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While I am not in the habit of cutting and pasting entire articles into my opinion page, this one so encompassed what I have been saying for years that I couldn't have said it better. Plus, I have been subscribing to Esquire for like 5 years now, I think they owe me one. Five Reasons
Why PCs Are Better Than Macs PCs Are Better For Games. Macs have, for some reason, have never been very good to gamers -- games on the Mac have largely been an afterthought while Microsoft is balls-deep in its Xbox experiment. For PC owners, having a top-of-the-line computer means being able to buy an assortment of titles so large you’ll never really have to pick up a videogame system. Meanwhile, the Mac makes you feel like a Soviet searching the bread shelves for crumbs of entertainment that may be released on the whim of cruel developers. Add to that the cost and difficulties Macs have in swapping out graphics cards, which is necessary if, perhaps, you actually wanted to keep playing modern games. GameTap and Steam make the PC a gaming-on-demand service with hundreds of retro and current titles there for the taking. GameTap works on Macs, but only Intel ones -- and not for all titles. And so it goes, until you want to tear your hair out. PCs Are Better Media Machines. I can see the Mac owners already bleeding out of their earholes over this one. F@#k you, Macs can do everything with media in the entire universe! No, they can’t. Three letters for you: D.V.R. Windows Media Center has been a DVR replacement for years now, streaming all the video content your torrenting heart desires to boot, because Bill Gates swings that way. Steve Jobs prefers Front Row, Apple’s happy little interface that has no TiVo magic whatsoever. Apple TV, a set-top box that should have been a DVR, instead locks you to an iTunes account enslavement and a media-purchasing DRM-rental-blindered idea of “fun.” It may be easier to use an iPod and a Mac to download TV shows, but you’re also stuck with one media store, no recording options, and no way out once you’re completely sucked in. Yeah, I know there are third-party DVR options for the Mac. For how much Macs cost, you'd think they could bundle one in, right? PCs Are More Cost-Effective. Macs are still priced too high. Tell me you don’t agree. And if you don’t, then you’ve been hypnotized, too. The Apple Stores and apple.com have created a one-world pricing universe for all things Mac, while in the PC world there are multiple manufacturers, tons of retail stores, loads of sales and rebates, and plenty of cheap refurbished parts on the market that people can use to make their own dream machines. Apple’s cheapest laptop is still more than $1,000. You can get a PC laptop for $500 at Best Buy. Yes, they’re different in quality -- but an eight-year-old who needs to plunk out a book report doesn't need 0.13 inch-thin wafers of aluminum. Families, non-nerds, and most of the adult world need less-expensive options, and for $500, the only thing Apple sells that has a screen and reads email is an iPhone or an iTouch. Apple Is Fascist. You can’t build a Mac easily, and you can’t really customize them, either -- not unless you want to invalidate your warranty. They’re like fancy sports cars run on a single computer chip, fixable only at your dealer for a set price. Hacking a Mac feels like rape to fanboys, and it can be done, but with a trip to Fry’s Electronics and a little lunch money in the PC world you can basically soup up your own Windows roadster. That’s not appealing to most people -- but there are amazing things you can do on PCs with homemade software that usually isn’t OS X-compatible whatsoever. Waiting for a Mac patch of a file-sharing program, cell phone patcher, or whatever your freedom-cherishing heart desires can feel like exile. Sure, Macs have fewer viruses, worms, and crapware -- but they also have expensive, difficult-to-mod machines that become obsolete in a few short years. The same thing happens to PCs, too. And they're cheaper. It's Still a PC World Out
There. Just in case you want to run your world
business with a healthy dose of cheap labor from
Pakistan (or, with the declining dollar, Alabama), just
remember that it’ll be Windows you’ll need to run it on.
But Macs run Windows! Yeah, I know. The Mac is a
fine, high-end Windows machine. And it’s really cool
that Macs run Windows XP. But the real issue is, when
will OS X be good enough to not need to run Windows at
all? That ability to boot up XP is not so much a Mac
victory as it is Bill Gates’ triumph. He now has
compatibility with his competitor, which was the whole
idea in the first place. Apple should follow suit and
make iLife available to Windows users in its entirety.
Of course, they won’t. And every time I have to boot up
Windows to load some obscure piece of software I want to
run just because I can, it reminds me that OS X can’t
run it. Apple’s design is the slickest around, but what
I want to see is an even more wide-open computer, one
where everything it does is better than a PC…not
just most things. Until then I’m going to envy those PC
users just a little bit. All 96.5 percent of you. |
The Vast Opinion Archive The Great Minnesota Get Out and Sweat Together Confessions of a Disillusioned Republican Anti-Christ vs. The Greatest Generation |
First
off: I’m a Mac user. And an iPod and iPhone owner.
And I love them. Yes, I love Apple. That’s not to say
I'm drinking the Kool-Aid. Because, for all the ads, all
the self-celebratory Apple press conferences, all the
sparkling-pretty Apple stores, there are still a lot of
reasons why Macs still suck. .gif){kind=spacer}