I’ll be honest. I could not resist pushing that button a lot.
If you can get Adobe Creative Cloud, Lightwave 3D, Final Cut Pro to all run on Linux with no loss of performance, you’ll have my undivided attention.
But it’s gotta be that, or it’s more than merely a “hassle.” (FCP may be negotiable, but I’ll definitely need that Adobe CC.)
I remember the complaints about the huge cost of SGI gear, and almost all of that was made in the USA. So complaints about cost will probably never go away, regardless of where or how labor is sourced.
There is an encryption suite built into OS X that you can use administrative tools or even the terminal to do the same thing.
These sorts of gripes seem like “I’m not willing to do the work, but I want to complain and seem like I’m only demanding because I have special needs”. And I’ll agree to the last…
I lways felt that Apple computers had a much longer usable lifetime than equivalent PC’s did, going back to the Apple II. My Macs always ran for about 10 years (except that Performa 5200, which was underpowered crap), mostly because the hardware was so reliable and because the software just felt right, no real pressure to upgrade every cycle.
Apple just makes the sort of tools that I like and that last a long time. I even keep my iPhones for 4 years before replacing, and I suspect my iPad will also be going 6 to 8 years before I feel the need to replace it.
Which is why the company I work for will allow Macs.
As stated, I do not wish to use a Mac as I dislike the principles of the UI. I would rather use Linux but I cannot as it doesn’t have a remote-kill / encryption mechanism.
So. I use a Razer laptop. Better hardware and I can dial boot into a separate partition when I use it at home. Windows 10 is more usable for me than Mac, so it’s a fair trade off.
The stuff that gets built to win the price wars at Best buy is indeed dreadful(and the capacitor plague era was a bit of a mess for much of the industry, including the law firm Dell retained to fight the suits about how the GX270 was defective junk, which used GX270s in their office); but playing ‘compare the failure’ isn’t terribly useful when trying to get a representative idea of what to buy:
Apple also shipped some plagued units(G5 imacs, possibly others of around that era); when the Nvidia GPU delamination issue hit, they were affected; the liquid cooled power Mac G5s had a nasty leaking problem, etc.
Having specific product lines that have ugly issues is, unfortunately, not really something you can choose vendors to avoid. Some have markedly less impressive failure rates than others(a more useful measure); but there aren’t any options without embarrassing failures in their history.
Apple products have been in-shot since the late 90s. Friends had them, no? Apple realised TV needed computers, so gave them to the shows. It was easy marketing, and it worked.
I watched this elsewhere and the list of ingredients is tuned for a very specific low price (the university just happens to be fire-sale-ing a box with just the right mobo, ssd with a funky fault etc). And the time to assemble it isn;t nuthin… and troubleshooting… I am interested in a hackintosh, but updating the OS at all seems to break things so I will pass at the moment.
Apple does spec off the shelf stuff, but it is usually a higher shelf and always has been to some degree. I had a 20" iMac G5 and the repairability was awesome! Which was good cuz the capacitor plague made that beast get nearly every part replaced… until the mob, which is the one part that wasn’t user replaceable… seriously these older iMacs were a wonder, the HP all-in-one Z workstations are similar. In the end after it broke down for the umpteenth time I was openly weeping on the phone to the apple care guy “I can’t even sell this hunk a junk on eBay! Best thing to do with this machine is drop it in the bay and hold it under until it stops sparking and struggling!” They gifted me a brand new 20" C2D iMac with the crappy screen, kids used that for many years.
Sure, and it is great marketing, but it just feels so blatant. Especially in shows like Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD where they have all this crazy tech and… a load of iMacs, always positioned with the logo visible.
I don’t know what point I’m making really. I think I’m just still pissed off at the “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” ads.
Apples and Oranges. If I could buy 4 year old cars for $900 that needed a new set of tires, I’d do it all day long. But the two things are different.
A more apt comparison would be, of two substantially identical cars, why would you buy the one with the fancier hood ornament that costs 4 times as much.
It’s not apples and oranges at all. The point is YOU find value in going and fixing these things up. You have the skill set and more importantly the desire to do it.
I do not. I simply want to spend my money on the computer I want
I’m a avid chef. I buy the ingredients and take the time to make meals at home that other people would say “why spend all that time you can buy that pre made here or there for less money. Less one. Less effort”. But THAT is my choice of what I want to spend my earned money on.
I don’t need to be shamed by someone or labeled an idiot because I choose to buy a computer that works for my needs.
So, what’s your point? Your logic does not flow for comparing a big bulky cheap hackintosh to an slim costly MacBook and why I should prefer the hackintosh. $LAVE LABOR BILLION$ YAAAAARGH! HACK HACK. It still does not travel well.
Yes, it is apples and oranges. It’s a bad metaphor. Automobiles wear entirely differently than computers.
I’m also not seeing where anybody shamed you or labeled you.
In point of fact, I specifically mentioned in my first post that it requires a skill-set.
That being said, just because you keep computers well past their obsolescence, isn’t a proof that that particular brand is in some way superior any more than the fact that my son’s using a heavily upgraded 14 year old Toshiba laptop is proof of THAT brand’s superiority.
Price. Quiet fans, large fans, and large quiet fans. Especially the ones that stay that way over the life of the PC come at a premium. So do the sorts of cases with unrestricted airflow (which has a surprising effect on sound levels) and noise insulation.
That said the question is how much of a premium? Unless you’re really are trying to build the most powerful box you can for $70 bucks. Well you can get reasonably quite, quality fans for like $4-6 each. And a not terrible case that breaths real good can be had under $50 these days.
Used fans and cases poached from retail boxes are typically hell for noise levels. But they will be the cheapest possible option if you’re building on a strict budget.
Design has value. You may not value it, fine. You may think a 30 pound desktop made from random parts is “just the same” as a 3 pound laptop because it will run a benchmark at the same time. But enough people have historically disagreed with that opinion to keep Apple in business through 20 years of “they are going out of business” stories before they made the iPhone. Those customers aren’t all damn fools tricked by marketing. Human factors matter. Design for humans who don’t do this for a living matters. It is a feature. It is damn rare, and it is worth money.
You don’t even get the analogy. But sure. Whatever.
I don’t ever give a damn to ever build a Computer. Ever. It’s not my area of expertise and I’ll leave it to those who are good at it.
Your mileage is yours. Mine is mine. You just judged me with “keeping a computer behind obsolescence” yet my iMac works just fine for me still. It’s not perfect. It’s getting close to its end of life. But having spent $2000 on one computer that lasted 9 years and then another $2000 on one that’s lasted me 7 and is still going…yeah works for me
And the fact that I don’t have the desire to go build a computer doesn’t make me some kind of moron or mean that I am wasting my money.
As compared to, say, Arrow, where the first few seasons everyone was using Microsoft Surface RTs. I vividly recall one episode where the character demoed snapping the keyboard onto the tablet, that was a really annoying ad. And then of course shows made or owned by Sony (ie, Powers) where everyone is required to use Vaio kit even if that doesn’t make much sense for the characters in question.
And then of course there’s the scads of shows like Law and Order which go out of their way to hide the logos of whatever hardware people use on screen, because they don’t want to be seen as endorsing any particular brand of device.
Apple’s gear looks cool and sleek and hip, and that means set designers default to using it if there’s no sponsorship deal to use something else, there’s no in-character reason to use something else, and there’s no mandate from the producers to avoid branded products.
So, yeah, Apple gear gets used on TV all the time except when it isn’t.
I think you completely missed my point. Dell and Apple were both afflicted by capacitor plague. One company gave excellent customer service; the other were total pricks about it. Guess which was which?
The UIs are so similar between any of the OSs that even the biggest annoyance shouldn’t be a reason not to use an OS…I can’t stand windows but I can still work efficiently on it. Same with any of the unix desktops. Learn a few key commands and the UI disappears. I just don’t get the hatred.
I use the machine that has the software I need and that’s it.
