MacVsPc
Latest
Windows logo planted on upcoming Apple Store in Germany (video)
A quick glance at the above photo might have you believing that's the site of a Microsoft Store being constructed; actually, it's an Apple Store. Yesterday, in the Jungfernstieg section of Hamburg, Germany, a group going by the name of ".WAV Collective" apparently vandalized the soon-to-be Apple retail location. They casually went up to the building posing as a team of construction workers, cordoned off a work site, and proceeded to screw pre-made panels, forming a Windows logo, to the side of the store's black veil -- all in broad daylight. Looks like the old question of Mac vs. PC just got a bit more confusing over in Europe. Don't believe us? Have a look at the collective's own video recap of the events posted after the break. [Thanks, Toni]
Survey reveals Mac and PC people think differently
According to the results of a massive survey by Hunch.com, Mac people are frequently young, vegetarian city-dwellers who like modern art, liberal politics, and independent films. Meanwhile, Windows supporters tend to be older, more conservative, and more likely to compare talking about computers to "struggling with a foreign language." Whether you're collecting evidence for the Mac vs. Windows debate you have planned for the weekend or preparing for an appearance on Family Feud, Hunch's results offer some fun and fascinating insights into the tastes and habits of Mac and PC users, from what TV shows they watch to what snacks will best satisfy their afternoon munchies. Started by Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, Hunch provides visitors with personalized recommendations for just about everything from books and movies to cars, vacation spots, and colleges. Between March 2009 and April 2011, Hunch asked 388,315 of its visitors about their preferred computing platforms. Among the respondents (typically tech-savvy early adopters who may not represent a true cross section of the general public), 52% identified themselves as PC people while 25% said they were Mac aficionados. The rest declined to answer the question or didn't consider themselves loyal to any computing platform. By combining this data with the results of over 80 million other responses to "Teach Hunch About You" questionnaires, Hunch found some interesting correlations between choice of operating system and a variety of other personal preferences. According to the overall results, Mac users tend to be hummus-gobbling vegetarian city-dwellers who enjoy fancy foods and art-house movies. Or perhaps hummus-gobbling vegetarian city-dwellers prefer Macs -- correlational data is tricky like that. What do think? Do these results accurately reflect reality? Or do they falsely endorse long-standing stereotypes for Mac and PC fans? Discuss in the comments.
Macs running Steam are more powerful than PCs, on average
No matter which three-legged sentry turret you pick, Steam games run fine if it houses a decent graphics card. That said, stick this in your breech and shoot it -- the latest edition of Valve's hardware survey shows the glossy white Apple models outgun Windows counterparts in a number of areas. Whereas the majority of Windows PCs have 2GB or 3GB of memory, 53 percent of Macs sport 4GB of RAM -- though that's likely attributable to the popularity of 32-bit OS. While 17 percent of Windows users are also stuck with a single CPU, over 90 percent of Macs running Steam have a dual-core... and internet connectivity's biased towards Mac gamers too, with 65 percent reporting download speeds over 2Mbit compared to under half of PCs. Of course, where it truly counts for games, Macs still sorely lag behind; the top six Windows GPUs reported are all capable performers, but only 32.5 percent of Macs surveyed had anything but a bottom-barrel graphics card. Get with the times, Apple -- even your mobile guys know gaming's not a niche anymore. [Thanks, Ryan B.]
AOL Shopping settles Mac vs. PC debate?
The fine folks at AOL Shopping, in their infinite wisdom, have summarized a quarter-century of debate in their feature on whether you should buy a Mac or a PC. The bottom line? "You should buy a PC, if you already own a lot of PC software that you want to continue using. [...] If you want to do artistic work on your computer (photography, video editing, graphic design), you'll find Macs much more intuitive." Of course, that glosses over the fact that Apple makes excellent Windows PCs that will happily run your legacy Win32 applications. Still, this seems almost reasonable, until you get to this (practically throwaway) sentence: "If money is not an issue, go with a Mac." Yeah -- 1991 called, and they want their talking point back. Study after study has shown that the total cost of ownership of a Mac is less than that of a comparable PC. This includes post-purchase factors like software, repairs, and upgrades. Agreed: the up-front price is higher (in many cases), but over time, you spend less money owning a Mac. AOL Shopping suggests the opposite is true, simply due to Microsoft's sluggish OS release schedule. Having to update your OS once every seven years, to them, is less costly than upgrading every year or so. They neglect to consider the cost of your time in support calls and aggregate ease-of-use savings. Even so, if their poll is any indication, two thirds of their readers still plan on buying a Mac. Disclaimer: AOL is the parent company of Weblogs, Inc. and TUAW.
Vista beats OS X? Really?
ComputerWorld's Preston Gralla posted a blog entry titled, Five reasons why Vista beats Mac OS X. Clearly, this was link-bait, but you know what, I'll bite. And although I vehemently disagree with the post's title and assertion, I want to make it clear that I'm not coming at this from the typical rabid Mac-fangirl stance. Until August of last year, I still used a PC as my primary computer (I used Macs at school and for creative work); I used to work as a PC technician. In our TUAW backchannel chat, I'm usually the first person to take the "don't knee-jerkingly attack the PC" stance. Still, it was impossible to read the post and NOT respond. Let's take a look at Mr. Gralla's arguments and dissect them one-by-one.
New iPhone Ads: what Mac ads should be
Apple's seeming refusal to demonstrate actual features of the Mac in their advertising is a common lament amongst the Mac Faithful. Sure, the Mac v.s PC campaign is lots of fun, and it does at least draw attention to the differences between the two platforms, but where are the ads actually showing someone making a photo book with iPhoto (instead just mentioning that it is possible)? They are no where to be found, however, the new iPhone ads are all about showcasing what the iPhone can do and how it is done. The UI is the star of the show as we see two hands navigating from playing music to watching videos to answering a phone call with a tight shot on the iPhone's screen.The iPhone ads make me want to buy an iPhone, though I might be more in line with Apple's target market than most, and really isn't that the point of advertising? I wonder if this heralds a sea change in the way Apple advertises, or whether they are taking the more hands on approach with their consumer electronics (the Apple TV ad also shows the product in use) while keeping Mac advertising more high concept.Then again I might just be reading too much into this. What say you, TUAW readers? Are the new iPhone ads more effective than the Get a Mac ads, or am I comparing Apples to Apples?
Found Footage: Letterman takes on Mac vs. PC
You know how it goes. The dumpy guy is supposed to be the PC and the cool guy is the Mac. Right? David Letterman decided to redefine the Mac vs PC conflict, enlisting Chris Elliott to play Mac. Here's Letterman's take on the whole phenomenon. Let's just say that Mac doesn't make out quite so well as he usually does. And Chris Elliott is no Justin Long.
Applepeels on those times we're glad we got a Mac
David Sobotta has a new post up about a topic close to my heart - those times when we're all glad we have a Mac.The two key points Sobotta references as shining Mac moments are the ability for Mac OS X to create PDFs out of the box, with no additional software required, and the OS X Migration Assistant which helped him recover from a mistake that had left his G5 unbootable and resistant to all the usual tricks. Catastrophes and problems are not unique to Windows users. We Mac users have our share of problems. One of the things that sets us apart from our Windows brethren is the ability to get ourselves out of a jam somewhat gracefully with most, if not all, of our data and working environment intact. I am reminded of these niceties more and more every day as I spend more and more time supporting Mac users who are now running Windows via Parallels or BootCamp alongside their OS X environment. Somehow I'm supposed to find Windows less painful just because it's running on Apple hardware, but I'm not really finding that to be the case.Just the other day I had an "aha!" Mac moment myself. In one of the cross-platform corporate environments I help support, a Windows user needed to get some images off her camera and onto her PC. I was the only one around so instead of finding someone far more proficient in Windows to help this person I opted to help her myself. How hard could it be? Well after 10 minutes of trying to suppress the Windows dialog boxes telling me that the camera I just plugged in wasn't recognized and needed some unknown driver from an unknown location and the having it say the same thing about the CF card reader I'd plugged in instead, I told the user that I could get her the images she needed much more quickly if I took the card, popped it into the card reader that was already attached to my Mac (no drivers required) and plopped them onto the file server for her to access at her leisure. And about 90 seconds later I'd done exactly that, saving us both what would probably have been 10 or more excruciating minutes of trying to accomplish the same task on her Windows PC.Have you had one of those moments lately when you've been reminded why you chose the Mac? Tell us about it in the comments.
