How many APPLE products have you owned?

This is an old one updated for the new OSes:
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UNIX Airways[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]

Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to the airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece by piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are supposed to be building.

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Air DOS[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]

Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and let the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push again, jump on again, and so on...

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Mac Airlines[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]

All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look and act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are gently but firmly told that you don't need to know, don't want to know, and everything will be done for you without your ever having to know, so just shut up.

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Windows Air[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]

The terminal is pretty and colourful, with friendly stewards, easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Windows NT Air[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]

Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Windows XP Air[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]

You turn up at the airport,which is under contract to only allow XP Air planes. All the aircraft are identical, brightly coloured and three times as big as they need to be. The signs are huge and all point the same way. Whichever way you go, someone pops up dressed in a cloak and pointed hat insisting you follow him. Your luggage and clothes are taken off you and replaced with an XP Air suit and suitcase identical to everyone around you as this is included in the exorbitant ticket cost. The aircraft will not take off until you have signed a contract. The inflight entertainment promised turns out to be the same Mickey Mouse cartoon repeated over and over again. You have to phone your travel agent before you can have a meal or drink. You are searched regularly throughout the flight. If you go to the toilet twice or more you get charged for a new ticket. No matter what destination you booked you will always end up crash landing at Whistler in Canada.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]OSX Air:[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]

You enter a white terminal, and all you can see is a woman sitting in the corner behind a white desk, you walk up to get your ticket. She smiles and says "Welcome to OS X Air, please allow us to take your picture", at which point a camera in the wall you didn't notice before takes your picture. "Thank you, here is your ticket" You are handed a minimalistic ticket with your picture at the top, it already has all of your information. A door opens to your right and you walk through. You enter a wide open space with one seat in the middle, you sit, listen to music and watch movies until the end of the flight. You never see any of the other passengers. You land, get off, and you say to yourself "wow, that was really nice, but I feel like something was missing"

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Windows Vista Airlines:[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]

You enter a good looking terminal with the largest planes you have ever seen. Every 10 feet a security officer appears and asks you if you are "sure" you want to continue walking to your plane and if you would like to cancel. Not sure what cancel would do, you continue walking and ask the agent at the desk why the planes are so big. After the security officer making sure you want to ask the question and you want to hear the answer, the agent replies that they are bigger because it makes customers feel better, but the planes are designed to fly twice as slow. Adding the size helped achieve the slow fly goal.

Once on the plane, every passenger has to be asked individually by the flight attendants if they are sure they want to take this flight. Then it is company policy that the captain asks the passengers collectively the same thing. After answering yes to so many questions, you are punched in the face by some stranger who when he asked "Are you sure you want me to punch you in the face? Cancel or Allow?" you instinctively say "Allow".

After takeoff, the pilots realize that the landing gear driver wasn't updated to work with the new plane. Therefore it is always stuck in the down position. This forces the plane to fly even slower, but the pilots are used to it and continue to fly the planes, hoping that soon the landing gear manufacturer will give out a landing gear driver update.

You arrive at your destination wishing you had used your reward miles with XP airlines rather than trying out this new carrier. A close friend, after hearing your story, mentions that Linux Air is a much better alternative and helps.

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Windows 7 Airlines:[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]

In effect a cunning corporate-takeover rebranding of Windows Vista Airlines with a new paint-job on all of the oversized over-slow planes. Some of the annoying in-flight bugs have been fixed, but it's still basically the same. Plus, when you bought the ticket, you later found that because of an administrative flaw in the airline booking system you had already paid for a duplicate ticket on Windows Vista Airlines, which you now don't need.

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Linux Air[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]

Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself.

When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, "You had to do what with the seat?"[/FONT]

 

I listed all my Apple products above, I invite you to suggest ANY alternative computer I could have purchased at the same time that did as much for less.

(in 1985 I went to work for an employer that required a statement that all programming I did that COULD have been done on a company computer was their property, so I bought a Mac. In 1996, I bought a Mac that I used for 13 years, until I could not run youtube on it. Try to guess how many Windows 95 boxes were in use 13 years later)

 

Like Jimbo's computer my daughter's Power Mac G-5 has lasted far longer than any Windows based machine we own. Her Power Mac G-5 was purchased by me in late 2003. When I got a newer computer it was passed to her. It is running the most advanced operating system that it can, OS-X Leopard. She still uses this computer often.

Her Macbook 13" was also once mine and passed to her when I got the next latest and greatest thing. I bought it in 2006. This MacBook has had only one hardware change which was an upgrade of RAM when I upgraded to OS-X Lion.

How many people are still using a Windows Based Laptop that is 5 or more years old? How many people are still using a Windows Based Desktop that is 8 or more years old.

Apple makes me feel that I get my money's worth. Everything from the case design to the operation. I have a Dell Inspiron that has had to have the hinges replaced, a speaker has quit working, the ethernet port no longer works, etc. This has not happened with our Apple products.

When my daughter and I switched to iPhones, I passed my iPod Touch to her three-year-old sister. Who can actually operate it!!! We slip it into a Woogie and she is able to easily use it to watch Netflix, a stored movie or listen to songs. She also plays simple game apps on it. The Woogie actually only costs $20, the have made a Woogie 2 now. That iPod Touch 1st Generation was actually purchased by me in 2007!!! It still works.

 

This is this Apple thread. The WinTel thread (which the above is the only logical answer to) is down the hall.

 

Fuji, Jonathan, Honeycrisp ( favorite apple), Red Delicious, Gala and Mcintosh just to name a few. All worked well for a short time then broke down.

 

Zero, and I would like to keep it that way.

I am not against Apple, it's just that I don't have spare money for 'luxury' items. I have a ThinkPad for computing/music needs (Had HP laptops for 10 years until recently) and a basic flip phone I got for free. My life is simple enough that if I want to read a book, I would do it the old fashioned way.

 

Several Ipods, Macbook Air, Powerbooks white and black, Apple TV. I don't really watch the Apple TV anymore if anyone wants to buy it send me an email.

 

I have many PC's/Laptops and I have an OSX Virtual Machine I can boot into. It also runs Windows and everything else.

Just to replace unquantifiable statements with fact:

Better Built: It is built by Foxconn. Foxconn also makes Acer, Dell, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Toshiba, and Samsung. They make lots more but those are ones with big PC presence in the states. So the build quality is exactly the same. If you mean designed better, well it isn't that either. Apple uses Intel parts. Intel distributes a reference design with all their processors. Apple as well as every other laptop maker use almost the exact same design, they just shove components around to make it fit in the case they want.

Better Looking: Subjective. Have you seen the Samsung laptops? Apple does make great looking products and if you care about that the most, then you pay the "Apple Tax".

LED Display: Just because it is better than what you have used, doesn't mean it is the best. Apple doesn't make displays. Just like they don't assemble computers. Apple buys all their displays for all devices (from iPods to iTampons to iMacs) from Samsung. Samsung does make the best display. I have 5 Samsung TV's alone. But other manufacturer's also use Samsung displays, most notably: Samsung!

 

Apple Product Categories - 1
Total Apple Products - 3

Ipod Video (I believe is now the "Classic") - 1, which required a new battery within a year and I replaced myself in less than 30 minutes at my work desk. This was stolen after house was broken into 2 years ago.

iPod Touch - Still going strong, although I did have to restore it 3 times in the past 2 years.

iPod Classic - Used less than 50 times, and was the insurance replacement of the older stolen one. It's now the car ipod hooked to the ipod kit.

Otherwise, I'm a PC guy. Never had many issues that weren't caused by myself. Actually, most issues were cheap hardware issues, other than when a hard drive crashed. There were some headaches with Vista, but Win 7 is a ton better IMO.

PC tend to be a lot cheaper, too. I can get a laptop that will last me at least 3 or 4 years before I decide I want a newer or faster one for around $600. Most of my upgraded PCs or Laptops get handed off to someone else and used for a few more years.

 

You are running OSX illegally there...

It may be built in the same factory, but you only have to pick up and use an Apple pro laptop to realise the materials used and they way they have been spec'd/designed means they are not created equal.

Put a common 15 inch pc laptop side by side with a Macbook pro. The display is in a different league in terms of brightness and color accuracy.

Apple doesn't get all its displays from Samsung.

A lot of the Apple displays, although manufactured by various companies, are exclusive to Apple. The retina display being one example.

 

Yep, and quality differences between the end products are indisputable. Different spec'd components, QA, circuit board design, power supply.

Apple the company has its warts, but the hardware tends to be very good quality and OS X is a treat. As for MS -- I am as likely to send $ to that company as I am to support GM. Blech. Each to their own.

 

If it works for you, it works. But listen to the stories you read here -- Apple products work without difficulty, and they keep working.

For software, I bought the iWork "family pack" for $100. I installed it on my daughter/mother/wife's computers. The only other software I paid for was VMWare Fusion, which I put on my wife's computer so she can run her work-related, Windows-only software. And her Windows boots lightning fast and it stays very stable, because the only thing she does with Windows is run her work applications and quit.

I bought her MacBook Pro two years ago and it's still running strong. I paid about $1,400 with a full three year warranty. Zero problems, zero complaints, and it's shiny aluminum case is as solid as the day she bought it.

Same story with my daughter's Mac Mini - about $600, I didn't need to purchase any software at all, and it's mounted invisibly and silently beneath her desk. Could have paid less, but it worked the minute I plugged it in and it hasn't stopped. She's in sixth grade, and it will most likely work for her until she goes to college and gets a laptop or whatever it is they have in six years.

 

One, an Pad2 that I won.

I like it, but it reminds me why I don't want an Apple computer. While it's working all is well, but should it ever break I can do exactly nothing about it. I prefer a PC, where I can build one that suits my needs precisely, then remove and replace generic components as changing needs, obsolescence or maintenance issues require.

 

That is how I do it. My present computer is one I put together about 3 years ago. It has a high end power supply from my previous computer, a good quality case from 2 computers earlier, a couple of other parts from previous computers and a new MBoard, memory, primary HD, DVD burner etc. It has low poer consuption for a desktop because of the components I chose and is fast enough that it never gets in the way of what I'm doing. I will probably have it for a few more years.

Eventually, if the CPU or M'board dies, I will have to start over because they change CPU sockets so often

 

Ten...

Apple II+
Apple printers(3 dot matrix)
Mac SE(operational, since '89)
Performa 550(donated to school)
PowerMac 8500(operational, but in storage)
PowerMac G4(using this 2001 Mac right now)
MacBookPro(wife's new pride and joy)
Airport Extreme

My bro-in-law once gave me a Dell Inspiron but it wasn't more than a week before I got continual blue-screens-of-death. Frustrated, I gave it back to him and within a couple weeks it ceased functioning completely.

BTW, in all these years with Apple we've never depended on anti-malware apps, nor have we ever suffered an infection. OTOH, my PC relatives are always wasting precious time running updates or trying to rid their computers of viral nasties.

As for reliability, even tho Apple may in fact utilize many of the same manufacturers used by its PC competitors, independent annual reliability surveys consistently show most Apple products outlasting PC gear.

While Apple controls hardware components like its motherboards, one can go to 3rd party dealers to purchase replacement drives, memory, and other assorted hardware for a fraction of the cost one would spend at ones local Apple Store.

 

The difference in hardware quality comes down to Apple's complete control over all Apple hardware. The market for Apple hardware is a closed market: you can only buy Apple products (except for some rare special cases). Apple chooses to source only higher quality products.

Windows PCs, on the other hand, are highly cost driven. The PC market is a commodity market: buyers look for the best bargain. Low cost is king. As a result, the majority of PCs are low cost pieces of crap. They are cheap, and generally work okay at first, but long life is not one of their features.

You can buy good Windows based PCs if you are willing to spend the money. You can build excellent PCs if you know how and have the cash. PCs at the same price point are just as reliable as Apple hardware. Windows, on the other hand...I'll stick with Linux.

Tom

 

Tom, what did you choose before Linux ?

 

let's see...being an IT guy for 20+ years, I have been accustomed to PC's...in 2007 I bit the apple bullet and haven't looked back since...

1) 13"Macbook (second gen intel core 2 duo processor) my first mac
2) 13"Macbook Pro (my baby)
3) custom Mac Pro desktop with 2.8ghz quad core intel processor and 20gigs ram (my torrent beast)
4) Ipad 2 32gb wifi only
5) Verizon white iPhone 4S 32gb (mine)
6) Verizon black iPhone 4 32gb (wifey)
7 & 8) 2 Mac mini's


think thats about it......

 

RT-11, RSX-11M and VAX VMS. If we are talking about PCs, then it was DOS followed by Windows 1.03, OS/2, then all of the subsequent versions of Windows, Windows NT, and the follow-on versions of Windows Server. I also worked with several versions of Apple OS, although I never owned my own Apple computer.

I still have to work with Windows and Windows based programs. Microsoft owns too much of the world to avoid it, so I have several Windows VMs that I use for programs that won't run in WINE.

Tom

 

My MacBook with its i7 processor can easily run both Windows 7 and OS-X Lion. Can your Dell, HP or Toshiba do that? I've always said that Apple not only makes the best OS-X machines but the best Windows ones too.