Now that Apple has moved on from the “Get A Mac” campaign, they are focusing on reasons why you’ll love a Mac. On their site they are highlighting five key areas of the Mac: 1) Better hardware, 2) Better Software, 3) Better OS, 4) Better Support and 5) It’s Compatible.
Better Hardware
Although I love the design of my Macs, it's not the key feature of my Mac. For me, I don't care what the box looks like so much as how well it runs consistently. Most of the time I'm not looking at the box. I'm interacting with the screen, my mouse and keyboard. Screen quality is important and in this area I must say the Macs come out ahead over PCs and event he screens (Apple’s 24” LED Cinema Display) look fantastic when compared to cheaper, generic screens at your local PC outlet. Of course, my MacBook Pro’s light up and auto dimming keyboard and auto dimming screen are great in low light situations. So, yes, there are areas where I think Apple's hardware is better than a comparably priced PC. But, for the CPU, RAM and Hard drive — arguably the most important parts of a computer — the Mac runs the same stuff the PC does. It is in in the enhancements around that key hardware that Apple shines.
Better Software
Definitely! Hands-down the software that comes on the Mac (and I include the operating system in my definition of software) is fantastic compared to PCs. iMovie, iPhoto, iWeb, Mail, Safari, etc are all top-notch applications. And the operating system is just a pleasure to use. The best piece of software on the Mac, however, has got to be Time Machine. What is it? Time Machine automatically backs up your computer every hour. This is how you use it: 1) Attach a hard drive to the system that is equal to or greater than the size of your existing, internal Mac hard drive (you can buy external hard drives online and at stores such as Walmart and Best Buy).
Better OS
Better OS (Operating System, ex. Windows is an operating system that runs on PCs . . . well, and on the Mac too, but more on that later). On PCs you have Windows as the main operating system. On a Mac you have OS X (pronounced Oh-Es Ten). OS X is a UNIX operating system. What does that mean? Well, for the everyday user it doesn't mean much in terms of how they will use it. But, in the area of stability and security in a network connected world, it means everything! UNIX was developed in 1969, so you might think, “Wow. That’s old.” But keep in mind that the OS has gone through many changes and variations since then. The key point to consider with UNIX is that it was developed in a networked world with security in mind at it’s birth. Windows was not, thus you see a lot more Windows security issues than you do on UNIX systems. That’s not to say there are no security issues on UNIX, just that they are less frequent and less severe in most cases than its Windows counterpart.
Better Support
Apple’s support is good and one of the key reasons for this has to do with the fact that Apple makes the whole “widget.” They make the hardware and the OS that runs on that hardware. That is, believe it or not, a major advantage over Windows PCs.
It’s Compatible
This is probably the single most important piece of the puzzle for users moving to the Macintosh computer from Windows PCs. They fear that they will not be able to do what they are currently doing on a Windows PC on their new Mac or that they’ll have to delete all their files and start over. Of course, this is totally untrue. As a matter of fact, thanks to Bootcamp and virtualization applications such as Parallels and VMWare Fusion and the free VirtualBox, there are more ways than ever to run Windows and Windows applications on a Mac. Having said that, there is only one application that I need to run on Windows and it is an Administration Application for work. Other than that, everything else I need is available in the form of native Mac applications - applications designed specifically for the Mac. And as far as those files you have accumulated on your PC, I would guess that 99% of them are directly accessible on a Mac without using Windows. The only files that a user would have trouble opening are those that are specifically designed for applications that only run on Windows, and even then, you can sometimes still open them via other Mac applications.
For more information on why you’ll love a Mac, visit Apple’s site at: http://www.apple.com/why-mac/.
No comments:
Post a Comment