Mac switch? Mac bore
Working with the Internet my entire adult life, I’ve mostly seen Macs as a source of irritation. I’ll be working on a website and the designer gives me a bunch of files without file extensions and I have to spend half an hour working out what application will load them, or I’ll be adding two days extra development time to a project as I debug the CSS so that the site will display on IE.
Actually the largest source of irritation is file endings. I co-write the B3ta Newsletter with my friend David Stevenson, a keen Mac user, and the endless ‘fixing the line endings’ and ‘removing the curly quotes’ as we exchange drafts on email has driven me to distraction.
And yet, two weeks ago, I bought a Mac. Why?
I needed a laptop for my wife to do a bit of email, as my other PC laptop is heavy, it’s often unavailable as I’ve left it in the office.
The secret reason was a bit more boys-toys: “working out how how to use a Mac will be something to geek out on over a dull weekend.”
Scooted about on eBay and found I could buy a 2005 12″ Powerbook at around £550. As these retail new at over £1000, it felt like a bargain.
And I’ll tell you something. Over the last two weeks I’ve fallen in love with my Mac, I’ve turned into a Mac bore. So I figure I’ll just get it over and done with quickly, and instead of winding up all my PC friends by phoning them up one by one, I’ll just write something and let them ignore it in one easy go.
Ten reasons I love my Mac
- The 12″ powerbook is so small I can carry it on the tube without my shoulder hurting.
- Battery life. I get 3 to 4 hrs, meaning I can actually use it for a solid bit of work without plugging it in. Unlike my Compaq which lasts about 1 hr before plaintively bleeping that it needs more juice.
- Having a Mac is like moving to America. Everything is basically the same as the UK, but assuming you can afford it, stuff just works better.
- Tight iLife / iWorks integration. I am so in love with it. For example:
- iPhoto. This weekend a friend and her baby popped over. I took a few snaps and dropped them into a slideshow complete with a Madonna backing track via iTunes. She thought I was a genius and couldn’t believe I’d managed to achieve all that whilst holding down a conversation about prams.
- Mac users are better looking. I took my wife to the Apple store so I could buy a laptop bag and she said, “Gosh. I should send my single friends here. They could pull.” As compared to the time I dragged her to the computer fair off Tottenham Crt Rd, “These people smell. Can we leave?”
- Built-in bluetooth. I transfered my photos off my phone with no faffing about, unlike my PC where I visited a shop, bought a USB dongle and then spent two hours fighting with passkeys trying to get everything to talk to each other.
- Talking point. Last week I was working in a new office full of PC users. Everyone wanted to come over and talk to the Mac user and see how life was different on the other side. It’s a bit like being the token gay in the office. Although as I use a PC at home, it’s probably more like being secretly bisexual.
- I was up and running within minutes. I thought I’d be all twat-fingered and not being able to get stuff to work. On the day my Mac turned-up, I managed to use it to build a quick messageboard / blog website for a friend. It wasn’t any easier, but the fact that it wasn’t any harder than normal means that there’s no reason not to use a Mac as the main tool of my trade.
- It’s so small and shiny.
Ten things that have annoyed me
- No # key. I had to Google to find out how to add a hash to a document. And yet Apple think that I need a § key? Who the hell needs that?
- Bouncy dock items. It’s like having a unruly child with Attention Deficit Disorder. Yes MSN, I can see you’ve managed to sign yourself out, but why do have to keep pestering me until I get clicky on your ass?
- Line endings. Gah. All my posts on Yahoo-groups appear to have random carriage returns placed halfway through sentences. It’s making my emails look retarded.
- Smug friends, who on telling them I really like my Mac, launch into a “I’ve been using a Mac since 1984. Windows is rubbish” zealotry.
- Right click! Yes I know Windows people laugh at Macs for the right click issue, and then Mac people go, “A-ha! But you can plug in a two button one if you like.” But I don’t want to plug in a second mouse – it’s a laptop – I’m currently typing this on my lap. Where would the mouse go? On my knee?
- That six months ago I didn’t tell my mum to buy one and she’s stuck with a PC which she finds tricky to use.
- Fn / Ctrl / Alt / Option / Windows – between the Mac and the PC there are five keys that work as shortcut modifiers. How on earth am I meant to switch between the two machines and know which ones to press? Cut and paste is the worst. On the PC it’s Ctrl C whilst the Mac it’s Apple C. And the Apple key is in the same place as the ALT key on the PC. Gah, it’s slowing me down. Roll on magic keyboards of the future with mini LCDs in each key.
- You know what? I can’t find ten things that annoy me about the Mac. I’ve been racking my brains and there’s no more. In fact, I’m writing this within a web browser and I’ve just realised that there is a spellcheck built into Safari. How cool is that? Not only is it cool, it’s the same spellcheck that works in Textedit and Pages so any words I add to the dictionary are available in all aps. God damn it, I love my Mac. It’s giving me the horn.
End bit
So the question is… Do I replace my desktop with a Mac? Oh gawd, I really want to say yes, but I haven’t really got the spare cash at the moment, but every fiber in my body is going, “yes! never use a PC again. Windows is rubbish.”
And incase you’re wondering. No, my wife can’t have my lovely Mac. She can have the (actually much higher specced) PC laptop that’s currently sitting unloved on the floor.
But I’ll tell you something about this ‘switch’ business. Ex-smokers are always the most irritating type of non-smoker. Are ex-PC users the most boring type of Mac user? Er.. I suspect they are, so if you see me knocking about, remind me to shut up about Macs.
I know, I know, I’m currently working on a contract driving a PC.
Get home fire up the Mac and I’m all Beadlehanded with my keyboard shortcuts.
I’ve been longing to switch back since I got this PC. I wanted to get a MacBook Pro for sweet triple-boot action, but they’re just too damn pricey. I’m stuck with Wingdoze for my new lappy, I’m ashamed to say…
And I get Beadlehanded too. (I must remember that word.)
I hear you, I went through the same thing with the misses, she got a iMac (looks like a TFT monitor but has the computer in the stand) and I must say… It’s really fast and it has wifi and blue teeth and all sorts… and it’s really pretty. Still, I’m sticking with my PC’s… real men need right mouse buttons.
macs are pretty, iam tapping into my power book now and its making my knees all warm! huzzah
Heres my view on Macs in general:
If you’re in a creative industry (music, design etc) a Mac is essential.
If you’re not in a creative industry and you have a Mac – you’re gay/female/stupid/daz sampson/all of the above.
The best thing about Macs these days? Every one of them natively runs a full-on hardcore Apache/PHP/MySQL server, so you can develop professional websites offline, wherever you might happen to be.
I’m Mac-ing as I type this.
see the whole issue bout the lack of right clickness – all you need to do is hold down ctrl then click, not rocket science
i do love my powerbook
I disagree with the microsoft philosophy and had alot of things about windows, but I would never change to macs.
they are retarded in most ways. apart from the philosophy behind them and the fact they only have one archatecture so can be optomised for it.
mac user’s are weird herbal tea drinking smelly hipies.
Have you got ‘stickies’ for the desktop? They literally make my life work properly.
I’m glad you’ve converted – you will be happy indeed. (Also, it’s an old hat argument, but I’d imagine with the volume of email you probably get that viruses and suchlike are an issue. Well, they’ve just become much less of one. Woo.)
Hey Rob,
Alt-3 for # in case Google’s got you using character palette or anything silly like that.
Dock Detox for the irratating dock bouncing, free from Unsanity. Their app Fruitmenu is pretty useful too but you have to pay for that.
Never had a line-ending problem so can’t help there I’m afraid. (Probably will with this post for added irony)
Smug mac users – no cure for that I’m afraid.
Right Click – If you’re laptop is new enough then (freeware) iScroll should let you do this. (Shareware) Sidetrack for older kit. Or you could just hold the control key and click. I just use a pc mouse with my powerbook – works fine.
Modifiers Keys – In tiger you can reassign them with the keyboard and mouse control panel. In panther there’s a utility called uControl to do the same. Having said that it doesn’t take too long to get used to it. I have macs, linux and windows all running off the same keyboard, and after struggling for a week or two don’t even notice anymore as I shift between them.
I have recently become a mac user too (although, like you, I am also using PCs, so am bisexual) The right click thing is easily solved – ctrl and click does the job, but it took me a ridiculous amount of time to figure that out. And the bouncy things piss me off too, but it’s balanced out by the fact that my 12″ iBook is so small and shiny and white.
Oh, and Word works better on a mac as well.
macs are shiny and appeal to chavvy people who like teh bling, the fact is, windows runs, or is easily modified to run, any application or game in existence, also normal PCs dont cost an arm and a leg
I’ve been going back and forth daily between Mac and PC for a few months now and you get used to the Ctrl/Apple switch. It will take you less and less long to adjust (I usually get it wrong once now) – and those are the little things that keep your brain cells alert! Honest!
Macs are the best computers in the world. Ever. At home i was brought up using a mac. We’ve had … 7 different Macs and 4 iPods over the years, and not a single PC.
All of my friends think that my computer is confusing and weird, but it’s not. They get really freaked out when they drag the mouse into the corner and Exposé whisks away all the windows. Macs really are much simpler to use, and their software is far more clever and interconnected, and once you get used to using a proper computer, it’s easy.
I know that i’d never buy a PC, and I’m glad someone else out there has discovered real computers! Huzzah!
1. I use an external mouse with my PC Laptop as I find touch pad’s arthritis inducing. as it’s optical it doesn’t matter where you use it, on the laptop itself, a cushion, a baby’s head. it works.
I also use it on my MacMini and couldn’t stand the thought of using a single mouse button on my Mac. Having the context menu, one click away and a scroll button assigned to Expose makes using the Mac Desktop a dream.
I bought the Macmini as a cheap way of testing CSS on the two platforms.Slowly the PC gets used less and less and the Macmini more and more
Mmmm, maccy. Sometimes you can get the same effect as a right click by holding the button down for longer, or pressing the apple key when you click.
you can get an apple mighty mouse which lets you right click (and squeeze as well) I love my Mac too.
Personally I’ve gone straight…
While I still have my late 80′s Se30 and it is still on system 6.07 all other macs are out of my life. For why? try buying a headphone or mike for the little buggers. Go on, I dare you – scant change from fifty quid is what you’ll get.
I couldn’t possibly live with either a mac or a PC – I just have to have both! I use my mac most of the time, and either VNC through or wander upstairs if I need a PC for summat.
PS I think newer macs come with both mouse buttons – at last!
Macs are shiny toys. That’s it. For anything practical at all they are useless. There is no software for them that you can’t get for cheaper faster more powerful PCs It’s easy to have a slick interface when there’s no real functionality. And if you keep persevering with the thing you’ll find that even easier and far more common than a slick interface is a bloody annoying one.
I used to love macs. My first computer love was a Powerbook 180. What a machine. faster, smaller, lighter and slicker than any PC at the time. It did far more than Windows in a mere 2mb of drive space and 500k of ram. System 7 was the best OS I’ve ever used. I learned to program by creating a virtual clone of it in Turbo Pascal that ran on a 286 (remember them?)
But then Windows 95 came out and did everything System 7 did plus proper multitasking. And as Windows morphed into 98, 2000 and XP getting better, prettier, faster and more stable with each release, Apple just kept adding ugliness and bloat to their OS. The Powermac on my desk running OS 9 is a horrible horrible useless thing and always was. And it still doesn’t bloody multi-task. Slow and clunky it offered nothing above System 7 that anyone would actually want.
And Apple shafted their customers over and over again, crippling software updates that made your previously upgradeable machine a doorstop; deliberately specifying non-standard components (monitor sockets, odd-spec memory, nubus, PCI that wasn’t, SCSI that hated any disk not made by Apple) to force you to buy their hardware; and finally, the killer for me, buying software companies like Logic just so that they could kill the Windows versions of the software, meaning you were unable to run the same software on PCs and Macs. Apple are every bit as bad a company as Microsoft – worse in my book. Microsoft deliver what the consumer wants. Apple, for much of its history has flat-out refused to.
OS X was too little, too late. Anyway it’s just NextStep with a pretty dress, and the old Mac problems remain after years: no decent spec, too high a price, no damn software, and of course no right-click (that ball-mouse is 20 years too late, and breaks.)
And let me educate the “Macs don’t get viruses” crowd. You can get anti-virus software, you know. Anyway Macs don’t get any software. It’s a bit like saying you can’t drown in the desert: true but you can’t drink either.
Now Macs are just pretty PCs and can run Windows they finally make sense for the first time in 10 years. Or they would if Apple specced them up properly or passed their cost savings onto the consumer. I’m sure Apple will drop OSX and ship with an Apple-ified version of Windows as soon as they think they can get away with it. I might buy one then. If they ship it with a decent mouse.
I’ve used Macs, PCs and Linux at work and have a Mac at home. I am due to get a new computer this year as my powerbook is getting long in the tooth – I’ve been toying with getting a PC, and yet I’m drawn back to the Mac, and in the end I guess that Macs are a thing of beauty to use and to look at. . . and we don’t have enough of that in our lives.
For people who say that Macs are for creative hippies – well if that’s true then PCs must be for uncreative corporate clones.
Just switch the keyboard layout to US in the Keyboard preference pane under System Preferences and your shift-3 will produce #. There are no other differences. Press option-3 for pound.
I have no idea why you’re having trouble with line endings. I never do, and I don’t do anything special about it.
You can turn off the bouncy dock icons in:
System preferences> Dock> Animate opening applications.
As for two buttons, I have 5 on my desktop mac’s trackball, but I like one on a laptop. Whenever I use a PC laptop with two buttons, I always seem to hit the wrong one.
Jesus. How are we Mac users supposed to remain all smug and superior if all you PC fucks keep on switching? Piss off back to Microsoft land.
You can turn the icon bounce off in System Preferences.
Yay to Macs. Boo to PC’s.
I have two PC’s which run and are on the network but mainly use a mac mini and my powerbook. You can’t beat macs for just working! Connect something and it works. Create a Windows workgroup attach a mac and the mac sees the PC’s but can you get the PC’s to see the macs? Can you buggery!
Also you really get over the two button mousepad issue, so very quickly. Really.
And another thing! I highly recommend going into system preferences>dashboard & expose, and setting hot corners for expose. Then you can throw your mouse pointer into a corner to see all your windows/desktop etc.
It is the greatest advance in computer usability since the gui.
(on a PC windows key and D shows the desktop without the eye-candy, which is also worth knowing)
you can buy a US keyboard for about £20 on ebay, clip it on and you’ve got a # just above the three.
And all those people who are saying you can’t get any software for it or that they’re for people who can’t use proper computers… Think about it, it’s a unix box with a shiny case. It’s a superb machine for programming on. Pretty much anything I want on linux will be ported to the max sharpish and if I ever can’t be fucked with the command line I can use a hugely intuitive desktop interface.
i have to totally disagree with lambkins.
“Microsoft deliver what the consumer wants. Apple, for much of its history has flat-out refused to.”
That is because Apple never had to release sevently billion patches for stuff that people were griping about…sure, there are new releases of the OS, but anytime those include more bug fixes than all together new features i’m going to be damn surprised.
And besides, Apple dictates what the consumer wants, as of these days. Read Rob’s post again, about iLife. That wasn’t something anyone was really asking for, but Apple made it happen and now it’s one of the things most people are completely obsessed about. Same goes for iTunes. For what the average dumbass consumer wants, Apples are really the way to go (the average dumbass consumer being like my gf who is able to crash her PC by typing into it, and just wants that to go away). Most people won’t ever know how to protect themselves from the crap that can get on their PCs, so while PCs can be a good machine to those that take care of it, that rarely happens.
Yes, you can get anti-virus software for Macs. We just haven’t needed it yet, aside from one script that can run through older versions of Safari and the completely tarded-out Oompa virus (which has been reported to infect TWO computers and is so poorly written it can’t effectively propagate by itself), Macs have been virus free (not taking into account pre-OSX viruses, which were pretty inept too).
I pretty much use the trackpad and keyboard for all my commands, but I did happen to get a good deal on a Kensington mouse (Optical Elite [it also carries a plasma sword]) a while back (under $20), which is a 5 button mouse (and scrollwheel) that also offers 3 combinations (in essence, 8 buttons). Without setting preferences, it defaults to ctrl-clicking as the right button and makes the scroll wheel do its business, but Kensington includes an awesome pref which allows anything to be assigned to the buttons (practically). It can even be set up so that a button (or one of the combos) can open apps or webpages, or do other keyboard commands (apple-c, “copy”). So it’s basically allowed me to do all key-clicking (ctrl, commmand, opt, shift) and some other commands (copy, paste) without ever using the keyboard, which allows for much faster porn viewage. This mouse works for PC as well, though Macs are just so much nicer.
who needs a right click anyway? get over it!
Love & peace ~~~ Dee *the D stands for Dirty-sweet mac lover*
Ah yes, mac + geek = happy.
Also not so much that right click is annoying but you don’t need it very much, many things in windows do, but os x don’t. My fingers hurt when I use a PC, it’s like dancing but tripping up all the time.
Macs are overpriced, overdesigned, underpowered wastes of space. For the same money you can get a pc that walks all over it for power, runs the same or better software and is a whole lot more flexible. Yes, they are harder to use. For me, this is a good point. Computers should be extremely hard to use, that would stop anyone from blogging on xanga.
Download iScroll, on mine it means that a tap on the mousepad is right click, and a click on the button is left click! Two buttons in one, genius.
I used a Mac from about 1986 to 2002, but in the end I switched to a PC because I’m too much of a gamer. I really miss my Mac but they’re just woefully undersupported if you’re into gaming, so I had no choice. :(
Rob, your macophile rant could have been written by me!
The trouble I have had with bluetooth dongles on PC’s and the standard Windows XP SP2 drivers. I’m sure if you are the person who likes to wrestle with endless drivers for 3 hours rather than going out and meeting girls, then the PC is for you! Making sure your anti-virus software updates twice a day must be fun too!
As for PC’s being cheaper, great! With all that cash you are saving you can buy some deodorant and a pack razor blades!
Welcome to the fold Mein Fuhrer
the best thing about macs is the hot corners function.
iloveitiloveitiloveitiloveit.
I’ve had a Mac for over two years now, and I remember when I made the switch, I was ecstatic. I then chucked out my girlfriend’s PC and bought her a shiny new Mac Mini, which she loves.
There are some apps that I need that are only for the PC, so I have my Mac and PC at the same desk at home. Two keyboards, two flatscreens, I feel like Mr Sulu.
You think switching from a Mac to a PC and back again is bad. When I’m not in the office and working from home, I have to access my work computer remotely using Citrix, so am effectively running Windows in a window on a Mac! Gah! Shortcuts become a huge problem when flicking from Safari to Windows, to iTunes, to Windows, to Photoshop etc etc.
Wouldn’t change it for the world.
beware the i-Mac – the cd drive eats cds and they never come out! My question to the people of Mac – what have you got against buttons?
meh, I like to play games now and then. can’t do that on a mac. besides if your PC locks up a lot you probably don’t know how to handle it and should stick to Mac (a slow overpriced PC with training-wheels and bling)
Used to be a PC consultant / tech. Used PCs for many years, even built and set up systems for buisnesses.
Got a Mac in Oct of 05, I am NEVER going back to Pee See. Windoze is a JOKE compared to OSX. You PC tough guys can rant and rave about this and that while your bloated XP slows down as you use it due to poor memory managment.
All I have to say is this: Try not rebooting a PC for over a week. (I rarely have to reboot my Mac) I dont have to shut it down! It does not slow down after an hour or two of multitasking… What is the FIRST thing that a PC support person is taught to tell the user to do? (duh, the answer is reboot)
Yes the Mac cult is damn annoying, BUT, as a long time Mac-basher, and former PC guru, I humbly admit that OSX is YEARS ahead of anything Microsoft. If you are a PC person, I dare you, just try it.
What was that, another delay in Vista?
YES! Bluetooth dongles! My and another guy once spent five hours trying to transfer some photos from one Windows XP PC to another Windows XP PC by Bluetooth without success. Turns out one had XP Home and one had XP Pro, and the two treat Bluetooth connections completely differently. What nonsense — you’d never see that on Macs.
My other ‘arf was setting up security on his Dad’s home wireless network. After several hours of what can only be described as fannying about, he finally got all the Windows machines in the house talking again with the new security setup. Up pops me with me Mac. “You’ll need to set that up again” he says, “I’ve setup some security on the network so that the neighbours can’t scam bandwith no more”. “Setup what?” I ask as I connect to the new network, type in the password and get online within seconds.
Moral of the tale: Macs are clever and can work simple things out, unlike PCs which are morons and need to be told how to wipe their own arses.
I switched to Macs a little while ago. I wanted a PowerPC-based Linux machine, and so I inherited an old Mac from a customer. And it slowly moved from the ‘stack’ to my desk… and then everything else moved off my desk. I now have four – my desktop, my little one’s desktop, my PowerBook, and a spare one just in cae. And I’m happy with them all. I play games on PlayStation, and I use my Mac for as much as I can.
A big part of it was my media reader – Windows-only according to the label – but the driver broke my PC. On the Mac, it works, and I only stopped using it because I have a new camera now.
At the moment, my PC is unusably slow due to the anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware daily scan, none of which I need on the Mac.
So go, Rob – enjoy your shiny new Mac, and have fun.
P.S.: The Apple Store’s worth a visit, too :)
IAN have you never heard of wamp…?
http://www.en.wampserver.com/
This tiny little program installs every god dam server type thing you will ever need… In one go and it rocks
This is no excuse for owing a macAnd creative professionals.. Don”t be fucking stupid I would use a windows driven machine any day of an OSX type for doing anything creative… blah
Welcome to the light side!
You know, I never ever had a problem with the lack of right mouse button… hold ctrl and click, same effect, no harder to do… unless you have one only one hand. Which I don’t. So I just love my macs…
I have the necessary windows laptop for testing, and every time I use it, all the wildlife nearby scurries for cover from the ranting human that throws things in frustration. Crash this, “are you sure you’re positively sure?” that, freeze this restart that… after every test session I feel so dirty I have to spend 2 hours in a bath.
I’ve been an avid mac user since 1990-odd. Whilst I use PCs as well, I tend to favour the Mac for both my work and family life, as I work in Music Production.
The PC is a GREAT alround machine, and the fact that when you think about how many PCs are out there and how relatively few issue theres are, it is an amazing logistical feat the they work at all!!
However, the Mac is a great machine for anything to do with Multimedia. I must take issue and defend Apple against some of the statements made earlier, and in particular, by Lambkin.
Firstly, yes, Apple have made some “intriguing” hardware decisions, but primarily they were for speed/performance reasons. They worked, albeit at a rather high price!
The “Logic” issue is actually incorrect. Apple didn’t buy Logic to axe the PC support. After working with Logic since its launch, I got to know the tech support guys quite well.
Logic on the PC was stopped due to the astronomically high demand of tech support for this platform. So much so, that it wasn’t financially viable to continue. Emagic kept on developing Logic until they were bought up by Apple but only for the Mac.
The Anti-virus isssue, is quite simply this – there aren’t any Mac viruses. Yet. However, you can still transport PC-viruses unwittingly (via email) to mahcines that are prone to them.
Only an idiot doesn’t run Anti-virus, regardless of what plafrom you’re running.
However, Windows doesn’t make it easy with having a taskbar, full of processes and applications running, eating up your valuable resources.
This isn’t a PC vs Mac debate, as they both have their merits. The orignal artical is moreso about how a devoted PC-user’s biased opinion was changed through actually using the machine.
Many people are put of both PCs and Macs because of the “rumour mill” surrounding the platforms.
Try a Mac, without any pre-concecptions, and you might be suprised.
You can’t build Mac’s
Mac closes the most important applications out of boredom
Mac has that really annoying ‘Eject’ button on the keyboard, forcing you to buy another Mac keyboard
.. But they are a bit sexy.
Bahh. Amiga rulez ;-)
Anyone who says software is not avilable or Mac lack performance don’t have a clue what they are talking about !
Macs are the choice of creative pros who want to spend more time working and less time rebooting and dealing with Windows related issues and security concerns. Most of the magazines you read are created on Macs and this is also the musicians choice too.
I’m orginally from a PC background and always though Macs were quirky overpriced boxes doing wired things. As I got older i understood much like cars you get when you pay for. Quality engineering and slick opperating system that are integrated and many applications written by the same company that create a great solution. The more I used them the more I understood why Mac users were so passionate. My productivity whent though the roof as I learned new things and loads of shortcuts to getting jobs done so quickly that was hard to replicate in a PC. I ended up giving my PC away as I began to lothe it and its terrible opperating system that froze and neded restarting sometimes sveral times in a day. My PowerMac G5 has never crashed once in 2 years of daily use.
Yes PCs are great for games but for most things the Mac wins hands down and even by PC using frineds are seriously considering switching. yers they cost a bit more but you get more included and they rarely go wrong.
Given the choice would you drive a Ford or a Porsche ? I know which one I would and I’d choose the well engineered product any day over the cheap bland box that goes wrong !
I was so won over I now work for the biggest Apple reseller in the UK !
Macs are basically ideal as first computers if you find Linux or Windows a bit overkill but they all have their place.
Basically:
Money no issue/dont need to be able to get to the kernel/dont need lots of programs/like tupperware = mac
Time no issue/Teh download codez !!1!!/Games/near inifinite software/think the fast and the furious was a good film = PC
Time really no issue/enjoying modifying the kernel and then rebuilding your machine/Like beards = Linux