Reasons why not to go MacintoshGo to: Previous reason / Index / Next reason Reason 10 : "Macs are just PCs now"
There is a train of thought that with Macs being technically no different from any other PC, the Mac as an independent platform is effectively dead, and there's no compelling reason left to choose a Mac over any other brand now. There's some kernel of logic there, but it does ignore one or two fundamental issues. First, a history lesson... Once upon a time Way back in 1981, a company called IBM launched a new personal computer, which they called the IBM PC. On it ran a command line interface (CLI) operating system, called MS-DOS from a little company called Microsoft; you might have heard of them. Its CPU was from a semiconductor manufacturer called Intel, and IBM designed the architecture for its PC around that Intel CPU. As time went by, other manufacturers built their own versions of the IBM PC. These multitude of IBM PC 'clones', simply went on to be known as 'PCs'. Meanwhile, a company called Apple were building and selling their own PC, called the Apple II, and were designing its replacement. But this replacement was not like the IBM PC, or indeed their existing range of computers. This was being designed around a Motorola CPU. And rather than using the CLI OS as provided by Microsoft, they were instead designing their own which used a ground breaking interface called a graphical user interface (GUI); similar to what we know and use today. The Macintosh was launched in 1984. Evolution From this point, the two platforms progressed very differently. The IBM architecture was largely built of off the shelf components which anyone could assemble into a PC capable of running MS-DOS, which Microsoft was only too willing to sell to anyone who wanted it. This may not have been with IBM's blessing, but they were powerless to stop it anyway. They'd handed the golden goose to Microsoft without even realising it. The Macintosh's more custom architecture however, was much harder to 'clone'. And even if it could have been, Apple weren't going to give the blessing for their OS to run on else's hardware anyway, as this would only cannibalise their own hardware sales; just as it did IBM's. Over the next 20 years, as the IBM 'clones' became the 'standard' architecture, the proprietary nature of the Macintosh became more and more marginalised. This was particularly so of the processor architecture. The Mac's PowerPC CPU architecture had huge potential, but with Apple as its only customer feeding its development, keeping pace with Intel's older x86 CPU architecture – which had hundreds of customers feeding its development – was not keeping pace with its potential. The answer was obvious. The last tie to its proprietary architecture was cut, and the Mac went Intel. And today... So nowadays, other than aesthetic design and some minor compatibility differences in some areas – albeit nothing that software can't work around – the Mac is effectively a modern evolution of the IBM PC, to the point that it can even run Windows just as well as a Windows PC can. Hence, the original point, a Mac is just a PC, so why choose a Mac? In conclusion... When it comes down to it, the components used to build the hardware is irrelevant. The Macintosh platform isn't a piece of metal and plastic. It is an integration of Apple built hardware running an Apple built operating system. And that is just as true today with it's generic hardware architecture, than yesterday with its unique architecture. A Macintosh is whatever Apple says it is. The fact remains that Apple's PC is still, for all practical purposes, the only one that runs its OS. So whether the Mac is worth choosing over other brands of PC, simply depends on whether you see value in Mac OS X or not. Go to: Previous reason / Index / Next reason
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