"Hi, I'm a Mac"
"And I'm a PC"
Macs don't need to shave, comb his hair, or put on non-denim pants - he's too cool. Well, it looks like Mac just realized that working part time in a hip coffee shop for $7/hour while drinking $8 worth of lattes/hour at the same time just doesn't add up. For a long time Mac didn't care - hell, he lives with his parents and his iPod is still at 0% interest for 9 more months, what's he got to worry about? He's better at "life" applications as the adds tote. "life applications" like listening to music and looking at pictures. HELLO! My game boy in 1987 could play music and display pictures.
The Macs come with a suit of software called iLife, a nice bundle of "not the shittiest software you can find" but still nowhere near professional or useful quality. The newest member of your iLife: iWork. The name it's self is almost an oxymoron and the implications are huge - Mac is going to do something useful. iWork has a word processor called "pages" a power-point-like app, and a spreadsheet designer called "Numbers." Reviews say that while these programs are far, far less powerful than the Microsoft equivalent, they do make spreadsheets and documents look "beautiful." FINALLY. Finally you can make a spreadsheet of your net income for the month and chose from 16,000 shades of red. And add a drop shadow. In my opinion, this fits perfectly into the iLife. Not quit powerful enough to really do anything, but looks really cool!
Ok, aside from not really thinking much of the iLife, here's my beef with Mac: It's the same as a PC. From the processor to the power-supply both Mac and PC are just computers. There was a time when I thought Macs were better than PCs. I was in second grade at the time and the Macs had the Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, and Where in the world is Carmen Sandiago. The Mac wasn't REALLY better than the PC, but I was just a little kid and cared more about the flash than the quality. I guess the same holds true today, I've just grown up. Truth be told, I think WinXP is about he same as OSX, the only difference is the software. Eight years ago you could argue that Mac had all the good video, graphics, and sound editing software but those companies wised up and changed their programs to work on the PC as well. Aside from that, there's more software that works on the PC than the Mac, so why limit yourself? For the iLife? No, there are better audio players than iTunes - which are even free. I would guess that you could have all the functionality of the iLife on a PC for about.... $80? If you don't mind using Google's software you can have the entire iLife for free.
So why spend $500 more for a Mac than a PC? The answer the "intangible feeling of creativity."
Let me rewind a few years, back to the time when we didn't have iPods, back to a time when Mac almost went out of business. Microsoft was court ordered to pay Mac a large sum of money just to keep them in business as part of an anti-monopoly act since Microsoft would have been the only vendor of personal computers. Since that time we've seen what I consider one of the greatest marketing plans for the last 50 years: The intangible feeling of creativity. Just touching a mac or sitting behind it's glowing screen makes you feel creative, cool, and trendy. Dubayu. Tee. Eff!?! Look at that! There's nothing there! That intangible feeling is something that's been placed in your head by advertisers. You don't watch Axe body spray adds and think women are really going to jump out of windows to do you, do you? So why do you think that buying a Mac will make you cool, trendy, and creative? IT'S JUST A COMPUTER!
If I could make one point, just one point out of this rant it would be this: Macs and PCs are basically the same. Keep that in mind when shopping for a computer. Recognize that whatever is in your head that makes you think Macs are better than PCs is just an elaborate marketing scheme and recognize that there isn't much value in the iLife programs. With all that in mind, if you still want a mac recognize that you're probably over-paying and there had better be a "tangible" benefit.
4 comments:
MIKE.
Mine was $1100, which included a free printer/scanner. As I compared, that was pretty much the same price as the Sony Vaio, the other computer I was going to buy. Personally, I wanted those two only because they look cooler. And they do, woohoo. I succeeded.
Oh and I would never buy the iLife, I would be Microsoft Office for Mac. BTW.
I'd post something, but I'm not really feeling that creative right now. I'll have to wait to catch the creativity off of a near-by Apple product first.
Speak for yourself...when I wear Axe, women *do* jump out of windows to try and do me. But I show them the hand...with my iPod in it. They then forget about the overwhelming power of Axe, begin to feel creative and throw themselves into traffic...creatively.
Mike,
If I were to buy a new computer, I would have gone with a Vaio because they come in pink. That's how I weigh the value of one computer or another. But, I saw the other day that Dell also came out with a pink laptop...
choices, choices...
But, I'd go with any computer in the world that came with Oregon Trail standard.
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