When it comes to photo editing, both PC and Mac platforms can be very powerful and highly capable, with each having its own list of pros and cons. Choosing one platform over the other can be a difficult choice, because there are so many different aspects and variables to consider. Hardware, software, operating system, cost, design / aesthetics, simplicity, ease of use, stability, upgrade options, resale value, size and weight are some of the factors one might look into on both PCs and Macs to make the ultimate choice. And what makes it even tougher, is that some of these factors can carry very different weights. For example, cost and hardware are often the two major factors that influence purchasing decisions the most. So let’s take a look at a number of above-mentioned factors and see which platform is potentially a better choice for photography needs.
Preface
Having been a PC user since my first 80286 machine many years ago, I have never been particularly attracted to other platforms. I built pretty much every machine I have used so far and I love the fact that I have the freedom to pick, choose, install or upgrade all of the components of my system. I still enjoy the feeling I get after putting components together, firing up the machine and hearing that first post beep and the BIOS screen, showing me that everything is working correctly. Perhaps I love building things too much and fiddling with issues when they come up, but as a techie at heart, PCs have always been my “thing” in both my personal and past corporate life. Over the years, I have enjoyed trying out many different hardware components and operating systems. I have had my fun days of running DOS, Slackware, FreeBSD, BeOS, Redhat, Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Windows 2000, XP, 7 to name a few, and not so fun days messing with Windows NT 3.51 and Windows ME. In my past corporate life, I have probably tried out pretty much every flavor of server hardware and operating systems as well, running large enterprise networks with huge datacenters. Such has been my life as a dedicated “PC guy”.
Along the way, I have seen my share of the Apple world as well, particularly when I had to troubleshoot everything I was thrown at in those IT help desk and call center days. At a later point of time, I picked up a few Apple products for personal use, but mostly in the music / mobile area: iPods, iPads and iPhones (I have been using the iPhone since the third generation). After so many years, my first Apple computer purchase for personal use was earlier this year, when I got a 27″ iMac Retina. I primarily bought it for presentations and photo reviews during workshops, as I did not want to drag a PC with a large monitor with me every time. It worked out great and I have no regrets. Since then, I have been trying to actively use the iMac for everyday tasks, including post-processing.
For the most part, however, I have been able to successfully dodge most of the Apple world, keeping myself away from the hardcore fanboyism that seems to have always been very strong in the Apple community. If a decade ago one could practically get into a fight when talking about PCs vs Macs, it seems like things have not really changed for the better today – any time this topic comes up, people seem to lose it very fast. I understand loyalty, love, devotion, support and dedication for a particular brand, but in all honesty, none of those really matter to me when it comes to choosing tools anymore. I pick what works for me and move on.
Therefore, I would like to clear up that I have no intention of bashing or scrutinizing either platform. I have zero loyalty to PCs or Macs, just like I have no loyalty for a particular camera or a lens brand. I laid out my past experience for a reason, so that you can better understand my background and my point of view. Although I will do my best to remain objective, please keep in mind that it is still my perspective and experience, which can be vastly different from yours. We could be right in our own ways – I guess you could call it “objective subjectivity”, or was it “subjective objectivity”? :)
So before I jump into comparisons, I would like to ask you, our dear reader, to keep the discussion civil. If you have a point you disagree with me on, kindly state your thoughts and your experiences and share with the rest of the readers. But if your fingers are itching to type something nasty, please keep it to yourself or vent someplace else :) Thank you for understanding!
1) The Unboxing Experience
Before we dive into the really important points, let me first talk about something many of us would consider ridiculous – the unboxing experience. Traditionally, PCs and PC components have never exciting to unwrap and unbox, as that was never really the focus of manufacturers. Computer parts would be shipped in ugly, brown carton boxes and if you were lucky to find a neatly printed manual among disposable plastic-wrapped pieces, you would be happy.
Apple has always been about delivering the experience, and it starts with the packaging. The darn box that contains an Apple product is beautiful to start with! Then as you start unboxing the contents, you realize that everything has been thought-out design-wise not only from the product, but also from the packaging standpoint. And this experience is mirrored on every product – whether you are opening an iPhone case or a big iMac box. Everything is beautifully and tightly organized, and even simple things like protective plastic look so strangely beautiful. Simple, elegant, brilliant. And it sure as hell works!
The idea of starting the excitement from the moment one opens the box has been such a huge marketing success for Apple, that everyone has been trying to copy that ever since! Apple really paved the way to make packaging look sexy, and today, so many other products now have similarly beautiful and shiny boxes, colorful manuals, neatly stacked box contents and the simple, yet elegant design. And whenever we see such packaging, the first thing that comes to our mind is “quality”. Yup, through its products, Apple has placed a subliminal message into our brains, which makes us perceive a product higher when it is packaged beautifully.
Who would have thought that packaging would have played such a key role in assessing product quality?
This one is a win for Apple.
2) Hardware Differences
All right, now that we have gone through the process of product unboxing, let’s talk about something that really matters – computer hardware. Which platform has better hardware, PC or Mac?
Back in the day, when Apple used to run on IBM’s PowerPC processors, one could argue that there were significant hardware differences between the two, but once Apple switched to Intel, those differences pretty much vanished. Today, both PCs and Macs can run Intel CPUs of similar generation and processing power. The PC architecture is a bit more flexible, since there is an option to also run AMD CPUs (Apple products are exclusively based on Intel microarchitecture), but it is not really an advantage, as AMD CPUs are generally not faster than Intel CPUs. So at the end of the day, there is no underlying hardware difference in terms of raw power – both PCs and Macs are equally capable systems.
However, there is one disadvantage to Macs – they are manufactured by a single company, while the PC world is comprised of tens of thousands of manufacturers of all sizes. Actually, let me rephrase that: Apple does not really manufacture hardware components. It finds the components it needs and buys them, or works with specific manufacturers on making components that are designed specifically for Macs. For example, the motherboard, which is what houses a CPU, RAM, video card and all the connections, is designed by Apple engineers, who modify the original Intel specifications to remove certain components like eSATA ports and accommodate Apple’s proprietary ports like Thunderbolt. Apple engineers also write custom firmware / BIOS for motherboards to make them suitable for the hardware and the Mac Operating System (Mac OS). Once design is complete, Apple has manufacturing partners like Foxconn (China), who then manufacture those parts specifically for Apple. Product assembly then takes place at a different facility, which can potentially be owned by the same manufacturer. Aside from the motherboard, the Fusion drive, some Apple-specific hardware components and exterior cases, all other components are purchased from standard PC component manufacturers. For example, HDD, SSD / PCIe Flash Storage, Video Cards and RAM are all standard PC components that are commonly available and compatible. Even the panels that Apple puts into its Retina screens and monitors are made by companies like Samsung, which also manufacture similar components for the PC market.
So why is this a disadvantage to Macs? Because of potential timing issues and the heavy need for R&D resources. When something new comes out, it can be pretty much instantly available in the PC world. With companies focusing on specific components rather than the entire machine, new computer parts can flood the market right after the product is launched. In the case of Apple, things cannot take place that quickly. Product redesign, integration, firmware development and testing all take time to properly execute. For example, Intel announced its 6th generation “Skylake” microarchitecture in August of 2015 and while you could have built or bought a PC based on Skylake a couple of months back, Apple has so far only refreshed its iMac line with Skylake. No other Macs, including the MacBook Pro, have been refreshed yet and it will probably take some time for the entire line of products to get the latest and greatest CPUs.
While hardware is extremely important in terms of performance, the marriage of hardware and software for a fluid, stable system is even more important. How good is hardware, if the software is buggy or cannot keep up?
I would call this one a tie, as timing is not critical for most people.
3) Software Differences: Drivers and Integration
One key advantage of Apple is their excellent integration of hardware and software, which without a doubt, has played a huge role in the success of Apple products. Macs are often regarded as more stable than PCs mainly for this reason. And it is true: it is so much easier to take control of software and hardware integration when you only need to deal with few hardware suppliers and components. In short, dedicated hardware always wins.
With PCs, you are dealing with several CPU manufacturers, dozens of motherboard manufacturers that offer different models with different feature-sets and the list goes on and on with all other components, which all have to be able to talk to each other nicely at the end of the day. Once you put it all together, then you deal with software, which is often the root cause of stability issues. Buggy drivers, buggy firmware and sometimes incompatible hardware can be pretty frustrating to deal with for an average user.
Apple products generally do not have such problems. The motherboards are carefully designed to work with the chosen hardware components and everything is cherry-picked to perform the best for that platform. Once components are put together, drivers and firmware are optimized for that specific hardware, so one does not have to deal with third party drivers or support. As a result, you end up with a more stable system and less hardware and software integration headaches to worry about in the long term.
As PC users, we are used to running periodic driver updates, firmware updates and operating system updates. And when things break, which they sometimes do from time to time, our best method to eliminate issues is to do a fresh or “clean install”, wiping everything out and starting from scratch. Mac users rarely go through the same hassles, because software, firmware and driver updates are delivered in a single update package. There are no independent components from third party manufacturers to be hassled with.
Does this make Macs better than PCs? Generally yes, but there is one exception – and that’s Microsoft. As you may already know, Microsoft has been putting a lot of resources into hardware manufacturing with its Microsoft Surface and Surface Book lines of laptops. In my opinion, with this move, Microsoft will be a direct competitor and potentially a direct competitor for Apple in the future, since Microsoft is following exactly the same methodology of successfully coupling hardware and software together. Just like Apple, Microsoft can optimize its drivers and operating system to work well with the carefully chosen hardware, delivering rock-solid stability. And it certainly works – my Surface Pro is one of the most stable PCs I have used to date.
This one is a big win for Apple.
4) Operating System Differences
What about the underlying software that talks directly to computer hardware, the Operating System? On PCs we have the choice to run any OS, including Windows OS and Linux / Unix (and even Mac OS for that matter), while Macs are designed to natively only run Mac OS. You can install Windows alongside Mac OS and emulate certain hardware components with Boot Camp, but the stability and the support aren’t there. So that in itself can be considered to be an advantage for PCs – freedom to choose any operating system without any concerns. However, most people rarely ever experiment with anything other than Windows and Mac OS, so the ability to run other operating systems natively on hardware won’t matter for most users. Thus, at the end of the day, it is basically the battle of Windows vs Mac OS. So which operating system is better and more stable?
This is one area where Apple fans will defend their territory big time. And I don’t blame them – for some people, switching from a PC to a Mac made sense and alleviated a lot of pains. Dealing with driver and stability issues can surely get frustrating and exhausting rather quickly and when you don’t experience the same concerns on a Mac, you surely get the impression that Mac OS is better. However, that’s not the case – the fault herein does not lie with the operating system per se, but rather with the hardware and software integration I have talked about earlier. If one is able to get solid hardware with well-tested drivers, Microsoft Windows is a very stable and reliable operating system. I personally have not seen a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) for years on any of my machines. Unless you have serious hardware issues or nasty viruses (more on viruses below), you should never be seeing errors!
True, Microsoft has had its share of bad days. Remember the Windows 98 BSOD moment with Bill Gates? We all had our good laugh that day and we have seen many more failures afterwards too. Windows Millennium (ME) was a total disaster. Few people liked Vista and Windows 8 did not get much love either. However, let’s not confuse functional and feature differences with stability issues. I was on a beta-testing team when Microsoft launched Windows 2000 and since the day the OS got a complete overhaul, with the underlying kernel running on NT code, Microsoft Windows has been a solid and a reliable operating system. All the instability issues we have seen have been the result of poor software and hardware integration, which Microsoft started to tackle later on with signed drivers. Still, it is nearly impossible to get every hardware vendor to integrate well with all components of software – the biggest challenge for any OS maker. So if your experience with Windows OS has been bad, you most likely had some serious hardware or software compatibility issues.
As I have already pointed out above, Macs are going to have less overall stability issues due to better hardware and software integration and compatibility issues (except when compared to Microsoft’s PCs). However, that only applies to the operating system layer and the basic, OS-provided applications – the same does not apply to third party applications. Just in the past 6 months, I have seen many cases of all kinds of software crashes on the iMac Retina that I have been using. Badly-written applications randomly crashing, (Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC and other third party apps) and Adobe compatibility issues with the El Capitan Mac OS, to name a few.
In short, crap software will be crap on any machine, whether it is a PC or a Mac. As a PC user, I always made the assumption that Adobe’s software runs better on a Mac (I thought that Adobe optimized its code better for Macs). Nope, not true. It sucks resources and wastes memory on my PC and it is no different on my iMac. When doing our first video project, I thought that doing editing on my iMac would be a good idea. After just a few hours and dozens of application errors and shutdowns, I ended up moving the project back to my PC – it was simply unbearable. In this particular case, I was better off working on my PC than on the iMac! I was still experiencing occasional crashes, but there were nearly not as bad. And with lack of proper GPU support for AMD’s video cards, my Adobe Premiere Pro was much slower on the Mac. Adobe later pushed a few updates to take care of these stability issues, but it was already too late – I did not want to trust the Mac to run any Adobe apps reliably.
In summary, there are no serious differences in operating systems in my opinion. Both Windows and Mac OS are equally reliable.
I call this one a tie.
5) Viruses and Trojans
What about virus and trojan outbreaks? We hear about this one a lot too, with Apple fans arguing that Apple machines suffer from much less software and hardware exploit issues. This one I have to agree on – and the main reason is popularity. With Apple having a much smaller market share than PC, which is generally less than 15% of the total market, hackers are always going to target machines that are in the abundance. Simply put, there are far more PCs out there to target compared to Macs. For mass-hacking and denial of service attacks, the more machines in the inventory, the better. So naturally, PCs would be better targets, as they have the volume. But that’s changing quickly. With the rise of Apple machines and gadgets, more and more hackers are targeting Macs.
I would say this one is a win for Apple for now.
6) Security
Security is another area where I don’t consider one OS to be superior to the other. Both require elevated privileges for installing software, both prohibit easy launching of downloaded files, and operating system files are protected from modifications. Back in the day, Apple fans could brag on Mac OS being based on the more stable Unix platform, but that argument is a moot point for me personally. I have been using Unix and Linux systems extensively (for example, this server is running on a customized Linux server) and I can tell you that I equally ran Windows OS in an enterprise environment, with the same 24/7 stability and availability.
I would call this one a tie.
7) Design and Aesthetics
I don’t think there is a need to say much here, as we all know which one is going to win. Apple makes beautiful products and sadly, I cannot think of a single PC that is as aesthetically as pleasing as a Mac. When was the last time you saw a truly beautiful PC? There are some slick cases out there, but that’s about it. Once you add all the ugly wiring, the thought of “beautiful and simple” quickly vanishes. PC manufacturers have tried every possible design and the result is sadly one ugliness after another.
The only exceptions are some PC laptops and tablets like Microsoft’s Surface, or Dell’s XPS line with carbon fiber casing. These can be beautiful, simple and sleek to use. But in all honesty, none still beat the aesthetics of Apple products.
This one is a huge win for Apple.
8) Ergonomics and Ease of Use
Another area Apple is very strong at is ergonomics. The idea of a simplistic design also equally applies to navigation and use of both hardware and software components. After using the iMac, I have to say, nobody has the trackpad in the PC world figured out when compared to Apple. In fact, all PC trackpads suck badly. Every laptop trackpad I have used to date has been junk – very frustrating to use, even on the latest, most expensive machines. And let’s not even remember IBM’s horrible joystick that was stuck in between buttons – what a terrible idea that was!
To truly appreciate navigational ergonomics, give the Magic Trackpad a try. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, you will never want to use anything else. And this trackpad experience is mirrored across all Apple products. It just works! Apple invented multi-touch and hand gestures, so it is no wonder why they are so good at it.
As for ease of use, that’s another stronghold of Apple. When Apple released the iPhone with a single button, people laughed. When Apple released the iPad, people laughed again. But those two products have been extremely successful because of their simplicity of operation. Today, every phone maker is copying the same idea – now we even have buttonless phones!
Another big win for Apple.
9) Upfront Cost and Performance
If so far it appeared like I was giving all the credit to Apple, this is one area where it will be a huge slam on Apple’s face. If one evaluates cost and performance (which go hand in hand), Macs don’t stand a chance against PCs. I could build a very fast PC, which will slaughter pretty much any Mac out there, at half the cost. Don’t believe me? Take a look at my ultimate PC for photography article and try to find a similarly spec’ed Mac (hint: it does not exist). For about $2K, my PC would be screaming fast, delivering unbelievable performance.
So if we look at the desktop space, Apple cannot really compete. In fact, Apple does not want to compete in that space, because it knows that it won’t stand a chance. That’s why Apple’s focus has been primarily on mobile devices, laptops, all-in-one machines and maybe a bit of workstation class environments (Mac Pro). In these areas, Apple surely has very appealing products, which in some cases are priced fairly.
Now there are some exceptions. For example, the iMac Retina is a very unique machine, which actually has no real PC equivalent. If one were to build a similarly spec’ed machine, it would be much bigger in size and its cost would most likely surpass the iMac, since a 5K screen alone would cost $1500+ (the screen is one of the main reasons why I bought an iMac Retina).
So the cost factor has to be looked at on a case by case basis. Overall though, with a few exceptions listed above, Apple products are generally priced much higher than PCs when looking at very similar specifications.
Now if we look at sheer computing performance, that’s another area where Macs will usually lose. PCs can be designed to accommodate high-end components and can be flexible enough to push their limits beyond specifications. One can get a fairly cheap setup and overclock it. It might not be as stable as a result, but it will obliterate a competing Mac in performance. That’s why PCs are so much more popular among gamers, 3D animators and anyone else seeking hardcore performance. People can push hardware to the limits and get far more done in a much shorter period of time.
As expected, this one is a huge win for PC.
10) Upgrade Options
Another area where Apple struggles is upgrade options. Once you buy a machine, it is easier to get it replaced, than to upgrade its components. Aside from a few exceptions, like swapping out a hard drive or upgrading RAM, there is little future upgrade path for a Mac. PC users can buy components and reuse them in their future builds with ease, saving money in the long term. It is far cheaper to upgrade a motherboard with a CPU, than to buy a brand new machine.
Some Macs make it extremely difficult, or nearly impossible to switch out components. For example, the all-in-one iMac is so stuffed inside, that even an experienced techie would have a hard time swapping basic components like the hard drive. I wrote about this in my previous article on how to buy an iMac.
Now some people might argue that Apple computers are a long-term investment, that upgrades are not needed and the machines generally can serve longer, which makes it worthwhile to spend the premium on them. I am sorry, but I don’t buy that argument. Unless I really want to move up to something faster, my PCs are also built to last for at least 5 years, making them worthwhile, long-term investments.
Another huge win for PC.
11) Resale Value
When it comes to resale value, Apple always wins hands down. Whether you have just built a PC, or have been using one for a year or two, good luck trying to sell it – PCs have practically no resale value! I cannot remember the last time I sold a PC I built, as nobody really wants them. The majority of the PCs out there are either thrown away or recycled for that reason. I personally end up recycling too, or sometimes use them as “museum components” (hard drive plates and magnets are particularly fun to play with). I am done with accumulating a stash of hard drives, RAM and CPUs – that just ends up going to junk / recycling anyway.
Apple products always have a higher resale value and this applies to all Apple products, not just Macs. People sell used MacBooks, iMacs, Mac Pros and Mac Minis all the time and they fetch surprisingly good prices on the used market. My moderately used Surface Pro 3 that was worth $2K at the time I bought it, is selling dirt cheap today after a year of use – less than half of what I paid for it. And that’s a very solid product with a very high quality and desirability. I would not even think about trying to sell my used PC desktop. I would probably make more money selling individual components, than trying to sell the whole thing and even then it usually would not be worth the effort.
So if resale value on Apple products is better, doesn’t that make them a better choice for long-term investment? Isn’t it worth paying the price premium upfront? Well, if you are the type who does not mind selling computer gear before upgrades, then it would probably be a true statement. However, most of us often end up either keeping computers until they fail and have no resale value, or pass them on to our family members, friends or various donations. As appealing the resale value argument might be, unless you have previously done it and you know that you will be doing it in the future, I would not consider it to be a valid argument.
A potential win for Apple, if you have the track record of selling used gear.
12) Photoshop and Lightroom Performance
As I have stated earlier, Macs don’t have any particular advantage for running post-processing software like Adobe CC. Buggy releases are equally bad on both platforms. If a piece of software has memory leaks, there is a big chance that those memory leaks will be mirrored on both Mac OS and Windows. And this has been my exact experience when running Adobe software on my iMac – it can be equally frustrating and slow. Occasionally, there are platform-specific issues and compatibility issues. For example, the infamous menu bug that we have seen on pretty much every iteration of Lightroom is mostly a PC problem. Adobe still cannot figure out a way to fix it, although the development team did come up with a few tricks to try to address the issue. On the latest version of Lightroom, if the software detects malfunctioning menus, it throws an error and asks to restart Lightroom. This particular bug does not exist on OS X. There are some other bugs that are present on Mac OS and not necessarily present on Windows. In some cases it could be an operating system library conflict. When Apple pushed El Capitan, it presented a lot of problems with Adobe software. It took a few updates for Adobe to make their software usable again. These problems were obviously non-existent on the Windows platform.
In short, there is not much difference in performance when running applications like Photoshop and Lightroom on both Mac OS and Windows operating systems.
This one is a tie.
13) Display Quality and Calibration Accuracy
While Apple releases very impressive, high-resolution displays / screens for Macs and puts quite a bit of marketing pitch in showcasing their displays as photography-friendly, most Apple monitors are not best suited for accurate color reproduction and calibration. While things have definitely gotten better during the past few years, making Apple screens more or less acceptable for photo work (after the company started to push IPS panels), they still lag quite a bit when compared to professional monitors. So if you work with colors every day and you need the best accuracy, you will have to invest in a high-quality monitor that can be properly hardware-calibrated.
Speaking of calibration, that’s a huge weakness of most Apple monitors. On all iMacs, for example, the only adjustment control you have is brightness. There is no way to change contrast or to fine tune other monitor parameters. Setting desired brightness levels for proper calibration can be painful, since there are at most 16 levels of brightness, versus the typical 100 that you get on good monitors. On top of that, pretty much every Apple monitor has a reflective surface, making them painful to work with in bright environments. This all does not mean that these screens cannot be calibrated – while Apple does a decent job at color reproduction from factory, you should still invest in a good colorimeter like the X-Rite i1Display Pro and calibrate every display for best results.
So keep this in mind when looking at Apple monitors. While those screens certainly look beautiful, they are not necessarily the best ones to work with for photography.
This one is a disadvantage for iMacs and Apple laptops. For everything else, you will need to buy external monitors, just like you buy for PCs, so there are similar considerations for both.
14) 10-Bit Support
For years, Apple refused to provide proper 10-bit support on Mac OS at the operating system level, making them unusable for color-critical work. On PCs, video card manufacturers like NVIDIA have been providing 10-bit support for years, as long as you purchase the right pro-level card, like the NVIDIA QUADRO series cards.
Starting from the OS X El Capitan release though, Apple finally integrated 10-bit support into the operating system and now every Mac running the latest OS can finally output colors in 10-bits.
Used to be a disadvantage for Mac, but now is a tie.
15) Summary
In this article, I have only touched some of the factors when considering a Mac vs a PC. There are many other areas I could expand into, such as software availability, specific ergonomic and design concerns and much more. But I am not sure if there is any value in expanding this discussion even further, as we have already covered a lot.
At the end of the day, the choice of a system does not really matter. Both Macs and PCs are good enough to be used for a variety of uses, including post-processing. I provided my arguments and you can feel free to weigh each one and see which are more important for you.
For me personally, the PC makes more sense to use for post-processing, which has been and will continue to be my platform of choice. I am very familiar with it, I pick and choose what I need and I don’t have to spend a ton of money to get the speed and the components I need. But for others who are not as tech-savvy, or perhaps have bad PC experience, the Mac might be the way to go. It is simpler to use, it is more intuitive, well-designed and will probably have less problems in the long run.
Would love to hear your thoughts and your preferences – please share in the comments section below!
“while Macs are limited to natively only run Mac OS”
Sorry, that’s simply not true. Current Mac models are Intel based and are able to run any of the platforms, including Windows and Linux, that regular PCs can run. Tools like Boot Camp even help to facilitate running Windows on a Mac. On the other hand, running OS X on a stock PC usually requires some careful hardware selection and a few hacks.
John, very strange, but for some reason many of the edits from today did not make it to the published article. I am in the process of recovering the lost areas.
Yes, Macs can run Windows via Boot Camp or in a virtualized environment, but from my past experience, the support and the stability were not there. Perhaps things have changed lately – I might give it another try. I remember how messy it was to try to use the keyboard and the touchpad, Boot Camp drivers were terrible for both. I ended up going back to OS X after all the frustrations.
Nasim,
Bootcamp isn’t a virtualized environment. Your hard-drive is partitioned and you can run the latest and greatest Windows operating system in all it’s glory. I am a huge fan of Apple hardware but never could get used to the Mac OS. So the first thing I did was to boot-camp the machine and run it strictly in windows mode. It’s setup to boost directly into Windows and bypasses the entire Mac OS startup routine. You can still boot back into Mac OS anytime you like. You will just need to purchase a legitimate license for Windows 10. I can’t recall the last time I actually booted into the Mac OS environment. I find it mildly humorous that the most stable machine to run Windows on…is a Mac! :)
It’s funny but I had the exact opposite experience.
I started out in computers with Windows and found the interface messy, ugly and illogical – there seemed to me, as a learner, no rhyme or reason to it and I used to spend hours getting ever more ‘lost’ in the confusing menu systems and illogical folder trees.
Eventually a friend said try a Mac. I did and it immediately seemed beautiful, clear, logical and intuitive to me.
It was like coming home and I have not felt tempted tp stray since.
It just shows how different we all are.
Funny, I find the MAC to be confusing and restricting. Working with a MAC every now and then makes me really frustrated. Windows was always logical and made sense. I did not fall for the “beauty” of a IOS, it meant nothing to me, I wanted functionality. Windows is functional. Perfect? Not even close but then again neither is IOS or Linux.
I wish Photoshop and LIghtroom were available for Linux. It is a beautiful and clean OS.
You could try Darktable or RawTherapee on Linux. Been using it now witj Ubuntub(although not for professional usage) and so far they are good :)
Or the propietary one from Corel, Afterworks 2 :)
The Mac OS — and t’s way of doing things — predates Windows by over 10 years.
In some parts of the world some people drive on the left and think this is “normal”. In other parts of the world, they drive on the right and think that is normal.
So … just because you learned one way to do something does not mean other way of doing it is wrong.
For what it’s worth, I use Macs, Windows and Linux machines all day long transitioning between them with no issue.
Maybe I am just better — and less resistant — to learning new things.
That should have been by almost 10 years.
To your comment regarding learning something one way or the other using the example of driving, I totally agree. I learned to drive on the left hand side of the road, and after some years started driving on the right hand side in this country. It makes no difference, neither is better, especially since you accomplishing exactly the same thing, and I am talking about doing both in a vehicle with a manual transmission.
With the editing tools being the same on both platform, it really is a no brainer.
The number of things I can’t do on my new MacBook pro is beyond frustrating (MacBookPro11,5) , can’t upgrade ram, it’s soldered in, can’t upgrade the HDD… it’s soldered in, can’t plug in ethernet, need to buy adaptor, can’t plug extrascreen in, need adaptor, can’t play a DVD, needs external drive (supplied). Only 2 USB ports, 2 thderbolt ports, very expensive, it’s a $4000+ laptop! APPLE is now downgrading their software, Photos has 60% less capabilities than Aperture. What is going on? Do they think I’m stupid? You know, only iPhone photos and videos posted to Facebook is important…… This is my last Apple I think, just like Adobe, they used to be the good guys, now? Just bean counters in charge aiming to minimising services and maximizing cost to you, separate everything and up and charge for it. ie $59 for an ether net adaptor!! laptops are for taking around, I now have to carry 3 adaptors plus a DVD drive. In fact, I think ill sell it get an older version. Anyone want to buy the latest MacBookPro11,5 16gig ram 500gig SSD? Its about 4months old. Why did I get it? I had one of the early 2012 ones with the video problem that could not be fixed so they decently fronted up and gave me this one! So good on them for that.
Agree! But then again I think they were always more bean counters than anything. Their commitment to share holders was always their top priority.
That’s why one need to budget enough money to buy the machine one wants/needs in the first place. Have you read Nasim’s recent articles?
I’ve had a similar experience. My Mac runs Windows 10 better than any of the PCs at my office. But I enjoy using OSX so I don’t spend a lot of time in Windows on it. My drivers worked fine for Wacom tablet and my other gear on the iMac running Windows. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Windows issue on a Mac with Bootcamp.
My virtual Windows machines through Parallels Desktop have always run faster and been more stable than any standalone Windows PC I have been running at the time.
Chris, I am sorry, but you could never prove that a virtual machine is faster than a non-virtual machine. It is physically impossible – running an OS on top of another OS always carries penalties.
I suggest we don’t let our feelings / emotions take over…
You could run IBM’s Unix (AIX) on Macintosh computers back in the early 90s.
There were other OS’es that would run on Motorola and PowerPC chips.
Being able to run other OS’es on Macs goes back a LONG ways.
Nasim, Macs are able to natively run the EXACT same operating systems any generic PC — Linux, FreeBSD, Windows. No virtualization necessary. Plus of course the Macs can run OS X which a standard PC can not do.
Your information in indeed deficient.
Nasim is not the one with deficient information. The majority of PCs can (technically) run OSX. I’ve done it on many a desktop and laptop. Technically. The fastest workstation I’ve ever run OSX on was a Dell XPS computer. Sadly there was no point in running OSX on it for video editing since Photoshop and Premiere runs faster on Windows than on OSX on the same hardware.
Running any *nix software on a mac I’ve heard can be a nightmare depending on what flavor hardware your using. They program their BIOS to work for Mac OS and that’s it. As far as running mac OS on non apple hardware it’s not as hard as you may think 99% of stuff works if your intel based and the only true hiccup i had was wireless.
Andrew, great points – that was also my experience when I tried it out before. Boot Camp sucked for running some of the hardware, so I ended up wiping out Windows and going back to OS X. To be honest, I really don’t see the point of running Windows on a Mac, just like I don’t see the point of making a Hackintosh. If one buys a Mac, they should run Mac OS on it. If one builds a PC, why bother running Mac OS? Windows is great.
Your bias is showing. Your statement is that configuring a bunch of special parts to run OS X on a PC is easy but running Linux that is pre-built to run on a Mac is HARD is just patently false.
Mac users are unlikely to swap to PCs. Mac is a solid platform. I agree it doesn’t matter but for some reason people get defensive about their gear. I am not sure I would agree with your decisions in each category, but that’s fine, it is not really about logic. Which platform you use is much more about intangible things and objectivity is not high on that list.
The thing I like least at the moment is the constant updates. Every program seems to run a “there is a new version of XX available” way too often. They always include ‘improve security’ in the list of promises. It is a constant irritation. (Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, etc. etc.)
Martin, thank you for your feedback! I agree, most people who choose one platform over another tend to stick to it and defend their choices heavily. For me, it is a bit silly, as both have their strong pros and cons.
As for updates, that’s just the world we currently live in. People want more bells and whistles and those always come with all kinds of issues.
I honestly think that the one thing that made apple good back in the day is they made sure stuff worked before they pushed it out Nikon. Now that they are becoming a major market player they are being forced to hit their deadlines and it’s quite obvious the consequences. We live in a world where software engineers are getting pushed into hitting dates instead of making it to completion. In this environment it’s a miracle that we get products that work at all in my opinion.
An excellent point. The fact is that Mac and PC users by and large self-sort by personal style. You can’t argue than someone else has a wrong personal style because it’s so different from yours. Or you can, but you’d make no sense.
If you say to a cheap PC user, “Your machine is ugly and its interface is clumsy” you’ll get a blank stare. “The machine is under my desk; who cares what it looks like? And I’ve been using it for two decades. Why should I learn something new just because it’s easier to learn?”
But if you say to a Mac user, “You are paying a massive premium just to have your machine gussied up,” and you’ll get a blank stare. Of course a stylish and exceptionally designed machine costs more than a kludgy mess. But why shouldn’t I buy myself the best? After all, who’d buy a used mini-van if they could buy a new BMW?
Neither is right, and neither is wrong. Those of us who keep our machine under our desk (which is merely a door set on two file cabinets) obviously don’t care about style. People who use Macs do care about style. By spending a bit (or a lot) more money they can get a machine that’s equal or superior in all respects. People like me see this premium as useless as paying extra for a new BMW when a used mini-van is actually more utilitarian.
Good points.
I will take the BMW 3 over the used mini-van any day. I enjoy driving, which for me is more than just getting from point A to B.
Все-же железо мак работает быстрее, чем PC.
И это преимущество Apple
)
Translation: And still, hardware on a Mac runs faster than on PC. And that’s the advantage of Apple.
Andrew, I disagree, for the reasons stated in the article :)
Why would you tease us with the headline then bail out on naming a winner? C’mon Nasim don’t be a fence sitter :)
Monte, I am not sure how, but a lot of the work I put in today has been wiped out from the published article. Looks like I have lost the changes, which sucks! I am currently rewriting some of the pieces and adding more material. I updated the article with the platform of choice for me, which is PC. So my choice still lies with PC for the stated reasons.
“…For the most part, however, I have been able to successfully dodge most of the Apple world, keeping myself away from the hardcore fanboyism that seems to have always been very strong in the Apple community…”
“…Therefore, I would like to clear up that I have no intention of bashing or scrutinizing either platform…”
Too late. It appears you already started the bashing here by talking about “hardcore fanboyism.”
On PCs we have the choice to run any OS, including Windows OS and Linux / Unix (and even Mac OS for that matter), while Macs are limited to natively only run Mac OS.
This is incorrect. You can load Linux or Windows directly on Mac hardware without any emulation software required.
———-
So which machine should you use? If you already own an PC, continue to use a PC. If you already own a Mac, continue to use a Mac. Really, both will get the job done. If you switch platforms, you will spend a fair bit of money buying new software. Wouldn’t you rather buy a new lens???
Thank you for your feedback. The “hardcore fanboyism” remark was targeted at a specific group of people who relentlessly defend their choice without logic or reason. It was not aimed at Apple products or other Mac users.
As for the last quote, I lost some of the edits in the article for some reason – please see my response to John above.
Funny that when you use the word “fanboy” people think automatically think of Apple users. Well, that says something..not good about Apple users.
“So which machine should you use? If you already own an PC, continue to use a PC. If you already own a Mac, continue to use a Mac. Really, both will get the job done. If you switch platforms, you will spend a fair bit of money buying new software. Wouldn’t you rather buy a new lens???”
Brilliant. Now we need an article on Nikon vs Canon vs Sony.
The winner is the one you use, just like Canon vs Nikon. The competition and the fact that we have choices in cameras and computers is what counts.
Martin, I agree, which is why I did not say anything about one being better than the other. Both systems have very strong pros and cons, just like Nikon vs Canon :)
Great article.
Look, it is the same as buying a Canon or a Nikon, or a Samsung or an iPhone.
No one is forced to buy a PC or a Mac. Just do your research to find out which one suits your specific needs.
I have used both and now have settled on an iMac with an Eizo monitor.
And yes, I have added a 500GB SSD internal hard drive, upgraded the Ram and now a happy camper.
Tom, thank you for your feedback! Did you end up peeling the screen off to get access to internal components? I watched the procedure once and boy, it is a lot of work!
Hi Nasim
Nah, an easy job. Just make sure you have clean soft material to place the screen on. Not a job to rush but doable. Remove the CD Drive, and there is then room for the internal SSD as they come with their own internal mounting bracket. If you need a CD player plug in an external unit.
Increasing the RAM is also very easy. Just remove the old ones and push in the new ones. Simple.
My iMac is a 2010 model, and it also serves as my business computer.
By the way I have read a few of the comments coming in and as usual some (the experts!!) go a bit over the top. However, there is no reason for them to become personal in their comments, as they should just stick to the facts.
But at least you are making people think which is not such a bad thing.
Keep up the good work.
And here is my point -and for me it is an important one; could Apple build the iMac with easy access to upgrade components? Absolutely!!
So why didn’t they? Well, fanboys will say that Apple does not want us “commoners” messing with the computer. I say it is money, money, money.
They make it extremely difficult so when you need more of anything you have to buy a new unit.
That shows deep disrespect towards their clients. Now why would I support a company who does not respect my money and time?
100% in agreement! Pure greed by design by Apple.
I too am at cross roads since during replacement of hdd the technician damaged the screen (famous vertical lines) – lot worse than blue screen death!
How can a computer be worth $5,000 after taxes and have no easy access to replace hdd that is guaranteed to fail in time??? This is obscene and immoral and an insult!
So yes pc is winning me back. Dell used to be a similarly well designed system I will have to see. Recommendations are welcome since I’ve been away from pc since 2009.
Peter
Im assuming you want a Photo/Video editing station. Then I assume you would want a high end machine.
If you looking for a PC desktop, I would put Dell into you trade study/comparison.
Dell is a good PC maker, and has some high end Desktop hardware at a good price
New XPS 8900 Special Edition loaded $1999.00
If your looking for a Laptop for the road.
HP makes very high end, and Good looking hardware
Link below to HP Envy/ Apple MacBook Air 13 comparisons
store.hp.com/us/en…-344503–1
Surf their site for all their Laptops
I have a HP Spectre x360 – 13-4102dx I use for travel only. It is a high end laptop capable of doing real work.
You could also use a Laptop with an external Monitor And a real Keyboard also (dock it).
If you really want to have some fun, go put together a PC yourself (newegg.com or amazon.com has all the parts)
No one sells what I want (need 12 SATA ports) so I build my PC’s, they are high end and faster than any stock Dell/Apple/HP… out there, seems like I update it every2-3 years with a new MB/processor.
After initial cost, it really not too costly to just update to new MB/processor.
My thoughts, Enjoy your new PC
“How can a computer be worth $5,000 after taxes and have no easy access to replace hdd that is guaranteed to fail in time??? This is obscene and immoral and an insult!”
You’ve obviously never owned a luxury car like a Lexus or Mercedes.
so happens I have :) except I found Mercedes more serviceable than any car I owed before. That is not the case with $apple!
“So why didn’t they? Well, fanboys will say that Apple does not want us “commoners” messing with the computer. I say it is money, money, money.”
And have you tried talking to regular users instead of fanboys of any kind (PC or Mac)? These non-fanboys are the people who buy the majority of computers. This is the meat of the market. These people don’t care about upgrading RAM or hard drive. When the machine — PC or Mac — is too slow they buy a new one. They never upgrade the components.
Exactly. Truth is, with great tablets out there, some of these people don’t even need desktop or laptop computers any longer. And, then there are those like me… I am quite capable of fixing or upgrading my computer, and, when I was a Windows user I usually built my own computers from components, and I spent way too much time tinkering with my computer. Now, instead of wasting time tinkering with my computer (or, constantly having to spend time keeping it stable as I did in the Windows days), I buy my computers with fully loaded memory and the top graphics card available so that I can spend my time actually getting work done. And, in 5-6 years, when it has slowed a bit, I will sell my current Mac as it will still have value and buy the latest and fastest I need.
I feel the same way. That’s why they make you buy a new adaptor for every little thing out there and their iPhones, iPads e.t.c. don’t even share the same charger. Why people support this company whose main goal is to rip off their customers?
They are more companies that make sleek and “beautiful” computers like Lenovo and I am sure Microsoft’s newest laptops don’t look shabby either. Mac is no longer the BMW of design.
I think one area you could have touched on even though it is not synonymous with photographers is potential bang for the buck. There are some very good deals if one digs around hard enough. I just put together a Dell XPS 8900 with an I7-6700, 24GB ram, 960 GTX 4 gb card and a 500 GB SSD (plus the 1 TB barracuda) for a little less than $800 after coupons and cashback. I think it would be pretty hard to put together a similarly spec’ed Mac for that price, but I could be wrong…
Kristofer, but I did :) Please see the article section #9, where I discuss upfront cost in detail.
I”m glad to have read this i was on the fence, thanks Nasim. I don’t want to open a can of worms or get political but the main reason that i enjoy windows side of hardware is just 1 freedom. I really don’t like at the end of the day being tied up with strings and forced into a corner. With Apple devices be it their phones or their personal computers i always feel like they have some hidden string they are just waiting to pull.
Knowing that Apple software has stability issues with Adobe products doesn’t surprise me. I fear that part of the game is just going to get worse with adobe and apple having a strained relationship at best, after all they do compete in a lot of areas.
Andrew, you are most welcome! Many people feel similarly, wanting to have the freedom to do whatever they want with their system :) Apple is known for limiting features and functionality to sell products at higher brackets. My LG G4 has 32 GB of internal memory and I can add a lot more with microSD. Wish I had that capability on my iPhone Plus 6!
I should thank you again. It was your review of the LG G4 that prompted me to buy one. It has been a great phone.
Honestly the storage isn’t as big of a deal to me as being able to remove the battery. I live in a remote location and often times the best way to keep your phone charged is to remove the battery altogether. I also have 2 batteries and swap them on long trips instead of bringing a charger.
There IS some advantage to Mac’s operating system compared to Windows when it comes to photography: 16-bit processing. Maybe this has changed with Windows 10, but Macs support 16-bit image editing and 10-bit displays while on Windows they do not. One of the few differences of Lightroom on Mac vs Lightroom on Windows.
Is this still the case?
No. In fact the opposite it true. Modern Macs haven’t had 10bit support until the very recent iMac refresh and even there it is very new and little known. You can’t get 10bit colours working on Mac Pro.
Also since most Macs ships with integrated displays with little or no picture controls, it could be quite difficult to calibrate them. On the other hand average Mac display is way better out of the factory than average PC mainstream display…
Mirek
“You can’t get 10bit colours working on Mac Pro.”
Not so.
I have quite an old MacPro but upgraded with an NVIDIA K5000 4GB graphics card.
Combine that with an Eizo monitor and El Capitan and voila, you can have 10bit colour on a 4K screen.
Thanks for that information, Betty. I’m still running an older MacPro5,1 so it’s nice to know that upgrade path exists.
Now all I need is a bigger budget for the Eizo!
David
Oded, that’s actually completely opposite if you look at the timeline. Macs were the ones that did not have proper 10-bit support for years, because Apple refused to provide 10-bit support. During that time, Windows has had the proper 10 bit support for years – all you had to have was the right pro-level video card. Now the situation has changed. With El Capitan, Apple finally enabled 10-bit support…
Sorry for my comment, but i have to write it:
Apple is not for me having bought in 1983 an apple 2E with an extension card (128K) that was never really use widely in softwares and after having spent over 2300$cdn, I felt completely left by apple when they started to manufactured their first Macintosh. My investment was a total lost after so little time. Contrary to apple IBM machines and compatibles with their intel 808X and 802XX and 804XX processors were software downward compatible for years after purchase. I promised myself to never buy any products from apple and so far that is what I did. I want just to remind you that they manufacture their products so no user can even change the battery easily, going to extensive manufacturing tricks to prevent owners to even open their products. My 5 years old asus P7P55D-E Premium motherboard with its 2.8 gigahertz and 16 gigs ram (1600) is still doing its job with a decent AMD Firepro video card. I have 6 hds from 2-4 terabytes connected in USB 3.0. I can open the casing and add any devices when I feel I need to and no company is stopping me from doing it. May I say that my next computer won’t be a Mac……..
Luc,
I understand where you came from. In 1981, I used all my savings on an Apple II with two floppy drives and a 64k memory option with a UCSD Pascal interpreter. I later upgraded it to an Apple IIe… However, I saw that investment as my way into personal computers even before the term “PC” was coined by IBM. By the time I was ready for my next – and cheaper – Taiwanese 80286-based PC in 1986, my personal return of investment had far exceeded my original monetary investment. It landed me jobs and that’s what counted for me. Comparing a MacBook or an iMac with an Apple IIe is like comparing a Ford Fusion with a Ford T, two products from the same company, generally run by the same guy (Jobs) using almost the same logo, but an all-mattering thirty years apart. Apple then was a pioneering start-up with an unpredictable future while Apple today is anything but that, at least in the short term. I switched from PC to Apple in 2013 to get a light-weight, portable option for post-processing right in my LowePro, and the way the Mac painlessly integrates with my iPad(s) and iPhone is no less than amazing. That being said, I agree with most of Nasim’s conclusions.
Luc
Isn’t it time you got over it?
I am sure most of us have been caught with our trousers down – buying an expensive product the day before it got superceded or made obsolete.
It embarrassing and painful, but that’s just life – short, ugly, and brutal – and then you die.
It’s also not true that Macs are made difficult to upgrade.
My MacPro is really old (2008-please don’t laugh) but I have put in a 1TB SSD, a very fast NVIDIA K5000 graphics card which supports both 4K and 10 bit colour, 32GB RAM, USB3 PCI expansion cards and I have three more internal SATA 7200 drives (2GB+2GB+4GB). All from 3rd party vendors.
This machine still sings.
The only creaky old part left is the CPU (2 x Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3GHz) which, like my brain, is long overdue for an upgrade but which as far as I know, is beyond help.
They USED to be upgrade-able. Try putting updates in their new R2D2. In fact a lot of video editors got pissed when they learned they couldn’t get the dedicated capture cards inside the computer any more and had to buy an external enclosure $$$ just to stick in a professional capture card. Almost all of the new computers have soldered in hard drives and ram so upgrading is a thing of the past, for what benefit to the end user? Soldering in these components does nothing but cap the lifespan of a computer.
I’m impressed your limping along such an old computer, I’m glad I’m not the only one. I have a laptop from 2006 that i refuse to let go of. Still works great.
Er, I amm not limping – this machine is still fast.
I am investigating the possibility of upgrading the CPU as well.
Any ideas anyone?
Not much information out there.
I do agree though that cramming in and hard wiring everything in new Macs seems a cynical move on Apple’s part.
New MacPro anyone?
a move by Apple that is completely Cynical, I’m selling my new MacBook Pro to someone who does not mind buying a cool looking completely unupgradable iPhone and Facebook ready laptop
Hello Nasim, im sorry but i dont agree with you here. I bought my iMac 5K with all the upgrades, intel i7 4GHz Quad Core, 32GB Ram, 4GB graphic card, 3TB fusion drive (combination of HDD & SSD) & i paid $3200 & keeping in mind its a next generation of 5K display which no manufacturer is having as of now “except” Dell, who is selling their 5K display only at $2500..!!!!!
Also windows is most unstable software to work with, i worked on windows 95, 98, ME, NT, Vista, XP, 7, 8.1 & now 10, and trust all are crap, buggy, hanging, lagging and all painful experience, just this year i switched from windows of Mac after good 20yrs and now im extremely happy for my this move.
Tks & Rgds.
Junaid, please see the article and you will find references to exactly the same points regarding the iMac :)
As for Windows being unstable, I am sorry, but it looks like you had either serious hardware issues, or did not want to understand the operating system better. Yes, Windows ME was crap, but everything from Windows 2000 and above has been pretty darn good for me personally. I have never had instability issues with Windows and I love Windows 10 today.
WIndows OS has been for me a great and stable OS. Here is a funny story, I just shot a X-Mas party requiring me to print on location, I borrowed my friend’s MacPro (10 months old) and his daughter (who is only a MAC user) helped me with the job. After sending 300 prints to two printers the machine hung up and refused to work. She rebooted it and it hung up again after ten minutes.
We let it rest for a few minutes, restated it and it finished the job. My old Asus was my companion when printing on location and believe it or not, never once failed. I sent thousands of photos for printing and it always worked.
“My old Asus was my companion when printing on location and believe it or not, never once failed. I sent thousands of photos for printing and it always worked.”
Did you test your old ASUS with the exact same printing job? Otherwise I am not seeing the point of comparison.
For the record, Asus has a markedly lower hardware failure rate than Apple. But I do expect you knew that. Perhaps not.
@Junaid Abbas
>> i worked on windows 95, 98, ME, NT, Vista, XP, 7, 8.1 & now 10 and trust all are crap, buggy
This simply isn’t true. It’s a rumor among Mac users that Apple them selves say is incorrect. Think about it. When Apple was choosing a platform for its entire iCloud infrastructure, they went with Microsoft Azure (and parts of it AWS). If your comment was anywhere near accurate, there is no way Apple could do that. Azure was back then 100% Windows, though they have added some Linux lately for those who wants IaaS on Linux. The IaaS infrastructure on which all of the iXXXX stuff runs is Windows though.
The Apple OSX platform is a very good platform for those who do not “tinker” and just wants to make stuff work, but you do pay a price. I need top-of-the-line hardware for my work, and the Mac Pro pricing is simply absurd. If I could use Mac Books or iMacs for what I do I might have gone all Apple a while back (I use a Macbook Pro for iPhone development). For “real” work that requires real horsepower, Apple simply doesn’t have anything I can use at a rational price. I can get about five PCs for what Apple charges for a high-end Mac Pro.
Nassim is completely correct here, there is no difference between Mac and PC for a photographer. Neither has an inherent advantage. For people requiring serious oomph though, Apple sells only to those who are easily separated from their cash (or who have unlimited amounts of it).
Like your last sentence lol.
“…. For people requiring serious oomph though, Apple sells only to those who are easily separated from their cash (or who have unlimited amounts of it).”
There used to be reasons to stick with Apple, mine was Aperture and Final Cut. Now they have upgraded Aperture to Photos and crippled by libraries and work and Final Cut to who knows? theres no reason. I need 5 adaptors at $50+ each to plug in to my new macbook pro to make it work. My wife’s PC Laptop needs none, has same specs and cost 1/3 the price. Also its upgradable as the RAM and HDD is not soldered in. I asked Apple how to upgrade mine, they said just buy a new Macbook with more ram! After 12 years with Apple they have lost my loyalty. I can do everything now on a PC. I think maybe what Apple wanted was for me to do was switch my DSLR to an iPhone and work directly with Facebook. Good grief, are Apple really not interested in creative people anymore?
Hi Alan
Without sounding to rude, welcome to the group of people who finally start to understand how apple respect their customers………… My feeling is they only want your money……..
I would say that $3200 is literally about ten times more than I would want to spend.
Win95 was a buggy mess. Win98 had to be rebooted daily to keep it stable. But everything from 2000 up worked for week after week for me. Very stable.
If you are having stability issues with a Windows OS issued after 1999 you have software or hardware problems. Windows massive choice of hardware and software is a strength if you use it and a weakness if you don’t.
Hi !
I am using both Macs and PC s in my studio for all audio visual work for 5 years now . Specifically we use Mac Pro s , Mac Books and PC Workstations / Laptops . We use these for all kinds of media work from photography to high end 3D Animation , rendering , VFX etc .
Our conclusion is as follows : For high productivity , sheer speed , and control of complicated high end work Xeon based Windows Workstations are just too far ahead of Macs . For example our Dual Processor Xeon with 32 GB Ram , and ssd out performs a Mac Pro hands down every time .
Mac s are good for showing work to your clients , because for some odd reason clients seem to get more impressed by Mac s .
So while we do all our work on Xeon Workstations , when it come s to clients we show them our Mac Pro s or Mac Books .
I guess that s fair because Mac s are good for their ” Coolness ” factro , and it does pay to have a mac to interface with the market .
Of course one reason why Xeon based Windows systems may draw complaints is because they are so customisable that users do not sometimes make the right choices regarding the power supply , chassis , and configuration of RAM s . And unscrupulous resellers tend to advise wrongly to close the sale .
But if you understand those things then there is no match for Xeon based Windows PC .
My Mac Pro came with 6 GB of RAM and to upgrade it to 32 GB we had to pay for the 6GB and remove them AND then buy another 32 GB of RAM . They would just not adjust the costs . It is this kind of snobbery that you done take into account when you get into the MAC environment .
Hope this helps .
Abhijeet, those are excellent points and I totally agree. Apple cannot touch the workstation environment, there is simply no comparison, especially when they are so far behind. If I were to consider a serious Xeon build, it would be a custom PC or a nice Precision workstation from Dell.
“Apple cannot touch the workstation environment, there is simply no comparison, especially when they are so far behind.”
Then you must find IBM’s move interesting.
From Nov 5, 2015 CIO magazine. Do you read these kinds of magazines?
Switch to Macs from PCs reportedly saves IBM $270 per user: www.cio.com/artic…-user.html
Nice piece thanks for sharing. It sounds like one of the biggest challenges in converting a large corporation such as IBM to Mac is the old guard who will have less to do in the long run in managing the IT for the company. They will have less things to tinker on, they will have less user issues to have the opportunity to come to the rescue for, and there just might be less of them needed.
I have been following the comments on this since it was published and what I am seeing (and, have seen elsewhere on the same topic) is that the Windows crowd have become the fanboys.
Also could be mentioned, that Adobe CC feels faster on Mac on the same hardware for some reason.
I did a test – dual booted to from OSX to Win 8.1 (bootcamp, no emulation) and installed latest version of Lightroom CC. Then I Imported 16GB RAW files from memory cards, generated 1:1 previews and applied my favourite presets.
In OSX I can do this about 30% faster than when I am in Windows.
Mirek, no wonder Windows ran slower on a Mac – if it ran faster, Apple would be out of business :) As stated above, I have not been a big fan of Boot Camp drivers. I think Apple intentionally slows things down :) I bet if you were to look at two identical builds, they would perform very similarly.
>> In OSX I can do this about 30% faster than when I am in Windows
This is the opposite of my experience, but more importantly, it is also the opposite of ALL the published tests out there. My primary suspect here is not the (documented) horrible drivers in Boot Camp, my primary suspect here is that the information you provide is not truthful.
That’s not even comparing both machines.
I have an Imac 5k maxed out at work and for my house I personally have a built pc X-99 platform with 5960x and all the goodies. My pc is a beast and just screams with no hiccups whatsoever. My imac 5k is a great machine, but does not have the power or speed of my built pc.
I love having both systems. My imac screams I’m super classy while my pc screams insanity.
One important factor for me is customer support. Apple shines in that area. The few time i’ve need to call tech support it’s maybe taken 2-3 min to get through.
And the problem got solved.
Sue, that’s an excellent point. Unless you purchase premium support from a good company, PC support usually sucks.
Customer support over the phone might be OK for apple (for the first 3 months or so if I am not mistaken) then you have to pay for every minute they spend with you. Plus their warranties really suck! My recently built PC has components with 3-10 years warranty each! Try and get that from an apple product. You d rather be prepared for expensive repairs in case something goes wrong. In fact, they usually refuse to repair things as my recent experience from a broken ipad taught me; they suggested they take my ipad that had a faulty screen and asked me to pay around 80% of its current retail value for a replacement. I finally managed to get it repaired from a third party company at 30% of its price…
Applecare lasts one year, and you can extend it to two more. After that you do pay for it. Consumer Reports rates Apple support tops. The hardware is warranted for one year or three, depending on the product. Applecare support is great for me, and if I remember correctly, Computerworld recently reported that Windows computers require much more tech support, 40% greater. I started on Windows, and still use both, and like Nasim, find them useful in different ways for different purposes. Mostly I use the Mac computers for my photo work.
Hey, nice article. I appreciate how you didn’t try to add up the numbers and give a WINNER. Also that you chose to do your work on Windows and explained that familiarity is one of the key reasons. So many reviewers see their truth and write as if it were everyone’s truth.
I too work in IT, loved Windows 2000 and 2003, support Macs too. I pride myself for not being religious about platform. Having to support Macs put me in a position to run a Mac as a primary workstation because it too can run Windows in a number of ways, where the inverse is virtually impossible (hah). So I’ve become more used to it than Windows 8, 10, 2012. It’s what I use at home, as my wife is a designer and is familiar with Macs.
In all the years, I find that familiarity is not to be messed with. You can broaden experience, educate, expand – but woe to the IT decision to force a platform on users. Anyway, I agree almost 100% with your words here. I think the only addition would be a logical one – since you indicate Up Front Cost and performance, wouldn’t a Long Term Cost make sense? I think recent numbers from IBM and Consumer Reports show that those numbers tend to even out or swing the Apple direction with reduced repair costs and time (=money) spent under the hood.
Keep up the great work.
Tom, thank you for your feedback, looks like we have a similar background :)
Good point on long term cost, perhaps expressed as TCO. Will have to think about how to integrate that into the article!
I think this one of the articles you were talking about.
www.cio.com/artic…-user.html
Can you recommend a PC laptop for photo editing? Is there anything that equals or approaches the Retina screen? Thanks.
Gary, so many options out there and so many price points that it would be tough to decide. If I were to buy a laptop again, it would be the Microsoft Surface Book, this particular build with 16 GB of RAM and a dedicated NVIDIA GPU. If that was too hard on my wallet, I would get this i5 / 8 GB version for much less. The screen on these is retina grade in terms of number of pixels.
When it comes to all the technicalities involved in computers, I haven’t a clue. I bought an iMac because I can go to the Apple Store for any questions I have. I can attend classes for different apps. Any problems with a PC and I have found the store just don’t want to know.
Bill, that’s a great point – I had a chapter on support in my article, but it got wiped out. Will be adding that shortly.
How about the fact that there’s a whole variety of easily accessible options and characters via the Option key on the Mac that aren’t easily available on the PC? PCs have Ctl, Alt and Shift. Macs have Ctl, Cmd, Option and Shift. I’ve used PS on both machines and am much more satisfied with the amount of shortcuts and characters I can access on the Mac than I am on the PC. Want a degree symbol on a PC? Better go find one on Google to copy/paste or open a character matrix or search for the Alt-#### combo to make it. Want a degree symbol on the Mac? Opt-Shift-8. Want a copyright symbol? Opt-G. Simple. Want many dozens of extra keyboard and tool shortcuts? Get a Mac and use that Option key.
Tyson, LOL, I never thought of that – that’s actually a great point showing the operational differences :)
Want to know how many images in a folder in a PC? Just look down. On a MAC, not really.
Want to eject a memory card on a PC? Just pull it and shove it in your camera.
Do that on a MAC and the card is unusable until you shove it back into the MAC and eject properly.
:-0
“Want to eject a memory card on a PC? Just pull it and shove it in your camera.”
That’s actually not advised. But … you can do the exact same bad practice on a Mac. And that part about the memory card being unusable until you shove it back in and remove it — that’s never been my experience.
“Want to know how many images in a folder in a PC?”
When you say on a PC I assume you mean Windows PC. My Mac is a personal computer (PC). So is my Linux PC.
Is that behavior native to the Mac, or a program-specific one that Adobe doesn’t make available to PC users?
Microsoft dedicates the Ctl, Alt, and Shift combinations to the programs, as well as the 12 F keys. It reserves the Windows key for the operating system. Their choice of things to implement via the Windows key turned out to be unpopular, and only the bare Windows key itself is commonly used.
Many programs allow you to program every Ctl, Alt, Shift, and F key combination yourself. I first saw this in WordPerfect 8, issued in 1996. Adobe’s not offering it is, unfortunately, typical for them.
I’m sure users have to search online for the Mac keyboard shortcuts initially and take the effort to remember them too. It’s not as if Mac users are born with that knowledge.
OS-X “Show Keyboard Viewer” in the menu bar. It’s enabled via: Preferences, Keyboard, Input Sources, tick “Show Input menu in menu bar”.
Hi,
I think the most balanced decition is to run OSX on PC. That’s I did. The CustoMac combine flexable PC build with the decent OSX. It is not hard to install OSX El Capitan (oficial) using custom bootloader only. Its working on 100% after postinstall of same custom KEXTs (drivers). And its not unlegal if you have original install media.
You can overclock the system just like with Windows, expand and so on.
In my case I can see the difrance in performance since Windows and OSX run on the same machine. Lightroom CC works faster, much faster. My CustoMac scores 20-30% higher on Geekbench compared with Windows.
Pungerov, although it sounds very appealing, I really don’t see the point of a hackintosh. I think if one wants OSX, they should get an Apple.
I would be curious to see why you have such a big delta on performance between OS X and Windows. That’s certainly not my experience. I wonder if there is something wrong with your Windows setup…
Nasim, I got your point. There are no garantees of 100%r hardwere/softwere integration in the CustoMac, after its “home mede” Mac. OSX is made for Mac computers only, but from enthusiastic point its nice to know there is alternative to Windows on the PC platform. I can not say it’s proper to use Customac for a serius profesional photographic workflow. My point is fully enthusiastic.
I was taking the Geekbench test on a Windows 10 Insider (developer preview). The Windows score was about 3000/10000, on OSX now I can get 4000/13600 (64bit.). Can’t proof it anyway with screenshot now. I’m running a [email protected] on Z77 ASUS board.
But the Mac is a personal computer (PC).
thank’s Nasim for all your articles…
I think the choice between Apple or PC is not technical, they are both equivalent for majorty,
the choice is more “religious”, if you choice Apple you enter in the Apple’s community from A to Z…
with PC it seems more open
for me no one is better, it’s only a personnal choice
Pascal
(sorry for the poor english of a french guy ;-)
Pascal, good point – both have their strengths and weaknesses, so at the end of the day, it does not really matter.
Actually the cost of the new microsoft products is higher than apple macbooks. For 2500 Euros you can get a surface pro 4 with 16gb ddr, i7 dual core, 512 ssd. For similar price you can get a quad core i7, 512gb ssd, dedicated graphics card, 16gb ddr, 15 inch retina. It’s similar with the microsoft book. For the same price you get 2 cores more with the macbook.
If we take a look at the retina imac ,theres no competition in the pc world, as stated in the article. Alone the screen costs 1500-2000 Euros, and there is only one 5k monitor i know of dell U**** (forgotten the model). With the imac you get a powerful workhorse inside the monitor.
Excellent article. The recommendations (explicit and implicit) seem very sound and not “fanboyish” at all.
I take exception to one comment:
“IBM’s horrible joystick that was stuck in between buttons”
I was a heavy traveler during the IBM Thinkpad era and I think that tiny little “joystick” is one of the greatest inventions of all time. I built up the right muscles in my finger in short order and LOVED that little joystick. Tiny motions were all that was needed. Sitting at a cafe or on an airplane, it was a blessing to have that control option. By contrast, the trackpads of that era were very awkward and having an external mouse (with cord!) was awkward as well.
I saw a talk once by the designers of that joystick. They had spent endless time testing with users to find the right level of speed response and acceleration, which turned out to be non-intuitive. Other firms (e.g. Toshiba) tried to copy it but never got the feel right.
If you just tried it once and gave up, that little Thinkpad “joystick” would seem horrible indeed. But to the business traveler, it was a blessing.
My experience as well. The tiny joystick is definitely good for touch typists. You don’t have to take your fingers off the home keys.
My favorite part about it was they moved the keyboard forward, i never clicked somewhere off window while typing, and it allowed smaller laptops.
People are often very defensive about system they use, from one side PC users seems not understanding the key-points a Mac users are making (like: why should i pay for the same configuration twice, sometimes three times more? Should it worth to pay such a difference for a brand with bitten off apple?:-)
Being a PC user from from early 2000s and switching to a mac more than a 6 month already I must admit – it worth it. And why I haven’t done this earlier? -)
If to consider it from Photographic perspective, to buy a good screen to retouch photos is essential. A solid IMac system with big screen was for me optimal rather than buying an IPS monitor and picking system block and etc…. Using and working on a mac was only pleasant from the beginning. You seem only focus on job execution on a mac rather than endless configuring and setting your system daily basis on a PC :-)
If you want accurate colour reproduction you need a hardware-calibrated monitor, usually an EIZO or a NEC. Apple monitors are admittedly unreliable for photography post-processing, their shiny screens make things look different (and often better) than they actually are (and of how they will look printed) plus colour shifts and uneven edge-to-edge colour reproduction are not uncommon…
Actually my Spyder calibrator works well with my iMac. The software does a good job of calibration, I have set it so that reminds me to recalibrate very so often but I have not found it needs much adjusting.
The issue with getting the screen and printout to match (Epson R3000) was all about proper settings for the colour environment in Photoshop. (Aperture can customise print output but used to print dark. I found that a couple of tweaks fixed it. Once I found the output settings all was well.)
I much prefer to print from Photoshop. Once the relevant colour settings are established and the paper profiles were done it has been excellent. The output is fine and entirely reliable.
I suspect the point you are making is that matching output has too many ways it can go wrong. That is not the fault of the hardware (nor is it likely to be the operating system).
I think it is connected to the print software and the complexity of colour space configuration settings. There are plenty of guides to fixing this.
See: www.photoshopessentials.com/basic…-settings/
My experience with both Macand PCs on a network was that the Macs got better results from the same file. It is entirely possible that the reverse could be true if the settings for the PC were correct while the Macs were not.
I believe there are too many other variables involved which are outside the OS and platform. They just have different approaches to controlling them.
Thank you Kyriakos for your comment.
Actually I was talking standard (something not dedicated for photography editing monitor) which does the job very well comparing to many other IPS (so called entry level screens starting from 300 to 500 GBP).
I am not here to prove anybody which is better, i just said it worked our for very well.
MartinG has brought good points already which i don’t want to re-raise.
They many software-hardware monitor collaboration on the market which can sort the any issues with that.
If you are happy with PC, please enjoy using it, whatever makes you happy ;-)
Don’t get me wrong, I like macs as well, I really enjoy using my macbook pro a lot, although its components have been proven to be unreliable over the years with its motherboard and battery failing in less than 3 years. Apple’s design is surely unsurpassed and their operating system undoubtedly has its merits. However I find those glossy monitors impossible to do any serious photography work with, plus the common lack of colour and luminance uniformity across their panels (there are serious reviews that have highlighted this) is a hardware issue and not something that can be fixed with a calibrator. Undoubtedly for several other computing needs as well as the occasional photo retouching a mac is a pleasure to work with…
Kyriakos
Absolutely right.
I love everything about Apple Mac – except the displays.
Historically they have been about as bad as it is possible to be.
Horrid, low bit, cheapTN screens with ludicrous levels of brightness, contrast and gloss which have been impossible to calibrate for photo editing without a total collapse in gradation, uniformity and colour accuracy.
The packaging and hype however have always been first class.
They have improved substantially with their (very late) uptake of IPS technology, but are still far from ideal and are left in the dust by the likes of Eizo and NEC with regard to accuracy, hardware calibration, uniformity, flexibility and sheer quality.
People get bamboozled by technical specs such as ultra high resolution not realising that it’s all for nothing if you can’t get the damned thing to display colour accurately to specified target values.
Hi Betty,
I never even bother trying to do this on a Mac. I don’t have a Mac desktop and never even tried to calibrate the display on the Macbook Pro (never attempted on 2009, 2010, 2013 versions) I just used Dell Ultrasharps with a Spyder calibrator on a PC and got what I wanted. As you point out, the Eizo and NEC monitors are even more capable. I just assumed this is a PC only domain and therefore I look at all final edits for print on a PC even if I did some initial editing on the Mac (because away from office) I think the PC wins here hands down for a professional photographer.
This is a great article, well balanced from a professional perspective. The only big issue I have with this article is your statement about emulation in number 4. When you started out by explaining your background as a longtime PC techie who likes to fix things, I thought, “Oh no…it’s an Apple hater,” but I agree on 98% of what you wrote here except for that the Intel-based Macs don’t run Windows natively, which they do. I have a similar background to yours, except I started on Macs mostly back in the early/mid 90s on System 6 & 7 and didn’t get into PCs as much until I started in college back in 1995. I used to be a big time fanboy back then, but I grew up, and still think that the Mac is the best way to go if you want to work with minimal fuss. I agree that to put together a comparable PC is less expensive, and that it is always easier to get the latest hardware in a custom PC, but Apple hardware is much more impressive to clients just because of how it looks…which is silly, but I guess you have to be an engineer to appreciate raw power in a computer!
Anyway, I’ve been told by several Microsoft techies that Windows runs best on a Mac just because Apple did such a great job write my the drivers…maybe that hasn’t always been the case, but either way, I know that the two systems have very little in the way of hardware differences and requirements. Other than this single point, I really appreciate your side by side comparison here!
Having not seriously run Windows for such a long time, I didn’t know that Adobe has been so bad lately. It seems that Lightroom has gotten progressively bloated and slower with each iteration since 4, and completely unstable with 6/CC. Photoshop has gotten worse too…I don’t understand why they can’t take all that subscription money and roll it into engineering their product to work much better on either platform! It’s not like we have much choice here as Adobe’s competitors are nowhere close in comparison. :-/
Either way, I appreciate that you don’t present a clear winner overall, because there really isn’t one. There may be a clear winner for you personally, such as saving money and running beefier hardware, and there may be a bigger winner for me personally, such as not having to really ever deal with fixing stuff and the greater durability of the aluminum shells on a MacBook (takes a lickin’ and stays good-lookin’!), but everyone’s got to weigh what they need on a case-by-case basis. I think it’s interesting about the point you made about the Surface…I’ve always thought that Microsoft really should be able to score big there by emulating Apple’s production model by tight engineering and quality control.
Thanks for sharing! A great techie will always steer someone to the right tool for the right job for the right person, and you’ve made a careful evaluation that shows you’re a great techie. Keep up the good writing!
Lee, thank you for your feedback! Please see my earlier comments that address what I meant by Apple hardware not natively running Windows. My experience with Boot Camp has not been the best, particularly when it came to hardware support like USB, keyboards and trackpads. Perhaps things have improved lately and I might need to go back and try Windows on a Mac again.
Personally, I really don’t see much value in running Windows on a Mac, or running Mac on a PC. I think it is best to keep OS X to Macs and Windows to PCs :)
Hi Lee,
Interesting perspective but I have some issue with it. Nothing regarding your general point (I think) because I have always thought Windows was stable on a Mac platform. My problem is performance of a specific application. I run Proshow Producer (a PC only program) for creating slideshows. It has become an essential part of what I do over the years. It happens to run terribly on both Bootcamp and Parallels. I have tried it on 3 different Macbooks (2009, 2010, 2013) and all had the most ram I could buy (8, 16, 16gb) and it just didn’t perform. In the last couple versions of Producer they use GPU acceleration, which helps some on PC’s but doesn’t seem to work on the Mac. It’s a real bummer. I have had Mac’s and PC’s for so long and there really isn’t much overlap in terms of needing to run a PC based application on a Mac, but this is the exception since they don’t make a Mac version. Bummer for me.
It’s a bit weird coming here to read about photography only to then see lots of posts about computer hardware and other stuff. I mean, it might be interesting to some to read what you think are better packages, but I’d much rather see an article along the lines of “…if you own a PC/Mac, these are the programs/apps you should get if photography is your thing”, and not some attempt in pitting two completely different systems (with very different business models) against each other. For instance – one of the main advantages of actually buying a Apple is completely lost; namely if you do have problems, who do you call? Where do you go? On an Apple – it’s simple; You call them, go to an Apple store where there is staff that is just waiting to help out. You can do this in pretty much most countries around the globe. PC? Not that simple – is it a hardware related problem? Software? Will you call Microsoft? Or the OEM manufacturer? Or the store that was simply a reseller and will have little to no competence on how to solve your problem?
It’s a bit like the compression article the other day. Sorry Nasim, but it truly shows that you have a complete lack of understanding of these things on a technical level and no amount of life-long experience on trying out a few OSs on a very superficial level will change that. I’m especially dumbfounded by the paragraph “viruses & trojans” (should be called malware) and “security” where you are practically contradicting yourself, not to mention the reasons you are stating for Apple being less vulnerable to be completely misleading and false in its conclusion. More to the point; malware and security is interlinked with each other. PCs aren’t targeted *more* because there are more of them – the most blatant reason is they are far easier to exploit by the masses. Ever wonder why? Or how malware is actually distributed through infected websites? Or how malware is programmed at all to even make use of an exploit? This and that just highlights the complete lack of understanding on your part.
Not to mention that your mentioning of working with Microsoft products in an enterprise environment to be of absolutely no importance at all – or are you now going to start comparing server solutions now too? In other words; Microsofts vulnerability or higher stability there has zilch to do with this article and is not remotely relevant to buyers confronted by getting a *consumer* computer. The only relevant part would be, if you go out and buy a PC, what OS is it shipped with and how vulnerable is it? And as previously mentioned further up; If you do have trouble, like if you do have a virus – how easy it is to solve on either platform. How much computer know-how is required? Who can help you? Is there someone who can or will you go through a painful do-it-yourself process like is often required on PC/Windows?
It would be best if you focus on what really matters here. I particularly enjoy reading the paragraph about Photoshop and Lightroom performance on either platform. Actually, come to think of it; Perhaps some tutorials on Photoshop or Lightroom, perhaps even Nikon Capture NX2 how-to’s would be infinitely more interesting (and I guess a lot more technically competent and accurate) to probably most of us here.
First of all, thanks for dropping by and providing feedback on the article – I really appreciate it. Second, I think it would be nice if you re-read the last paragraph of the Preface section, where I specifically requested our readers to remain civil and nice in the discussions. I would appreciate if you lowered down your tone and moved away from accusations and insults to perhaps a suggestive tone.
I find nothing wrong with comparing two different systems – who cares about their business models? People either use Macs or PCs for photography work and they don’t think about business models when making a choice, don’t you agree? I agree with your point on the support, but it is not strictly an Apple advantage – you can similarly purchase support with any PC you buy from other manufacturers like Dell, HP, etc and you would get support that covers both hardware and software. You might not have the option to walk into a store, but you do get the support you need. Now if you are building a custom PC, you would not get any support, but come on – if you have skills to build a PC, you probably have the skills to troubleshoot issues.
Complete lack of understanding on a technical level? If you have far richer experience and consider my background to be non-relevant, then good for you! Nothing wrong with stating “viruses and trojans” – who cares if it is called that or malware? Big deal. People get the term “virus” easier than “malware” – or perhaps you have a link to research that points otherwise?
Please, give me a break on PCs being easier to exploit. Every system, no matter whether it is a Mac, a PC or a Linux machine has vulnerabilities, many of them are still undiscovered. I have done my share of security and PCI audits and I have seen enough of it all. PCs are bigger targets due to their number, not due to having more vulnerabilities. If the situation was reversed, Macs would be bigger targets. It is far easier to find a PC on a network than a Mac, as simple as that.
And if for you my experience in an enterprise environment is of no relevance, what do you think is the difference of a desktop running in an enterprise environment when compared to a standard desktop? In most environments, aside from group policies and some lockdowns, there is no difference. Both run the same OS, service packs and patches. If a machine is vulnerable, it is potentially vulnerable in both environments. It is funny to hear from you that “Microsoft’s vulnerability or higher stability has zilch to do with a consumer computer”. This shows that perhaps you are the one who lacks in understanding these platforms.
As for help when there is a problem, if you buy from a reputable company that has the support you need, you will get help. There is a reason why companies choose to pay for support – if you have zero knowledge about troubleshooting systems, perhaps you need to pay for that extra support. It is your choice. Troubleshooting issues on both Macs and PCs is equivalent. When things go wrong, it can be a PITA on both platforms. I have done the support for both, so I am not just making this stuff up.
We have plenty of articles on photography and we will continue to write on the subject. If you don’t like these articles on computer hardware and software, you don’t have to read them – they are clearly not for you.
But please, before you call someone incompetent, at least value the time they put in to make something available for FREE for folks like you.
Have a wonderful rest of the week.
I’m sincerely sorry if my comment came across the wrong way. I meant no disrespect to the time you obviously put into writing and providing something for free. For the record; I didn’t call you incompetent.
I suppose I just felt the need to voice my opinion given I do this for a living and have done so for the last 20 years extensively. I’m not a hobby user. If you have ever analyzed (or some knowledge) how malware gets distributed and what kinds of vulnerabilities they typically exploit, you wouldn’t laugh off the comment about PCs being easier to exploit. It’s not just about vulnerability, it’s about how far a vulnerability reaches into the system and when it does, how much is compromised, how quickly it can be closed and lastly, the user itself willing to download the updates and security fixes.
Fair play, Windows has a difficult task; it’s just a OS sold as a OEM to various manufacturers who then take parts from various other manufacturers and build a working PC that is then sold as a package. The combination and level degree of variation is sheer limitless. So is the amount of drivers and software required to all make it work. Apple has it relatively easy; They sell the hardware, they sell the software as one single package. They know the ins and outs of their product which are few devices and very limited combinations. You touched upon this in your article, but this advantage extends beyond the points you raised, further into the whole security topic and how quickly and easily they can solve them. Again, on an open platform like Windows that is shared with hardware vendors, it’s rather difficult with very different challenges. Has different advantages though, no doubt.
Phil, no worries, perhaps I misunderstood your tone, for which I apologize!
It is great that we have so many people with so many different backgrounds. And that’s what matters – sharing our experiences and exchanging our knowledge. I agree with you that Windows has a lot of hardware and software components to work with. In some cases, third party components are the cause of potential vulnerabilities and hardware problems. As I have stated in the article, dedicated hardware always wins! That’s why the Surface Pro is so good. I will be testing the Surface Book within the next few weeks and I am looking forward to comparing the experience with a MacBook Pro – will be an interesting one to compare side by side.
Nasim,
I have one point that I think is missing from your article: Macs “just work” (to use Apple’s own marketing terms).
Every time someone says that for them OS X runs software faster than Windows, you simply claim that there’s something wrong with their Windows setup (Pungerov, Mirek, Junaid, Andrew). Maybe that’s a problem with Windows?
For me personally the biggest problem with Windows was that it got cluttered badly. I had to wipe the whole system about once a year, because it just got so damn slow. After a fresh install (and installing all my applications and files again), the same PC ran considerably faster again.
In one reply you said the following: “As for Windows being unstable, I am sorry, but it looks like you had either serious hardware issues, or did not want to understand the operating system better.”
You make a very important point: A lot of people just don’t want to “understand the operating system better”. For me personally, I couldn’t care less about a “registry”. I just want a stable system that works – this is where Apple shines. You switch on your iMac or MacBook and it just works. I still have an old PowerBook from 2008 – it still flies. Of course the software is dated, but it is still as fast as it was when I purchased it. With my old Windows PCs that simply would not be the case (maybe if I wiped it completely and started from scratch).
Chris, I am sorry, but I don’t buy the argument of “just works”. PCs just work too.
I find that most people who struggle with Windows either have hardware issues, or little knowledge of the system. Yes, Macs are easier and simpler to use, so if one lacks the technical skills, they are probably better off not running Windows – I pointed the simplicity and ease of use aspects in the article in several places. As for responses to others who brought up Windows OS being slower or worse, that is not my experience, which is why I disagreed with them. I am not loyal to PCs or Windows, so I have no reason to try to defend those.
As for Windows being cluttered, I am not sure why you were wiping the system once a year. Perhaps you were installing too many applications? I run my PC without any issues and I don’t remember the last time I had to do a clean install just to get my system to run faster. The last time I had to start over was when I moved up to Windows 10 and I have not touched any of the PCs ever since. Before that, Windows 7 ran for a very long time, also without major issues…
I have not experienced stability issues with my PCs – they also “just work”. I love my Surface Pro 3, it is rock stable and I unless I move up in hardware, I am sure it will do fine for many years to come. I am sorry that your experience has not been the same – looks like you are much better off with a Mac and I don’t blame you – Apple makes excellent hardware and software, as I have pointed out in this article.
Again, I have nothing against Macs, they are wonderful machines. But I just don’t buy such arguments as “Macs just work”, or that Windows systems are less stable in comparison. Both are equally good in many aspects.
Mac don’t ‘just work’. Sometimes, they just don’t work. They can freeze and slow down. There are also friendly messages that tell the user they need to restart the computer.
It seems that Mac fans like to jump on PC glitches and give a pass when it happens on Macs. Deficiencies become features etc.
You are right that there can be hiccups on OS X as well. But they simply don’t happen as often (at least for me that is). Thus Macs are at least a lot closer to “just working” than windows PCs. Also, closing a frozen application on OS X is just so much more convenient then on Windows. Just force-quit the app and it closes instantly. Try that using the Windows Task Manager without finding killing the right process. “Windows is searching for a solution to this problem” haha.
Another point missing is software!
While Adobe’s apps run on both operating systems, a lot of applications are only available on one platform:
As an example, Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer only run on Macs (and soon iPads). For a lot of people, these two apps completely replace Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator. They run faster and are a lot cheaper. Apple’s Aperture used to be a great alternative to Lightroom and for video-production, Final Cut Pro X is a great application that only runs on OS X.
Similarly there are certain applications only available on Windows (for most people the only reason to run BootCamp on their Macs). I can’t think of any right now, as I haven’t used Windows in some years now.
Chris, good points and as you have pointed out, software availability varies on both sides. But one thing for sure – there are far more applications designed for Windows OS than Mac OS.
Affinity?
Martin, I have Affinity Photo installed on my iMac. It is wonderful. Give it a try and you might not want to go back to Photoshop afterwards.
Ok. I will Investigate again.
What is it like at printing? When I tried the beta, it printed very badly at low resolution. The output looked like speckled powder. I have been reluctant to go back. Printing matters to me a lot.
I have been a professional photographer all my life but am a relatively new immigrant to digital imaging. I have no particular interest or affection for computers; I just want them to work and do what I want, when I want and without going wrong.
For years I ran PCs and rarely turned a computer on without having to sort out some problem. I found them very frustrating and time consuming with some of Microsoft’s operating systems being very bad indeed, as was the continual battle with updates and a variety of anti-virus software that I felt obliged to use, the most intrusive and troublesome being Norton. Eventually, I became completely fed up with the whole process and after talking to many of the people I have worked with (a lot of them graphic designers who have always used Macs) just went out and bought an iMac.
That was four years ago. The Mac has never, ever gone wrong except for freezing up twice using Nikon Capture but I think Nikon and not Apple were the problem here. I have regularly updated operating systems and am now on Yosemite. They have all worked just fine and downloaded seamlessly. I have not updated to El Capitan as I have been advised that it is unsuitable for older Macs with relatively small RAM. I walk into my office, switch the Mac on and it works. Every time without fail and does exactly what I ask it to do. I have no interest in fiddling with it or gaming on it. I use it for business and photography and would never, ever go back to a PC. The fact that it may be slightly slower than a mega-PC when running a programme like Lightroom or Photoshop does not overly concern me. I am not in a huge rush and would far rather have something that just works.
My sixteen year old son completely disagrees! He has built his own PC, uses it for gaming and loves fiddling with it. His whole being seems to revolve around it (groan) while for me it is a tool like a vacuum cleaner or a washing machine. Cameras, of course, are another thing altogether!
Horses for courses I think.
Hi David,
Love your perspective but be careful re Mac OS X upgrades. For years I upgraded pretty freely and with little worry. Unfortunately, the last two (Yosemite and El Capitan) caused nothing but problems for my web design environment (use Mac for test bed, great in general for that) but it was completely screwed up. I was having so many weird issues with Yosemite I had to do a clean install which largely solved the issues (this is on a 2013 Macbook Pro with 16gb ram). El Capitan also caused nothing but problems and Apple does not make it easy to do a clean install (it’s not that hard, just a little tedious) Regardless, I think, unfortunately, Apple has slipped some and I have lost a little bit of trust. Tread carefully with future updates! That said, I wouldn’t even consider not doing a clean install on a Windows PC. It’s standard operating procedure for me.
Hi, I am a freelance sports photographer and use a MacBook Pro set up with my Nikons.. While as you say, Windows based pc’s are just as good, for me, the ease of use of my MacBook and the speed together with tethering when at stadiums here in the UK and the use of Apps instead of programmes, makes it a much better experience for me..
You can just flip the lid and crack on..
Fantastic article though..
Neil
South Wales, UK.
One question not discussed (I think) is the upgrade avoidance of many organisations in the PC world. In many environments I see organisations avoiding going beyond Windows 7. I am not sure why it is unpopular but it is an issue.
Any thoughts?
It’s certainly true in US hospitals. The vast majority switched from XP to 7 this year and have no plans of going more. How do I know? I write software used in hospitals and I see the analytics of OS, browser, screens, etc. As for why? It’s mostly because it’s a known platform that is stable and people in hospitals understand it. It also works well with IE 8 which is the dominant browser (now) for hospitals. They won’t move up from either Win7 or IE8 because of potential incompatibilities with other software they use but won’t update due to costs. That’s the business reality in many places. Although some customers of ours went to Win7 IE10 as a stable combo. Can’t wait for IE8 to die but it’ll be years from now.
I worked for a few years as an IT consultant to a federal agency with a half million employees spread across eleven time zones. It completely computerized in the 1990s. Obsolete software is a serious problem.
They are just now completing their migration from XP to Win 7. It took five years from decision to completion. Goodness knows how long it took to reach a decision. They are not fast about such things.
Perhaps this sheds some light on corporate take-up.
I’d like to thank you for this article. I’m in the process of doing my own research right now. I am considering a switch to Mac for post-processing, but am having a hard time justifying the cost. I have a PC that is running very well and has 32GB of RAM (which certainly helps.) I was looking at buying a MacBook Pro with one of their displays.
I, like you, have cut my teeth on PC’s for most of my adult life, but have dealt with my fair share of Macs over the years.
Mac still seems to be so cost prohibitive for me and it feels like it makes more sense to invest in a great display and a PC laptop for tethering than trying to change my whole way of doing things.
I (and my wife) thank you for this article. I think you brought some good perspective to me and my idea of what I “need.”
Justifying the cost is a very personal thing, rather like justifying the cost of a Leica over a Nikon.
It can’t really be justified in purely cost or even practical, terms.
It’s perhaps more of a ‘want’ than a ‘need’.
For some, the design style, build quality, perceived value and maybe convenience, are sufficient justification.
If cost were a critical factor, as a photographer, I would rather have a PC with a great, colour calibrated display than a Mac with a shiny but not so great display – in spite of having a zillion pixels per inch.
Nice article, Nasim, very difficult to touch on this subject without triggering a battle but nicely done thanks!
A couple of comments and some further questions if I may:
1st: Certainly, it is possible to build a screaming fast PC for far less than the cost of the equivalent Mac. However, this is purely the cost of the components. You must also consider the cost of your time researching and sourcing the components and finding their optimum drivers. You must also factor in the time to build the machine. Additionally, you have to account for the time taking to acquire the knowledge of how computers work and how they are constructed in the first place. You’d understand from your days in IT support that not everyone knows the difference between, for example, volatile and non-volatile memory, or a CPU and a GPU, or where the line has blurred between them now.
Someone wanting a new computer and considering a self-built machine would have to learn about which type processor fits and works well with which type of motherboard and how to choose which type of graphics card is best for their needs. There are resources to help with this but not all computer users would be suited to this type of project. And I wonder about getting support for a self-build. One could go on a course to learn this stuff, but how much does that cost?
For many users, I suspect the equivalent cost argument should only really fall to equivalent cost between an off the shelf PC versus an off the shelf Mac. Self builds only really come into it for the expert few.
2nd. Colour calibration: you can do more than adjust the brightness on a Mac display. Granted it’s hidden and that’s rather annoying. In Display preferences, choose the colour tab but then hold down ALT when you select “Calibrate…”
This opens the display calibrator in expert mode which allows you to set gamma response curves and adjust the white point.
Granted its not the same as hardware colour calibration but it’s there.
Could you describe more about your experiences of using both systems in post-processing, performance differences between lightroom or photoshop on both platforms, for example? Alternative software available to one platform not the other? Things you like to use on each platform? Would some readers be best served by having two computer systems available? How do you handle sharing your photo libraries between the two systems? Those points would be interesting to me and others, I’m sure.
kind regards,
Phil
Phil windows 7 has it’s own calibration as well. It’s under color management.
Finding hardware that works well together isn’t what it used to be. Now you practically just have to match the socket numbers and there really isn’t too much to worry about after that. Your right time is worth something, and building my own computer saves me a ton of time not having to deal with propriety BS that every company builds in or having to search “tricks” to get into expert modes.
Each platform has it’s time savings. Go with what you know and that’s going to be your biggest time saver. I’m willing to spend a bit of time up front so i can get a “screaming fast” workstation. That time investment makes up for it’s self over the years. After everything is said and done they get to the same point.
Okay, consider this.
You can buy an off-lease Dell — a good quality business machine that cost in the four figures new — for $320. It is not screaming fast. It is, however, perfectly capable of running FRV, Lightroom, and Photoshop at a very nice gallop, with no hangs ever. I then add the graphics card and monitor of my choice. I now have a good post-processing machine that costs less than $500 plus monitor and should last at least six years.
I submit that all the money you spend over this adds no additional profits to your practice. Zero.
I LOVE OFF LEASE BUSINESS DELL’s! I can get them for free and have a few sitting in my house along with an HP workstation. Solid advice. It’s amazing how many good computers you can just pick up off the side of the road for free during spring cleaning around here.
The kicker is my home built computer cost me oh roughly $500. I already have storage devices case monitor blah blah blah. All i ever need to buy to upgrade is a motherboard processor and ram.
Hi Nasim,
Thanks for great article. I agree with most of points and can add some from my experience.
I moved to macs in 2011 and changed 4 mac computer from then. Just like you stated, I had to updrade my MacBook retina because of lack of memory. Good thing was that my wife wanted similar laptop so I just bought a new one to myself. One of dissappointing things about OS X in my opinion is that it requires more memory to run the applications. It can be due to hight resolution of display of course, but 8 GB isn’t really enough for any serious work. The same amount on PC computer was fine for me.
But what I actually like about mac computer is how OS X handles retina screens. I wasn’t able to make any Windows to work properly with them. Most of 3rd party applications doesn’t look well too. On OS X everthing looks just great. There are very few applications which still doesn’t support retina but they completely usable anyway.
Another point is about software and its quality on both platforms. I’m also very disappointed with Adobe programs. But I found average quality of software on windows platform is often very poor. There can be a lot of programs doing the same things but each of them has its weak points. Some just ugly, others are buggy or doesn’t provide some necessary tools. OS X is bundled with a lot of necessary software – there is no need to install image viewer, pdf reader. Safari is just great browser and Mail.app is cool email client. There are iLive and iWork packages which actually are very power tools. Most of 3rd party software looks great also.
The last point is about using Mac computers for web development. In my opinion they are just great here as there are every necessary tool just out of the box: great and power terminal, ssh, git and many other thing web developers require on daily basis. Configuring dev environment on Windows was just a pain
True, I use a Lenovo T540p which is a HiDPI windows laptop. The support for high resolutions in Windows is atrocious. Some applications support it and look great, others don’t. Even Microsoft has mixed support. Visual Studio 2015 is great but SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Manager is kinda mixed up since it’s based on VS 2012 I believe. Some apps like Bug Shooting are terrible but others like Chrome are great. On the Mac side once retina was implemented it pretty much worked all around for a good experience.
>> On the Mac side once retina was implemented it pretty much worked all around for a good experience.
Technically this isn’t true. You are right that app support on Windows for resolution independent UIs is not good, the support in Windows it self is excellent, and now that Microsoft forces *new* apps (since Windows 8.1) to use resolution independence, you’ll see good support going forward. On the Mac you have basically global pixel doubling or not. This means you can see your menus (using pixel doubling) and lose the high res content (your 4K video for example) or you can have full high-res support but be unable to read your menus and buttons.
The retina display is great since, when you use pixel doubling, it isn’t high resolution anymore.
For the record – on iOS the support is great. On OSX there is in reality no support for High DPI displays.
>> Safari is just great browser
Sorry, here I have to strongly disagree. I develop web applications professionally, and Safari is now becoming the IE6 of the 2010s. Seriously. Safari is, at this point in time, particularly since we now have stopped supporting IE below version 9, the main nightmare we have to work around all the time. Lots of Javascript to fix problems that Google has long fixed but Apple still do not care about. Sad, since they are based on the same platform.
For all the Web Developers out there, drop Safari. Install Chrome. It’s take their nightmares away. Be kind.
Terje, agreed, Safari is a real PITA – it is one of the worst browsers out there. I had so many issues trying to make all JS and CSS work on PL for Safari, I was swearing my guts out. Everything worked in Chrome, Firefox and IE and Safari was giving me issues. Everything from SSL certificate caching to bad JS/CSS implementations. Safari for Windows is now officially dead and I hope it dies with Mac soon too. Enough to have Chrome, Firefox and IE. My preference is Chrome of course.
For a while, the only reason to run IE has been to test for people using it, there are still a few of them out there. Since Edge though, with Windows 10, things have gotten A LOT better. IE is now, not quite, but getting there, at the level of Chrome. As you, I only use Chrome however. It’s the only browser that does stuff really well, and it’ll be interesting following its support for Web Components going forward.
Well, I’ve professionally programmed enterprise and business software on Windows since 1995 and have used Macs at home essentially exclusively since 1990. In the end, it’s a wash. My programmer side says that Windows development is simply much easier to do. My “I do this crap all day why do I have to do it all night” side says that Macs are so much easier to handle. What gets me is the defensiveness and attacks on both sides of the aisle.
Over the years I end up telling people one of the following when they ask for my advice:
1. Get the same kind of platform your friends use – they are the ones you’ll be calling for advice
2. Get the platform that meets your expectations of tinkering. Non-Macs allow for much tinkering, Macs allow for less tinkering. Not everyone wants to tinker, some want to constantly tinker.
3. Buy for quality not for price. Slavish devotion to price leads to bad decision making. Look for what gives you the quality you need.
4. Be honest about what you’ll actually do with the computer. Is it really just a home computer for fun? Is it an extension of your working needs? Is it for hobbys? Does it need to be shared? Some people far outbuy what they really need.
Good advice.
>> Get the same kind of platform your friends use
This is excellent advice, and the same I tell my friends. Not only for computers, but even more for cameras. There are no “best” or “worst” they are all pretty good (unless you compare a cheap-ass PC against a state-of-the-art Mac). Same goes for cameras. Only morons think that Canon/Nikon matters.
Good, balanced article.
Being a Mac user at home for 8 years now, and a PC user at work for 20years, I cannot argue with most of your points. I’d still give Apple the edge in terms of machine life expectancy, in particular for what laptops concerns. My 8y old white polycarbonate MacBook still works well, its shell has a few fine cracks but it is otherwise fine (only the battery died this year and needed replacement). None of my Windows laptops survived that long.
Apple actually had a machine that could have pleased the tinkerer in you: the classical Mac Pro. At some point they were pretty good deals (compared to Windows workstations) and are widely available on the used market. I still have one with a 6 core Xeon. While the brute CPU power can no longer match the most recent machines, it is still a great machine with a lot of upgrade options (PCIe SSD, USB 3.0, latest graphic cards, eSATA, plenty of RAM and HDD if needed…).
“…Apple actually had a machine that could have pleased the tinkerer in you: the classical Mac Pro. At some point they were pretty good deals (compared to Windows workstations) and are widely available on the used market. I still have one with a 6 core Xeon. While the brute CPU power can no longer match the most recent machines, it is still a great machine with a lot of upgrade options (PCIe SSD, USB 3.0, latest graphic cards, eSATA, plenty of RAM and HDD if needed…).”
Absolutely!!!
I had a G5 PowerMac and now have a MacPro5,1. Both were/are extremely upgradeable and allow me to tinker.
The current MacPro is nothing like the legacy MacPro, unfortunately.
There is another area to compare:
I haven’t looked at it for 3 years since I built my last windows PC but at the time the biggest Mac would allow for 4 HDs (I was told by an Apple reseller). I have 8 HDs, 2 SSDs and 2 bluray drives in my current machine. It’s enough but it would be nice to have more :).
Does the PC world not only allow for a wider range of hardware options but also just plain more hardware?
It’s possible to connect a lot of external drives or other devices to any modern mac using thunderbolt, usb or FireWire. I find this way more convenient as most of my drives aren’t need to be always connected. Also I can easily attach them either to my iMac or to my (or anyones) laptop
Previous generations of MacPro desktop machines had four trays for internal hard drives. You could also remove the optical drive and add additional HDD/SSD there. You can add internal PCIe SSD drives as well.
And, of course, you can add as many external drives as you want.
Current generations, not so much. Not that you would need to. After having sold your house, your car and your first born to buy a high-end Mac Pro, you couldn’t possibly afford any more HDs or SSDs. Those things are priced way past absurd.
I have been happy with Apple over the past many years (1991 onwards). I get 5 to 7 years out of a computer before I want an update, and haven’t had a computer or built-in drive fail. The most serious problem that I have had with a laptop is that the current one, a MacBookPro mid-2010 model, developed a vertical 1 pixel-wide line in the far left of the screen sometime in 2014. As it just sits over the left panel of Lightroom most of the time, I don’t care. In the same period of time I have had several (employer-owned) PCs fail.
The one thing that Mac ought to make is a current user-upgradeable large MacPro chassis, for those who would like to have an old-fashioned tower.
Well balanced article on the technical side of the story.
Maybe it is not the subject of this article but I think one important aspect is missing. Apple has marketing value. That is, if you are targeting the prime market in your business, a MacPro has much more appeal than a PC. There are statistics on user profiles. People with money tend to use apple products. High income neighborhoods are overwhelmingly using macbooks, iphones etc. And they would like to see you use them as well. They don’t know or care about the performance differences. I am not aware of any surveys of which computer they use among pro-photographers but I suspect if there were, It would be a huge win for Apple.
Being beautiful and expensive certainly adds value to your business. After all this is what Apple is doing. I think most photographers would compromise the performance over appeal to lure customers, unless they can afford both Mac and PC.
As you pointed out in the article, one’s experience is critical in how we perceive each solution, which we like and which we don’t. I never built any PC, and reading your article, that is really the killer factor in favour of PCs – pick and choose your architecture and components to get the best performance at the lowest cost.
Since I have never bothered to figure that out, I bought PCs from Dell and HP and Sony and none has ever provided a good experience. Early demise, buggy, you name it and the price was not much lower.
What got me to Apple is the environment. Not being a professional photographer, ultimate speed is not the last and most critical factor to me (but I am not very patient so it still needs to move), but the ability to set up a whole home network with movies residing on a Mac mini connected to the entertainment system, two iMacs for various functions in the house that allow also viewing all the shared movies, two Apple TVs in other rooms and music streaming in another room… Not speaking of 4 iPads and a few other I”things”. You can do all the same with PCs, it is just more complicated. Apple has made having a fully connected house as easy as remembering one password – and that’s the limit of my IT skills. I am the perfect Apple customer (except I don’t buy music on iTunes) – and therefore I edit my pictures on a brand new iMac.
All those considerations are irrelevant to a pro but for me, the Apple environment and the range of experiences it conveniently provides is worth far more than anything else you listed.
Unboxing experience…oh please….have you ever opened a box from a GTX 980 TI? you ********* ********************
This article is full of opinions. It lacks from charts and figures. The article is biased.
Readers, PLEASE LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE TO SEEK FOR PC ADVICES, I DON’T RECOMMEND READING HERE. TOM’s HARDWARE, ANANDTECH, go read over there, not here.
Please….FROM NOW ON consider only writing down photoghraphy articles, this is not a IT site.
Where did you acquire the notion that this was an IT site?
The clue is in the title – PHOTOGRAPHY LIFE – a forum dedicated to an exchange of views on a broad variety of photographic topics.
That’s why it’s full of opinions.
I am puzzled that you seem so outraged at this.
As for bias, Nasim bends over backwards in his article to be balanced and unbiased but in spite of his stirling efforts, you accuse him of the very afflication you appear to be suffering from.
You have clearly stumbled into the wrong place.
No matter, everyone makes a mistake sometimes.
I suggest you stumble back out and go play with your GTX 980 TI, geek yourself out yourself in charts and figures – and leave this site to photographers.
Betty, I am sure he did not read past the unboxing part, which made him think that I am going all over Macs only. Crazy how people get so defensive / protective on both sides :) There are some big time Apple haters out there too apparently :D
All that hatred is a bit sad.
Every piece of equipment, operating system or application has its pros and cons (and its faults).
None of them are perfect so it just boils down to a choice based on preference.
I couldn’t get on with Windows but love Mac.
Someone else may be the exact opposite and that’s fine too.
A particular balance of qualities either suits or or it doesn’t.
The important thing, in my view, is to be discuss those qualities with people who have experience and knowledge and then make an informed choice.
Sherman, I bet you did not read the article past #1. I suggest you go back and read the whole thing, so that you can see the full picture.
And just an FYI, I am a PC guy :)
Even though many professional would claim that Apple is the way to go, I think PC’s are good enough and more flexible and inexpensive. Yes Apple has its advantages, still they don’t convince me to spend double.
It’s a personal choice, I think, rather than a rational choice.
Nasim, I have to disagree with point 5).
Your argument is really old and has been beaten to death by people who can’t just live with the fact that Windows is more vulnerable to viruses and trojans. If it was only the popularity of a platform then the iPhone would have much more malware than Android – but it’s the other way around because Android is more vulnerable.
Also the Mac market share is much higher for expensive laptops / computers. That should be a big incentive for hackers to target Macs specifically because the owners will be richer and own more credit cards ;-)
Windows has its benefits, no need to excuse its weaknesses with old – rebutted – arguments.
You need to get up to date with OS usage data. Android is the most popular mobile OS now, and by a far margin. It is not the most profitable – iOS is – but the sheer number of users make it worthwhile for scammers to take a shot at it.
Look within OS/X or iOS. Are there more viruses or malware today than, say, 5 years ago? Is it due to wider usage, or did they depreciate in security?
Coming with arguments based on wrong assumptions doesn’t help you.
Jano, if you have statistical data which proves that PCs have more vulnerabilities when you take their market share vs Apple, I would love to see it.
Having done quite a few security audits and PCI compliance tests in mixed environments, I can tell you that every OS has vulnerabilities and Mac OS is not an exception. And please, let’s not even bring up iOS. It has had all kinds of serious security issues, many of which are aimed at stealing personal data. From the last stats I have seen, Android had less total vulnerabilities compared to Apple and that’s with Android being a far popular platform in terms of market share.
P.S. I am an Apple iPhone user.
Nasim, I cannot give you statistical data (though I would imagine it is out there and easy to come by), but I can give you personal experience… in my 20+ years of being the person in the company that provides tech support at all my jobs over the years, I have never had to remove a virus or the any other malicious software from a Mac, but I have had to recover many Windows PCs from viruses and the like. Specifically, at one company where the Mac:PC ratio was approximately 65:35, I had to remove viruses regularly from some of the PCs. Now, I can also anecdotally add that in general those that use Macs seem more adept at not doing the stupid stuff that gets a computer infected compared to PC users where the population is stuffed with those that exhibit such bad behavior.
Chris, if a PC in a corporate environment is unpatched / poorly managed, or as you have noticed has an idiot in front of it that downloads all kinds of stupid stuff, are you still saying that it is the fault of the operating system or hardware components?
I have also done quite a bit of troubleshooting on both sides. My experience does not mirror yours…and I found the opposite to be true – Mac users are the ones who often lack technical skills. And I don’t blame them, there is really no need, since Macs are simpler and easier to use.
” From the last stats I have seen, Android had less total vulnerabilities compared to Apple and that’s with Android being a far popular platform in terms of market share.”
Nasim,
Here you go. Some facts. Now I’d like to see some facts to back up your statement above.
www.networkworld.com/artic…imple.html
One minor correction: Thunderbolt is actually an Intel-designed interface and not proprietary to Apple. From what I gather, Apple has been the one hardware manufacturer that has gone all-in with it, while most PC manufacturers went with USB-3. I don’t know that this is still true, though — I found one article from 2014 talking about growing numbers of Thunderbolt ports on Windows PCs.
Doing the PC thing would be an indulgence for me. I like to tinker. I don’t dare let myself start to spend time on it — while I’m still trying to figure out proper skin editing …. Rather spend more money on a Mac so I can focus on what needs to get done.
Oh-oh. All that said, my 2015 MacBook Pro 13″ (no external video ram / GPU) WAS plenty fast for Lightroom 5.7 with 24mp shots out of my Nikon D750. After “upgrading” to CC it began to slow down noticeably in D mode (e.g. brush takes many seconds to see result). Now editing shots out of a 42mp Sony A7RII (on loan) is torturously slow. This is whether I check mark the graphics processor or not. And yes I did increase cache.
Sigh. I could upgrade but are ANY Mac’s keeping up with Adobe’s massive slowdowns?
What’s that PC option again? ;-)
ps: I’d like to hear from users of Capture One, which is rumored to be faster than the Adobe stuff.
Jano
I believe Nasim is correct with his statement regarding the sheer amount of PC’s over Macs, that are being hacked because there are way move PC’s then Mac’s, its just math.
Also you are wrong on your statement the there are More IPhone than Androids
“Android shipments will top 1.15 billion, giving it 79.4% of the entire smartphone market this year. iPhone shipments are predicted to reach 237 million for 2015, which puts the iPhone at 16.4% of the market. Android is outselling the iPhone nearly five to one.”
Just like PC’s the Android is 5 times the IPhone in the market today and will also have a higher “hack” number just by doing the math.
And Hackers don’t target Rich people , they target stupid people, the ones that do dumb things to allow them to be hacked.
PS
I’m a PC and Android person, Engineer/Computer designer for NASA Rocket engines and Space based computers also lots of satellites . I also have built ever PC I have owned. Like it that way, get exactly what I want/need.
Enjoy
Just to add, though, the walled garden approach of iOS does contribute to a potentially more secure environment than the open approach of Android. Not saying one is better than the other but from a purely security point of view a gated approach is inherently more secure. But none of that can help people with phishing, spear phishing, XSS, etc.
Thanks for a great article!
I think one issue is missing , how MAC handles 4K and 5K.
From a recent experience when you switch to 4K as expected the text of the software is un readable.
If you choose the scale option what happen is that the resolution goes down to HD on all the screen, creating a full HD pictures
While on PC you have an option to scale only the text in the software and leave the screen resolution at 4K.
See PS help.
The only solution I know of is using 2 screens
One for tools and one for reviewing the pictures
What you know about it ?
How you tackle it?
Thanks
Yair
>> I think one issue is missing , how MAC handles 4K and 5K.
It’s not really resolution but pixel density. iOS now handles resolution independence quite well. This means I can design a UI where UI components will have the same size on various different screens, irrespective of screen size/resolution. It’s called resolution independence, and though it takes developers a little time to get used to, it’s fantastic. I assume we’ll see resolution independence properly in OSX at some point in time. Currenly Apple only supports display “doubling” which is useless nonsense and which severely degrades the display.
Windows has had resolution independence since Windows XP for some things, but proper support only from Windows 7. From Windows 8.1 resolution independence is the only option for new apps, which is a good thing. Menus, icons and text scale to the size of your screen, not your resolution. So, if you have a 27″ screen with HD (yuck) resolution, icons, menus and text will be the exact same size on a 4K screen. This is what you would want. It doesn’t effect images or movies, so your menus in Photoshop and Premiere will be good while retaining a full 4K experience. On the Mac you can chose between scaling everything (hurting the image and movie resolution) or nothing, making menus, buttons and the like very hard to read.
In this area Microsoft leads Apple by about a decade on Windows/OSX, but Apple is on par on iOS.
One thing not mentioned in the article is the “Find iPhone” app also works on locating other Apple products like your iMac or a MacBook when signed into your iCloud account.
I haven’t read through all of the posts but having used PC for over 20 years, I finally couldn’t deal with anymore software conflicts or buggy software. Went Mac and found every few problems with software conflicts or bugginess. I’ve built PCs and still maintain 2 PCs in my house with one Mac mini. Win 10 seems to be quite stable but I have used it very little.
Starting costs for Mac also includes a lot of software that is not part of PC software.
Mac is as others have noticed overpriced for hardware but ok for software.
When you match spec for spec, Macs are no more expensive than Windows PCs… it is just that Apple refuses to make a cheap POS Mac.
>> When you match spec for spec, Macs are no more expensive than Windows PCs
This is only true in the low-end, the consumer end. On the Workstation end, Apple products are absurdly priced comparatively. The Mac Pro is for people who either have unlimited funds or who are easily parted with their hard-earned cash. You can get at least three similarly spec’ed PC’s for a high-end Mac Pro.
The consumer offerings from Apple are attractively priced and fantastic products though. Particularly for developers. For the mobile photographer I think the Microsoft Surface is a far better choice than a Mac Book though. I just recently upgraded from a Surface Pro 2 to a 4, and I have my Mac Book Pro for iOS development. The Surface blows the Mac out of the water when running Photoshop. Twice. Four times on a Sunday. Seriously. I no longer have Adobe CC on my Mac Book.
Great article as usual…
Actually I use a MAC and PC and I like them both… I can’t really say one is better than the other, however I do like the file system on the PCs, seems a lot more intuitive, but hey that’s not such a big deal.
I lost u where u said integration of new hardware is not a limitation for macs
Customization is best thing in PC world npair that with Hackintosh one can enjoy latest equipment n run Windows n OSX on same machines without any glitch
Let me know when latest AMD or Nvidia flagships are available on macs, imacs, macbook etc
Macbook pros r rocking R9 370x where as windows laptops r running 980gtx desktop versions in a laptop
Excpet build quality Mac has no other advantage
N this is coming from a guy who owns both a pc n a macbook pro :)
Hi Nasim,
As usual a good article and one that opens up an endless can of worms. Here is my 2 cents.
First, I have tremendous background in this area. I have always been a computer geek and started out on the first home computers running CP/M. I have always had either a Mac desktop or laptop (or both since the first Fat Mac). I have had PC’s for even longer, purchasing the very first IBM PC then Compaq 286 and 386 machines. It goes on and on.
Now, I have made a decision that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. I am going to go totally PC for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is software availability. I have a PC only application that is essential and runs horribly on any Mac I have seen using either Boot Camp or Parallels. The second reason is the Microsoft Surface. It appears to be better than my Macbook Pro for my uses.
I love the performance of PC’s and do not find the OS much less stable of late. The last two Mac OS updates have been poor. El Capitan caused nothing but problems with my web development environmant, causing me to have to do a clean install – not something that is very friendly on this version of the Mac OS. Yosemite also caused many issues. In the past, I didn’t feel the need to do clean installs on the Mac OS (always do that for Windows, avoids many problems!) but with these last two versions, I am afraid that would have to be the norm. Very unfortunate and a big change for the worse re: Apple. Of course it is still a sleeker easier to use OS and relatively free of virus’s and malware, so that is still an advantage for them. Unfortunately, this is still not without warts. The Finder on Macs (vs Windows file manager) has always been terrible, so bad that I used to always replace it with a 3rd party. Now that 3rd party version is very unstable on El Capitan (also on Yosemite) so of late I have been using the native Finder. It’s still awful, has been since OS X came out and before. Regardless, I do think the Mac OS is sleeker and more approachable, just not to the same level as before (because Windows had closed the gap some)
Another edge you pointed out in your review is Apple trackpads. They make every other one I have tried seem like a joke. It’s one of the many reasons that I have been using Mac laptops instead of PC based laptops for a very long time. Also, the way Macbooks handle battery power (sleep) is much more reliable then PC based laptops. I don’t have the Surface Pro (or Book) yet, so maybe Microsoft has closed the gap there. I will find out sometime soon because the Macbook is leaving and the Surface is coming. We’ll see, but unless the new Surface’s are huge upgrades from past PC based devices, I am sure I will miss those features on the Macbook.
Finally, I will miss a few of the Mac OS only productivity apps. I love The Hit List, a Mac only organizer, and Vitamin-R, a time manager. I have looked for PC equivalents and none are quite as good. Regardless, the replacements will be acceptable.
So when I add it up, the performance and ability to run a specific application is the reason I will finally be without a Mac sometime in 2016. It doesn’t mean its not a great platform, its that the competition has come up with a more useful mouse trap…at least for awhile. If I am still in the business and not retired, I will evaluate again in a few more years.
Thanks again for the good article and for opening my eyes regarding the Surface products. These products are game changers at least for me.
You said “One key advantage of Apple is their excellent integration of hardware and software, which without a doubt, has played a huge role in the success of Apple products.” which essentially proves the opposite of what you said in the paragraph before. Having used PC computers from the DOS days through the eye gouging-inducing Vista while building many of my own computers, I jumped ship for the most part to Mac (I used Macs previously going back to PowerPCs and I also still use some Windows Machines) and frankly the wild west of hardware options for Windows PC is precisely what makes them so unstable and frustrating. I have no plans to revert back to Windows, but I would imagine that new hybrid computers built by Microsoft are far more stable than any of the offerings from third part computer manufacturers.
For doing this debate one has to be current on everything
Microsoft has totally changed how PC experience was before this.
Just compare this with apple products
PC desktop running Windows 10
Windows 10 laptop like Surface book or Dell XPS15 Infinity or MSI laptop with desktop grade 980gtx with over 1500 cuda cores
Widows 10 tablet like Surface pro 4
Windows 10 mobiles by Microsoft like 950 which can become ur desktop witjna small docking system attached to any screen or monitor or TV even
Now the “poor Gus” who like “ugly” windows things have one operating system all across their devices.
But on apple side, the hardware looks amazing, I’m a fanboy of apple manufacturing quality. But there r two different OS. iOS n OSX, there is some degree of freedom n synergy thingy but its not as uniform as windows 10 is offering in 2015 decmeber :)
Hell apple has not even given any touch interactive desktop experience.
Imagine if apple offers a touch screen capability in next OSX upgrade, which OSX user will like to buy a wacom cintique ??? (Less its special features)
Windows has come a long way and major credit goes to apple for this thing. Despite having more than 50% rather more than 70% market share Microsoft never gave a premium user experience. But that’s history now, with Windows 10, OSX has become “obsolete”
I wish if apple adds touch interactive capabilities to it’d MAC OS then I’m sure apple has tremendous horsepower in its mobile devices n tablets to run full OSX. Why apple has different version of OS for iPad n iPhone because those features r missing from OSX.
I totally agree apple has advantage of hardware compatiblity, its customers fit but this thing is easily achieved in PC also, after a trial n error but at the same time its limitation of apple also. When iMac n macbook pro will add current gen graphics and processor, there will be new hardware out there n a PC will be ist to adapt to that like I can change only my graphcis card n my system is updated, if I need more cpu power I can change my processor independently, I don’t have to change my whole PC for just one component upgrade
Like apple macbook pro was giving same Hashwell processor in late 2013 models, mid 2014 models n even current 2015 macbook r still running same old processors where as windows laptops are offering new Skylake processors
If we come towards graphics, current macbook run R9 370x which is in flagship macbook pro, but in flagship windows laptops, we can even get desktop version of Nvidia 980gtx. Anyone can check the processing powers of both.
Apple products r expensive but the cost is not of hardware specs, but build materials.
The difference between windows PC and apple PC is just like difference between a SUV/Ferrari n Rolls Rice phantom. Both r made for totally different purposes n users, with an SUV or a Ferrari oencan choose to either drive them at their max potential or enjoy smooth peaceful ride. But Phantom has some specific user experience, we can’t do cross-country with it or win races with it but its user experience is exquisite and classy, one who adapts to it don’t want to do adventures :)
So I personally like to live few days of my life peacefully were I don’t have to tweak anything for such days I have a macbook pro, but when I want adventures n thrill, I switch to my custom pc
So honestly there is just one common thing between two worlds, they solve our problems :D
Which is better than other, currently windows is as good as Mac
I have yet to experience n try a full 10bit workflow but I’m sure in that area also, both have similar results. We can’t differentiate final products that A was rendered n processed on a windows n B was done on a Mac. So some people will like Mac OSX workflow to reach that solution n others would like Windows.
Mean consumers will use both only fanboys or those who don’t have “geeky brains” will choose one thing over the other.
Just one note. Apple hasn’t added touch to their iMacs and MacBooks for a particular reason. They’ve documented that several times over the years. They say that using a vertical touch screen is ergonomically difficult and tiring for the user. There is also the issue of leaving smudges on the screen and similar. I’m not giving a verdict on good or bad just explaining Apple’s public answers to that particular issue.
Is OSX obsolete because of Windows 10? No, it really isn’t. They both seek to solve similar problems in different manners. People tend to solve problems differently so one approach will work better for some than others.
One interesting note about the processors… In general they are giving us diminishing returns at this point with current technology. The tick/tock of intel processors isn’t producing quite the same punch as before. Skylake’s improvements are not vast over even Haswell. Chasing processors is like chasing cameras for that extra 1 megapixel. It’s always a hope that next year’s intel chip will solve all our problems but in reality gives us the usual 4-15% performance improvements that rarely translate to overall consumer usage. In the end, as someone once told me many years ago in the days of the 80486, in some ways the computer simply waits for you faster.
The MAC versus PC debate was decided about 30 years ago when the PC clone took over the market. This is VHS vs Betamax all over. Mac is a niche product and always has been. Look around in the real world and count how many MAC’s you ever see. They do seem to be real popular with folks doing Photoshop tutorials on Youtube.
If I worked here and looked around I would see nothing but Macs:
www.computerworld.com/artic…y-ibm.html
That is a complete and inaccurate oversimplification. First off, Macs are not niche, they are just not ubiquitous. In the creative fields, Mac still dominates. And, you do see them everywhere … their market share has been increasing of late and over the last two years, they are the only computers to increase in sales while the PC clone makers are all seeing declining sales and profits. Just yesterday, of the three people sitting in the local McDonalds working on computers, two were Macs. Unlike Betamax (which was ironically the better format as well) that died with the porn industry’s choice of VHS, Mac has never died and its maker is one of the largest companies in the tech industry. With Microsoft entering the PC manufacturing arena, it is possible that the PC clone makers will start to fizzle even more and Microsoft will become the defacto place to buy a Windows PC (which could ultimately make it as strong a platform as Mac) leaving just Microsoft and Apple as the main players. This could lead to a stronger Mac market share.
Of course, we have to look at the future of computers all together. With the younger generation leaning more and more on mobile devices, many of them will not need a computer – desktop or laptop – and rightly so as most average users have always underused their computer’s power. As this brave new world unfolds, it will be Apple and Google who become the new Mac vs. PC. And Microsoft? With the abject failure of Windows Phones that leaves them with an interesting future.
Uhh, I have a problem with this analysis. Apple doesn’t have a usable tablet in the same way that Microsoft doesn’t have a usable phone. Here is what I mean. No one is going to use an Ipad (even the Ipad “Pro”) for serious work. I have one and I like it, but I could never use it without having a laptop as well. The Microsoft Surface doesn’t have this problem and I suspect it will dominate. The competition between Apple and Microsoft will come down to who makes the best integrated platform among mobile devices and neither is “there” yet. Apple is closer, but the game is far from over.
The iPad isn’t supposed to be the same thing as the Surface. I find the iPad perfect for what it is and what I need. I don’t want to do “serious” work on a tablet because I don’t want to have to keep cleaning the screen so that it doesn’t interfere with my photo editing. My MacBook Air serves as my traveling “serious” work station. I actually think that for the average, everyday user – especially among the younger generation – most people will only be using their iPhone or Android phone, or equivalent tablets, and the ownership of desktops and laptops will be mostly among companies (which are going to cloud computing more and more, at least internally) and the person that uses it for serious needs such as photography, video production, graphic design, etc. Offices and users such as this is where the Surface series of computers will fit in and I think Microsoft knows this and wants to corner their segment of that market alongside Apple. The other PC makers will need to focus on providing the computer servers for the distributed computing that many companies are turning to to save money.
Why will two devices survive instead of one? Integration between a tablet (that can do real work), the phone, and the Cloud will win over time. Most people would rather have two devices instead of three. Apple needs to address the need for a serious tablet (sorry, the name Ipad Pro is a joke in its current incarnation) or risk loosing a big chunk of the mobile market. The Surface and Surface like devices will effectively kill the Macbook Pro (and every other laptop). There is no reason for them to exist. Apple is perfectly capable of building a serious Surface competitor and they need to get busy.
Microsoft has much more work to do. They are hopelessly behind in phones both in functionality of their platform (despite Cortana being “better” than Siri) and in perception. If they can address that, they will be Apple’s main competitor in mobile for a generation. It’s a big challenge, obviously.
I’m sorry, but I don’t agree. As a MacBook user, I have tried the Surface and actually own one of the hybrids from a third party manufacturer and I found nothing compelling about it. I also recognize that I do not represent every user and that for some – like you obviously – the Surface is the better choice. I love how a lot of people like to bash Apple over what it chooses to do with their mobile devices and claims that this or that will be their undoing, but what most people fail to realize is that Apple is the only company actually making money on their mobile devices – Samsung doesn’t even come close to it. And, iOS app developers make far more money than Android app developers, so their mobile products aren’t going anywhere soon.
That said, Apple is actually a flexible company despite what many feel… they just wait longer to decide to change directions, but when they do, they can change on a dime because they have the resources to do so. If what you say is true, Apple will deliver the product when it needs to. Just this past weekend when 60 Minutes interviewed a number of Apple’s top people including Tim Cook, it was said that Apple wants their devices to compete with each other, that for example the iPad is supposed to try to pull you away from the MacBook… if their users ultimately want a MacBook Pro/Air – iPad hybrid similar to the Surface, they will get it. But, just because Microsoft comes out with a competing product that does things differently, Apple isn’t going to just react… they will act when it is the right thing to do.
MacBook Air.
Not even close. Not in the same league. Not even the same sport.
Gosh I have read this thread from start to finish, I must the bored.
Anyway I like 56) Chris comment, about the number of Mac computers you see out and about, i see many more macs then pc’s being used, way more, they are overwhelmingly old or non tech people for sure .. but thats the people that are buying so.. the apple market share is increasing at great knots.
The windows phone, on the other hand has yet to get traction and I think it will, but Microsoft will need to be speedy about it as a computer in your pocket will be popular especially once cheap flexible displays colour displays become mainstream, imagine rocking up to MacDonalds and putting your photo down on the table and having a computer available to you via bluetooth thats only restricted by the power of your phone..
>> i see many more macs then pc’s being used, way more, they are overwhelmingly old or non tech people for sure
I am not sure what circles you wonder in, but this is certainly not the case. Apple’s marked share for Q4 rose from 6 to 7 percent year over year. While this is a nice sales increase for Apple, it certainly is not in any way significant. At all. There is basically a single reason for the rise in market share for Apple, and that is called the iPhone. In order for you to develop iOS applications you need to buy a Mac. Apple us currently the only company that requires this. The increase in market share for Apple has come entirely in the software development market. In the creative market Apple is losing ground, and it shows.
Apple abandoned Final Cut Pro for years and years, pissing the entire video editing market off. When they finally did release an upgrade to Final Cut Pro all of the “Pro” features were gone leading to a massive ship-jumping from the video professionals. Then, just a short while after, Apple again pissed of the creative professionals by dropping Aperture. The absurdity of releasing dismal monitors for years and years (they were) that you couldn’t even calibrate (and to a degree still can not) further angered the Apple creative professionals.
Today, quite frankly, a Windows PC is more versatile, more stable and to a degree more suitable for creative work than a Mac.
Current Mac OS X market share is currently between 9% and 10%. In 2014, Apple is the only major computer manufacturer to sale more personal computers than the previous year. Terje B claims it is only people having to buy Macs to program for the iPhone and Mark claims it is only because old people are using them. I think the funny thing is that in 2015, it is Windows fanboys that are trolling the internet instead of Apple fanboys. I love the statement that the people using Macs are less technical… no, they just know the difference between productivity and wasting time tinkering. As for business usage, Windows is ingrained so deeply from 20 years ago that changing even if they wanted to wouldn’t be cost effective. Plus, they are more interested in replacing dying desktops with distributed computer workstations… essentially a monitor, keyboard, and mouse connected to the network. And, PCs are not the only things in large businesses – Facebook and Google use Macs. There is plenty of evidence that Macs are common enough in big business. As of 2012, 8% of corporate employees reported to be using Mac computers and in 2012 Forrester reported that 46% of enterprises (companies with more than 1,000 employees [there are not that many companies with 100,000 employees and the ones that do most don’t use a computer regular as they are either manufacturing or retail, etc.]) have reported issuing their staff with Macs, an increase of more than half in two years:
thenextweb.com/apple…-the-ipad/
And, now that iPhones are becoming the defecto mobile device in business (IBM is a big user of Apple mobile devices, has Mac computers, and is working with Apple to develop 100+ enterprise-level iOS apps), many of these companies will start to realize the efficiency of the Apple OS X / iOS ecosystem (Since converting to Mac and especially the introduction of iCloud, I spend almost zero time organizing information that used to take up 10% of my time) and may start to invest far more in OS X hardware for their employees.
And, Microsoft hasn’t started to directly compete on the hardware side with Apple (even though they’ve all but giving up on doing so in the phone arena) if Apple computers and tablets haven’t proven themselves to be an important part of the future. As I said previously, the future will likely be dominated on the computer side by Apple and Microsoft directly and Apple and Samsung/Google-Android on the mobile side.
Also read:
www.infoworld.com/artic…prise.html
>> Windows fanboys that are trolling the internet instead of Apple fanboys
Sigh. As I pointed out, I use both a Macbook Pro and a Windows workstation. There is absolutely no difference in reliability, but the Windows workstation is about twice the speed at about half the cost of the Macbook. I think the Apple ecosystem is fantastic, but there is no doubt Microsoft is catching up. Bit by bit. As for market share, the increase in Apple market share is directly related to the iOS platform, not to the OSX platform. Apple is slowly coming to the fore as the preferred platform for developers. For good reason. Unix is an excellent platform for developers. As for the tools, XCode is at least a decade behind Visual Studio for usability. XCode is, comparatively, a pathetic piece of software.
>> may start to invest far more in OS X hardware for their employees
Not yet at least. There simply is no compelling reason to do so for people other than those with special interests. Apple simply doesn’t have anything for the enterprise, and integrating OSX on the enterprise side, though a bit easier now thanks to massive amount of work done by Microsoft, is still a pain in the neck compared to Windows PCs. Enterprise management is not like your average home user, and in some ways, Apple is even falling behind.
I need your computer to integrate with Enterprise software, this means supporting SSO on an Active Directory network. I must be able to manage all the workstations and laptops from a central computer management system, whatever that may be, and the support for that is FAR better on Windows than on Apple. In the enterprise nobody cares which computer is the more fun to use, if your operating system can not integrate seamlessly into the existing management infrastructure, your not an interesting player. IBM, Microsoft and other enterprise players have worked hard to integrate the OSX (but even more the iOS) platform into the Enterprise, but at the moment it as FAR more of a pain with OSX than with Windows.
Examples: As an enterprise IT manager my guys must be able to wipe your HD, install a new version of an operating system and all updates even when you are not in the office. With one click of a button. If your laptop has gone missing, they need to make sure that whenever someone turns it on the harddrive will get wiped entirely and securely. The IT department must be able to install any software on your laptop, with or without your consent, and completely without physical access to your laptop. They must be able to prevent you from doing the same. When the OS vendor (Apple or Microsoft) release updates for your OS, they must be able to make sure you are NOT able to install them until they say it’s OK. They must also be able to force you to install them at their wish.
This is what the Enterprise guys care about. Not whether you like the looks of the GUI or not. Managing laptops for 20 000 users or more is hard work. With Windows this is a lot easier than with OSX (but the support for iOS on both tablets and phones is generally excellent).
>> Microsoft hasn’t started to directly compete on the hardware side with Apple
Again, I have to disagree. For practical use, particularly for the creative crowd, the Microsoft Surface platform blows anything from Apple out of the water. Photoshop on the Surface is a jaw-dropping experience, and once you’ve done it, you’ll never want to go back. Comparatively, the Apple iPad Pro is a silly joke. Seriously. This is not fanboy’ism. It’s a truth nobody who’s ever worked with a Surface for a while will disagree with. As I said, my main work happens on a work station. When I travel I use my Macbook Pro for development work, but the Surface is the only thing I’ll run Photoshop on while traveling. It blows the Macbook out of the water in every single aspect.
Now, for the infoworld article, it alludes to, but doesn’t entirely admit, that System Center support for OSX is not as good as for Windows. There are many more tasks that require the physical presence of the box in the IT department than is the case with Windows PCs. A Windows environment can be managed entirely remotely today, and the points the Inforworld article brings up about security are silly. Yes, Macs have code signing to prevent self-installing software, as does Windows, and it’s had it for longer than OSX. Microsoft implemented Address Space Layout Randomization in Windows Vista in 2007, it became fully available on OSX in 2012 in Mountain Lion10.8.
As an Enterprise we have not seen an attack or a virus on any of our laptops, desktops and servers in more than a decade. Most people who get hit by massive infections and problems should start with firing a bunch of their IT personnel.
“As for market share, the increase in Apple market share is directly related to the iOS platform, not to the OSX platform. ”
So are you saying all those Macs are being sold to iOS developers? That’s great. That means we’ll see a lot of innovative apps for iOS further cementing the iPhone and iPad as a platform for growth. Which is what trent and Chris were claiming.
“As for the tools, XCode is at least a decade behind Visual Studio for usability. XCode is, comparatively, a pathetic piece of software.”
You claim that Macs sales are up because of iOS developers. We know that Apple mobile devices outsell Microsoft mobile devices. But you say X Code is crap. So that means that iOS developers are wiling to overlook the crapiness of X Code to develop for iOS? Is is the money?
” IBM, Microsoft and other enterprise players have worked hard to integrate the OSX (but even more the iOS) platform into the Enterprise, but at the moment it as FAR more of a pain with OSX than with Windows.”
“For practical use, particularly for the creative crowd, the Microsoft Surface platform blows anything from Apple out of the water. Photoshop on the Surface is a jaw-dropping experience, and once you’ve done it, you’ll never want to go back.”
You just wrote three paragraphs about enterprise IT, management etc. ending with “This is what the Enterprise guys care about. Not whether you like the looks of the GUI or not.” and now we are talking Photoshop and experience?
Have you read this article?
www.computerworld.com/artic…y-ibm.html
“Microsoft implemented Address Space Layout Randomization in Windows Vista in 2007, it became fully available on OSX in 2012 in Mountain Lion10.8.”
Does it matter when who did what or only that it is CURRENTLY available?
>> That means we’ll see a lot of innovative apps for iOS further cementing the iPhone and iPad as a platform for growth
You have an interesting definition of “growth”. If we do not see a dramatic change iPhone market share will probably drop below 10% by Q42017.
>> Is is the money?
Sure. Definitely. And? If you develop for iOS you don’t have many options besides XCode, even though every single iOS developer i know (including me) are desperately going through alternatives.
>> Have you read this article?
Yes, and the article addresses nothing of what I said. Using OSX in the enterprise is far more work than Windows, for exactly the reasons I said. The enterprise is about legacy software, about remote management etc. That is harder with OSX than Windows. At the moment. Tools are improving and since Apple has released their management APIs, that is going to improve further, but at the moment anyone who argues it is easier to manage OSX is clueless.
The IBM article is cool. I’d love to see a lot more information though. Who are they deploying Apple computers to, how are they managing them etc. When I left IBM there basically was no remote management done at all by IBM. You got your computer, it had some AV stuff on it etc, but it wasn’t remotely managed. IBM didn’t remotely install and update software on the PC etc. As a home user, if I had a problem I’d call IBM, they would send me a new PC and a return case for my old. That’s not managing.
>> Does it matter when who did what or only that it is CURRENTLY available?
In context, yes, it mattered who did what first. And no, it is not technically easier to distribute a virus to a Mac than a PC. It’s just far more profitable do focus on the 90% market. Technically a Mac is no safer than a Windows PC. Nor is it more reliable, as Apple can attest to since they use Windows everywhere they need scalability and stability.
Trent
You wrote
“i see many more macs then pc’s being used, way more, they are overwhelmingly”
I do not see this from my view of the real world. I see PC’s everywhere. You will Not see any Mac’s at any of the Top Corporations of this country (the Company’s that each employee 100,000 plus workers and they all have a PC, millions of them in industry) And believe me these people are very creative. I do see 50% Macs on my Photo tours, mostly used by older 60-80 years old, and they barely know how to turn on the machines, they know nothing about a computer, it’s capabilities/speed or how anything works. So the Mac is good for them. But to say the Mac is ubiquitous is a far stretch. Nothing against Macs (I designed/built some of my first interfaces around Apple’s “LISA” back in the 80’s. I’m a big time computer Geek, been designing (at the silicon level) computers for 40 plus years, pretty much have seen them all come and go and get faster.
If you like Macs go for it, I’m Not a Mac hater, But there are NOT more Macs then PC’s out there in the real world, not even close.
PS
I do not like to work on ANY Laptop, I use mine as little as possible (trips mostly), its a supper fast, i7 but I prefer my K___A__ work station with my, keyboard, mouse, 30″ 4k monitor and Win 10.
This is where I do all my work. I run Lightroom CC , Photo Shop CC, and Pinnacle Studio (video) all on Win10, never had 1 problem yet, the PC just cranks out the work.
I also run lots of other programs flawlessly (not Photo related)
Enjoy you Computer whatever it is.
Man! this one is the coolest reply to a PC Vs Mac discussion I have ever seen.
Thank you Nasime for the article.
I am a typical end user. I don’t really know anything about computer. I know I need RAM, etc. but I can’t build my own computer.
I was on Windows for years. I had a very expensive Alienware Laptop (I don’t have the space for a desktop) and had problems from the beginning. I honestly don’t care what the cause for these problems was (because I am not a computer expert and don’t have the time for that). The computer kept crashing and the support was crap. Windows wouldn’t start and I couldn’t shut down the computer. I swiped clean many times and it was useless. Our other laptop (windows) was similar. After 5 years I bought a Macbook Pro… well, since then I have not had one problem! We recently bought a Macbook Air and same. It just works. All the iPhone contacts are on it in a blink of an eye, same withe iTunes.
I know that Windows can be great and cheaper. But as an end user and from my personal experience: I won’t go back to Windows! I spent WAY too much energy on it.
Amen to that.
Alis, I made that same change more than eight years ago of the same reasons except that I actually was very technical with my computers including having built most of my desktops. I went through two $3000 top-of-the-line laptops from Sony and Toshiba in less than five years – both of which where causing trouble and crashing my productivity for more than half of their short lives. Like you I didn’t have time to be a tinkerer or to worry about stability. And that is also when they dropped Windows Vista on the world (dropped is a nice way of saying what it was actually like). I still have the Mac Pro I bought then and it still works perfectly (though it is relegated to lesser tasks nowadays) and my MacBook Air and my iMac both work without giving me any trouble or wasting any of my time. They. Just. Work. And, like you, having contacts, calendars,bookmarks, etc. all sync across all my devices without even having to think about is a major plus to actually getting things done.
As for price, yes there are cheap Windows PC options out there, but they are as cheap as their price. A comparably outfitted Windows computer is the same price as a Mac is – and it has always been that way as the price of your Alienware laptop proved way back when.
Thanks Chris
My Alienware ran on Windows 7. And after 1 week (yes one week!) the problems began and never stopped. I kept it 5 years and gave up. And you are right, the Alienware cost me as much as the Macbook Pro did.
And when talking about photography, I just LOVE the retina display and how pictures look like on the macbook pro. So for me, it’s a no brainer. LR and PS run flawless.
>> I went through two $3000 top-of-the-line laptops from Sony and Toshiba
There was never such a thing as a “top-of-the-line laptop from Sony”, and though Toshiba is working their way back into the game, they have also not been “top-of-the-line” for quite a while.
>> I had a very expensive Alienware Laptop
Sigh. Alienware is a product for gaming. In other words, a toy. It’s an expensive toy, but a toy all the same. Comparing professional workstation level products with toys, no matter how expensive the toy, is silly, to put it mildly.
Here is a clue for you. When Apple needed a solid, high-performance, highly reliable platform on which to run the entire iCloud infrastructure, what platform did they chose? You know, when they needed something on which to run the infrastructure that must be available 24/7. Windows. The iCloud infrastructure was built on Windows and partly on AWS.
You are perpetuating fanboy nonsense. If you want to buy a PC at the same quality and level as your Mac, don’t buy a toy for gaming kids with a hankering for tinkering. The Alienware platform is for over-clockers and gamers who like to squeeze the max out of every CPU cycle by modifying, tinkering and the whole shebang. It’s not a workstation platform. It’s expensive, but it is not build for reliability, it’s built for speed.
How much Apple relies on Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft Azure (which is NOT Windows) is a matter of speculation, much of which dates back to 2011 when they launched iCloud before their own data center was completed. Much of the speculation also includes that it is possible that using AWS and Azure is a short term solution to their needs while they complete the new data center, which is estimated to be big enough to store digital copies of every movie and song ever made along with all the iCloud data. It is also speculated that AWS for example is so cheap nowadays that it is too cheap to pass up. The only hard thing known is that Apple stores some of their data on these services in small chunks and that the data is distributed around so that no single piece of data is stored in one place leading to the speculation that the use of AWS and Azure is to add to data security… hacking any one system doesn’t give up any whole data.
As for Alienware, yes they are toys nowadays, but they started out as a workstation company long before Alis bought his over-priced and over-hyped Windows laptop. My two POS high-end laptops from Sony and Toshiba were no better than the alienware crap.
>> How much Apple relies on Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft Azure (which is NOT Windows) is a matter of speculation
Firstly. Huh? What are you talking about? Azure is not Windows? Sure it is. The compute platform in Microsoft Azure is a Hyper-V infrastructure running a slightly optimized Windows Server (2008 R2 in the beginning but now more 2012). It’s Windows through-and-through, and if you lease a Linux VM through Microsoft Azure it’s running on top of Windows/Hyper-V. Claiming that Azure is not Windows places you squarely in the clueless category. As for “speculation”, no, it is not. Not at all. Anyone can check this out, and it is as true today as it was four years ago. It’s not that hard to check your network traffic at home. Turn on your Mac, do some iCloud related stuff and see the Azure (which is Windows) and AWS IP’s fly by.
In order for Apple to put the iCloud on OSX or something BSD related they would first have to build out a MASSIVE set of data centers, not only in the US but also all over Europe, Asia, Africa and Russia. They haven’t. One huge (and it’s huge) data center in the US is nowhere near enough. Also, as a server platform at scale, OSX is entirely untried and untested. Hey, even on a small scale it is less significant that Microsoft is in the phone space. OSX Server is less relevant than Windows Mobile 6.1.
>> but they started out as a workstation company
Alienware started out as a gaming company, continued as a gaming company and is now a slightly badly managed gaming division under Dell. I am quite familiar with the early stages of Alienware from half way inside. Alienware did some half-hearted things that were supposed to look like they were the big workstation dudes, but their work was always focused on the Toys-R-Us aspects of the company.
“high-end laptops from Sony” – that’s a contradiction in terms. Same for Toshiba for most of the time after 2000. For reasonably priced enterprise level laptops (with fantastic keyboards) look at the Thinkpad T series. Sure, Lenovo bungled the transition a little, but in general. Very reliable.
Well that’s the point. I am not a computer expert and don’t plan on becoming one. Back then Alienware was sold to be a fantastic laptop. I’m not a pro photograph, I just needed a laptop that worked. Nothing more, nothing less.
I was not pushing the CPU or whatever to the limit.
If I have to do a PhD to get a good Windows Laptop then I’ll get a Mac.
I am not a crazy Apple Fan, I know that Windows makes good things too, I just don’t want to spend time & energy on studying all the specs and technicalities just to get a good (not great, only good!) laptop.
Here’s a tip, if you need a tool for business, go to a company that sells tools for businesses. There are a number of them. I am willing to bet that a huge portion of businesses in the US use Lenovo (where they used to use IBM). HP too. If you shop at Toys ‘R Us, you don’t get business hardware. I don’t think any serious publication has branded Alienware a business laptop ever. I mean, come on, just look at them! They even look like they were made for Toys ‘R Us.
Our other Laptop was HP, it was worse than the Alienware.
But I guess I just didn’t study enough all the fact sheets to detect, that it was in fact a piece of crap, because I’m just not as smart as you seem to be.
And just because it’s a toy, it still should work.
As I said, from Toys ‘R Us you get toys. If you had problems with an HP laptop that made it unusable, I would argue you probably got a dud. I’ve received duds from a multitude of companies, Apple included.
The problem here is that your experience is radically different from what the huge majority of the world experiences. The vast majority of people in the world with computers have PCs, and the vast majority of them have very little problems with these PCs. The ONLY people I see who regularly report having terrible experiences with PCs and Windows are Apple and Linux fanbois. That is suspicious enough a pattern for me to dismiss it as fictional nonsense.
I have worked with companies from 5 to 250 000 employees, ALL using Windows PCs. I have NEVER been in a situation where a significant portions of those employees had the problems that Apple and Linux fanbois report.
As usually happens in discussions about computer hardware and operating systems, the comments rapidly become debates based on only anecdotal evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data; it is anecdotes.
“The problem here is that your experience is radically different from what the huge majority of the world experiences. The vast majority of people in the world with computers have PCs, and the vast majority of them have very little problems with these PCs.”
I’d like some data to back up that assertion.
>> I’d like some data to back up that assertion.
The vast majority of businesses run Windows exclusively. If there was a significant failure rate this would be prohibitively expensive. The huge failure rate of Windows is purely an Apple/Linux fan-boy myth with no basis in reality.
Ask your self this question: If Windows is such a bad operating system, why did Apple chose Windows for their iCloud infrastructure? You do realize that a massive infrastructure like iCloud needs exceptional reliability, right? Apple gets that from Microsoft Windows.
Khürt L. Williams wrote: “I’d like some data to back up that assertion.”
So would I, for the following reasons:
rationalwiki.org/wiki/…l_evidence
skepdic.com/testimon.html
Read this part again:
“I am a typical end user. I don’t really know anything about computer. I know I need RAM, etc. but I can’t build my own computer.”
And then shut up.
If you go to Toys ‘R Us to buy a workstation, you are just doing it wrong. You don’t need to know anything about computers to know that buying from a toy company will give you toys. Alienware is a toy company in the same way that Toys ‘R Us are. If you go looking for a car at Toys ‘R Us you will certainly find vehicles with four wheels, an engine etc. If you expect to get a BMW though, you are a little stupid, are you not? Most people will teach them selves enough about cars to know the difference between a BMW dealer and Toys ‘R Us.
We’re talking about photographers here. Complaining that your gaming computer is not as good as a professional work station is like complaining that your Barbie Cam is not as good as your Nikon D4. Is it unreasonable to assume a user will try to do a tiny bit of research before plunking down a couple of grand on a professional tool? Is it reasonable to complain that your Barbie Cam is not as good as your friends Canon 5D?
Nobody asked him to build his own computer, just to do a tiny amount of research before buying a professional tool. If he had he’d be looking in a lot of other places than Alienware.
It’s really tempting to tell someone who goes “shut up” that they are morons. I don’t think you are a moron, but the comment and the “shut up” was impolite and moronic. You do know that you just lost the argument though, do you? Once the only thing that comes out of your mouth is insult and bovine manure, you have lost. Next time you feel angry before posting, ask an adult if what you post is appropriate.
I was discussing this article with a friend and they asked, how much difference in cost are we talking between a PC and A Mac? I could not give him a good answer so I did some research. And will share the GENERAL results to the group.
This topic of Mac and PC has stirred up some personal interest in the actual performance/speed/MIPs vs Cost. This article has surface many times that a PC is much cheaper? Im a PC user and have not priced out a MAC in many years, so I decided to see what a comparable MAC to my existing PC would cost. I did this for my own comparison and to broaden my computer data base knowledge.
I do not use laptops for Photo/Video WORK, only on the road as required. I am looking at a Desktop MAC and Desktop PC comparison.
I tried to compare computers that were Close/identical to each other functions/options, but they are not EXACTLY the same, very hard to do that. I believe I have the correct processors for each model correct. Nether the , PC or MAC include Monitor, keyboard or mouse
I used standard processor benchmarks for all the computers in the trade space area. Note: All PC’s use Faster DDR4 RAM opposed to DDR3 on the MAC, This is Not factored into the final benchmark numbers. So you will experience greater throughput than the numbers stated.
Summary
I only looked at High end Computers, You can definitely buy cheaper, slower processor/lower benchmarks computers.
If you doing a lot of Photo work and ANY Video editing, you will want something on the higher end.
• A Dell -Complete, for $2,000 shipped to your door was approximately 11% slower than the 6 core Mac Pro for $4,399.00
o Can add another Video card to the Dell if required
• The High end PC build $2700, is Faster than the 6 core Mac For $4399.00 and the same benchmarks as the 8 core $5899.00 MAC. It is 8.7% slower than the top end Mac Pro 12 core $7399.00
o For $1,600 more (PC total $4300.00) you could upgrade the PC CPU to 12 core Processor and run the exact same speed as the High End Mac Pro
• Total $4,300 PC for a very good comparison of both Top of the line machine $7,400 Mac
o Both are Very top end, I can’t see the need for this much power for a single user?
• I feel for Personal use, either of the below will provide enough throughput for your needs. But if money is no issue buy the fastest, why not.
o PC- × Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E 8-Core
Benchmark 15.98
$2700.00
o Mac Intel Xeon E5 3.0GHz 8-core with 25MB of L3 cache
Benchmark 15.99
$5899.00
Enjoy the Data – Hope it’s all correct
MAC and PC builds Below
So I looked at the 3 High end options of the MAC
Mac Pro
• 3.5GHz 6-core with 12MB of L3 cache
• 32GB (4x8GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC
• 256GB PCIe-based flash storage
• Dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of GDDR5 VRAM each
• Bench Mark 12.53
$4,399.00
Mac Pro
• 3.0GHz 8-core with 25MB of L3 cache
• 32GB (4x8GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC
• 256GB PCIe-based flash storage
• Dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of GDDR5 VRAM each
• Benchmark 15.99
$5,899.00
Mac Pro
• 2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache
• 32GB (4x8GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC
• 256GB PCIe-based flash storage
• Dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of GDDR5 VRAM each
• Benchmark 17.4
$7,399.00
Then I priced a Dell from their site. (I personally build all my PC’s so I would never be buying this) But it is a good comparison.
Dell
New XPS 8900 Special Edition
• Our most powerful XPS 8900 with Windows 10 Home, more memory, high-end graphics, and 256GB solid-state drive.
• 6th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-6700K Processor (8M Cache, up to 4.2 GHz)
• 32GB Dual Channel DDR4 2133MHz (8GB x 4)
• 256GB M.2 Solid State Drive + 2TB 7200 rpm Hard Drive
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960 2GB DDR5
• Benchmark 11.07
$1999.00
AN Example of a High End PC build
• 1 × Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E 8-Core 3.0 GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W BX80648I75960X Desktop Processor
Item #: N82E16819117404
• 1 × X99S Gaming 9 ACK LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813130808
• 32GB (4 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Intel Z170 Platform / Intel X99 Platform
• 1 × Mushkin Enhanced ECO2 2.5″ 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDEC240GB
• WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive – OEM
• SILVERSTONE SX500-LG 500W SFX-L 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply
• Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced – High Air Flow Full Tower Computer Case with USB 3.0 and All-Black Interior
• Quantity 2- SAPPHIRE NITRO Radeon R9 380 DirectX 12 100384NT4GOC-2L 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Dual-X OC
• Win 10 OS
• Benchmark 15.98
•
$2700.00
• UPGRADE below – Different MB required same price, will use cheaper memory also DDR3
• 2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache
• Benchmark 17.4
$4300.00
Mark, I don’t think you are making the right comparisons. I have not used the latest iteration of the Mac Pro, but it is not that same of as it used to – more purpose built and frankly over priced this days. What the average computer user would want to compare is comparable PCs and iMacs (yes, iMacs are built into the monitor so you have to take that into consideration). And, iMacs are great for power users – my current iMac is significantly more powerful than my eight year old MacPro.
Another part of the equation that a benchmark doesn’t take into account for the everyday user is how well the OS uses the hardware. For a Mac, the hardware was purpose built for the operation system, where as Windows is built to work as well as possible on every PC made (the exception being, I would assume, the Surface computers built by Microsoft, which should be as purpose built as a Mac).
>> For a Mac, the hardware was purpose built for the operation system, where as Windows is built to work as well as possible on every PC made
This simply isn’t true. The Mac is a computer based on basic off-the-shelf components in the same way that a PC is. All operating systems of this kind work the same, they run on a particular CPU and standard components, and they use external drivers for a good portion of the work (such as the display sub-system). Microsoft only has to support a higher number of drivers, but since the interface between the driver and the OS is standardized (on both Mac and Windows PCs) the Mac simply doesn’t have an inherent advantage in this space. It isn’t more “purpose built” than the average PC from the average PC manufacturer.
There is a slight advantage in not having to support a huge amount of hardware (such as graphics cards) but the advantage is slight, and related to stability, not performance. Sadly, the Apple hardware, despite its price, isn’t all that fantastic and Asus, Sony (and perhaps Toshiba) score higher on reliability than Apple. I don’t like either of the three for their products, but Apple should, in theory, deliver higher reliability than any PC manufacturer by a rather wide margin. Sadly they are only about average.
Lols today we have the AMD Threadrippers….. PCs (ok fine, Windows PCs) can be equipped with these CPUs and they are lightyears ahead of any Core Intel system in terms of productivity… Don’t really think the most expensive Macs could beat such a PC… The most expensive Tr CPU, 32-cores is $1800. Tho the 16 core variant (2950x) is far more than u actually need and is somewhere at $800 dollars and goes toe to toe with i9 CPUs at gaming on 4k even…
Btw, are 12 core xeon chips even a thing today? Damn, technology has improved real quick! These new AMD Ryzen chips are stellar for their price/performance… especially the Threadripper lineup….
This makes Macs just seem overpriced… tho that A12x bionic chip is really mind blowing and really, i’ll give Apple a lot more points if they release the A13 bionic!
At the end of the day according to all the comments in this thread you either will have bough the right or the wrong computer.
If the computer does what you want to do does it really matter what others think?
It reminds me of many years ago when the same type of “discussions” were held regarding Hi Fi and Stereo and Quad music systems. I remember going to friends and they would delight in telling me about how much they spent on their great sound system and “please listen to the great treble and that bass boost etc”.
You bought what you could afford and what worked for you
I don’t think the conversation is about right or wrong. I think the conversation is about people lying about the facts and use anecdotal evidence as fact or extrapolating that evidence to apply everywhere. There is baseless opinion stated as fact in the comment section.
It really isn’t about right or wrong, nor is it about lying and baseless opinion. It’s about fanboyism. On all sides.
What Nassim points out is correct, there really isn’t a substantive difference between the two platforms. Any claims that there are are generally rooted in fanboyism, not reality. Fanboys are like religious people, they can’t stand if someone challenges their religion. Nassim does in this article, not by saying that either platform is substantially different than the other, but by saying they are, for all practical purposes and intents the same.
I agree with Nassim entirely. There is no real difference. Sadly though, the fanboys come crawling out of the woodwork immediately and are all red-faced and angry. Then they start throwing the myths around as usual.
From Apple fanboys you usually get:
1/ OSX is an inherently more stable platform than Windows – reality: it’s not, ask Apple, the iCloud runs on Windows. Windows is rock solid. Apple says so.
2/ OSX is a more performant platform than Windows – reality: it’s not. They are extremely similar in performance when running 64 bit software. Windows has slightly higher performance when it comes to memory management, but the difference is slight (check Geekbench).
3/ OSX is a more modern platform than Windows – reality: OSX is built on an ancient platform that suffers from some serious design deficiencies compared to modern operating systems. Windows is designed better than OSX primarily because it is a much newer design. OSX core was designed in the 1970s, Windows in the 1990s. Windows has a better design than OSX, but a worse design than QNX, Amoeba and Minix 3 (for example). There are areas where OSX (particularly the NeXT stuff) is an improvement over Windows, but that is not the OS Core. Does design matter a lot? Obviously not. Only to the OS developers.
4/ OSX is less prone to virii than Windows – reality: it is, but not for the reason fanboys think. Both are quite solid, but both are equally prone to the attacks that actually work, social engineering attacks. You can’t secure an OS technically against social engineering. If a user gets a call from a “support center” and he installs Teamviewer AND gives away his password, there is not much the OS designer can do. The havoc than can be wrought is the same whether you are on OSX or Windows. These types of attacks are basically the “only” ones that work these days, and they are not about OS security but about user education.
From Windows fanboys you will get:
OSX are for clueless gits who shouldn’t be near a computer anyway – reality: Same as above.
Hi Nasim!
First of all, thank you for your wonderful website and the job you do producing great content for it. Having said that, I do believe you’re a little bit biased towards Windows PCs and as a result some of your readers might be confused into thinking it’s a better platform than Apple’s, which is simply not true if you take some important things into consideration.
I’ve been using PCs since Windows 2.0 back in 1988 and all it’s iterations so far. While I do think Windows 10 is nice (I’ve recently upgraded many notebooks to it from v8) it’s still years behind Mac OS X in terms of:
– Security: Windows is extremely vulnerable to all kinds of virus and malware. This is not something to be taken lightly. Also, the antivirus software needed on a PC slows down performance of many low/mid-range systems. On the other side, Mac OS X is very secure and doesn’t even need antivirus software (never had an issue in the last 8 years using Macs). Furthermore, Time Machine is a great built-in backup solution that can save your work and avoid serious issues.
– Stability: it’s quite common for Windows PCs to suffer from many issues that require a reboot. In the longer term, the whole OS needs to be reinstalled. On the other side Mac OS X can run flawlessly without a reboot for weeks.
– Migration: it’s a real pain to migrate your OS and files to a new Windows computer. On the Mac, you just plug-in a Time Machine backup and everything is replicated exactly as it was (OS, setting, programs, files, everything).
– Performance: aside from gaming (Windows has an edge there), the overall performance of Windows is worse than Mac OS X on similar hardware. Memory management, CPU management, battery management are so much better on Mac OS X, given its Unix roots and modern programming frameworks.
– Usability: Windows has a wildly inconsistent look & feel within the OS itself (even Windows 10) and the situation is even worse with its third-party software. This leads to all kinds of serious usability issues for many, many users. On the other side, Mac OS X has been greatly refined over the years. Third-party software follows Apple’s UI guidelines in a consistent way so the overall experience is extremely polished.
– Core OS features: even 30 years in, Windows is still lacking in its built-in apps and core features, with rudimentary mail, calendar, communication, lifestyle and productivity apps. On the other side, Macs come bundled with great (and free) mail and calendar apps, Messages/Facetime, iTunes, iMovie, GarageBand, Photos and a great productivity suit. Moreover, everything integrates perfectly with the rest of the ecosystem through its cloud services.
On the hardware side, PCs vendors can produce some nice models now and then, but they don’t have a track record of solid products (it’s trial and error until they manage to produce a successful product). On the other hand, Apple has managed to consistently lead on:
– Innovation: laptops, CDs, USB, all-in-ones, ultraportables, backlit keyboards, bluetooth, retina displays, DisplayPort, Thunderboldt, USB-C, SSDs, the list goes on. Apple popularized all these technologies before being adopted by other vendors.
– Engineering: the care, intelligence and attention to detail and design on Apple products in unmatched.
– Support: You’ll only realize how great AppleCare is when you ran into trouble, but once you do you won’t hesitate to get this protection plan with every new buy. Moreover, Consumer Reports rank Apple consistently leading the satisfaction rankings.
This are my conclusions based on 30 years of experience with all kinds of computers and operating systems, but they are shared by many of my colleagues and friends. I hope its helpful to your readers.
Kind regards,
RD
Before I start, please note, I use Windows, OSX and iOS in addition to Linux. My main development platform is 50/50 Windows and OSX since I have to deploy on iOS. I love the Mac as a development and build platform (due to its Unix heritage and my own history with Unix – from back when Sun still ran the BSD-based SunOS.
I am not writing this to bash Apple, I am writing this only to counter the nonsense in the posting I am responding to. I dislike nonsense where ever I see it, and the above is pure, utter, unsubstantiated nonsense.
>> Security: Windows is extremely vulnerable to all kinds of virus and malware
This isn’t really true, and hasn’t been sine Windows Vista. Technically Windows has, for quite a few years, been MORE secure than OSX. It is however a much more attractive target for malware writers. Apple didn’t achieve a similar level of security that Windows have until 2011. One of the most important ways to prevent malware attacks is address space layout randomization. Windows had this since 2007, Apple since 2011. Both improved the implementation of ASLR in 2012.
Most malware attacks today use “social engineering” to install malware, and social engineering is platform independent – the only thing that would make OSX safe than Windows would be if you could statistically prove that Apple users are less likely to do dumb things. The ONLY reason Windows has more malware is that it is a more attractive platform, since it is not easier to distribute malware to a Windows PC than it is to distribute it to an OSX-based Mac.
Apple also has a history of not releasing updates to their platform when there are serious threats out there. For example for the TCP/IP stack where Apple failed to fix security flaws that were known for several years.
>> Stability: it’s quite common for Windows PCs
This is absolute nonsense, and Apple is the company that proves it. Then entire iCloud infrastructure runs on PCs running Windows. A huge infrastructure like this has significant stability requirements, would Apple run the iCloud on Windows if Windows was unstable? Again, from a stability point of view, Windows has been rock solid since WIndows NT 3.5, and when Microsoft killed the DOS-based Windows systems by moving to Windows 2000, that also became true for the average user (who before Windows 2000 didn’t use the Windows NT platform, today everybody use the NT platform).
The “only” thing that can bring down Windows PCs today are bad drivers or shitty hardware. Buy solid stuff and you will have a solid platform. OSX is “more stable” simply because Apple generally don’t put crappy hardware in their boxes and they retain tight control of drivers. Professional PC vendors tend to do the same, but sometimes they do fail. From a hardware stability perspective there are several PC vendors that out-perform Apple.
>> Migration: it’s a real pain to migrate your OS and files to a new Windows computer
Really? I have been able to do this with zero issues since Windows 3.1. I guess it could be difficult if you are clueless. The Windows 10 PC I am running now still has some stuff on it from my Windows 3.1 days. What specifically do you think has been difficult?
>> the overall performance of Windows is worse than Mac OS X
This is balderdash. I run OSX and Windows on THE SAME hardware. There is no perceptible performance issues when running Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects, neither are there issues running software development tools. The main difference with software development tools is that Visual Studio blows XCode out of the water when it comes to usability and if I could chose between writing software in C# while having a non-sedated root canal performed on me, or writing software in Objective-C, I’d chose C# and the root canal every time.
>> Memory management, CPU management, battery management are so much better on Mac OS X,
This is trur for battery management, but not for memory management. It hasn’t been for decades. When we were talking about DOS-based Windows vs Mac OS on the 68K platform this was certainly true, but it hasn’t been since Windows 2000.
>>given its Unix roots and modern programming frameworks.
Hahahahahaha. If you look at the core of the two operating systems, Windows NT core and the BSD core, Windows is several decades more modern that OSX, and the OS APIs on Windows is A LOT more modern than on OSX. Seriously. OSX has its roots in the 1970s while Windows (as we know it today) was a complete re-write, from ground up in the early 1990s. Seriously.
Example: Threading. On Windows today, using the functional aspects of C# or F#, threading is trivial and performant. On OSX threading is either POSIX (pthreads) or NSThread (Cocoa). Neither are trivial and NSThread is about 60% of the speed of pthreads so the choice is not easy. In fact, if you need to write a massively threaded application on OSX today I would perhaps recommend looking into C# from Microsoft. On OSX.
Again, Windows core (NT) is a far more modern OS design than Unix. I say this as someone who “grew up” on Unix, who thought it was a sad day when Sun moved from BSD-based Sun OS to the Solaris monstrosity built on the AT&T platform. I love OSX for its Unix heritage since it is a fantastic development platform. Unix was always a fantastic development platform but it is not modern. In fact it is a terrible OS design. Linus and the rest of the Linux/Unix crowd should spend some time with QNX, Amoeba, Minix 3 and other far more modern solutions.
About innovation
>> laptops
Seriously? When did Apple innovate in the laptop space? What did they innovate? The first portable macs were TERRIBLE things. They couldn’t even run on mains power!
>> CDs
Yes, Apple was early on the marked with CD-ROM and had the first computer with built-in CD-ROM. This is true. They didn’t innovate in the CD space though. Apple used a technology, they neither invented it nor did they improve it in any way. The Yellow Book spec was created by Sony and Phillips in 1988.
>> USB, all-in-ones, ultraportables, backlit keyboards, bluetooth, retina displays
Sigh. Apple was LATE to the party with USB. USB 1.0 was ubiquitous on PCs well before it arrived on the Mac, but the USB 1.0 spec was CRAP and therefore not used much. When USB 1.1 came around Apple did something unexpected, they released computers where the ONLY way to connect keyboards and mice was USB, so they probably encouraged an adoption of USB, not for innovating but by removing. Backlit keyboards were in use at least back to 1977 on various devices so… Apple was, together with Microsoft and a few others, the first members of the Bluetooth SIG. How that is innovative beyond what the other members did is not clear to me.
For light portables, Compaq beat Apple to the market by about two years with the LTE. Arguably the first sub-notebook. When moving down in size, both HP and Toshiba had a significant lead on Apple. The IBM Thinkpad X40 also had a good lead on Apple in this space, and later products by Sony on the Transmeta platform were innovations Apple didn’t match until the Mac Book Air many years later. In the current market, Microsoft Surface blows Apple out of the water in just about any area from performance to size, weight and screen.
Finally, for retina displays Apple actually lags (on OSX) Windows quite significantly and Apple STILL doesn’t support DPI independence in OSX where Windows has had it since Windows 7 with significant improvements in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. There is no point in having a retina display unless you support DPI independent software. On iOS Apple has good support for retina displays, but the support trails Windows 7. So, no, Apple has nothing here either.
>> Engineering: the care, intelligence and attention to detail and design on Apple products in unmatched
On the design part, yes, this is true. Apple products look pretty. When it comes to engineering, no. Apple has a higher failure rate than several PC manufacturers, Asus for example beats Apple by a decent margin and has a better engineering process in place quite evidently.
As I mentioned above, I have never seen a perceptible performance difference between OSX and Windows on the same hardware. Emphasis on perceptible. So, I did a tiny, tiny amount of testing while writing the above. It turns out that, on my MacBook Pro, there is a measurable performance difference. As I said, I didn’t “feel” it, but it is clearly there.
Photoshop is measurably, on the same hardware, faster on Windows than on OSX. I ran a few tests and it seemed to be approximately 10-15% faster on average. The result was a tiny bit surprising, but Geekbench came to the rescue and told me why. It’s actually quite simple. If you look at the Geekbench browser, the overall performance results from Geekbench 3 are quite similar between OSX and Windows, but in one area, Windows is consistently ahead. Memory management. It is clear from the Geekbench results that Windows manages memory quite a bit more efficiently than does OSX, and since my images are above 40 megapixels RAW, memory management is a significant issue in performance.
So, for typical Apple situations, creative work with large files manipulated in memory, Windows is the better solution.
Now, to that we can add the things discussed above where Apple monitors are very good as bought, you do need to use non-Apple hardware in most cases to get properly, professionally, calibrated monitors, I do not see any good reasons for photographers to use Apple hardware.
Amen.( Your response sounded like music to my ears)
My friend came to me to replace his ipod 5th generation battery. He bought the battery and the replacement tools from Ifixit.com He couldn’t open the case without damaging it. The apple store ask a ridiculous price for changing the less than 10$ battery. My answer was keep buying from apple, everytime you buy from them you are validating their way of doing bussiness with you, and the worst part is the other fair companies will soon follow apple’s way to treat their customers and preventing owners from repairing them.
I will say it again, Apple is not for me, just by their way of doing bussiness with us……
regards
Maybe he should have bought a Zune then?
I guess you’ve never attempted changing the spark plugs on a 1980s Toyota Supra.
No , but I had a GM car that required to lift the engine from one of its engine support to replace a spark plug that was too close to the steering shaft. Its not only toyota that makes poor engineering once in a while…. I had to replace the oil pan a few times after crossing a railroad, the engine being too heavy for its suspension. In fact the car was designed to receive a Wankel engine (smal & lightweight), but after they found they could not make it with a better fuel mileage they installed a 6 cylinder engine.
I was polite and wanted to share my experience, but I should have known better… This is why I don’t usually post comments on websites: too many trolls. I’m out of this thread. Over and out.
Being in IT more that 20 years I have used all flavors of unix solaris, aix, sco. solaris on desktop workstation, ubuntu, mint which I am using today and my fav iMac and mac pro which I use for coding and day to day work. I have to say windows has been one of the most unstable/trojan virus prone os for desktop or laptop. MS has produced a pos os for decades like vista , nt , windows 2000 and now windows 8 and 10 .
I really doubt and ashamed to say Nassim being so biased to windoze may be M$ is paying a chunk of money as usual. In my enterprise it is with close 300 k users all devs now work on linux vm’s or Mac pro. all the users want to switch from pos windows to mac pro thats a sign for you . Ms office products with os lag, crashed like crazy ms office and exchange is a joke .
Hope Nassim got lot of money from M$ with this big lie of article
Firstly, and most importantly, neither Nasim nor the other members of the Photography Life team (nor myself) write biased articles and/or comments that are funded by, or influenced by, corporations.
Secondly, your “Being in IT more that 20 years…” boils down to simply just one piece of anecdotal evidence: a fallacious appeal to your authority and experience, which you have not even attempted to back with any independently verifiable empirical evidence.
Each and every person who makes a claim, fully owns the burden of proof for their claim(s). You really need to learn, and to fully understand the implications of, Hitchens’s razor: What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…%27s_razor
Bravo.
This whole discussion is somewhat depressing and largely pointless.
Lots of anecdotal baloney from both camps but few verifiable facts.
It seems to me that both Mac and Windows have their strengths and weaknesses and of course their corresponding fans and detractors.
Neither side is likely to be swayed by the rants of others as they are already wedded to the choices they have made.
As Tom said, “You are either a Mac or a PC user and leave it at that.”
>> Hope Nassim got lot of money from M$ with this big lie of article
Grow up. Next time I recommend you have an adult check your nonsense before you make a fool out of your self in public.
This thread needs to be “killed” as it has ceased to be of any value, and now has become boring and offensive.
I believe that all that has been needed to be said on this matter has been said.
You are either a Mac or a PC user and and leave it at that.
Let’s get on with photography.
Well put Tom
SAD, They are now arguing about changing Sparkplugs on old cars :(
It is indeed very sad that commentators, such as yourself, are so inept at comprehending 21st Century design, engineering, and marketing (social engineering) that you totally failed to grasp that my comment about changing the spark plugs on a 1980s Toyota Supra was *supporting* much of what Luc had written. Sheesh!
For years I have dealt with people that LOVE to argue/fight, this topic will never end because you folks like to fight too much about “What Computer you use”
What a bunch of BS
Hopefully in the future there will be some interesting topics that we exchange “CAMERA/Picture” data in a civilized manner, that can be used by all/others. That’s what I though this form was about.
Good By,
I’m off this topic, I have removed myself from any more childish fighting, it’s filling up my Hard Drive, Didn’t we Just discuss ways to save Hard drive space, “Get Off this topic :)”
Jeez, so many feelings and emotions mixed into these discussions. Let’s just close this thread guys – to each his/her own :)
Both systems are great – can we just settle on that?
This ‘discussion’ is what happens when arguments are based on belief and dogma rather than evidence and reason.
There are simply too many factual variables and personal preferences to make this anything other than an exercise is yah-boo, ‘my toy is better than your toy’.
Pathetic.
Agreed!
It is the never ending mac vs windows discussion :) now on an photo website…
As i Mac user/photographer since a long time i would like to add this:
Looks:
I have always found the design of the Window system really ugly to look at- any version – i really like the Apple design.
compare the system preferences on both systems and i think the apple design is cleaner and easier to comprehend.
this is subjective …
working with photographs:
today it depends not on the system but on the available third party programs that run on it:
Both systems do the job good, but there are more windows applications.
speed:
working with photographs is a simple thing for almost any computer and any system in 2015/2016
pro work:
A pro user like a system to be stable and to have support and continuity.
Apple is unreliable: They change the system every year and push you to use it; and every year it is loaded with new and old bugs. At the end of the year it is getting stable and then they come up with a …new system! filled with new gadgets and new and old bugs.
Also the newer system converts more and more to a kind of OSX for dummies- example : diskutility that is being stripped down.
Apple Pro apps: The kill their proapps without a second thought because they think they can do it better or make more money; much like the system – yes it gets better and reaches the level of sophistication of the older program after about… three years… in the mean time you have a problem.
Windows in both cases is much more reliable – you can even use XP in 2016 if you pay for it!
I am new to PL and enjoy the insightful articles and I am a beginner in digital photography. I am so impressed and inspired with Nasim that I have signed up for photography workshop in Colorado this fall.
I wonder if Nasim or other participants can comment on the use of Chromebook for image transfer, storage and editing.
Thank you.
Chromebook for image transfer, storage and editing will work about as well as an iPhone or an Android phone. In other words, not well at all. If you shoot RAW (which you should) these toys simply do not work.
Thank you Terje. Very helpful comment.
Good to know that you cared to read and reply even though this discussion was started in Dec 2015.
I agree with Terje – not good tools for photo editing. Chromebook and the like are created for simple tasks such as web browsing – they are not for photo editing. My recommendation would be to get a full featured laptop or preferably a desktop, if you want the best speed.
You forgot to mention, the hardware quality….
And that is a big issue at Apple.
My Macbook Pro early 2011 had a broken GPU after a little bit more then 3 years of use. Later I discovered it was a common error for a lot of users. Due to the head build up, pin connection from the GPU broke when cooling. I was able to repare it. But little later the keyboard didn’t work anymore.
Also the isolation of cable of the power adapter was broken, I problem you also see on those Iphone cables. Something I never had with cheap USB cables from a noname brand.
Those problems resulted in a poor resale value. My old Windows desktop have me a bigger value.
A remark on the hardware differences, A big win for the windows computers is you can easily change en upgrade hardware. Witch is not possible with a Mac.
But a big win was protection against virusses, I never had any antivirus on my MAC during 3 years, and never had any problem. On my Windows, even that I have an anti virus, I still got caught by unwanted software.
Today I’m thinking to pass to hackintosh, I will have the advantages of MAC OS X, and do not have to invest in expensive hardware, and can have similar or even better performance.
I saw an article of someone who build a hackintosh with 4K screen for little bit more then the half of the price of a fully equiped Retina 5K. And it even beats the Retina 5K in benchmarks.
Hello.
I’m interested in acquiring a computer with two monitors that will allow me to edit digital photos, import and edit photos from slides, play and store music, work in Sketchup, and do all the other normal things one does on a computer, and that will stay relevant for 5 or more years. I do a lot with Excel, some Powerpoint, and use Word. I’m not a professional photographer, just a serious amateur, I don’t do any gaming or working in video.
I have worked on both Apples and PCs, but way more on PCs so would like to stick with that platform. My cost benchmark is the 27″ Apple Imac i5 with i TB fusion drive and 8 GB RAM with a decent second monitor, so I’d like to keep the PC under $2500.
I store my photos and music on external hard drives. I have a slide scanner that I will continue to use.
After much exploration, I have come up with a build from PC PART PICKER that I think will work, but I would like an opinion: whether it is too much or not enough and whether the components will work well together. I would appreciate feedback.
CPU – Intel Core i7-6700K, 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor, Socket LGA1151, Part # BX80662I76700K $344.99
CPU Cooler – Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler, Part # RR-212E-20PK-R2 (or) RR-212E-16PK-R1 $39.
Motherboard – Asus Z170I PRO GAMING Mini ITX LGA1151, Chipset Intel Z170, Max Supported Memory 32GB Motherboard $159.99
Memory – Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2133, Part # CMK32GX4M2A2133C13 Memory $134.99
Storage – Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2-2280, Part # MZ-V5P512BW Solid State Drive $317.99
Storage – Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5″ 7200RPM, Interface SATA 6 Gb/s, Cache 64MB, Internal Hard Drive $85.00
Video Card – EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB SSC ACX 2.0+, Part # 04G-P4-3975-KR, Interface PCI-Express x16, Video Card $299.
Case – Cooler Master HAF 912 USB3.0 ATX Mid Tower Case, (4) External 5.25″ Bays, (6) Internal 3.5″ Bays, Part # RC-912-KKN1-GP, $59.99
Power Supply – Corsair RMx 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply, Part #CP-9020091-NA, $99.99
Optical Drive – Asus DRW-24B3ST/BLK/G/AS DVD/CD Writer $22.
Operating System – Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit $93.89
Software – Microsoft Office Home and Student 2016 Software $138.88
Monitor – BenQ BL2711U 27.0″ 60Hz Monitor $595.67
Monitor – Dell P2414H 23.8″ 60Hz Monitor $199.00
Speakers – Gear Head SP2000URED 3W 2ch Speakers $19.46
Total $2468.54
When I add a sound card I get a message that says 1 additional PCI-Express x1 slot is needed. What do I need to change to get the extra slot?
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I have – or had – both. Unhappily, the PC has failed me – it no longer allows me to operate the bulk of my photography and post processing software. So the question of “choice” is purely academic. To make things even worse, customer support from Microsoft was just a bad taste joke – when I need their assistance, they were under an annual contract to provide it, and instead, they told me to sort the problems myself, and told me they were no longer prepared to honour their contractual obligations, and refunded the annual fee.
On the other hand, the iMAC that I use has been an outstanding performer. Their customer service is also outstanding. And I don’t even have to pay for it, so there’s no question of cancelling contracts or refunding fees. So it should come as no surprise when I add that my next computer will be an Apple one as well.
Thanks for a great article!
Can you please help me choose the best laptop to buy for post-processing? I also have used pc for years and have been using a dell laptop which is now old and very slow using Adobe Lightroom. I want something light and portable, with a screen I can calibrate and great processing power. Does it exist?
Thanks,
I’ve had Macs for 4 or 5 years now and I must say I always felt limited. The OS seems to be “bossy” to me. The argument that I have to learn the “Apple way” is a bit like saying I have to learn to swim backwards. Windows machines are built for functionality and then some looks when possible. Apple machines are built for looks and an attempt to keep the majority of the functionality. Similar to Toyota and Porsche.
Apple knows their equipment appeals to people’s beauty insecurity and thus, they will be able to put up with a lot. It’s an emotional/monetary attachment, which makes it so difficult for people to leave. If people try to argue the change, they will always fail. One needs to take a step back and be super-honest with themselves.
So going back to my first point. I can’t find a Mac being enough for my needs. If it suits your work and play scenario, I won’t try to convince you otherwise.
However, one thing needs to be addressed. Mainly, that Apple’s equipment has been limping a lot lately. Cook seems to have a great mind for business, but when it comes to functional design by integration of features, he’s no match for Jobs. For as long as that continues the Apple hardware will slowly dissociate from itself. Also, the constant removal of functionality that people grow accustomed and reliant upon is a communist aversion tactic of “let’s spin their argument into our own”, i.e. we’ll remove the headphone jack and call it courage. Sort of like, you’ll beat someone up and call that an epiphany.
What?
It just goes to show how there are different horses for different courses.
I started my computer life on Windows and found it utterly counterintuitive, confusing and a dog’s dinner ergonomically. As you say, swimming backwards. One look at Mac and everything fell into place.
Being super honest with myself, I find Mac beautifully designed, ergonomic, well made and yes, costly. Remember, you get what you pay for. Oh, and I don’t feel especially emotionally or monetarily insecure or attached. I just like the product.
You say Mac is insufficient for your needs but you don’t say why or in what respect. It seems to be sufficient for nearly everyone in the graphics arts industry, industrial design, video and cinema and the man in the street. It would be interesting to know what lofty purpose you feel it falls short on.
As for “removing functionality that people grow accustomed and reliant on”, Apple were also the first to scrap floppy disk, Firewire, optical drives and ethernets ports on laptops. No doubt that was inconvenient for some too – for a while. Remember that when Apple introduced its own jack which became the international standard, it made all others obsolete. That was inconvenient too.
The headphone jack is old technology and will disappear from virtually all mobile devices soon – just watch other manufacturers follow suit. The headphone jack is big, clunky and consumes power. Bluetooth/wireless is the future. Removing the jack frees up space for better batteries, more RAM, better processors, better cameras, thinner phones, larger screens and better audio quality (hi-res) via Thunderbolt. It’s called progress. It was also a smart business decision, no arguing with that, as it squeezes the market into a sector (Lightning and Bluetooth headphones) where Apple holds nearly all the cards.
It’s time you got over yourself, stopped whingeing and embraced the future – or overcome your monetary/emotional attachment and go back to Windows.
“Oh, and I don’t feel especially emotionally or monetarily insecure or attached.”
This is from the English Dictionary:
oh | ō |
exclamation
used to express a range of emotions including surprise, anger, disappointment, or joy, or when reacting to something that has just been said.
I think you have confirmed the majority of my points, albeit unknowingly. Moreover, I have stated an opinion and you decided to lecture me. That wasn’t wise, but I’ll give you a treat, I got over myself and chose freedom. I couldn’t justify the ever-limiting and greedy tactics Apple bestows on its users.
Cheers.
“Oh”
Yes, I was expressing surprise at the twaddle I was reading. I am even more surprised that you had to look consult a dictionary to understand “Oh”.
“I think you have confirmed the majority of my points, albeit unknowingly.”
Goodness gracious, I must have fallen through a worm hole into a world of inverted reality.
“Moreover, I have stated an opinion and you decided to lecture me.”
No, you said Mac made you “feel limited” and that “the equipment had been limping a lot lately” (whatever that means). I asked you to explain what you meant by that and you haven’t answered. Have you considered that perhaps the real limitation may lie in the user and your equipment may be limping for reasons closer to home? My equipment certainly isn’t limping.
“Moreover, I have stated an opinion and you decided to lecture me.”
Not really. You made some unsubstantiated assertions which I questioned.
“That wasn’t wise”
Because….?
“I’ll give you a treat, I got over myself and chose freedom. I couldn’t justify the ever-limiting and greedy tactics Apple bestows on its users.”
You mean that between 6.19am and 8.45am you sold your Mac and iPhone and reinvested the lot in Windows and Android? Wow. Fast work.
I am pleased you’ve had a little chat with yourself and I’m overjoyed at your new found freedom – presumably back in the arms of Bill Gates, the well known philanthropist.
“Apple makes beautiful products and sadly, I cannot think of a single PC that is as aesthetically as pleasing as a Mac.”
Excuse me what in the what???
Never seen the Acer Predator 21x?
Has this guy never heard of the infamous RGB Lighting/light strips? Just Youtube some high end gaming PCs and look at how awesome those PCs look… with all that RGB lighting in radiators, on the keyborads, mice, etc.. Don’t even forget the awesome aesthetics of the PC Case which could be fitted with all sorts of aesthetics! Liquid cooling tubes with colored liquid in them backlit by RGB LED strips which change color gently, and the case which could be transparent or translucent which can make for really cool Hi-tech PC-from-the-future feel….
I had to laugh on seeing your comment.
I assume you are a teenager to whom fairy lights and glitter represent aesthetics.
Where on earth are my posts?
Who knows?
Probably buried under a pile of bling.
“Ergonomics and Ease of Use
Another area Apple is very strong at is ergonomics. The idea of a simplistic design also equally applies to navigation and use of both hardware and software components. After using the iMac, I have to say, nobody has the trackpad in the PC world figured out when compared to Apple. In fact, all PC trackpads suck badly. Every laptop trackpad I have used to date has been junk – very frustrating to use, even on the latest, most expensive machines. And let’s not even remember IBM’s horrible joystick that was stuck in between buttons – what a terrible idea that was!
Apple Magic Trackpad
To truly appreciate navigational ergonomics, give the Magic Trackpad a try. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, you will never want to use anything else. And this trackpad experience is mirrored across all Apple products. It just works! Apple invented multi-touch and hand gestures, so it is no wonder why they are so good at it.
As for ease of use, that’s another stronghold of Apple. When Apple released the iPhone with a single button, people laughed. When Apple released the iPad, people laughed again. But those two products have been extremely successful because of their simplicity of operation. Today, every phone maker is copying the same idea – now we even have buttonless phones!
Another big win for Apple.”
This whole thing was BS for me…. I’m not sure how anyone who doesn’t have a bias can agree with this^^….
I guess the main problem here is that this author has not really checked out gaming devices or high-end peripherals of the PC world… If u just search for gaming mice, u’ll be shocked to see just the amount of stuff that they have on them, and how much more simple they make everything… Gaming mice have 4-7 buttons or even higher, but these buttons can do so much more outside just gaming.. for example my gaming mouse has 2 buttons on the side that i use in gaming, but when i’m web browsing, these 2 keys bind to the forward and backwards navigation buttons, allowing me to surf through pages much faster… Then there are so many ergonomic mice like those from Logitec….. I don’t know who compares trackpads and uses it as a sign of superiority, when obviously gaming mice are 100x more advanced and superior…
That’s just mice… ever seen the gaming keyboards? If u ever heard of Linus, <— youtube techie, search for a few reviews of crazy keyboards, u'll be surprised(some keyboards even have rear view mirrors,,, weird right?)
plus, there's so much more hardware out there that can be used on the PC, like the air bar(Turns any conventional PC screen into a touch screen)
Ever heard of the Oculus Rift?
[Umm… i’m not sure why, but my posts are not displaying, so i’m reposting again here]
Lols… i just feel that some high end gaming PCs or laptops look way better than a Mac… even as a status symbol..
I mean like, people say that Apple products are like riding in a posh sedan, while PC users are like riding in ordinary hatchbacks.. but i find it the opposite.. Don’t get me wrong, i don’t hate Mac, neither am i a fanboy of either side… Sometimes, Mac users don’t really know much on the technical side and i feel that they are tricked when they pay for overpriced hardware…
Some people tell me that apple products are somehow posher than PCs/other devices as they look better… but i detest. RGB may seem childish to you, but it looks cool.. so much so that RGB setups are actually expensive. I’m talking about the ones that do look cool tho, not a rainbow sprinkle of glittering blinkers all over a system..
tell me if these look “ugly”
(assets.coolermaster.com/produ…n6-img.png)
(i.pinimg.com/origi…b64695.jpg)
(encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/image…r0MF3WWAyJ)
(www.chillblast.com/image…_2_4_1.jpg)
This one is a “Submerged PC” its submerged in clear mineral oil.. as if its underwater/like in an aquarium!
(mineraloilpc.de/wp_mi…G_1086.jpg)
Sorry it didn’t post at first – your comment had to be approved manually because it contains some links. I’m deleting the duplicate one below.
Hey thanx dude :)
Personaly, those seem like light boxes, I want my computer to look elegant not “boy racer” The new HPs look pretty cool though. I have a highly modified Octa core MacPro 3,1 32gig RAM, It chugs a bit , but im doing images beteen 500mb and 17gigabyte. I put a PCie SSD in and a RAID0. I’m about to do a 4 SSD RAID0 which is about all I can do now except a 4gig video card, I havea Nvidia GTX680 2gig on, it can do HD in Davinvi Resolve 15.2, but as I said im about at the end of whats possible!
Agreed, bling and fairy lights are not my thing either – best left to those who hwve yet to acquire good taste.
I’m slightly better off than you, but only slightly.
I have a MacPro 5,1 3.46GHz 6-core, 48GB RAM with 1TB SSD System Drive, 2x1TB RAIDO for images and a NVIDIA GTX980TI 6GB graphics card plus 4 other SATA drives. It runs plenty fast enough for my needs but the options are narrowing for the future – unless Apple finally decide to release a new, modular Mac.
“unless Apple finally decide to release a new, modular Mac.” Its being making news!
youtu.be/h22xb2x0sTc
This is a good step for Apple… along with their A12X bionic chip…
Really waiting tho, to check out their upcoming A13 bionic with supposed 2x the transistors of A12x!
Nice Graphics card. my one with 2gig is chugging with DaVinci Resolve in 4k, but still usable. Biggest help was getting a PCIe card that takes a SSD. It just fits next to my Graphics card. I get about 550mb/s read write. That makes a big difference Betty and probably in yours as well. I’m hanging on for a look at new MacPro as too. I am goin to try one last crazy this week and buy 4 240gig SSDs and do a 4 SSD Raid 0 in my 4 HDD bays. This should give a 920 gig hdd with read and write of 1.8gigb/s! but i doubt it. I might get 800mb/s. I’ll report back 🧐
“Biggest help was getting a PCIe card that takes a SSD. It just fits next to my Graphics card. I get about 550mb/s read write. That makes a big difference Betty and probably in yours as well.”
Yes, that’s exactly what I did. Angelbird Wings MX2 – German manufacturer, solid build with native TRIM support. Recommended.
Good luck with the crazy RAIDO but I suspect it might get bottle necked.
yum! that PCI card looks pretty amazing! I ordered the 4 SSD today. Crucial 240gig R/w of about 500mg/s So when I set them up as a RAID 0 It should get 2gig Rear/write, but i’ve read it’s limited to 880mb/s by the backplate which is part of the data lane. Ill report back when I have them,
I guess you bought a wrong card. You bought a PCIe card with SATA connector. So yes you are around 550MB/s. You should have taken one with a PCIe M.2 connector. And then a Samsung EVO 970 or 970 plus and you can achieve over 3000MB/a.
I put one like that in a external case via USB 3.1 and I have speeds over 900MB/s on my laptop via the external SSD.
Yes, I wondered about that, but from what i could find out its incompatible with the macPro 3,1. do you have the info I have missed? As getting that sort of speed your talking about would make a big difference! Im sort of trying to hang in till the new Macpro comes out, or… blasphemy! I build a PC! But i do like the OSX operating system.
You are right, M.2 was not bootable which is why I went with the MX2 – best solution at the time.
This may have changed with High Sierra/Mojave but I am not sure.
I am looking into it as I will go that route if it’s hassle free.
Any further information would be gratefully received.
Hi Betty! I found my way back here, I lost the links when id did the upgrade 2 weeks ago. Well, I got 4 Crucial BX500 SSDs and installed them and set up a RAID 0 by booting in target disk mode and doing it via FW800 on my Macbook Pro backup Laptop. Could not install OSX from the web or by using my original OSX disks which was a bit weird, there was no hidden EFI partition so maybe that is why. I have a couple of cloned HDD’s with El Capitan and Mohave. So I just used the Macbook Pro to clone the El Capitan HDD on to the RAID 0. it would not boot, but I sort of expected that as Ive done this before in 2010 with a G4 Powermac. What you do it boot it in to Target Disk mode and use Disk Utility to run First Aid on Target Disk. it then booted fine, no probs with sleep/wakeup where u usually see a problem. So how fast? A bit disappointed in some ways, but I only was using the Black magic speed test. 690GB read write. But i’m using a a 256k block chunk in the RAID 0, Ill try a smaller one next month. the PCIe SSD (Intel 256GB) is now the scratch disk. Now some wow, Photoshop CC runs much faster. The intell SSD only does 400GB read write. But with some pre fiddling I found my last scratch was doing 200GB read/write. So Ive done a side way step and one forward lol. My IT friends go ooooh nice lol. Where to next? I have a Samsung EVO SSD so ill put that in as the PCIe scratch. I saw a RAID 0 PCIe card, so might look at that. On the subject of your 5,1 it seems all you could do is up the RAM. But thats expensive. You could also change the Graphics card, but again, is it worth the money? i see the new 27″ iMac with i9 CPU and the 8GB graphics card is almost 4 times faster than mine and also faster than the entry iMacPro! Only thing is you cant fiddle and upgrade it your self. You can with a EFI hack run upto Mohave on it. I have done it in on mine and it works well. dosdude1.com/highsierra/😀
I think you are much more tech savvy than me but what you have done is interesting.
I admit to getting the horrors when it comes to hacking EFI etc as I don’t have the know how so I try to work within my limitations and stay out of troubles I can’t fix myself.
As I have 48GB RAM already I’m not sure upping it to 64GB will do that much especially considering the cost:benefit.
An SSD scratch disk looks like a good idea though.
My GTX980Ti card is pretty fast but has two limitations. It won’t do 10bit display and until Nvidia produce a Mojave driver I am stuck on High Sierra. As Nvidia and Apple are not talking to each other I may be stuck for a very long time – unless you know of a way round the impasse? As you say, I doubt that getting a high end AMD is worth the money at this stage in the game.
At present my venerable 5,1 is fast enough (BlackMagic 750/350 read/write) so I will continue to wait for the fabled new MacPro tower from Apple.
Well, we all have different tastes…
I’d rather see the stuff inside, if u know what i mean…
Anyways, highly modified Octa core MacPro 3 with 32Gigs DDR3 ECC RAM…. i’m guessing it costs around $5000?i wonder how well it holds on to today…
cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compa…6vsm569025
u could get a 2950x for $900…. Imagine if Apple did make use of AMD processors, though i’m sure if the upcoming Ryzen 3000 series chips are anything like recent leaks, then you could get a 16core CPU @5.1Ghz boost with 13% increased IPC over the 2950X for as low as $560!
it’s old now, A gen6 i7 macBook pro can beat it. Not sure if on graphics though. I’ve been putting money into cameras lately and the speed of the Octa core is still enough though when i did a 17gig panorama from Yosemite it did chug!
😁 a pleasure. I’m away till Monday. I’ll find all the links and doc’s for you. I need to get them all together. Hopfully you will find the stuff I missed.