so, the deal with macs

Being a tech and liking to build and fine tune my own computer, a Mac is the exact opposite of everything I like in a computer. They're pricier, most everything is proprietary, MacOS shields you from most settings you would like to tinker with and there's a lack of software (especially games). Plus it's made by Apple, a company I truly despise for their absolute lack of morality.

Macs rape puppies, hence all the hate.

I honestly think macbooks are great for everything except for gaming.

Part of it for me is that, as everybody says, it's overpriced, but it's also that I'm against OS X. You can dualboot as you said and then it's kinda better, but OS X is still a big part about what people hate about Macs. Apple tries to oversimplify things. One more reason is that I no longer really have respect for Apple as a company. Macs are okay for artistic stuff though, I like to say that they're good for amateur-level stuff; if you get into professional stuff then I believe Mac doesn't really have an advantage though.

Another part of it is that you could slap an Apple sticker on a toaster and then sell it for $500 and people would buy it.

I could write some more reasons but I'm tired so I'm done for now. But I will link to this.

Basically because it's overpriced for the specs and you're limited to what games that can be played on it (of course you can load Windows on a Mac and get past this restriction but it's still a hassle).

You can buy a regular laptop with better specs for cheaper and load OSX on it. Search "hackintosh"

I cant believe bigmacs are worth $4.56. Its complete bullshit.

I can't say I dislike OSX or iOS, I kind of have an instant dislike of the computers due to them being locked down, but my real issue comes in with Apple itself.

I mean really, really?!
And it's not just that one case, they sue anyone over anything they think they can. I'm pretty sure that rather than innovate and prove they're better than other companies, they'll just try to sue their competition to death. Even if that "competition" isn't even close to being in the same industry! (for those that didn't click the link, the article title is "Apple sues online grocery store over its logo")

Just remember, competition is a good thing for consumers. I don't want to see an Apple (or any single company, for that matter) ran world. I'd imagine it would look something "I,Robot". (wait, how the did that get to keep it's name?!)

Edit: thinking about it, if you pick one of the world's most simplistic/generic logos (both Apple and Windows have extremely simple logos) maybe you shouldn't be allowed to sue a company that decides to use something that uses the same base icon (like an apple...).

"claiming her logo could confuse Apple customers" Sounds like Apple thinks their customers aren't that smart, or they picked way too basic a logo.

Overpriced.
Less problems yes, but when you have once, it's a more serious and more expensive one. Too expensive issues.
Mac sucks as a company, between the environmental issues and the suicide issues, getting better thought.
Censorship.
The security side is seeing more attacks as its popularity increases.
Software compatibility is obviously an issue, but that depends on your needs. ( gaming ? eeeh... )
Did i say it was ridiculously overpriced ? And for what ?

What justifies using a mac compared to say windows 7 or a free linux like Ubuntu ? Is the difference worth the money ?
If you have enough money for a mac, wouldn't you be better off saving it to buy a house, for hard times, or giving it to a homeless or a charity while getting a cheaper computer that does the same job ?

I have used mac and every other OS i know of, except solaris, including OpenBSD. Macs are alright if you are an artist who doesn't want gaming ( you want to compare the amount of games between windows and mac ? ), and if you have enough money no to count it. There is enough good artistic software at least. For anything else, you can find better, cheaper.

I'm using Mac OS at work at the moment. I dislike it for various reasons. Mostly I find the interface to be needlessly awkward.

For example, the buttons for closing windows etc are small and due to the bar at the top, require additional adjustment to move the cursor to, unlike Windows operating systems where I can simply fling it to the top corner and be at my destination instantly. Fitts's Law is basic stuff. Also generally closing the window from there doesn't close the application as I would expect, instead forcing me to right click it from the dock and select quit from there.

The automatic software update system is terrible and has basically killed my ability to do anything when it triggers on a weekly basis by using up all my CPU and RAM for about an hour before simply popping up with a message to tell me there are updates to install (though I may have managed to turn it off).

The Home and End keys default to useless behaviour. I am used to using them when programming to skip to the beginning or end of the line. Macs instead decide to be different to every other operating system and jump to the beginning or end of the entire document, which is entirely unhelpful. It is possible to change it after using the terminal to show hidden files and then editing something somewhere. Not to mention having all the Ctrl+whatever shortcuts being shoved one key along for no good reason on to the command key (thankfully no hacky solution is needed to fix this one). Also it doesn't have any concept of the UK keyboard layout I'm using, so I'm stuck with a US layout forcing me to be constantly mentally swapping @ for " and spending far too long trying to find the # key.

It wouldn't be so bad if they allowed the user to easily change things, but no, everything must be a closed system so people don't mess up their precious masterpiece.

I'm sure I could go on if I could be bothered to think of the other things that have annoyed me in using it. A lot of it is that I'm used to using the other systems out there, definitely, but arbitrarily having a slightly different interface, seemingly just to trip me up, can't possibly be good design. Given the choice I would never use the operating system again. Even if it were better priced, it wouldn't be worth it for me. Not to say that Windows is perfect, it certainly isn't, but at it at least feels usable most of the time.

Overpriced for no reason, the elitists who use them, upgrade means buying a new model, you need an adapter for everything, the OSX, comparability issues and my personal issue with people who say they love Macs but dual boot Windows.

I have used iMacs and MBP since college. Apparently a degree in Digital Arts requires you to learn it on a Mac.

P.S. The amount of RAM does affect game performance. It's right next to GPU in importance. It keeps your system stable and helps with the game engine, data and everything that needs frequent access.

You can never have too much RAM.

I bootcamped my macbook pro into windows 7, I still cannot run many of the games in my library smoothly, the trackpad will not always work properly(when it is hot, damn heat sensor...) and many of the games I CAN run at 60fps will black screen and have the sound loop. BUT-this is a "handmedown" from my dad, and is 5 years old, for something that age-especially a laptop- it preforms pretty damn good, the main problem is the GeForce 9600M GPU, which is horrible. It came with 4gb of RAM, but I upgraded that to 8, the battery lasts less than an hour, and not even 5 minutes when gaming, so it needs to be plugged in all the time.I will say that although they have some decent parts, the machine is very overpriced, everything by Apple is overpriced. I bought an external iHome keyboard, and many of the keys can be substituted for windows keys, example being option=alt, command=windows, and clear=numlock.I will say that the screen on this thing is beautiful, better than most other computers I've seen, but it still doesn't preform well. Again, my machine is FIVE YEARS OLD, and can run some great games at almost 30 fps...

You pay for the name mostly. It's overpriced, the games are overpriced because they are sold on a platform for consumers that don't mind paying an overpriced hardware in the first place. Replacement parts cost a kidney when they break. Compatibility issues with generic peripherals which means you also have to pay more for adapters with an apple logo on it. It's also more restrictive than windows 8. I think these are the main reasons. If you like your apple this is all that matters at the end.

Gotta admit they're pretty overpriced for hardware comparable to what you could get yourself for around a thousand dollars and even less. I still get to use those 27'' iMac in my classes since that's what they buy at my school, they work flawlessly and are great for graphic designing, video editing and whatnot, but I wouldn't even think of buying one for myself or gaming with one. I'm more than satisfied with the build I could get for 900$, and it's always gonna have a better quality/price ratio compared to a freakin' 2000$ iMac.

If I have a say(I used a Mac before), it's overhyped, overpriced and underspecced. I can get my moneys worth with some other brand compared to the Mac.
Also, the main reason why most laptops run bad is cause the respective "makers" went and put a whole bunch of bloatware with their install. Macs don't thus you notice they are faster, but once you clean out another laptop in the same price range, the performance of the Mac is outright lower.

OS Wars are great...

I really don't care about the image, or Apple...

Also the price-performance as an Engineer is pretty important factor for me.

what deal

Because Apple is just as bad as Google, and they treat their customers like children. It costs significantly more, and less software I actually need to use is available, not even looking at the amount of games in my Steam library that aren't compatible.

Mac OSX is the training bra of the OS world. Old people and young girls use it, and the rest all know how to handle Linux and Windows.

"I have a friend that bought a laptop with the exact same specs besides the RAM (I have 16 he has 8), and he has worse performance then my laptop."

This is impossible.

Hi, my name is Richard and I am a former Mac fanboy.

Yep that's right. Former. There was a time when I believed Apple could do no wrong. I scoffed at those who used any other OS, I felt like a champ. And I genuinely think that at the time, it was somewhat justified. This was at the time of Vista. I noticed that my friends and family who used Microsoft were having no end of problems, whereas those who were running Mac's were not.

I'll clue you in to where I was at the time, this will give you perhaps a better perspective on what I mean. I had PC running XP. It was dying. I was a student of both photography and music. My PC couldn't handle running Photoshop without coughing and spluttering and I really needed to use Logic. I had no real financial commitments, and worked whenever I could to get cash monies, so opted for an iMac.

I was sold. Hook, line, sinker. The lot. I loved it. It worked straight out of the box, everything felt intuitive, connecting to our broadband was a breeze. (It had taken me a ridiculous amount of time with my XP machine for some reason, although I can't remember why) and it ran all the software I needed. Fast forward quite a few years and le Mac is now dying. I now have financial commitments so can't afford Apple prices. I also am no longer a student and am jonesing for some RTS game playing. I decide to take the plunge and go back to Microsoft, cap in hand. I pick up a pretty decent Lenovo laptop for a good price. Lo and behold! I don't know what happened whilst I was away, but everything just seemed a hell of a lot better. I can see areas where Microsoft have taken inspiration from Apple and integrated it into their OS, along with developing their own nice little features. I can honestly say I was amazed at how much I was enjoying this new machine. I could play games again!

It seems to me that Apple have become stale (or rotten if you will). They are living on their reputation from when they actually were innovative and still charging a ridiculous sum of money. Whereas Windows has genuinely improved (again just my opinion folks) to such a standard that the gulf in performance and reliability has not only been closed, but actually surpassed that of Apple. My other half uses Apple stuff and the whole "it just works" thing just isn't true any more. There are numerous crashes and bugs, even when just using chrome. I don't know if the passing of Steve Jobs has anything to with it or is simply coincidental, but post Jobs' death, Apple products I have used have been pretty dire.

So now, I find myself with a chunk of (unexpected) change. And there's only one place it's going. On a motherflippin' gaming rig. Yee Hawww.

So yeah, In summary. Mac's were good (or at least better than their counterparts at the time), But not so much now.

This was long and rambly. Sorry.

Like any of Apple's products, a large percentage of the money you pay is for the name.

They're bad because A) overpriced anywhere 40-150% compared to similar PCs (you pay for logo), B) MacOS combines worst qualities of Microsoft and Google when it comes to closeness of the system and exploiting of the user. Don't look at bling (I admit retina screens are very nice, I love one on my android tablet but they are in no way exclusive to macs), look at what you can do with it. Why dualboot when Win 8 will do everything Mac can (but better in vast majority of cases)? That said, Apple has occasional flashes of brilliance (that tube PC design is neat) but I'd buy only if I could get logo-less, system-less well priced version.

I used different versions of OSX occasionally, I dislike them cause it's all proprietary, and worst of all it's non configurable. The user is treated as a complete idiot that shouldn't be bothered even to set a wallpaper. Hardware-wise the machines are pretty good, though overpriced and keeping with Intel monopoly.

I'll take my openSUSE with KDE over Mac OSX any day.