PC vs Mac: Microsoft’s Perspective
Posted by elpabl0 on 10th August 2010
Apple have been taking pot shots at Microsoft for years, and they’ve wasted no time on subtlety. Now it seems Microsoft have stepped up to the plate and fired some shots back with their new site ‘PC vs Mac’. The site compares the two platforms across 6 categories, and makes some bold statements in each. Now what sort of fan-boy Mac loving blog would this be if we didn’t rip it apart? To hell with impartiality!
“Macs might spoil your fun.”
“You can’t get a Mac that ships with a Blu-ray player”
No. That’s true. The question is, why would you want a Blu-Ray player? There’s maybe a couple of years of life in it left, before digital downloads eclipse all types of physical media. Many will disagree, but Apple isn’t one to support formats they have no faith in, and they’re pushing the digital distribution model forward instead.
“Macs can’t connect to an Xbox 360”
There’s simple, cheap software that connects your Mac to a 360 (Connect360). Anyway, isn’t this more a failure of the Microsoft-made 360? There’s no reason the two shouldn’t work together natively - Apple had no issues making the iPhone, iPod, Apple TV and most of their other hardware products compatible with Windows.
“Macs can take time to learn.”
“Things just don’t work the same way on Macs if you’re used to a PC…the mouse works differently… many of the shortcuts you’re familiar with don’t work the same way”
Well that’s true the other way round of course. This isn’t reality a ‘negative’ - more an acknowledgement that the two systems are different. Having worked with and met many ‘switchers’ in my time, I’ve yet to meet somebody that complains that Macs are hard to use. Sure, there’s a learning curve, but it’s smooth and you quickly fall into natural intuitive usage.
“Windows 7 supports Touch, so you can browse online newspapers, flick through photo albums, and shuffle files and folders—using nothing but your fingers”
There are so few touch-capable PCs out there that this is a meaningless statement. Apple are leading the way with multi-touch on their devices, and the new Magic TrackPad is bringing this to the desktop in a big way.
“Macs don’t work as well at work or at school.”
“Sharing files with PC users can be tricky. Your documents might not look right and your spreadsheets might not calculate correctly.”
Again, Microsoft pointing out issues with their own software. iWork does a great job of opening and saving Microsoft Office documents - Office isn’t compatible with iWork formats at all.
“Macs don’t like to share.”
“With a Mac, it’s harder to set up secure sharing for your photos, music & movies, documents, and even printers with other computers on your home network.”
iTunes takes care of the Music & Movies with Home Sharing and it’s no more than a few clicks to setup. Document sharing is easy through AFP and public folders. Granted, photos is a little more tricky, but it’s possible.
“Macs might not like your PC stuff.”
“Apple’s productivity suite file formats won’t open in Microsoft Office on PCs.”
Yes, Microsoft, you’ve said that already. So in summary: PCs can only open Office documents, whereas Macs can open Office and iWork documents.
“Macs don’t let you choose.”
“You can’t get a Mac with a Blu-ray player, TV tuner, Memory Stick reader, or built-in 3G wireless.”
I don’t want a blu-ray player (although I appreciate some people might). Everything else listed here is covered by any number of peripheral manufacturers.
“Macs only come in white or silver. PCs are available in a full spectrum of colors across a range of price points.”
I’ve never come across a PC that is more aesthetically pleasing than my Macbook Pro or an iMac. Most are fairly ugly, bulky creatures, but apparently that’s OK because you can get them in fuchsia if you want.
In conclusion…
A fair amount of hyperbole, with one or two truths in between. Admittedly, there are some things that Windows 7 does better than OS X, but there are a lot more that OS X does better than Windows. I actually like Windows 7 (a bit), and guess what - if I really wanted any of it’s features I can happily and easily run it on my Mac, via Bootcamp or virtualisation. The choice remains yours, but make a choice based on your own experience and preference and of those around you, rather than propaganda from Microsoft or Apple.
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IE9 is still behind the times
Posted by shapeshed on 4th June 2010
Although it has gradually been loosing market share to competitors like Safari, Firefox and Chrome, Internet Explorer is still the dominant browser in many industries. For a long time web creatives have pushed Microsoft to improve support for web standards and to their credit they have been improving things.
A biased report
The Internet Explorer Team recently published a report of tests showing that IE9 outstrips many of its competitors. On the face of it these tests are encouraging. The web needs a standards compliant browser from Microsoft. But these tests are misleading. The tests are largely tailored for IE9’s capabilities and the test suite completely ignores the Acid 3 test in which IE9 scores 55% according to Microsoft’s own reports. Acid 3 is the benchmark by which all other standards compliant browser vendors measure their capabilities. There is also an independent HTML5 test that would seem to have been largely ignored by the IE team.
Why does this matter?
Standards facilitate interoperability and openness on the web. The best browsers in terms of product in the market are well ahead of IE9. But in this market it hasn’t historically been the case that the best product has risen to the top (even though browsers are free). For the progress of the web it is important that new standards like HTML5 are adopted and available to users. Users of Internet Explorer are likely to have a significantly poorer experience on the web whether using new or old standards.
At pebble.it we recommend Safari, Chrome or Firefox. Microsoft is still demonstrably behind in terms of speed and standards support, even if their slightly skewed reports would suggest otherwise.
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