I have five clients with Macs and I have ten years of experience working with Macs and Mac networks in the workplace. Here's my take:
For people who have never used computers, Macs do seem easier to use at first- The urban myth that Macs never crash needs to be put out of its misery. As someone who provided tech support for 20+ Macs at a printing company, I can tell you my mantra was "Restart it and get on with your life".
- Macs are great if you have friends or a great support person who can walk you through the differences. For example, I sent an HTML file to a client that she would use to send as an email (not an attachment) to her clients. On a PC I just open the file in Word and send it - piece of cake. No idea why this didn't work on her Mac and she ended up paying me an hour of time and a Mac expert an hour of time ($100/hr) to figure out how to do it.
- While online applications are getting better, many don't work with Macs. I can't count the number of times I've recommended something, only to discover the client uses a Mac and the application doesn't play with Macs.
Those gripes aside, I would suggest a Mac for someone like my husband's grandparents, who basically want to just send email. Except, of course, for the fact that they are so darn expensive...
Macs are great, other than that, people need to get over their "Mac Superiority" delusions. I have a fair background to make this call also. I started off on Macs because I did graphics for years. They were great for that, but then PCs caught up in that 1 aspect that they were behind in. For years now the PC has been superior in all aspects.
Posted by: Devrand | October 24, 2006 5:07 AM | Permalink to Comment