Why did you choose a Mac/OSX?

[davepermen]

For people who use Windows:
Did you come from an Apple background?

yes, started on them

Do you prefer Windows to OSX? Does not wanting to/being able to pay the premium for Apple gear figure into why you use Windows?

I don't buy cheap stuff, but I want choice.

Do you find yourself not being able to use tools/software because they are OSX-only?

no, never been a problem. been a problem when on a mac, though.

I am hoping to start playing out live, and the perceived stability of the platform is a real draw for me.

it's just perception. make sure you get good non-cheap devices. win7 is as stable as osx (have seen that one freeze quite some times by now, too). the hardware is the factor. get good hardware (mostly, get business hardware, not 'consumer devices').

Not to mention I have a hard time paying 2-3x the price for a MacBookPro that I would for an equivalent-spec'd PC. The only real hardware perks that appeal to me are being able to get a 1680x1050 screen on a laptop (as well as the battery life, but that's sort of a moot point as I'm plugged in 95% of the time).

you can get that res and others, even bigger ones, on other laptops. invest the same money as you would for a macbook, and don't invest it into performance only, invest into a quality product.


oh, and, what if something goes wrong? if you're on your platform of knowing, you know how to handle quirks. if you're on a for you new platform, you're quite out of luck. a system is not only as good as it is when it works, it's as good as you can handle the moments where it doesn't work. i would go crazy on stage if a mac would do something strange. with windows, no problem, as i know it perfectly.


so, don't bother the os, bother the hardware. and your knowledge about your stuff. that's what matters.

[Machinesworking]

Why did you choose the machine you did?

Macbook Pro, because personally I think they're the best laptops out there besides industrial use ones like the Panasonic Toughbook.

Did you come from a Windows background?
If not, have you ever used Windows in a serious capacity, or have you always been an Apple user?

No, I used Macs first, I've worked with plenty of people on Windows machines, setting up music software and hardware, in school, etc. Though with my own computers it's always been Apples.

Do you find yourself limited by your choice of platform (i.e. there are things you'd like to use but that are only developed for PCs)?

No, and oddly enough my choice to stick with Macs has in part been based on Mac only software. Digital Performer is Mac only, I used it as a kid and liked it, so I decided to get a Mac. When I switched to Logic I decided to stay Mac because at the time Pluggo was Mac only, then Logic went Mac.
At this point it's back to my original reasons for using Macs over PC's. When we were looking into it on the 80s, PCs had worse clocks in general, so therefore worse MIDI timing. Macs had dead on timing. Now OSX has much more solid and mature built in Audio and MIDI utilities built right in to the OS. Plus Digital Performer.

[memes_33]

my $0.02- i've used macs forever for audio production (they were way more reliable than pc's back in '02 or whatever), use MOTU digital performer (mac only) and peak (used to be mac only- not sure anymore).

my mac book pro has crashed only twice in the past 3 years. i work on a pc at work- it crashes about once a month.

they are more money, but i think its worth it.

[Migra]

Once you go Mac you never go back

When I switched to Mac I was convinced about this too, but after using Windows 7 I can say that both are great, so for me Mac or PC, both are great!

[agent314]

you can get that res and others, even bigger ones, on other laptops. invest the same money as you would for a macbook, and don't invest it into performance only, invest into a quality product.

This is interesting - the majority I've seen have been 1440x900 or 1920x1080, and the full HDs are always on 17" machines, which is just too bulky for me. I haven't seen a PC with a 15" 1680 or above, but if I could find one, I'd be on it.

oh, and, what if something goes wrong? if you're on your platform of knowing, you know how to handle quirks. if you're on a for you new platform, you're quite out of luck. a system is not only as good as it is when it works, it's as good as you can handle the moments where it doesn't work. i would go crazy on stage if a mac would do something strange. with windows, no problem, as i know it perfectly.

This is my biggest concern with switching to OSX. I have almost 20 years of time spent in the Windows world, and 9 times out of 10 if something goes wonky, I can tell what it is and have it fixed in short order. I am largely clueless on the OSX side of things, and I don't want to have to spend the hours and hours of learning and fiddling to figure out what the issues I might run into might be, and what the fixes might require.

Thanks for the feedback all - knock on wood, it has stayed remarkably civil and non-fanboyish. Well done.

[davepermen]

well, i used a 1680x1050 15" dell at work the last years.

problem is right now you will mostly find 16:9 laptops. they don't have that res. they do have f.e. 1600x900, or, then, 1920x1080.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/at/de/sm ... 97214.html

this one for example is 1600x900, and the 15" version of my 12" baby. they are rugged, so, together with an ssd (ssds are aawesome), you can drop it around on stage, and the music won't stop playing (as long as you don't plug out any wrong cable )

they're not cheap, of course.

the asus G51JX-SZ152Z, Core i7 720QM (4x 1.6GHz), 2x 4096MB has full hd at 15.6".

just some random search drops they are

dive into the business sections. there you find the higher res laptops. consumers just get crap..

i've had to learn that in most industries, the "what works best" is unimportant. it's "what can we handle if something goes wrong" is the main driving force (and a reason to still use win95 based lung ventilator saving your life.. scary, i know.. very scary.. but then again, it's proven to work (and be able to fix without lifeloss) since 15 years. so they better don't change to anything worse..)

[H20nly]

I work with computers as a systems engineer in the medical field. We have hundreds of computers with many flavors of windows... 2000, XP, 7 and Server revs 2000, 2003, 2008. I have yet to see Windows 7 crash. That includes on my laptop at home. For all I know... the blue screen of death could be the green screen on 7. My point is only to say that whatever prejudices folks hold after using Windows 95 and ME are so irrelevant at this point you might as well be comparing an Atari to a PS3.

What either company... Apple or Microsoft was or wasn't doing in or before 2002, 2003, 2004 is really of no value to you walking in to a store in 2010 to buy a brand new machine. Go with what makes you feel comfortable... and you will be.

Good luck with your purchase.

[Rave]

I've used pcs, mainframes and unix work stations all my computer life. When vista was launched I moved on. I have had no reason to move back. The fact that apple novel to intel chips made a difference too.

[martinkellogs]

edited

[H20nly]

^ thanks, but I'm NOT having man sex with you Martin!

[martinkellogs]

edited

[leedsquietman]

Nothing is flawless. Mac OSX has crashed and kernel panicked something I've seen first hand, windows has blue screen of deathed, even on Vista and win 7 where it supposedly is not possible. People don't like to admit it and it might only happen rarely, but it happens. In windows, it is frequently device drivers which can bring down the system, for example, I cannot update to one set of Alesis drivers for the IO14, because installing them immediately causes a BSOD which cannot be resolved except for doing a system restore back to the previous driver.

As far as Logic goes, it can only run on one platform and when it crashes (as LP7 did frequently) people don't really care if it's the program or the o/s or both, they just wanted it fixed not to do so. Eventually with update 7.2 (near the end of Logic 7's life) things seemed much better stability wise. Given that it does not run on windows, you couldn't compare to see if it was something o/s specific or just bad coding on the program. Logic 9 is also having some major issues, although not causing kernel panics, it is being a real memory hog for some people, a whole 400 post debate about it at GS with screenshots etc.

Also on the school network, sometimes the crashes were the fault of students, who would do stupid things such as switch the keys on the keyboard around, put paper notes which said 'f*ck you' or 'x person gave y person a blow job' or something in the CD Tray, which often got jammed, and generally smacked things around, so I don't blame this on the computer system, but nonetheless it often caused problems. And the amount of hard drive failures on those emacs and imacs was really high.

[Schnauzer]

Because the thread's title above this one is "windows 7 x64 = BSOD"

Tired of reading error-blogs, and help-tutorials how to clean the registry, I switched completely over to MAC.
Knock on wood, but it didn't fail me once since 2007.
The first thing that I instantly fell in love with was the fact that programs crash, but the os keeps on running.
Meaning you are up and running again within seconds. (my old xp-system had to be restarted inbetween every single session, and still no guarantee of a flawless workflow)

I admit: before I was working on budget PC's which is also not a wise thing to do.
To build a PC you really have to know what you are doing. I don't want to fit that description any more.
I heard ableton shines a bit brighter on a pc (don't know if that's true), but ever since I've got a Logic/Ableton system, my life is
so much easier.

Yup, I'm an apple-fanboy

[steko]

Conclusion: Get a Mac or a PC, but don't put paper notes which say 'f*ck you' or 'x person gave y person a blow job' or something in the CD Tray, because this is not good & can cause problems!

[funky shit]

because i wanted to be cool like all the other mac users.