 order.
Quite strange, isn't it? Anyone else get this recently from a phone call to Apple?
Although this may not be a SURE indicator of imminent updates, I will let you all decide reference the following:
I finally decided to put in my order for a Dual 1.8 gHz G5, and when I called the Apple Store, the rep advised me that he would be giving me a $250 discount on my G5. The rep offered this discount without me asking, or me inquiring about any imminent updates on the G5 product-line.
I have never called in an order to Apple, but it would seem to me that an update to the current product-scheme MIGHT be imminent, given the rep's offer to give me a discount on my G5 order.
Quite strange, isn't it? Anyone else get this recently from a phone call to Apple?
Warning, long post.
I'm just curious, being a bit of a newbie to the forum though a long time comuter user of both x86 and RISC platforms, if when references are being made here to computing power, such as in Puppies' post stating:
and
if the consideration regarding the differences in instructions per CPU cycle and therefore efficiency are really being taken into consideration. (Sorry Puppies, yours was the one that stood out the most for the sake of comparisson, esp since you do make some good points. Nothing personal, really!)
Part of my job at work is to compare Mac and PC hardware daily based upon user needs, and while the PCs are winning out on games, and the argument of the graphics card upgradability being limited on iMacs is sad but true, there's a lot more in the stew than that. The two main types of customers I see are "email/web users" and "powerusers". Email/web users tend to be the sort who just want to surf the internet, though powerusers tend to vary from database/homegrown app users to people who want to do high end 3D graphics and video editing. When presented with x86 options for both, I do have to agree that the variety of options are wider on the Windows platform. After all, why spend 1299 for a machine that will just be used for email? Why spend more for a power machine with many great options but perhaps not certain specifics when one can build one that has parts of my picking and chosing? Valid question.
In general:
Comparing x86 and RISC is kinda an awkward thing to do, because when it comes to the two types of processors, we start to get into meeting specific needs. x86 being less expensive for a less powerful chip of a similar spec rating, while RISC costing a bit more for a processor that is capable of so much more. It becomes more of an issue of technology longevity and specific needs. Technology longevity is a big one, though, since someone today could buy a Mac that will outlast a few generations of x86 for most basic computer users in terms of being able to do the same thing that newer chips on the x86 market can do without having to upgrade as many times to stay "current" (which is another relative term). When it comes to power users, the differences grow by leaps and bounds. (I'll not get into hyper detail here since this post is already running long, but do the research, you'll see what I mean.)
iMac:
Other than the ease of use and stability issues of an iMac, many users who just want a basic machine may as well get a Dell or Gateway for some $400. Granted, they're buying a disposable machine, but that's their choice. When you look at the basic features in an iMac ( not to mention the resale/trade-in value of an inexpensive machine as well), the iMac is going to come out the winner here. Someone who invests the extra money in an iMac will have more options when they want to (should they want to) do more with their machine since the iMac is a platform that many people can grow with rather than have to buy a bunch of extra parts for or completely scrap their old machine and get a new one to do. A basic user can take their iMac from simple email to making home movies with no upgrades (other than perhaps RAM) in a heartbeat wheras an x86 machine would require a graphics card upgrade, a video capture card/firewire bus, and much much more RAM to do the same thing when their iMac has all that functionality built in.
And we're not even talking resale value here. What do x86 users do when their machine is out of date? If they're smart, they try to sell it on ebay, though the resale value will be pretty low... so most people tend to sell them for scrap or just junk the machine. With an iMac, you can still get back around 75% of the purchase price if you sell it on ebay, and heck that's an awesome down payment on a new computer if you need to upgrade. Even in the lower product lines such as iBooks and iMacs.
PowerMac:
This is where the larger differences begin to stand out. More instructions per CPU cycle and a more robust FPU for higher end applications like video and 3D will tend to outperform an x86 machine of a higher frequency. To compete with a PowerMac in this arena, one would indeed need to purchase a custom built machine from someone like Alienware. Granted there are more customization options with an Alienware machine than your basic PowerMac, but you're also running an operating system that can't fully take advantage of the hardware, nevermind manages your resources more poorly than OS X's unix core. So when it comes down to it, you're not really comparing oranges and oranges.
Resale value in this product line is even more dramatic when compared to an x86 machine of similar build. Its a commonly stated rule of thumb that x86 hardware drops 1/2 in value the moment it leaves the seller, and for the most part (though not always), this tends to prove itself true. PowerMacs do tend to hold their resale value for much longer (years, in fact) and will go for more in a few years than an x86 machine bought at the same time.
Overall:
So yes, Macs are more expensive sometimes a bit too much so, but there's more to consider than just price when buying a Mac. Moreso, Apple has never claimed to really want to compete with people like Dell or Gateway; they've focused on technology longevity, long term benefits, ease of use, and stability more than a cheap machine for a simple job that will be outdated rather quickly. Building houses out of bricks rather than of sticks, to put it one way. And no, I'll not compare this sort of thing to cars; enough people already have done that. ^^
I'm just curious, being a bit of a newbie to the forum though a long time comuter user of both x86 and RISC platforms, if when references are being made here to computing power, such as in Puppies' post stating:
Puppies said:
and
Puppies said:
if the consideration regarding the differences in instructions per CPU cycle and therefore efficiency are really being taken into consideration. (Sorry Puppies, yours was the one that stood out the most for the sake of comparisson, esp since you do make some good points. Nothing personal, really!)
Part of my job at work is to compare Mac and PC hardware daily based upon user needs, and while the PCs are winning out on games, and the argument of the graphics card upgradability being limited on iMacs is sad but true, there's a lot more in the stew than that. The two main types of customers I see are "email/web users" and "powerusers". Email/web users tend to be the sort who just want to surf the internet, though powerusers tend to vary from database/homegrown app users to people who want to do high end 3D graphics and video editing. When presented with x86 options for both, I do have to agree that the variety of options are wider on the Windows platform. After all, why spend 1299 for a machine that will just be used for email? Why spend more for a power machine with many great options but perhaps not certain specifics when one can build one that has parts of my picking and chosing? Valid question.
In general:
Comparing x86 and RISC is kinda an awkward thing to do, because when it comes to the two types of processors, we start to get into meeting specific needs. x86 being less expensive for a less powerful chip of a similar spec rating, while RISC costing a bit more for a processor that is capable of so much more. It becomes more of an issue of technology longevity and specific needs. Technology longevity is a big one, though, since someone today could buy a Mac that will outlast a few generations of x86 for most basic computer users in terms of being able to do the same thing that newer chips on the x86 market can do without having to upgrade as many times to stay "current" (which is another relative term). When it comes to power users, the differences grow by leaps and bounds. (I'll not get into hyper detail here since this post is already running long, but do the research, you'll see what I mean.)
iMac:
Other than the ease of use and stability issues of an iMac, many users who just want a basic machine may as well get a Dell or Gateway for some $400. Granted, they're buying a disposable machine, but that's their choice. When you look at the basic features in an iMac ( not to mention the resale/trade-in value of an inexpensive machine as well), the iMac is going to come out the winner here. Someone who invests the extra money in an iMac will have more options when they want to (should they want to) do more with their machine since the iMac is a platform that many people can grow with rather than have to buy a bunch of extra parts for or completely scrap their old machine and get a new one to do. A basic user can take their iMac from simple email to making home movies with no upgrades (other than perhaps RAM) in a heartbeat wheras an x86 machine would require a graphics card upgrade, a video capture card/firewire bus, and much much more RAM to do the same thing when their iMac has all that functionality built in.
And we're not even talking resale value here. What do x86 users do when their machine is out of date? If they're smart, they try to sell it on ebay, though the resale value will be pretty low... so most people tend to sell them for scrap or just junk the machine. With an iMac, you can still get back around 75% of the purchase price if you sell it on ebay, and heck that's an awesome down payment on a new computer if you need to upgrade. Even in the lower product lines such as iBooks and iMacs.
PowerMac:
This is where the larger differences begin to stand out. More instructions per CPU cycle and a more robust FPU for higher end applications like video and 3D will tend to outperform an x86 machine of a higher frequency. To compete with a PowerMac in this arena, one would indeed need to purchase a custom built machine from someone like Alienware. Granted there are more customization options with an Alienware machine than your basic PowerMac, but you're also running an operating system that can't fully take advantage of the hardware, nevermind manages your resources more poorly than OS X's unix core. So when it comes down to it, you're not really comparing oranges and oranges.
Resale value in this product line is even more dramatic when compared to an x86 machine of similar build. Its a commonly stated rule of thumb that x86 hardware drops 1/2 in value the moment it leaves the seller, and for the most part (though not always), this tends to prove itself true. PowerMacs do tend to hold their resale value for much longer (years, in fact) and will go for more in a few years than an x86 machine bought at the same time.
Overall:
So yes, Macs are more expensive sometimes a bit too much so, but there's more to consider than just price when buying a Mac. Moreso, Apple has never claimed to really want to compete with people like Dell or Gateway; they've focused on technology longevity, long term benefits, ease of use, and stability more than a cheap machine for a simple job that will be outdated rather quickly. Building houses out of bricks rather than of sticks, to put it one way. And no, I'll not compare this sort of thing to cars; enough people already have done that. ^^
Kimmer said:
This is what Mac users always want you to believe but it couldn't be further from the truth. I do motion graphics, 3D, and video for a living and have been doing this extremely processor intensive work for ten years. For the last three or four it's really been no contest about which is the superior machine for these power uses. PC's win hands down for speed, reliability, stability, dependability, networking, and just about everything. Mac's are slower, more crash prone, expecially under heavy loads, require more time troubleshooting, and force you to spend more time in the OS. You'll find yourself getting to know you Mac's inner workings much better than the PC, because guess what, you'll need to. I recently bought my wife a 20" iMac for it's sweet monitor, small footprint, and good looks which go very well in our small apartment. But in terms of processor it's of no use to me at all. Though I have need to do network rendering of long animations using otherwise idle machines, there is absolutely no point whatsoever of even hooking it up for that. I would be pointless the processor is so slow. Aside from that it doesn't network with the other machines PC and older Macs at home using Appletalk, always losing it's connection and requiring a restart.
I'll be getting a G5 to edit with only because Final Cut Pro runs exclusively on Macs, and I am getting the machine for that. In terms of power it's barely as fast as my now more than two year old PC. In terms of stability I've seen the G5's in action and work and know from experience that they are as unstable and crash prone as Macs have always been. They also are very slow to respond to new instructions, sometimes just throwing the spinning ball at you for no apparent reason. Window resizing is again dog slow compared to PC's, and again, the networking sucks.
To say that these machines are for power users is simply not true, and hasn't been true for years. It's just a slow to die myth.
mahermusic said:
I know, it's hard to accept when you don't have any real world experience with the two and have been brainwashed with the Mac propoganda.
A Little About Me -- OR -- Real World Experience
In response to:
I have to wonder what qualifies as real world experience when one knows nothing of the other person's experiences. Granted, all experiences are unique, as are people, but here is my real world experience so that the forum members in general can learn more about me (being new to these forums). ^^
Many of us have grown up with different computers, and I myself started with Apple Computers and a Colecovision Adam computer. Not that I knew very much about computers in those days, but they were both fun. I did always wonder what I would have to do to get my computer to do the things that my dad's business partner's mac could do, though, but didn't think about it too much until I got into computers later in life.
One of my first jobs was at an electronics store in California where I got to gather lots of feedback from both Mac and Windows machines and eventually opted to go with Linux as an alternative since I couldn't afford a Mac and my Windows machines always had crashes and driver issues.
That's not to say that I didn't hear my share of stories regarding Mac OS problems, but when I did some research and learned more about what RISC and x86 were really about, I determined that until some OS issues were resolved on either platform, I'd go with an OS that worked for me. Ideally, I would have run mklinux, but again I couldn't afford the hardware.
I ended up having to use Windows eventually because of the fact that I could build the machine for myself and learn an OS that would make me marketable in the IT industry at the time. So I ended up on Windows NT for my home machine and ended up learning Desktop Publishing on my friend's Mac. After all, gotta be marketable in the industry.
I found myself in a group of silicon valley computer industry geeks, which led me to learn more about the benefits of each platform and operating system, and ended up determined to end up on a Mac one day. Once they're hardware became standards-based, and their OS went through a little more development.
I puttered through the world of Windows and learned how to 'tweak' it to make it do what I wanted it to do, and got quite good at it, and eventually got a job working at an SGI reseller where I was responsible for integrating Windows and IRIX (SGI's flavour of Unix) together.
I'd read about SGI, and the work they'd been doing in the motion picture industry, as well as high end product design. The more research I did, I found that SGI had been working in the 3D effects realm for a long time, and that we were soon to be entering the broadcast and 3D field ourselves. The customers we encountered were mostly Mac users who wanted to go farther with their film and animation projects, from the home users to the local television stations and sporting events broadcasters. Many of them had said they regretted giving up their Macs, but they needed the stability of Unix and a platform on which higher end apps like Alias|Wavefront's Power Modeler/Animator and Discreet Logic's Flint/Flame could run, as well as supporting things like RAID arrays by Megadrive to replace their AVID systems.
I regretted it too, but I really liked SGIs, save for the security holes in IRIX. But wow, look at the platform otherwise! Awesome graphics, awesome hardware and processing power...isn't this what Macs were supposed to be? Ah well, I found a platform that runs some seriously powerful applications, why not learn it? I'd been experimenting with Lightwave and 3D Studio Max and Photoshop on Windows, why not make the leap to the professional apps? Still have to use Windows for games and for MS Office, but wow, if I can get this sort of a machine for all of these things, why not?
My company ended up working on various digital films, as well as selling to people in that industry, and indeed ended up working with a lot of Mac users using Strata Pro and AVIDs as well as Media 100 NLEs. We went with Megadrive and Discreet Logic for that solution, ourselves, and were really pleased with that partnership. Hence I gained quite a lot of experience in Digital Video Editing, 3D animation and modeling, and even was able to get education on Lightwave, SoftImage, and the Alias|Wavefront suite of applications, including Maya. In fact, we were a part of the launch of Maya when SGI/A|W released Maya 1.0. Let me just say that Siggraph and the Digital Video Expo that year were a blast. Now if only I could get my hands on some of this hardware...
Well sadly it didn't work out that way. SGIs are expensive machines, and in the end they ended up declining in many ways they could have improved. How sad... So I went back to Windows. At least Maya was out on the PC, and I could use Premiere and After Effects to do my video editing, and I could use MS Office when I needed it.
Over the following years, I continued to talk with my friends about wanting to move to Mac if only A) I could afford it and B) if I could run all my apps on it. A common complaint, to be sure, since a lot of people were in that boat. So I bided my time, making the most of Windows and learning how to get it to perform how I wanted to, which ended up meaning working only on an NT level OS from NT 4.0 through Windows 2000 and now XP.
One thing I did learn, however, was to make multiple platforms work together, and eventually I was given a bunch of old Macs to play with from a friend who had gotten them from a former job as a tax write-off. So what did I do? Found versions of apps I wanted to run on them and got them to talk to my Windows machine and my FreeBSD box. So I had a fully functioning heterogeneous network of Macs, Windows PCs, and Unix machines. Not bad, but not an SGI, and certainly not Macs capable of doing what I wanted to given their age.
Soooooo.... I kept my eye on Mac, and then they made an awesome change: the release of a Unix based operating system. Now glorious as this may seem, I wasn't ready to switch until I watched the technology for a little while to see where it ended up. During this time, I ended up working for an advertising agency doing web design, video editing, and tech support all at the same time. And what did I find? A whole slew of Macs, and I ended up working on some current hardware. Very nice indeed... so I got to watch Macs under some stressful work conditions such as making TV commercials and Branding Videos, as well as Publishing catalogs and print ads and other press/pre-press work. Boy did the OS stand up and deliver (something I directly attribute to being based on Unix).
It wasn't until I moved to the midwest that I was able to afford a Mac of my own, so got myself an iBook to learn the platform in depth. I've not turned back since, and now own a G4 (which I payed for with the sale of my iBook which went for almost its retail purchase price) and am saving for a G5. I still have a Windows machine, and I use it for games and extra storage. I do all my video editing, design, and productivity-based work on my Mac, however, and am pleased to say that over the three years I've been Mac primary, it has only crashed three times, whereas my Windows PC has crashed and been reinstalled many times in that time period.
Don't get me wrong; I like Windows XP, and believe that it and Windows 2000 are the best things to happen to the PC in a very long time. I use both machines, I have them networked together and share files between the applications thereon without any problem. In fact, as far as networking is concerned, when we hooked up the Macs and Windows PCs at work for a huge network gaming party, they were the first machines seen by the server and to be setup for all of our games. The PCs were installing service packs and updates and runtime environment APIs for a while as we sat and waited.
So how do I define real world experience with Mac and in the computer industry in general? Working in high-end industries where your hardware and OS will be seriously stress tested and seeing who comes out on top. So far its been SGI and Macs running OS X. Windows came in a close third, though, and I do have to admit that there are a lot of great things that can be done with them. But to configure a Windows PC to do what my Mac can do out of the box costs more than what I paid for my Mac in the first place. A comparison that grows with the introduction of the G5. But that's another issue.
My real world experience in the film, video, broadcast, and SFX industry has shown that RISC technology running a Unix based operating system tends to perform the best, and that recently, Apple has picked up where SGI fell behind and eventually left off. Maya, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and Shake are all industry standards nowadays, and to be honest, FCP and Shake can be likened to the Discreet Logic and Chyron Products I was initially trained on, and feel very familiar. Very professional, very robust, and running on a workstation that doesn't cost near as much as an SGI or Sun, bringing high end tools to end users who can become professionals for half the cost of what it used to be. And the Apple Macintosh PowerMac delivers that. The iMac delivers all that power in a smaller package geared towards home users who need a simple and stable machine, but who may someday venture more into a digital lifestyle whether it be digital photos and home videos, or getting more into the Pro level applications.
Anyway, that's me and my experience, how about y'all and some of yours? ^_^
In response to:
Michael Vance said:
I have to wonder what qualifies as real world experience when one knows nothing of the other person's experiences. Granted, all experiences are unique, as are people, but here is my real world experience so that the forum members in general can learn more about me (being new to these forums). ^^
Many of us have grown up with different computers, and I myself started with Apple Computers and a Colecovision Adam computer. Not that I knew very much about computers in those days, but they were both fun. I did always wonder what I would have to do to get my computer to do the things that my dad's business partner's mac could do, though, but didn't think about it too much until I got into computers later in life.
One of my first jobs was at an electronics store in California where I got to gather lots of feedback from both Mac and Windows machines and eventually opted to go with Linux as an alternative since I couldn't afford a Mac and my Windows machines always had crashes and driver issues.
That's not to say that I didn't hear my share of stories regarding Mac OS problems, but when I did some research and learned more about what RISC and x86 were really about, I determined that until some OS issues were resolved on either platform, I'd go with an OS that worked for me. Ideally, I would have run mklinux, but again I couldn't afford the hardware.
I ended up having to use Windows eventually because of the fact that I could build the machine for myself and learn an OS that would make me marketable in the IT industry at the time. So I ended up on Windows NT for my home machine and ended up learning Desktop Publishing on my friend's Mac. After all, gotta be marketable in the industry.
I found myself in a group of silicon valley computer industry geeks, which led me to learn more about the benefits of each platform and operating system, and ended up determined to end up on a Mac one day. Once they're hardware became standards-based, and their OS went through a little more development.
I puttered through the world of Windows and learned how to 'tweak' it to make it do what I wanted it to do, and got quite good at it, and eventually got a job working at an SGI reseller where I was responsible for integrating Windows and IRIX (SGI's flavour of Unix) together.
I'd read about SGI, and the work they'd been doing in the motion picture industry, as well as high end product design. The more research I did, I found that SGI had been working in the 3D effects realm for a long time, and that we were soon to be entering the broadcast and 3D field ourselves. The customers we encountered were mostly Mac users who wanted to go farther with their film and animation projects, from the home users to the local television stations and sporting events broadcasters. Many of them had said they regretted giving up their Macs, but they needed the stability of Unix and a platform on which higher end apps like Alias|Wavefront's Power Modeler/Animator and Discreet Logic's Flint/Flame could run, as well as supporting things like RAID arrays by Megadrive to replace their AVID systems.
I regretted it too, but I really liked SGIs, save for the security holes in IRIX. But wow, look at the platform otherwise! Awesome graphics, awesome hardware and processing power...isn't this what Macs were supposed to be? Ah well, I found a platform that runs some seriously powerful applications, why not learn it? I'd been experimenting with Lightwave and 3D Studio Max and Photoshop on Windows, why not make the leap to the professional apps? Still have to use Windows for games and for MS Office, but wow, if I can get this sort of a machine for all of these things, why not?
My company ended up working on various digital films, as well as selling to people in that industry, and indeed ended up working with a lot of Mac users using Strata Pro and AVIDs as well as Media 100 NLEs. We went with Megadrive and Discreet Logic for that solution, ourselves, and were really pleased with that partnership. Hence I gained quite a lot of experience in Digital Video Editing, 3D animation and modeling, and even was able to get education on Lightwave, SoftImage, and the Alias|Wavefront suite of applications, including Maya. In fact, we were a part of the launch of Maya when SGI/A|W released Maya 1.0. Let me just say that Siggraph and the Digital Video Expo that year were a blast. Now if only I could get my hands on some of this hardware...
Well sadly it didn't work out that way. SGIs are expensive machines, and in the end they ended up declining in many ways they could have improved. How sad... So I went back to Windows. At least Maya was out on the PC, and I could use Premiere and After Effects to do my video editing, and I could use MS Office when I needed it.
Over the following years, I continued to talk with my friends about wanting to move to Mac if only A) I could afford it and B) if I could run all my apps on it. A common complaint, to be sure, since a lot of people were in that boat. So I bided my time, making the most of Windows and learning how to get it to perform how I wanted to, which ended up meaning working only on an NT level OS from NT 4.0 through Windows 2000 and now XP.
One thing I did learn, however, was to make multiple platforms work together, and eventually I was given a bunch of old Macs to play with from a friend who had gotten them from a former job as a tax write-off. So what did I do? Found versions of apps I wanted to run on them and got them to talk to my Windows machine and my FreeBSD box. So I had a fully functioning heterogeneous network of Macs, Windows PCs, and Unix machines. Not bad, but not an SGI, and certainly not Macs capable of doing what I wanted to given their age.
Soooooo.... I kept my eye on Mac, and then they made an awesome change: the release of a Unix based operating system. Now glorious as this may seem, I wasn't ready to switch until I watched the technology for a little while to see where it ended up. During this time, I ended up working for an advertising agency doing web design, video editing, and tech support all at the same time. And what did I find? A whole slew of Macs, and I ended up working on some current hardware. Very nice indeed... so I got to watch Macs under some stressful work conditions such as making TV commercials and Branding Videos, as well as Publishing catalogs and print ads and other press/pre-press work. Boy did the OS stand up and deliver (something I directly attribute to being based on Unix).
It wasn't until I moved to the midwest that I was able to afford a Mac of my own, so got myself an iBook to learn the platform in depth. I've not turned back since, and now own a G4 (which I payed for with the sale of my iBook which went for almost its retail purchase price) and am saving for a G5. I still have a Windows machine, and I use it for games and extra storage. I do all my video editing, design, and productivity-based work on my Mac, however, and am pleased to say that over the three years I've been Mac primary, it has only crashed three times, whereas my Windows PC has crashed and been reinstalled many times in that time period.
Don't get me wrong; I like Windows XP, and believe that it and Windows 2000 are the best things to happen to the PC in a very long time. I use both machines, I have them networked together and share files between the applications thereon without any problem. In fact, as far as networking is concerned, when we hooked up the Macs and Windows PCs at work for a huge network gaming party, they were the first machines seen by the server and to be setup for all of our games. The PCs were installing service packs and updates and runtime environment APIs for a while as we sat and waited.
So how do I define real world experience with Mac and in the computer industry in general? Working in high-end industries where your hardware and OS will be seriously stress tested and seeing who comes out on top. So far its been SGI and Macs running OS X. Windows came in a close third, though, and I do have to admit that there are a lot of great things that can be done with them. But to configure a Windows PC to do what my Mac can do out of the box costs more than what I paid for my Mac in the first place. A comparison that grows with the introduction of the G5. But that's another issue.
My real world experience in the film, video, broadcast, and SFX industry has shown that RISC technology running a Unix based operating system tends to perform the best, and that recently, Apple has picked up where SGI fell behind and eventually left off. Maya, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and Shake are all industry standards nowadays, and to be honest, FCP and Shake can be likened to the Discreet Logic and Chyron Products I was initially trained on, and feel very familiar. Very professional, very robust, and running on a workstation that doesn't cost near as much as an SGI or Sun, bringing high end tools to end users who can become professionals for half the cost of what it used to be. And the Apple Macintosh PowerMac delivers that. The iMac delivers all that power in a smaller package geared towards home users who need a simple and stable machine, but who may someday venture more into a digital lifestyle whether it be digital photos and home videos, or getting more into the Pro level applications.
Anyway, that's me and my experience, how about y'all and some of yours? ^_^
I've just installed Flash MX 2004 Pro on an old 466 Mhz PC running XP and it feels just as snappy as on a G4 2x1.25 Mhz machine ... that's reality for me although I acknowledge that Macromedia products suck performance wise on Macs....
There is nothing new here, its been this way since the get go, Macs have the best software and the otherside gets the best hardware. We pay a premium for the software and get old limited hardware. Whats changed in 20 years? nothing.
Dont Hurt Me said:
I think that's not entirely true. I think that Macs occasionally cycle to the front of the pack for a while. The G5PM for example is making waves. The form factor of the iMac on two occassions has been attractive, not sure I could say that about the machiens guts. The Powerbook is also nice for the weight and design when it first came out, but now its performance is clearly well behind. It comes and goes.
yeah occasional surge but look at the G5. single cpu's Pcs are beating 2 cpu G5 machines. take your pick of Intel or Amd. so its not like the G5 is whipping the otherside and the truth is only the dual G5s are in the same league. the singles are getting spanked. so here we go again hardware that doesnt match or exceed the otherside. where is that photoshop bench they use to use to show off all that power??? Apple spins as much as a greasy politician. counting Emac and Imac sales as Imac sales is another example of the spin. saying the dual G5 was the fastest PC was more spin and England made them take off those commercials because they were lies. dont even see them here in the U.S now. Macworld just admitted they arent the fastest from what i understand. Lies spin and distortion( reminds me of George Bush ) meanwhile they are still pushing G4s in almost every model??? when is enough enough? G5 was 2 years late to the party and so its back to comparing 2 CPU's to 1 CPU the other guys use. am i missing something? oh yeah our Macs our Great.