JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques General Technical Forum Apple buys Emagic

Larry,

Ah.. the old MAC/Windows battle... here's one persons opinion. (I have no delusions or desires of converting anyone, I just thought I would state my first hand experience.)

I was just talking about this to a MAC user last night who has Logic Audio as a endorsement deal. I happen to own 8 mac computers myself, though at this point I don't use any of them because the replacement cost for MACS when they are outdated was just too high. I started back with an Old MAC SE with the little black and white screen in the cube all in one box. That computer with it's 20 meg hard drive, a whopping (and upgraded for 400 dollars) 1 meg of ram and 30 mghz processor (I think) processor and an 8 inch black and white screen was the rolls royce of it's time, but it also cost as much as one. I paid 3600 dollars for it in 1987.

As Windows machines caught up, I stuck with MACS. Machine after machine which always cost me 2 times a comparable Windows machine, but I didn't care, I was a Mac user darn it. For the most part, Macs were backwards compatible up until about version 7 into 8 of their software. Then it stopped. All my gear, software, files etc.. became quickly and totally obsolete in a few months. When my midi interface stopped working, I wasn't able to buy a new one that worked with my old machines and files and gear. I bought a cheap (for the time) AST Windows machine for 800 dollars that had a printer, 17inch monitor, 150 meghz processor and a 1 gig hard drive which was enormous at the time and stopped using my desktop macs, but kept using my mac laptop on the road. I used that AST machine up until 2 years ago when I bought this 750mgz Windows laptop to handle home and road use with a 20 GIG hard drive, 15 inch screen, DVD player, 128 meg of ram and lots more, including TONS of included software (something macs have NEVER been good about.)

Now, this cpu is starting to wear down and I am looking to replace it. For about 2400 bucks (about 1/3 of what I paid for that first mac in today's dollars) I can get a 2ghz laptop machine, with a 40 gig hard drive, 16.1 inch screen (same viewing size as a 17 inch regular monitor) dvd and CDR, 512 meg of ram and tons of software already set up for audio and video production from the laptop. And I can flawless tranfers 100% of my files to the new one without missing a beat.

So what is my point? Though I was among the
MAC elitists for a long time, the reality is that for real people, the cost, benefits, software selection, upgrade ability of Windows machines make much more sense. And the reality is that with only a tiny learning curve to get used to a different system, I can no longer even remember why I thought the Mac user system was so much better? (Sure, I actually understand the benefits of an integrated operating system versus one that runs on top of everything, but Windows is pretty darn streamlined at this point.)

I've actually looked at various MAC computers while I consider updating this laptop (which has probably had 12 years of use crammed into 2 years.. 12-15 hours a day year round... and actually still works fine), mostly out of nostalgia, but what I still find is a much higher price tag, less software (and more costly software to boot), more costly add ons(though many are cross platform now). Then I hear that MAC has gone back to their Monopolistic, smarmy ways (yes, they were the monopoly before they got cocky and didn't improve their product because they owned the market and Windows came in and stole all their cookies...) that took them from the top of the food chain to a company that has been surviving on the crumbs left over from Microsoft ever since. (By the way, this is something that Jobs openly admits as recently as an article I read in Fast Company last week.)

Mac's used to be the computer company for the people. Now it's mostly the computer for the rich people or the elitists. Ack! For them to buy a company with a rabid user base and then kill it for 95% of computer owners to incorporate into their tiny elitist monopoly looks like they are going right back into their old ways. If it is in fact true that they will stop supporting their windows customers, it's a bad sign and the last thing I would do if I were a faithful Logic Audio user is to consider switching to a mac in light of this. Very sad. (and desperate really...)

So, that's my non-music industry related Rant. Ironically, I can still boot up and use my oldest Windows machine with most of today's software (albeit slowly.) My 8 macs all stacked up in the basement.. totally and completely useless. I'd really like to be part of the MAC world.. it DOES seem to cater to my world.. music, art, writing.. creativity... but I think they forget that most artists are poor. Reality my friends.

I am sure the old MAC gods I used to worship are not happy with me... but that's just my opinion.. I could be right.

Brian