Alan2005

1 - Your syncing problem is Apple's fault not microsofts. iTunes for PC is crap.

2 - Apple is piss poor at interoperability. All their kit works very well together, not so much if you've got anything else.

Case in point. I've finally got round to ripping all my CD's onto a media server attached to my router. Everything in my house worked straight away except the mac. An android tablet, an old nokia phone, a couple of windows 7 PC's, a laptop with linux on it - they all just worked. Not the mac - I had to find a client (VLC) on the internet first. VLC is ok for video, but it's just not a very good media player for music, but it does at least support the apple remote.

MarkG

But the problem is the design, not the manufacturer.

One of the biggest issues is laptops have all the heavy stuff under the keyboard, whereas tablets have all the heavy stuff behind the screen. That means a tablet with attached keyboard is horribly unbalanced when used as a laptop and you need a stand to support the weight of the screen. Which may work OK on a table, but is a pain when you want to use it on your lap.

So you basically end up with a low-powered laptop that costs several times as much as a netbook and is less convenient to use.

Alan2005

Which is only a problem if you want a laptop most of the time. If most of your use is as a tablet then it's an acceptable compromise imo.

jericho

All valid points, but I guess it depends on the needs of the user.
I am not looking to replace my work laptop, merely supplement it.
A tablet (such as the surface) would be much better on a plane, for instance, for reading emails, watching movies, etc.
It would be much easier to use when doing powerpoint presentations, where the power up/off time is much quicker.

MikeUK

How true...

As both Asus and Apple are both made by Foxconn !

james.mc

iTunes for PC may be crap. I'm not using a PC these days so that's not an issue. That may not explain away why, when using an O2XDAII (when they were out) I had no end of sync issues and that was bugger all to do with iTunes. I wouldn't say the HP Pocket PC thingy was a sync love affair between my MS OS HP laptop either. Pretty frustrating actually. I think they were both using MS pocket PC windows or whatever the OS was. Mind you that's pretty old tech now.

Perfect. That's just what I'm after, a stable OS combined with hardware that works very well together. I have little need of 'interoperability'. My wife runs Apple kit also.

Not too sure that anyone else's kit works as well together though?

Just realised how many times I've written Apple in a thread that has nothing to do with Apple. Apologies. I'll fade away now.

Alan2005

Still, you are blaming the wrong people. It's not Microsoft's responsibility to make HP's stuff work properly.

If you are into apple stuff then it's definitely one of the good things about them. Apples support is also good. The downside is that you are locked into using apple kit. I don't like being locked in - I like to have a choice.

I don't have kit all from one place. It's sony, dell, ibm, cisco, apple - and it's the mac that stands out as having issues. My experience with it has soured me on apple products - OSX is not that stable, it's not intuitive, it's not compatible with anything else. Honestly I could put up with all this, but the biggest and most unacceptable problem is that I can't change the size of the f**king system menu font (I think this might be the 4th time I've posted this complaint here).

It's ok; everyone expects apple users to be evangelical. And I don't think jericho is going to get any better answers than he has already anyway.

MikeUK

Given that OSX is a hybrid of BSD its a crying shame it doesn’t integrate nearly as well as any of the other *nix OS's with the likes of Windows or other OS’s
IMHO OSX is a variant of BSD that deliberately been handicapped in Apples favour to tie you into a portfolio of very over priced hardware accessories, certainly not a variant BSD that been improved in the users favour..
From a geeks perspective, nobody buy’s Mac for its hardware in-order to run more powerful OS’s or even to cluster as older units, it simply not as good as anything else at its price point
Have you ever seen OSX run on anything else… other than as a proof of concept?

So apple’s strong point isn’t hardware, or software, the one thing apple do well is marketing

jericho

There are many things that Apple do which frustrate me, but being an iMac owner myself, it still works as fast now as it did when I purchased it 5/6 years ago. We've absolutely hammered it in that time, rarely ever turning it off, and as such we seem to have fried something internally that has damaged the fan/heat sensor (or something), and I tend not to use it much these days. We've downloaded and deleted thousands of TV programs and movies (etc) and never had any defrag issues or got a virus, or any "issues".
It's far outlived any PC I've ever owned, in terms of performance, power up speed and longevity.

Now, I can sense you're going to respond that your computers all work perfectly, even after years of use. However, most people dont know how to look after and maintain their computers. Most people just want to turn it on, and to know that it's going to work. Macs are expensive when compared to PC's, I agree, but in terms of value for money, there's no comparison.

It's simply foolish to say it's all marketing when the actual proof is in the pudding. To say their hardware isn't a strong point is comical. You only have to look at everyone's smart phones these days to see that they lead the market in design and appearance. You may or may not regard iPads to be a pointless piece of equipment, but they've been copied by everyone.

As I mentioned, they aint perfect by any stretch, but credit where credit is due.

Alan2005

Yeah. I will say that about the mac - it runs now the same as it did when I got it four years ago. I'm still not buying another one though.

james.mc

I guess it all boils down to what you want from a bit of kit. I don't buy stuff because it's cool to be seen with. I read up on forums to try and get feedback from other users and try to avoid the advertising hype as much as possible, but of course it more often than not the adverts that draw me to a product which is the general idea!

I want something that works when I need it to, long battery life, stable OS that boots up quickly (10-15 seconds is fine), avoid worrying about viruses and such like.
It needs to meet my daily/travel needs. I place solid construction and longevity way up the list and I will pay extra for those benefits.
I like products that are made (or made for) the same manufacturer that supplies the OS. That way when there is a problem you can't be fobbed off by the hardware manufacturer as it being a software issue and by the software supplier as the problem being a hardware issue. Been there a few times in the past and didn't like it one bit.
I note that Microsoft obviously feel thats the way to go also.

If MS OS based products had delivered all of the above in the first instance I'd doubt if I would have felt to the need to try and switch, and would be bashing this out on an MS OS device today instead of a Macbook Air!
Would I switch back to MS OS based products? Not unless Apple went bust I reckon.
I do still use MS OS based systems at work when I am offshore, as often the client computers supplied are MS OS based. Pretty weird when going to close or minimise a window (with a mouse) and having to go to the other corner to do so

Alan2005
I agree on that. That one gets my vote as an Apple faux pa also. If someone knows how to do that I'm all ears

MikeUK

let get the smart phone out the way first… hardware is won hands down by Samsung! sorry it may have been apple once, but its not anymore.

Longevity of hardware often depends on the software you’re using… and how cutting edge it is too………

You’ll find many computers out there 10yrs old still running, a lot of the Intel P4’s came out in 2000, and are still sitting in homes running XP, yep they need an occasional yearly de-frag, they might struggle with the odd flash video , but can and do output at 720p same as the appleTV
So in order for that mac to justify it near double price tag/ value for money statement… is it really going to be still run-able in 20yrs time?

jericho

My point exactly. What you fail to realise is that you're in a very small minority of people who know/care about that stuff. The vast majority of the population want to plug and play. They want facebook/netflix/iTunes/photos, etc with the occasional word/excel stuff thrown in. In other words, regular home use. They also want "cool".
Most people dont want to have to worry about which software works best with what, or upgrades, etc, and they don't want to have to wait for minutes whilst their 1yr old computer boots up.
So yes, whilst Macs are more expensive, these are the reasons people are prepared to pay more for them.

MikeUK

Vast majority of PC’s laptops etc use Windoze, around 5% or so are Mac’s and maybe 2% are linux
As a mac user you’re around 2 and half times bigger than Linux on the desktop, not what Id’ call “Most” we are in the minority
In happy server land you don’t exist, this is the real world where reliability is god, its the internet and more...
In mobile land I think the world is going Android…

Those numbers themselves will tell you how much of the population is prepared to pay for cool

jericho

That's a very biased way of looking at things. If we're looking at total computer sales, I agree that PC's are way ahead... because you're including business purchases.

I think personal/residential sales, especially in North America and Western Europe, would show a very different story. PC's would still be in front, but nowhere near the same scale, and I've no doubt you'll see a year on year advancement by Apple over the last 5-10 years.