mac me?

[leeturne]

Now.. if we only had Linux

[Isjtar]

I'm a diehard mac user from my highschool days. I can work much longer on a mac without fatigue then on my PC. The OS is just more enjoyable. If you are thinking about laptops, I don't think there is any option. In my opinion, Mac laptops are far better quality then their PC counterparts and the price difference is minimal. But I really am finding it hard to justify a 3000 dollar G5 tower that isn't as powerfull as a 1000 dollar build it yourself PC. I wish I could, but I just can't.

But whatever you choose, rest assured that we are committed to Tracktion running well on both platforms.

Ben

As a G4 pb owner i'd have to say i really do feel this is the best laptop available BUT it's ridiculously expensive: 3000 euros and according to benchmarks, centrinos are faster.

that said, it's the most compact portable solution with a great screen and wonderful ergonomics and implementation of features. built-in audio is pretty nice too, very important for a laptop imo.

OSX is the main reason i'll never go back to pcs though...

[afoltz]

Windows 95 was my reason for never using a Mac again. I had 'em shoved down my throat by the design department in college, so I was sick of Macs. When win95 came out, it was an upgrade from the Mac OS which had been stagnant for years. I had more keyboard shortcuts, better multi-tasking and longer file names.

I don't use an OS to 'enjoy' it. I want the OS to stay out of my way. Windows XP does that very well, and is rock solid. Why pay more for pretty buttons and a miniscule user base?

[leeturne]

Windows 95 was my reason for never using a Mac again. I had 'em shoved down my throat by the design department in college, so I was sick of Macs. When win95 came out, it was an upgrade from the Mac OS which had been stagnant for years. I had more keyboard shortcuts, better multi-tasking and longer file names.

I don't use an OS to 'enjoy' it. I want the OS to stay out of my way. Windows XP does that very well, and is rock solid. Why pay more for pretty buttons and a miniscule user base?

And Windows ME was the best reason to go back to a Mac!

[djsubject]

And Windows ME was the best reason to go back to a Mac!

forgot about good old WinME

[Beardedone]

In November, I went to a Sweetwater music demo night for ProTools.

I got there about 10 minutes early to get a decent seat.

The dude from Avid (digidesign) was sweating bullets since his G5 Mac took an all-out crap right there - lights out, nobody home.

He borrowed a mac from one of the Sweetwater guys and spent the next 25-30 minutes loading in at least a dozen CDs of programs for his demo.

I'll give him (or Apple) credit. 1/2 hour after, he was running his demo.

But don't believe that Macs don't crap - I saw it first hand.

The funny thing was, there was nobody, I mean nobody, offering up any advice to this guy - not even the sales guys from Sweetwater.

If this would have been a PC failure, well, 1/2 the room would have been crowding around the machine and putting in their 2 cents - just like that Apple commercial from 10 or so years ago says PC users do.

All that said - that new mini mac looks extremely cool. The industrial design at Apple is killer.

-Scott

Great story Scott! Too true if it was a PC the guy would have been flooded with help. When a mac goes south no one knows what to do except shrug and take it to the shop. With a PC one has access everything necessary to fix most problems. Macs pretend to be user-friendly but certainly are not when something goes askew.

My lessons in mac hell go back to my post-graduate work days at U Penn and taught me to avoid macs forever. Long story short: I lost valuable data... I lost documents ... the stress the macs we had in the lab caused me was considerable. So, no matter how good a G5 with OSX puma, cheetah or whatever marketing name they use may be now, I will not give Apple one cent than I have to- I actually am loath to use adopt firewire or use QT - but it seems to be inevitable that I must. On the other hand the joy my Carillon Win XP machine has given me has restored my faith in personal computers. This PC has rarely if ever crashed and always does what it was designed to do and it does it very well indedd. I have no reason to even look at a mac, ever.

[rockstar_not]

And now for a gross generalization:

I think Mac users line up into two camps - Those that are more like Wozniak; the nerds, the guys who can overclock their Macs. I've never met one of these guys doing music, but you can find their existence all over the web on techie mac forums.

And then there are the Jobs types - those that don't care about the technical details, just make something cool or use the computer to make cool stuff: graphics, music, etc. Seems to me most of the people making music with Macs fall into this camp.

Almost every person I run into making music on their PC has had the cover off the machine at least once, upgraded a hard drive, downloaded drivers, flashed a BIOS, etc.

As with most generalizations, they usually are wrong, but this is what it looks like to me.

-Scott

[RCcola]

Great story Scott! Too true if it was a PC the guy would have been flooded with help. When a mac goes south no one knows what to do except shrug and take it to the shop. With a PC one has access everything necessary to fix most problems. Macs pretend to be user-friendly but certainly are not when something goes askew.

My lessons in mac hell go back to my post-graduate work days at U Penn and taught me to avoid macs forever. Long story short: I lost valuable data... I lost documents ... the stress the macs we had in the lab caused me was considerable. So, no matter how good a G5 with OSX puma, cheetah or whatever marketing name they use may be now, I will not give Apple one cent than I have to- I actually am loath to use adopt firewire or use QT - but it seems to be inevitable that I must. On the other hand the joy my Carillon Win XP machine has given me has restored my faith in personal computers. This PC has rarely if ever crashed and always does what it was designed to do and it does it very well indedd. I have no reason to even look at a mac, ever.

As I get older, I'm more and more amazed at how differently people can see things. I guess that's just how we form our opinions- based on our own experiences. I couldn't disagree more with Beardedone's post, but then that's only because my experiences have been very different. I have owned 5 different Macs over a span of about 15 years, and I've always been able to figure out problems (and there have been some!) on my own, or through help on the web, etc. In the day-job world, I've used and troubleshooted PCs for about that same number of years. I LOATHED Windows until Win2000. Since then, I'm OK with it as an OS, and I think XP is pretty darn nice really. I agree with whoever said the 'Macs don't crash' thing is BS; of course they do, and all mine did OFTEN prior to OSX. Since then, it is a rare occurence (to have the whole OS go down; individual apps crash more often).

I really do think the whole 'platform war' thing is so, so tired and boring. I think choices are good for people, which is why I'm glad there are Macs, PCs, Linux, etc., and I'm also glad there's Logic, Tracktion, Sonar, etc. I want to see the Tracktion user base grow, out of self-interest: I love this host and I don't want to see it go away any time soon! Plus, I think right now is a pretty good time for Tracktion to be cross-platform.

Full Disclosure: I just thought of something...I have, in the past (NO, NO, NEVER AGAIN), half-jokingly referred to that 95-97% out there that uses Windows as 'sheep'. It dawns on me now that the whole reason I chose the Mac platform when I was starting out was because I saw it come up the most often in interviews with 'Pros' in Keyboard magazine. I mean, it wasn't even close- almost everybody making a living in music had chosen Macs...so that's what I did (hey...I'm still not making my whole living in music...I WANT ALL THAT MONEY BACK!!!). So I was the perfect example of a sheep.

Anyway...proud to use/support/demand-more-from Tracktion, and proud to call all my fellow Tracktion users brothers and sisters, regardless of what platform they use.

[RCcola]

Oops, sorry for the dbl-post. IE choked on my (ahem) PC.

Then again, the rest of the OS and it's apps just keep on truckin'. Sure beats the old days.

[braj]

As far as Macs being hard to fix, ie that guy at the demo, as long as it isn't a hardware problem, if you can't resolve an issue you can just archive your whole old OS and install a new one along side it, keeping all your applications and documents intact and then go sort through the old system forlder if you feel the need. Except for a hardware crash (which would debilitate both Macs and PCs) Macs are way more resilient from my experience. At the point most Windows users would concede defeat and reformat, I can be up and running in OS X in 20 minutes. I have way more faith my data is safe on my Mac than on my PC.

[Montana]

Macs and PC's are equally stable these days. For some funny Mac laughs go read the Logic Mac forums - crash city.

[Beardedone]

I guess I am still very spooked from my days past with macs. I missed a funding grant deadline thanks to a fouled up mac. I'm still very sore about it. I had nightmares about bad macs for a long while afterwords.

To be fair I have had some horid experiences with Windows 98 but never with as many individual PCmachines as I did with the macs - 5 bad macs in a row - must be a record! Now this was back in the 90-95 time frame FYI.

I have seen the new G5s in action and have to admit I was impressed with them. Though, I could never be swayed to believe these new macs work as well as my beloved Carillon. Besides I would be just wasting my money since I mostly use Sonar, FruityLoops and Forte and these are Windows only apps.

[DWS]

Go with the PC - no one sees the artfully designed tiny white box you recorded your music on once it goes out there. - s

[ModuLR]

I would suggest finding someone with a Mac and giving it a go. You know, spend some time with it and see if you like the way it feels.

My experieces with OSX come from a 15" 1.5Ghz powerbook. The build quality is hands down the best of any laptop I've ever used. No question. Girls will love you if you pull it out at your local cafe. Phone numbers will fill your pockets, or possibly blue toothed to you if she's the clever type. I find OSX to be a bit sluggish... Most of my work from day to day is performed on OS9 machines, and they feel a lot more responsive. I find the OSX eye candy tiresome after the "coolness" factor fades, and find it irritating that I have yet discovered a way to turn all of it off. Dispite this, the machine has basically performed as it should. Only a handful of crashes (not specific to audio). Overall, it's a very nice computer.

My more recent PC experiences stem from a 14" 1.7Ghz Sony Vaio (Centrino). The design team at sony are obviously following the lead of the folks at Apple. They have some very slick designs! The build quality is still not on par with the mac, but don't get me wrong... it's a very nice laptop. XP is stable. Don't let anyone fool you. It's been every bit as stable as the powerbook. I find the interface much more responsive (and I like this). I like the fact that you can get under the hood of XP and tweak if you'd like. It has performed exptremely well in my experience. I feel just as safe with the data on this PC as with the powerbook.

Now... which would I select if I could only have one? Well they have both proven to be stable in my experience, but without question I'd get the Sony all over again. The Pentium-M simply offers much better performance than the G4's stuffed into the powerbooks... especially with the 2Ghz Dothans now available. If you are looking into a laptop, the Pentium-M's are simply superb... with the bonus of outstanding battery life. Another reason would be it's relatively easy to find a PC laptop that supports higher resolution screens. My Sony has a 1400x1250 resolution as opposed to 1280x854 on my powerbook. That means, more room for Tracktion's single interface. There are a few other tidbits, like the abundance of software for the PC, along with being able to code vst plugins in Delphi which doesn't exist on the mac.

So that has been my experience...

They are both good machines.. It's just how much weight your give to performance and your like for the actual feel of the OS.

[hello1234]

I want to thank everyone for the posts, this went MUCH better than I had thought it would.
I used to be a mac guy, went to windows because of price, but seem to have terrible luck even though I have a good computer/know how to use it/etc. Lots of crazy problems that would take too much time to explain. At this point in time.......there is NO POINT in spending anymore money on the pc with my fingers crossed and hoping. I already have killer aps/hardware (and luckily most is crossplatform) so IF I am going to spend another nickel.............it might as well be taking a different chance...if that makes any sense.
What got me interested in mac is that I talk to people all the time who used to be pc, and then went to mac and have found a form of nirvana.
I KNOW (eyeknow?) from experience that mac's are not foolproof, but I am very appreciative of the responses and different perspectives.

THis is no way means this post is done......please..........continue.........