OS and what they do best

Nemikan

I have yet to actively use a Mac. I normally am using windows (primarily because I play games and linux hasn't been the greatest for that) and have used linux fairly often at school for the majority of my lab assignments. This being said, my question is as follows: What makes macs so great compared to the other OS (if it is so great) as I am seeing more and more people switch over to macs. At my college I'd wager that within the computer science department, approximately 2/6th are using macs, 3/6th linux, and 1/6th windows. I am not a complete noob (well others may argue otherwise..*cough bindle cough* but to me heres my "list" of each OS and its pros / cons:

*note formatting was messy on this, sry for the crappy looking bullets*

• Windows:

• pros: Compatibility, "standard", biggest selection of software, gui based, has visual studio meaning all Microsoft programming languages compatibility (not that i like visual studio that much)
• cons: stability, some restrictions in managing, proprietary

• Linux:

• pros: open source, complete control of the OS, can literally do anything the OS is functionally able to do, don't need a mouse
• cons: compatibility, management takes a great deal of time, memorization of text commands

• Mac:
• pros: aesthetically pleasing, own style, some high quality built in programs (ie: garage band), ui allows quick navigation, stable
• cons: proprietary, compatibility, slightly different keyboard

Please add to the list and aid me and others in understanding better the primary differences w/ pros and cons between each OS.

UPSLynx

Macs have a solid lineup of software that comes packaged, but honestly most of it caters to the casual user. Everyone raves about iMovie. But iMovie in itself isn't that impressive. There are but a few things in iMovie that you can't do in Win movie maker. Yet neither one will give you true non-linear editing capabilities. They're casual solutions. If you want to really take care of business, you have to look to Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro.

The same can be said of almost all of the iWork suite. And compared to the offerings of Win7, I don't think iLife has much to offer over Windows anymore other than style.

I've been a mac/pc user for over 3 years now, and I don't have a lot of major pluses to add to the mac. The system IS stable, sure. My record uptime on my mac is an impressive 70 days straight. But despite the artists' tendancy to use Mac, I do almost all of my graphic work on my PC. Animation, Photoshop, Illustrator, Video Editing... my PC is almost as stable, and significantly more powerful (and build for a fraction of the cost).

Macs are slick. At face value, you're getting a very attractive machine. They're very aesthetically pleasing - which is slowly being picked up by the rest of the markets. But you pay a HIGH price for the premium of being chic.

Now if you use Apple products (iPhone, iPod, ect) integration with a Mac is quite straight forward because all relevant software is allready there and ready to rock. That's a pro of the system (though it's something that can be achieved on the PC platform).

Honestly, After 3 years of use, I can't say I'd be waiting in line to buy another mac. The laptop has been great, but it was expensive, and I could have gotten much more bang for my buck PC-wise. Not to mention the typical Apple hardware failures I've had - bad battery and bad power adaptor to name two.

Oh, and a Mac con: When you connect to another PC's shared folder access via network, you cannot gain access to root. Perhaps I'm missing something, but every time I've tried I haven't been able to get to the root folder, meaning if a shared printer is located there, I'm out of luck.

Soundy

For a lot of instances, the choice of OS should also take into account the choice of software. In other words, sometimes you need to decide FIRST what software you're going to use, and choose your OS/hardware/platform accordingly.

A perfect example of this would be the aforementioned Final Cut Pro, which is my own preference for video editing by far. FCP is only written for Mac (or was the last time I checked); hence, if you want to use FCP, your ONLY choice is MacOS.

Similarly, if you need a lot of business applications, you may be limited to a Windows environment. Some applications are cross-platform or have suitable equivalents on other platforms, but they're the exception in "the real world", where you need to be able to exchange documents with the other 99% of people who just use the machine that IT drops on their desk.

Of course, with drive space being so cheap and plentiful these days, there's really little reason not to keep as many different OSs around as you want... Mac OSX can be hacked to run on just about any PC hardware (including AMD chips), and there are options available to allow Windows and Linux to load on the newer breed of Intel-based Macs, so dual- and triple-booting can give you the best of all worlds.

And there's always the use of numerous "virtual-PC" applications to aid that as well - when a friend built a "Hackintosh" on an early Intel build of OSX, he found that XP actually ran faster within a Parallels window inside OSX, than it did when he dual-booted to it. YMMV, of course, but the beauty is still that you have that option.

Mochan

Macs are great if your usage falls into Apple's definitions of what the computing experience should be. They are also cool, hip, and "in" and look really pretty. There's also FAR less risk of malware for you -- which in my opinion is the *real* selling point of a Mac and the only reason I would even consider moving to one.

But I don't, because Macs aren't for powerusers like me who need a ton of control over what he is doing and who needs to be able to install all sorts of specialized programs that do not exist on the Mac. Let's not even get into how much cheaper a PC is, and let's not even get into the FAR larger and more compelling stable of games on the PC, and let's not forget I am a Gamer first, everything else second.

As Soundy said, the real determining factor of whether to go Mac, Linux or Windows or whatever is to see what software it is that you want to use. So you have to look at yourself and see what you want to use your computer for. As you are a gamer yourself, I don't think you should even consider getting a Mac unless you need a secondary computer/laptop, and you find that the Mac has all the apps you need for a secondary computer (and have the disposable income to get one over a suitably cheaper netbook or other laptop).