So, why mac?

[mattisfrommars]

I've been wondering, why is it that most studios all over the world choose macs over pcs?

Does the hardware actually perform better? Or do people just feel the OS is more "creative" and "intuitive" ?

They look pretty similar to me (although i've had limited mac experience so i'm pretty much in the dark) both have intel inside *jingle* and macs even let you right click nowadays!

Or is it just that no-one with any sense would pay money to use vista?

 

[LSD-Studio]

they're more reliable.
the OS is way more stable than any variation of windows I've tried....
you can't get MH Channelstrip for PC



plus they really hold their value where a PC is dated 2 weeks after you've bought it.

 

[abyssofdreams]

Don't know about Vista but I've helped out at a big local studio for some months and they all used Mac there.
Guess the main reasons are ease of use and stability though I can't complain about my XP workstation. Never had any crashes whatsoever.
Any maybe Pro Tools. For me a Mac is "nice to have" but not a must, I've grown up with a Windows system and stay with it 'cause I know how it works seamless.

 

[abyssofdreams]

they're more reliable.
the OS is way more stable than any variation of windows I've tried....
you can't get MH Channelstrip for PC



plus they really hold their value where a PC is dated 2 weeks after you've bought it.

can't agree completely here
XP is pretty stable nowadays.

also, I have another PC here, didn't update it's components since 2003 (!) and it still works like a charm, still sufficient for recording AND mixing

Me thinks Macs are EXTREMELY über-hyped

 

[SocialNumb]

Because the os is pretty much stupid proof.
Very stable. Well built from the box.
You can use your Mac DAW online with out additional software, and don't have to worry much at all.
Because you can have several OS in one machine.
Because I just like them.
Because my Macintosh 128K still runs. lol

Most of all just because I don't care for windows, but I to fell victim to them. I own a couple of PC's. Used to game a lot.

It's all down to preference in the end.

Just look at it. http://www.apple.com/macpro/design.html How can you not want one?

 

[Exocaster]

Because a monkey could operate this thing and it would take a monkey to make it fuck up.

Seriously, because they're solid machines, and I prefer the OS.

 

[SocialNumb]

plus they really hold their value where a PC is dated 2 weeks after you've bought it.

Thats been my experience. Agreed.

 

[beyond dead]

hey everybody.
I work for apple as a tech support agent, and i love the macs!!!

like said before, the os is simple to use, and easy to maintain.

trouble shooting is simple with apple computers

its great that the company that manufactures the os and software also manufactures the hardware and optimizes it to run mac osx and apple applications

also i find they are more resource efficient

 

[Zack Uidl]

MAC > PC

+1 to LSD and Beyond Dead. Totally agree. OS, reliability, low maintenance, stable, and let's not forget that they just look bad ass anyway (I have serious lust for anything Apple.)

 

[Kazrog]

Mac OS X is the main reason. It's a better OS in every way, audio hardware drivers tend to work more reliably, and there's no viruses. Since it's a Unix-based OS, it's much more stable than anything Microsoft has ever come up with.

Apple's laptops are amazing these days, by far the best on the market and very aggressively priced. I think they need to put out a less expensive tower machine though.

 

[R-Stuur]

Mac OS X is the main reason. It's a better OS in every way, audio hardware drivers tend to work more reliably, and there's no viruses. Since it's a Unix-based OS, it's much more stable than anything Microsoft has ever come up with.

Theres nothing stopping anybody from running OSX on their PC's these days, so yes its mainly the OS

 

[006]

Wow, this hasn't been covered 1.7578 GAZILLION TIMES already. Macs are just more stable. The hardware isn't a fucking afterthought like with PC's so every ounce of resource is accessible. There is no bottleneck of data transfer at the CPU. Macs are just better. When a program has a problem, the entire machine doesn't fucking lock up, just the program. My PowerBook (1.33gHz w/ 768mb RAM) kicks the shit out of my PC (3.4gHz P4 w/ 2GB RAM). My PC is only good for gaming...which is all I have used it for since I got my first Apple. They look cooler.

That last one was sarcasm, before some douche decides to say something about it.

~006

 

[Kazrog]

Theres nothing stopping anybody from running OSX on their PC's these days, so yes its mainly the OS

I wouldn't feel confident about using a hackintosh in a professional studio for mission-critical work. But I'd love to build one at some point to see how it is!

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Because they is cool? Naw the os is kickass.

Leopard is kind of a cocksnorker though, it won't be for long though.

 

[JeffTD]

It's less like working with a computer, when compared to a Winblows PC, if that makes sense.

It's more of doing what you want to do, instead of tricking the computer into doing what you want it to do.

 

[beyond dead]

also, every time i use a windows computer nowadays, everything looks so square and boring. they obviously never spend to much time developing the gui

 

[kaomao]

First of all I'm not a super expert on mac stuff but...
On a technical side:
the main reason it's because, as Kazrog said, it's based on UNIX, so every goddamn program it's compiled, if I'm not wrong, on c++, with c++ you don't have to install a goddamn framework (like these days on XP) to make new shit work (c#, c++ .net, VB .net programs etc etc), or other extra libraries on the machine.
You just install the stupid program, it stays in its own folder, this means your registry stays clean on mac.... if they have one anyway lol (I repeat, no mac expert here), no worries like XP.
This also mean when you uninstall it you just erase the folder most of the times.
Xp unfortunately has that registry thing that can get pretty fucked up and slow the machine, I don't think it's the main fault of Microsoft, most of the times there are companies that can't make good uninstallers that's it.
XP Got a worse filesystem, if you don't defrag the disk it becomes slow, on a side note NTFS it's reliable to recover data... not always lol.
Xp it's an OS for everyone, whatever you're using to develop (ASP.net, C#, c++, Java, VB etc etc) it's easy to develop an application.
To make your application work you have to follow few rules to make it work properly, so that's why most of the people use pc's.
But having such a variety of program languages makes it more hard for the company that makes the OS (microsoft) to keep running things smoothly.
On mac it's more rigid, just one fucking OS, basically 3 kinds of hardware (mac pro, mac book, imac) much more coding endeavor (c++), but then you just have to develop, to make shit works, on 3 fucking kind of machines, while on pc, the possibilities with all hardware configs are infinite so that's why it's more buggy

Goddamn Mac is the mighty and glory c++! no worries!!!

When windows 95 was out, it was a better time, then came windows 98 and so it was the beginning of the end.

 

[Charvelguy]

I work in a print/graphics environment. I build PC's quite a bit and my family has worked for IBM since the 60's and I've been around to recall the whole Apple vs IBM personal PC since the beginning. From a workflow standpoint, a G5 has a very efficient workflow vibe to it. I really like the way its laid out and it operates fast & smoothly. It took some getting used to and I do work on switching back n forth between both (PC & Mac, both having about equal processing power) systems. So, in nushell, it seems more efficient to work on and to carry work on. Just my observations. I'd like to afford one, but alas, I still build and use PC's.

 

[mattisfrommars]

I didn't mean to bring up the old "which OS is better?" thing, if one was better than the other at everything then the other would go out of business- but rather which OS is better for studios- because most high end studios these days seem to be running a mac pro and protools and i haven't' seen anything that sets a mac apart to the extent that it does.

Sure, i can see why some (or even most) people will get the mac and protools combination that every studio (especially the expensive ones) in the world seems to use. But i haven't seen anything that gives mac a big enough edge to be as prevalent as it is. (Almost as prevalent as microsoft based systems in non-geek, non-arty-farty homes)

The *main* reason i can think of is that people are buying that hardware because it is "the industry standard" and then spending so much time on it that they learn all the little quirks that any OS has and then decree that anything that doesn't feel "that way" is terrible. And as these people get older... i mean more experienced... they keep on with their mac and spend less and less time on windows, so when the work experience kid comes into the studios the first thing they hear (speaking from experience in 3 different studios in Liverpool alone) is "Why are you working with windows and cubase?" as if my unclean registry and steinberg software is the reason i can't get a mixdown that sounds as good as theirs.

 

[Kazrog]

The real question becomes - can Apple stop people from hacking its OS to run on non-Apple hardware? So far it seems the answer is 'no.' Were Apple to allow third-party hardware (they tried it in the 90s during now-infamous CEO Gil Amelio's tenure) it would nearly bankrupt them again, as it did when the Spice Girls dominated the charts, Norwegian churches were being set ablaze, and Soilwork was still singing about Room #99. Steve Jobs came back aboard after a decade of geek-spelunking with NeXT and Pixar, and in true Jack Box style blew up the Mac clones initiative and a good portion of Apple's product line and employees! Soon he would introduce the world to colorful products featuring the "camel case" use of the letter "i" as a prefix and the rest is of course recent, overhyped history.

Software is not a profitable industry in and of itself - the secret to Microsoft's success is (and always has been) their entrenched relationships with the OEM licenses on name brand PCs - making sure that the general public isn't making a conscious choice when they buy a PC pre-installed with a Microsoft OS. Apple could try to pull the same charade, but would still garner only a small piece of the market, whilst totally losing out on the ability to make executive, top-down architectural decisions about the hardware experience (always one of their defining qualities), and being forced, irrespective of any profit margins (however marginal in the software business) to support the myriad hardware configurations out there - a feat that the gargantuan Microsoft barely pulls off with its massive army of trained monkeys.

Point of this all is - Apple pretty much has to carry on with business as usual - iterating subtly on the important stuff (OS, hardware) most of the time, and releasing trendy gadgets every few months to placate their many high-ranking media admirers. At the end of the day they make a better machine and a better OS - but the only bargains in their lineup are the laptops. Until they release a cost-effective tower machine, they will encounter more and more semi-pro users making hackintoshes so that they can get a great multimedia PC at a low price. All Apple has to do is realize that their are power users who have budget restrictions - and build a machine for them. But this day will not arrive - as long as Steve Jobs is in charge...

Much of Apple's success comes from Jobs' singular vision - and the budget power user market is NOTHING like his mindset at all - and in fact resembles that of his silly, semi-controversial ex-cohort Steve Wozniak. It's my hypothesis that Steve Jobs harbors enough resentment toward the "Woz" approach that he will never consider product ideas that come anywhere close to it. So as long as Steve Jobs calls the shots - the hackintosh community will flourish. With all great genius comes equally great oversight. The people are clearly asking Steve for a new product - and he is refusing to sell it to them - so in its absence, the community generates the product on their own, without benefiting Apple in any way.