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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I've been buying Macs for at least 11 years, dating back to when I was a destitute freelancer. I've had three laptops and one desktop and I have had ONE big problem that required a specialist to fix. It cost me $60 for an hour of his time.
I've heard many stories from my PC-owning friends about fried motherboards, spyware, viruses and problems with the OS. I saw one friend, a professional writer, lose scripts twice during one season thanks to her (much cheaper to purchase) Dell.
So which machine is cheaper in the long run?
Yeah, I love the design and the usability of the Mac. And I am so confident in the product that I routinely refuse to pay for an extended warranty when I upgrade.
Farhad, when hits on your column drop do feel the need to crank out another Apple column?
The disposable PC is a luxury for the middle and upper class, but for the majority of people, they don't buy new computers every year, every three years or five years.
News flash: there are still hundreds of thousands of Windows 95 and 98 PC's out there. They may not be acceptable to you but to these families, they are perfectly adequate.
They'd rather spend their money on groceries.
My company gave away a bunch of 7 year old Windows 98 computers to its factory workers. They were thrilled to get them.
I'm sure you can find a hundred thousand anecdotes about geeks who flip their computers on eBay.
I can find millions of households with 10 year old PCs chugging along too.
Seriously, what's more important, Apple's market share or Microsoft's effort to undermine open source? Why is Salon running your blog alongside columns like the War Room?
It all depends what you want to do with your computer. If you are running or using one particular program in Windows and maybe you don't know if it is available for the Apple, or you would have to buy a new copy, then you would not want the Apple.
From a business point of view, if there are several people using the computer or computers, then you would have to think about the cost of training users on a new operating system.
One of my main uses of my computer is downloading radio broadcasts that I convert to mp3 and play later in car or office. I have no idea whether the necessary software is available free for Apple, or what it costs.
So I think most people who own a computer and need to replace it are going to go with something that they know will work with the programs they are already running.
The old 'The New Republic Fallacy'... or magazine version of the Big Lie: Not only is what you thought not quite exactly correct, but it is far the opposite of what you thought.
I have plenty of experience with Macs and PCs. I have drifted further into PCs as my work has required but the girlfriend still has her Macs. My own issues with Mac has been less developed development software available, but that is ever changing -- it has simply become a necessity for me to be PC most of the time. But ass I said, the girly girl is a steadfast Maccer.
Nevermind the complete nonsense that selling PCs factored into your economic model -- the market for affordable used Macs exists BECAUSE Macs are expensive.
And Macs really do last longer necessarily. I kept a Dell PC laptop up and running for 6-7+ years until the screen finally came loose, and did so due to my own knowledge of what to do with the terminal. The girlfreind, a bit less savvy has a desktop mac (pre-new core that runs at the spead of a glacier, and you can correct me if I am wrong but, even given that MS OS memory management was meant for floppy disks, the options for upkeep on the Mac are less user friendly and functional that that on MS.
There is also the peripherals problem. While there may be plenty of Mac knockoffs for a variety of devices, the girlfriend spilled coffee all over her keyboard, wrecking it. The replacement cost for PCs we know is minimal but the replacement cost direct from MAC was around 50 dollars I think.
Mac has a fine system that has left behind the shame of the Power PC era, and the OS looks better and better, but your logic is completely silly accross the board.
The people here who complaint about the mac and your theory, never had a mac for sure.
I buy a powermac G5 4 years ago around 2500$, and I just sell it for 1600$.
4 YEARS AGO, imagine, this machine cost me 900$ for 4 year of fun. Also when I put it beside my desk in Novembre 2003, this machine never move from there until now. No problem at all, never open it.
If you want to know the value of a used mac, you can go see this site
http://www.mac2sell.net/
What about a 4 years used PC ?
At the endpoints which are little more than little dumb boxes. Of course the server's rather pricey. But since I get to manage everything one time one place the cost to ME, my time, is far less. See hardware is for crap. It's disposable. And Farhad - PC's or Macs really aren't resellable. Just junk them and move on. But across the financial life of a computer asset about 75% of the total cost is labor. Assign a dollar value to your own time and apply it. You'll find that the easier it is to run your stuff the cheaper it is to own. That's kind of why FASB 3 year depreciation is trivial. Sure you can write down the box to zero in 36 months, but not only will you probably keep it that 4th year, you have to maintain it all 4 years. That's the expensive part.
Someone back on page 5 said it all with that line. It's a lifestyle appliance. You are paying to be cool. You pay to sit in the Starbucks and open up your Mac and look around and think how cool you are. Silver is sexier than black, right?Question: Is it a chick magnet? Is it a great opening line in a box? Do you get a hard-on when you pop the lid?
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219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
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