Why do people buy Apple / OSX?

**spoon_** · 02-01-2011, 01:24 AM

I think Apple giving 15% off their products to students [or staff members of any educational institution] might have something to so with it DDY.

They used to give iPods with every Mac for students as well iirc.

**Jay** · 02-01-2011, 01:27 AM

oh dear its like drug pushers, first one is free

its a joke, I don't hate apple in fact I love their products, my iPhone was the best phone (maybe the best thing) I ever had until my Orange SF cam along. Its just the price. If they dropped it down to a decent level maybe about £45% less then even to me it would be worth it.

**DDY** · 02-01-2011, 01:27 AM

Electronic engineering?! Aww C’mon, that’s cheating! Bloody Electricians.

EDIT: The 15% discount has a lot to do with the fact students have Macs, although it's still more expensive than Windows based equivalents.

**Jay** · 02-01-2011, 01:28 AM

@ 24 hours a week of lectures it wasn't easy

**DDY** · 02-01-2011, 01:30 AM

Try 26 hours

.

I might do a masters, hopefully then Win 8 will come out on MSDNAA

.

**Jay** · 02-01-2011, 01:34 AM

to be honest the only thing that my degree has been handy for has been sitting down with people in our labs trying to explain how and why a very wide bell graph in standard deviation is bad for a chemical analysis of a compound based on a number of repeat tests of the same subject.

They are 30 years in the job and looked at me as if I was from another planet.

Its not even anything to do with EE but the Physics / maths side of the degree helps

**PeteSmith** · 02-01-2011, 10:59 AM

They cost more so they must be better.
They are 'pretty' to look at
They 'just work'
They are trendy
etc...

Remember this video?

I must admit i was drooling over the macbook pro in the Apple store yesterday, hardware pornography. The urge has now passed, and i'm no lighter in the pocket. Phew...

Apple's marketing is excellent, however (in my mind) they would yield more sales by dropping the irritating and smug 'Genius' store assistants and replacing with a couple of half naked women. Maybe i should go into marketing.

**burble** · 02-01-2011, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by Jay

to get my Ubuntu 10.10 laptop to a standard with compiz, all the drivers, wireless working, skype intergrated into the OS / mail intergrated into the OS (all using libnotify) offsite backups of OS, ubuntu 1 setup for quick access to files away from my laptop, bling and more bling to show off, and all the other stuff such as DVD playback, full intergration into my home network shares, media playback, wine for games, virtuabox / XP install for testing AV etc took less than a day (less than 3 hours to be honest)

no need to mess about.

Now I am a Linux purist, I run quite a large number of RH / CentOS boxes and installing a GUI feel nasty to me. Infact I haven't used a GUI on Linux (apart from the dell mini 9 that the wife has) since before OpenSUSE 10!

To setup this Ubuntu box I set myself the target of not opening terminal until I was happy the system was working, it wasn't easy for me as I am the type of person who will you command prompt in windows more than the GUI!

I work long hours but I just couldn't face sending £2000 of my cash to apple to give me a intel laptop with Linux on it

It's been a few years since I setup a Linux box at home, I've been using OS X for about 4 years or so. Last time I did setup a Linux box there was lots of command line this, compile this and so on. Something I'm capable of doing but I chose not to. Even if that has changed (logical to assume it has given the time scale) then I'm still not inclined to use Linux at home as there is the temptation to drop to the command line to alter that samba config or whatever.

I like that updating packages is a doddle, with Linux there's always the chance that the new versions will be compiled against a different kernel, different gcc and so on. I can't be bothered with having to fix that sort of stuff at home. I'm not saying that OS X updates are perfect, they do occasionally cock up but the fix is just a case of a quick google and away you go. With Linux it's a quick google, a longer google, then mess about.

At work I wouldn't dream of using OS X Server despite knowing that I could make it work and it'd do what I want. in the same vein I won't use Linux (or Windows) at home despite knowing the same.

£2k on an Intel laptop is to me, irrelevant. The feeling of being able to leave work stuff alone when I'm not at work is easily worth £2k.

**burble** · 02-01-2011, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by PeteSmith

They 'just work'

That one has always baffled me. For the most part they do just work but the implication there is that they always work. I've lost count of the people how have been genuinely surprised that their OS X installation has fallen over.

**abaxas** · 02-01-2011, 12:18 PM

I'm going to get flamed for this.

But relative to machine build quality they tend to be VERY competitively priced.

Eg compare the 11.6 inch air with the x201s ibm etc.

To actually compare a 17 inch macbook with that **** box of a dell is like comparing a yugo with a merc.

**b0redom** · 02-01-2011, 12:58 PM

+1 for 'it just works'.

I do Linux/AIX/Solaris stuff at work. Everything has their plus and minus points, generally the customer gets what the customer wants, but at home I just want something that works.

Smaller hardware footprint is what makes OSX bulletproof. They only need to support a small subset of available hardware, so they can test more fully etc.

Hardware wise, and I'm talking about build quality, not just raw power, there isn't much to compare to the Macbook Pro (which I have), or the iMac.

Do you pay a premium for having something which is prettier, and less prone to malware, viruses and crashing? Sure you do.

Should they lower the price? Look at their sales and market cap.

Since my in-laws bought an iMac about 2 years ago the number of support calls I've had has dropped to zero, compared with a complete OS reinstall every 6-12 months when they used Windows.

I completely get the argument about cost, but you could laugh at BMW/Ferrari/Porsche drivers for the same reason, or someone who gets leather interior over cloth etc. It's all superficial, it does the same job.

**Stoo** · 02-01-2011, 01:02 PM

I've given up trying to have a sensible conversation about macs on here, suffice to say it's my choice of what I spend my money on, and if anyone doesn't like it, they know where they can stick their opinion.

Why do people spend money on anything?

Why spend money on a BMW, or Merc, or Jag etc, when you could spec a Ford or VW up to the same spec for less?

Why buy Heinz beans when Tesco own brand are "the same" only cheaper?

Why buy designer label clothes when all the high street stores will produce the same thing a few weeks later for half/third/less of the price?

I have macs because I like them, I like the quality, and I was prepared to pay a little more to get them.

The fact that they only cost (for me, when I purchased them) a fraction more than a dell (macbook pro), and actually cost a lot less (mac pro) than the equivalent (dell precision workstation), and it's my damned choice doesn't seem to matter to some.

I'm happy with the choices I made, leave me to it?

As an aside, my parents are looking for a new laptop for ~£600, I've had a look around, and my word, the vast majority feel cheap and horrible, particularly the toshibas..

They want a windows laptop, so that's what I'll help them buy - I have no agendas.

**kingpotnoodle** · 02-01-2011, 01:33 PM

Originally Posted by Jay

OFF TOPIC ALRERT!

and what a tool!

I have an SMTP server just for bouncing outgoing mail and it uses 64mb of ram and 600MB of disk space (most for logs) I looked at its uptime and it past 12 months! its a VM and is fully upto date. Windows is a fantastic server products (2008 R2 is amazing) but MS really need to work on their update reboot requirements

I suppose I should elaborate, I used a Linux desktop (OpenSuse 11.x KDE) in preference to Win XP but since the Beta of 7 arrived I have gone back to the Windows darkside. At work I use CentOS (no GUI) on ~100 Linux servers & VMs, and for my personal rented VPS - Fedora 14 (no GUI).

Agreed on the Windows reboot need though, it is a pain in the ass, and otherwise a properly setup and clean Windows server can have uptime just as good as Linux. Win 2008 R2 is a good product, and particularly in partnership with 7 for an office network. The eagle eyed amongst you will see I have a Win 2008 R2 box at home... who doesn't want an Active Directory in their house? (More seriously it's a learning tool for me).