Wednesday, March 8

What is it with Macs?

A couple of bloggers on my regular circuit - here, and indeed here - are looking for new Notebooks and they have asked for a bit of advice from Blogland. Great idea.

But what is it with Mac users? He asked, sitting here typing this on a very pretty Mac which I like very much. But goodness me, it's only a computer. It is no more or less capable than my old PC was, and frankly I think the PC was better at some things. And sure, the Mac is also better at some things (I'll let you know if I find out what they are), but it is woefully underserved by the rest of the computer industry. You can't get a single GPS device that works with a Mac. You have to buy ferociously expensive software to have thing do anything worthwhile and with a new Dell now coming in at less than £300, the new version of Word of Mac I just had to buy, despite already owning a perfectly good version of Word for PC, cost £345 which is more than a whole computer for God's sake.

And, once on a Mac, you can use no other MP3 player than the ones that Apple make. Is that not some kind of restraint or something? All Mac users mouth off about Bill Gates bundling IE Explorer with PCs, but what about the restrictions Mac put on us all? There's nothing like the freedom with a Mac that you have with a PC.

And, if you think Google is malevolent in the data it's building up on us all, what about bloody iTunes? Which only works with Apples own music download site. Oh, what a surprise. And, unless you turn it off, sends info back and forth about you, silently. Insidiously.

But no one wants to develop software for Macs because only about 5% of all computers sold are Macs.

Sure, I have to have a Mac because I have to have *&^%^*! Quark Express for about five minutes a month, and send files to other Mac users. And sure, it's a good computer, and pretty. But what is it with so called "creative" people: "you just HAVE to have a Mac darling. They're marvelous".

NO THEY ARE NOT. They are just another computer. And a bloody expensive one at that.

It's a PC world, and it's time poncey, so-called, creatives like me woke up to the fact and dealt with it rather than being precious about it.

*breathes*

Anyway, the answer is here

Also - Ahem, I haven't finished yet - these dashboard widgets are a waste of space. They look great, but a bit like Angel Delight, there's no substance or indeed point to them. All those wasted hours of software development for nothing - it's pointless city. They should all go away, and work up on some real software with a point to it, for example something that means I can work my Road Angel with my Mac.

6 comments:

the Beep said...

Even blogger discriminates against Macs - we don't get wysiwyg publishing and the spell checker mucks up more than it corrects...

Anonymous said...

thank you dear beepola! You have been most helpful today.

Anonymous said...

finally - a post on something really interesting. . .

sadly, since I thought a Mac was something one puts on to prevent one's clothes getting wet during a rain storm, I haven't a clue what you're going on about

are they the ones with the really big screens?

the Beep said...

are you being just rude, or very rude, about my other posts. I might take umbrage you know....

Anonymous said...

aw, c'mon, you know I'm not rude. . .

just a bit stupid - which is why I want to know what this one is all about!

(and how does Angel Delight fit in with computing? very confused, me, sorry)

and umbrage is good, goes with the photo of the snow-storm-cloud (ha ha ha), so take as much as you want - I won't be offended

x

the Beep said...

ah well, if you don;t have amac you won;t know about widgets and the empty vacuous waste of time that they are. they are like so much about macs, a triumph of appearance over content....

... and thus EXACTLY like angel delight