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[MidnightShadow]

Yeah but Microsoft is a software company - so they sell their software to get revenue. Apple is less of a software company and more of a hardware company (or combination of both) - so they can tweak their OS to work with their systems and give it away as long as you're buying Apple hardware. So really the price difference isn't that much since you're paying a premium for the Apple name - the OS is just bundled with that price rather than "free".

As for different editions of Windows...it's kind of needed. Home users don't need domain, group policy, and all the other Enterprise / business features as it would just add unused blaot to the system.

I feel you're paying a premium for Apple's products because of the quality of the hardware. It's, by no means, perfect but it holds up better than your bargain PCs (hard drive failures excluded simply because those will always fail eventually). In addition, if you spec out the systems apples to apples (no pun intended), you end up right around the same price. Don't forget that Apple comes with the Apple iWork suite free as well, which you would pay over $100 for to get MS Office. Yes, I know there are free alternatives, but the formatting can get lost from Office to OpenOffice etc a lot of times. I haven't seen the same with iWork. Then there is the lower hardware failure rate.

As for the different versions, you may be right to a certain extent but there's a lot of features that would strongly benefit home users that you pay a premium to get. So, once again, if you pay the extra for that you're priced out close to an Apple, which can already do all of that stuff out of the box.

You've gotta remember that when shopping around. You can't go just by the price tag on a lot of these machines. You've got to think long term as well as features when it comes to your decisions. Those add up quickly with a Windows machine.

 

[Joe C]

I don't know of any one that uses Open Office today, Libre Office is the replacement for that and I've never had or heard of compatibility issues with Office .docx files
Someone told me a while back that they had a compatibility problem with Presentation files though, not sure because I never bothered to check into it

 

[Yami]

I feel you're paying a premium for Apple's products because of the quality of the hardware.

I feel this is a mostly - but not entirely - true statement.

Apple's hardware is typically better in four main ways:
- Aesthetics, which is subjective.
- Hardiness of the chassis, which isn't nearly as unique of a selling point as it used to be. Also, I'd argue that in the mobile space a lot of the Android and Windows phone manufacturers have eclipsed Apple in this.
- Binned components; Apple's supply chain and volume purchasing allows them to get the cream of the crop.
- R&D; they have the budget to design their products from top to bottom, allowing them to make things slightly thinner, slightly better thermal design, or what they actually do which is cram as much battery in as possible. This also isn't as unique a selling point as it used to be, and doesn't have as much of an effect as it used to.

In addition, if you spec out the systems apples to apples (no pun intended), you end up right around the same price.

For years this was something spouted by Apple fanatics, and was easily disprovable, though exceptions did and still have to be made for the price-to-quality of the displays. It's more true than it used to be, but it must be said that a lot of the Mac line in terms of quality and aesthetics might deserve the price tag but in performance still lags behind the competition (mostly in CPU perf and, most notably for me RAM quantity) because of the compromises they make for the aesthetics.

Don't forget that Apple comes with the Apple iWork suite free as well, which you would pay over $100 for to get MS Office. Yes, I know there are free alternatives, but the formatting can get lost from Office to OpenOffice etc a lot of times. I haven't seen the same with iWork.

As a big fan of Office 365, I can vouch that LibreOffice (OpenOffice has been dead for a few years) just doesn't work with Word as well as people say it does. However, this is a fault with MS Office as much as it is a fault with Libre. Between each product, compatibility is perfect so I think using LibreOffice is still perfectly justifiable.

Then there is the lower hardware failure rate.

This I'm 95% sure is just Apple marketing. Can you provide any actual figures for this? It's anecdotal, but in my experience Apple hardware is actually significantly worse.

As for the different versions, you may be right to a certain extent but there's a lot of features that would strongly benefit home users that you pay a premium to get. So, once again, if you pay the extra for that you're priced out close to an Apple, which can already do all of that stuff out of the box.

You've gotta remember that when shopping around. You can't go just by the price tag on a lot of these machines. You've got to think long term as well as features when it comes to your decisions. Those add up quickly with a Windows machine.

As a Windows user the only thing I pay for is Office 365, and that's, what, $10/mo? I do understand what you're saying, but it's been a bit nebulous so far. Could you explain it in more of a listed, priced format?

 

[MidnightShadow]

Apple's hardware is typically better in four main ways:
- Aesthetics, which is subjective.
- Hardiness of the chassis, which isn't nearly as unique of a selling point as it used to be. Also, I'd argue that in the mobile space a lot of the Android and Windows phone manufacturers have eclipsed Apple in this.
- Binned components; Apple's supply chain and volume purchasing allows them to get the cream of the crop.
- R&D; they have the budget to design their products from top to bottom, allowing them to make things slightly thinner, slightly better thermal design, or what they actually do which is cram as much battery in as possible. This also isn't as unique a selling point as it used to be, and doesn't have as much of an effect as it used to.

I disagree with the phone statement. I think Windows could have overtaken iPhones, especially with Cortana and Win10, but it's not going to happen (see: https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/win...is-scaling-back-on-windows-phone-dramatically).

As for Android, it's a great system, but there are still a lot of performance issues and compatibility issues with apps which is something you don't see on iPhones. The typical user (not techies) doesn't care about customizing their phones. They just want it to work they way it's intended. I do, however, agree with the R&D, which seems to be lacking since the loss of Steve Jobs.

For years this was something spouted by Apple fanatics, and was easily disprovable, though exceptions did and still have to be made for the price-to-quality of the displays. It's more true than it used to be, but it must be said that a lot of the Mac line in terms of quality and aesthetics might deserve the price tag but in performance still lags behind the competition (mostly in CPU perf and, most notably for me RAM quantity) because of the compromises they make for the aesthetics.

Apple has, historically, been able to hold a higher maximum of RAM in their machines than Windows (see: Mac Specs, Prices, Answers and Comparison @ EveryMac.com, Est. 1996). Sure, they use to ship with less than the Windows boxes, but they also required a lot less to run their programs and OS. Same for hard drive space. The same programs take up less room on a Mac than on a PC.

As for the CPU performance, benchmark testing and real world testing consistently shows that Apple surpasses the performance of Windows in some areas, and not in others (see: Windows vs OS X: which is faster? | Alphr). There are plenty of benchmark tests and real world tests.
- Performance showdown: Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard - CNET
- [Pro] Apple Mac Pro review: reinvention of the workstation - Workstation benchmarks - Windows vs. Mac OS X | Hardware.Info United States

Essentially, gaming may have a bit lower of a frame rate in general, but I have had a smoother overall experience gaming on a Mac just because of the reliability of the system. I'll take a small dip in overall performance for a smoother overall ride any day.

This I'm 95% sure is just Apple marketing. Can you provide any actual figures for this? It's anecdotal, but in my experience Apple hardware is actually significantly worse.

I cannot without doing a bit more research, but my experience while working with Geek Squad was that we DO see Apple computers come in with hardware issues, but they are far and few apart. Most were hard drives, and as I said before, those will always fail at some point no matter the computer as they are mechanical. I'll see if I can dig up some statistics on it though. And before anybody says it, yes, I'm aware of the share difference between PC and Mac, so yes it's obvious that we'll see more PCs since more of those are in the market.

As a big fan of Office 365, I can vouch that LibreOffice (OpenOffice has been dead for a few years) just doesn't work with Word as well as people say it does. However, this is a fault with MS Office as much as it is a fault with Libre. Between each product, compatibility is perfect so I think using LibreOffice is still perfectly justifiable.

As a Windows user the only thing I pay for is Office 365, and that's, what, $10/mo? I do understand what you're saying, but it's been a bit nebulous so far. Could you explain it in more of a listed, priced format?

So, you're willing to pay $120/year for Office? Not me. Free is the way. Whether it's one of the open source office suites or the Apple suite, free updates and free software it is. The only benefit to Office 365 is the OneDrive storage space. I do like that, but at $120/year that's overpriced. I would consider the cheaper 365 option at best which still includes OneDrive storage.

The other thing to consider, from a typical end user standpoint, is antivirus software and cost of maintenance since they don't tend to realize that the hot singles in those ads are just people who are pissed they have a virus. That adds up quickly for those folks. Yes, Apple has malware in the wild that can infect them, but there are far fewer of those and if you keep your OS updated (which Apple is finally starting to force a bit) then you're fine. So you've added up to $80/year for antivirus to a Windows computer on top of the cost of office ($100 for a one time purchase or the $120/year that you're paying perpetually).

I took some screen shots of what I could find, essentially getting the specs on a Windows machine as close as possible to those of an iMac and a MacBook Pro. There was only a few hundred dollar difference at most, and the PCs went even higher than the Mac at worst. I can post those if you like, but this chart says everything that the tons of screen shots would say: Mac vs PC: A Price Comparison | wolfcrow

 

[Yami]

I disagree with the phone statement. I think Windows could have overtaken iPhones, especially with Cortana and Win10, but it's not going to happen (see: https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/win...is-scaling-back-on-windows-phone-dramatically).

I agree with you, but I was referring specifically to the hardware.

As for Android, it's a great system, but there are still a lot of performance issues and compatibility issues with apps which is something you don't see on iPhones. The typical user (not techies) doesn't care about customizing their phones. They just want it to work they way it's intended.

Again, I agree but was talking about hardware.

Apple has, historically, been able to hold a higher maximum of RAM in their machines than Windows (see: Mac Specs, Prices, Answers and Comparison @ EveryMac.com, Est. 1996). Sure, they use to ship with less than the Windows boxes, but they also required a lot less to run their programs and OS. Same for hard drive space. The same programs take up less room on a Mac than on a PC.

Program size really isn't a concern nowadays. When storage space is an issue, it's media that's the concern. Maximum RAM is great and all but the cheapest configuration on Apple computers always have less RAM relative to cost.

As for the CPU performance, benchmark testing and real world testing consistently shows that Apple surpasses the performance of Windows in some areas, and not in others [snip]

Yeah, a UNIX-based system is generally going to be more reliable, efficient, and secure than Windows. No argument there

The other thing to consider, from a typical end user standpoint, is antivirus software and cost of maintenance since they don't tend to realize that the hot singles in those ads are just people who are pissed they have a virus. That adds up quickly for those folks. Yes, Apple has malware in the wild that can infect them, but there are far fewer of those and if you keep your OS updated (which Apple is finally starting to force a bit) then you're fine. So you've added up to $80/year for antivirus to a Windows computer on top of the cost of office ($100 for a one time purchase or the $120/year that you're paying perpetually).

Who's paying that much for AV? Well, yes, a lot of people but they shouldn't Criticism of the cost of MS Office is perfectly reasonable.

I took some screen shots of what I could find, essentially getting the specs on a Windows machine as close as possible to those of an iMac and a MacBook Pro. There was only a few hundred dollar difference at most, and the PCs went even higher than the Mac at worst. I can post those if you like, but this chart says everything that the tons of screen shots would say: Mac vs PC: A Price Comparison | wolfcrow

In my eyes, that PC will provide significantly better GPU performance and be significantly more repairable, while costing 20% less even when including the cost of Windows (which realistically would be included in the price of an equivalent bought by a normal member of the public).