[sapiens74]

Just wanted to know what your opinion of Apple is. I used to have a passionate hate for Mac users but I think Apple has really made some great contributions to the home pC experience. I thought I 'd never say that. I like thier new Imac idea with the LCD and the IPOD is really kewl. ANyways just wanted to know what you guys thought.

[clutch]

They gave up on competing with performance a long time ago and decided to make them more visually appealing. While this one looks nice, it costs too much for what it really has to offer. But hey, it sure does look swell...

;(

[JP-]

Authough i can understand your passionate hate for apple users i just have to say that both macs and pcs have a place in computing atm and i have no real reason to slag off macs My mum used to work in a place where they swore by macs for graphics design and having used them i can understand why, but i would never swap my pc for an apple.

And hey, if you are just want a pc to check email and browse the web then an apple would do that just fine and look nice in the process.

Personally i would never buy one though cos they couldnt do what i want a pc for.

[Brian Frank]

I personally think that the new iMac looks really dumb, but the SuperDrive they pack into some models kinda leaves me wondering when we'll see them as standard equipment on PC's.

I think that Apple has many of the good ideas first (colored PC's), but they don't really appear on PC's till later on. Take the iMac, and go try to find a beige box at BestBuy, Circuit City, CompUSA, etc...the closest I've come is white on one compaq. Also, IMO, the Apple Cube was the best thing to come out hardware wise.

There has been a rumor of a dual-processor iMac, but we shall see. If it does show up, I'd consider getting one. I would like a Mac, but I probably have enough PC's as it is.;)

[Palos]

Im sorry to say, but the Apple cases have "coolness" written all over them...don't you think they look better and fancier than any other dumb PC casing? The Cube looked wicked at least...

[AndyFair]

Mac cases look cool, but they don't really push forward the boundaries of computing do they? And how far does MacOS X push forward the boundaries of OS design, apart from a few usability issues (about as much as WinXP pushed forward the boundaries :D)

Apple, as with MS, Sun, Oracle, etc. are all just full of hype and hot air - I would say that the only companies that are really pushing the boundaries are Intel & AMD - and that will come to an end as people start to realise that multi-gigahertz processors are a little OTT for every day computing

Just my 2 cents...
AndyF

[Palos]

As far as OS design goes, I would pick MacOS X over any *nix OS out there. That is if Darwin gets ported to x86, which is unlikey (there is actually a port on the Apple Developer site, but *very* limited to Intel hardware). Cocoa (i think) looks just amazing compared to lame a$$ KDE or Gnome, so it's already a step in window managers on *nixes.

With Microsoft porting Office to MacOS, we can only expect more MS "flagship" products to be ported in the future. Why didn't they do the same for Linux? Because there is no Linux, Inc. to be bought

[AndyFair]

Palos, I know what you mean about looks, but I was really talking about functionality and the guts of the OS, not the shiny wrapping paper around it!
At the end of the day, talking at the heart of each operating system, is there really that much to distinguish XP from OS X? They both look good (although I have to say that OS X looks more "professional" than XP), and they both have their own set of "bundled" applications, but at the heart (API level and lower), is there much to tell them apart? That's what I'm trying to say here.

Rgds
AndyF

[Brian Frank]

Palos, as far as Macs go, I think we see eye to eye on it. I'd take OS X over *nix any day. I'm certainly hoping for the Darwin port to make it over to the x86, because it can be done, being very similar to FreeBSD...

[pimpin_228]

Eddie314 and me cut an apple in half

[dcxman]

Apple still only has 5% of the software market whereas you know who controls the rest. Even Steve Jobs noted that in his keynote speech this past MACEXPO in San Francisco. I would say that their only flaw was that they were so closed marketed in the beginning and somewhat still are with most of their hardware (but much more open than before).

As for speed an preformance, PC and MAC are built on two different architecture types. MAC is all RISC based with a quartz rendering engine. I've got to admit that G4 chip with it's Velocity Engine is something esle. It did realtime rendering effects in Final Cut Pro 3 for the transitions. For those of you in the multimedia industry that use video editing software can fully appreciate this feature.

I am an avid PC user with a home system and laptop dedicated to Microsoft and Linux and have never ever been a MAC enthusiast but damn after seeing demos of Apple's new product lines I think I'll be cracking open mister piggy bank for some IMac money.

If you still don't think that a MAC is that powerful then try running Linux on both and benchmarking them with the same software (I've done it). And I've been changing my tune (slightly) ever since. Only because of the certain softwares available for PC which I really need and luv and am addicted to that I don't take an equal stand for it and Apples enforcement of keeping legally running software on it's systems.

Well, that's my two cents.