The Mac/PC debate rages on
posted by Scott Benish on December 20, 2005
My middle school class was split pretty evenly down the middle between Mac addicts and PC users. We would periodically have battles of words in which the teachers would cajole, nag and finally shout at us to quiet down and do something productive with our time. Little did I know that the Internet was just one giant middle school - the comment board below this article is something else. I encourage you to read it when you’ve got a lot of time on your hands.
The article, which was published in the summer of 2003, pointed out that despite their obvious superiority - Macintoshes were not pulling in their fair share of the market for five reasons:
1) Most people are already comfortable with PCs.
2) PCs already saturate the market, people aren’t just going to go out and buy a new Mac when they’ve got a perfectly good PC at home.
3) Few people have the disposable income to justify a Macintosh over a PC.
4) Despite the obvious superiority of Macintoshes when it comes to graphics, the PC offers viable options for the average Joe who wants to edit images.
5) Windows is the preferred platform for developers - so there are more programs written for PCs.
All these things are true - and yet I hold out hope for a Mac-powered universe one day. Yes it may take some time for Macintoshes to reach the kind of market saturation that encourages developers to spend their time making their programs work on Macintosh. But over time enough people will make the switch to tip the balance.
Why? It’s like my fiancé said to me today, “Every time my Dell crashes, I get one step closer to buying a Macintosh.” People reach a saturation point with Windows-based machines and they suddenly realize that cheaper doesn’t always mean better. What good is a $1000 Dell laptop if the speakers stop working - as happened on my fiancé’s Dell - a week after the computer was purchased? Especially when that same $1000 would buy you a 12 inch iBook G4 that runs circles around the Dell once the latter has been slowed down by spyware and viruses.
Yes, our day will come. I have faith, and a very pretty computer to tide me over while I’m waiting.
Comment
other posts tagged:
